SIR - I am really glad that the National Park acknowledges that there is a climate crisis. (Park takes more climate crisis action, Craven Herald, October 3). However the tone of the article was more about what a great record the authority has so far. The authority had cut their green house gas emissions by not using gas or oil. Presumably they are using electricity to replace those other sources of energy and I do hope that they’ve chosen a renewable energy supplier? If that is the case quite frankly it doesn’t take an awful lot of effort to do this. In fact we can all do this! I was also disappointed by the tree planting programme. Given that the National Park covers nearly 218,000 hectares planting 1400 hectares over nearly 14 years equates to less than a 100 hectares a year in a park of 217,000 hectares. It’s really a drop in the ocean.

The National Park should be thinking about how it can make a significant impact on the climate crisis by carbon capture. It should be lobbying government for money for a massive tree planting scheme. Even if we aimed for 10 per cent of the park to be planted with deciduous trees that equates to 22,000 hectares and on the current rate of planting it would take 220 years! Quite clearly not enough!

The National Park needs to be more ambitious in its targets to help to reduce the impact of global warming. The obvious place to start would be dramatically increase the tree planting scheme, encourage renewable energy production, hydropower, wind power and photo voltaic cell installations. It should look at its building guidelines we should be aiming for more sustainable housing programs using modern forms of construction. It should be investing more in the roll out of fibre broadband giving smaller communities the chance of being viable. This crisis is a real opportunity for the National Park to change direction and make the changes that are evidently needed to ameliorate the impact of the climate crisis.

In short the National Park needs to be more ambitious and lobby for more funding to accelerate the changes it’s already making . More vision. More Action. For a sustainable future.

Simon Desborough

Kirkgate

Settle