By Giuseppe De Santis
The British countryside faces many challenges, but for the Government, the main concern appears to be that it is too white and middle class.
Under new diversity plans, ministers aim to make the countryside a less “white environment”, with pubs in particular described as “unwelcoming” to members of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities.
Authorities in rural areas including the Chilterns and the Cotswolds have committed to increasing minority participation under schemes devised by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
The initiatives stem from Defra-commissioned reports claiming the countryside risks becoming “irrelevant” in a multicultural society because it is perceived as a “white environment” enjoyed mainly by the “white middle class”.
National Landscapes, formerly known as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs), along with their local councils, have since pledged to meet a range of diversity targets.
Malvern Hills National Landscape stated in its proposals: “Many minority peoples have no connection to nature in the UK because their parents and grandparents did not feel safe enough to take them or had other survival preoccupations.”
North Yorkshire’s Nidderdale National Landscape warned that ethnic minority communities may face access barriers, including “concerns about how they will be received when visiting an unfamiliar place”. Its strategy pledges to “develop more inclusive information to reflect more diverse cultural interpretations of the countryside”.
Cranborne Chase National Landscape, spanning Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Somerset, said it will “reach people or communities with protected characteristics, such as people without English as a first language”.
Surrey Hills management reported that “some demographics are still under-represented in our countryside”, while Suffolk and Essex Coast Heaths expressed concern about “sections of society that are under-represented when looking at the composition of visitors”.
Dedham Vale in Suffolk, the birthplace and inspiration of landscape artist John Constable, has pledged to “identify and seek to address barriers facing under-represented and/or diverse groups which limit equal access to the Dedham Vale National Landscape”.
What Defra is pursuing amounts to political correctness run amok. No one asked voters whether they wanted the countryside reshaped along ideological lines.
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That old meme “diversity means chasing down the last white person” looks to be entirely correct.