You Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone

I echo many of the sentiments already expressed. The lockdown revealed the underlying quietness of this area (North Cornwall). We watched the sky clear over a couple of weeks and it’s been wondrous both day and night. The local supply chain has thrived in the crisis and we don’t expect to go back to our old shopping habits. Our non-recycle rubbish has shrunk dramatically at the same time, which tells us a lot about supermarkets. Only four months ago, one supermarket chain admitted that they carried sixty types of sausages. That is ridiculous.

Suddenly, we are back to lots of traffic, noise, light pollution, impatient and inconsiderate people and the like. That’s just the way it is – unfortunately, we’ll get used to it again. But then the crowds go away and our towns carry on because there is a local population to serve. It is beautiful here out of season.

If we accept the definition of an ‘extractive economy’ as “a capitalist system of exploitation and oppression that values consumerism, colonialism and money over people and planet” (Grassroots Global Justice Alliance), then that’s what is happening to Cornwall.

‘The Cornwall We Want’ is the one that is being taken away from us before our very eyes. Our Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is under relentless pressure from individuals and organisations who want to change the character of the AONB and devalue it. Every change of use of agricultural land, every excessive redevelopment of a property takes a little bit of the value off the AONB and concentrates it in the pocket of the developer. The planning system is stacked against those who wish to protect what makes any environment precious. As individuals, our capacity to resist this is limited and we worry that the Council will not have the resources to control the situation.

The Butler Model, as pointed out by another correspondent, describes the process dispassionately. Fifty years ago, Joni Mitchell described it as ‘Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone; they paved paradise and put up a parking lot’.

More is not always better! How do we slow this down?