The common land of England and Wales is an important common resource with multiple (and often conflicting) land uses. It provides some of our most ecologically sensitive environments and landscapes; it is an important agricultural resource (especially in the uplands); and a recreational resource that provides public access to the countryside for walking and other recreational uses.

The Contested Common Land project brought together historians from Lancaster University with expertise in manorial court archival research, and environmental lawyers in Newcastle Law School, to examine the environmental governance of common land from an interdisciplinary, historical and contemporary perspective. Virtual reality imaging software was developed by the Informatics Research Institute at Newcastle University.

The project undertook:

• an examination of the management of common land since the 17th century using historical methods of enquiry. This involved the legal mechanisms for regulating land use and the principles applied to the governance of common land e.g. through the former manorial court system.
• an examination of modern governance mechanisms and the emergence of sustainable land management as a discrete objective for the future of our Commons.

Modern farming methods, intense recreational use and other land use pressures have resulted in the degradation of much common land. This has important policy implications for the delivery of nature conservation, recreational access and other land use priorities for our commons. The Commons Act 2006 has introduced a new legal framework for the governance of common land, aimed at improving environmental governance and improving the protection of both the biodiversity and landscape values of our commons. The Commons Act 2006 is based on a self-regulatory model. It introduces measures enabling commoners to establish statutory commoners associations with legal powers to pass binding bylaws regulating land use on each common, and to enter into binding agreements with governmental agencies to promote sustainable management.

The research project placed the sustainable management of commons in historical perspective by using four case studies to illustrate the changing patterns of land use, differing management principles and regulatory mechanisms applied to common land from c.1600 to the modern day. These were drawn from Commons in:

• Cumbria - Eskdale
• North Norfolk - Brancaster and Thornham
• North Yorkshire - Ingleton
• Powys - Elan and Claerwen Valleys

The research married archival evidence with qualitative data generated by semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in the four case study areas. Commoners, land managers, voluntary groups and the public agencies responsible for the governance of common land were involved in the project through the process of qualitative data collection and through participation in seminars for stakeholders to be held in the concluding phase of the research project.

The project concluded with an assessment of the impact of different models of self-regulation on the biodiversity and landscape values of the commons in each of the four case study areas, and for the effective implementation of the wider objectives of the Commons Act 2006. The Google-Earth based tool 'LandNote', developed as part of the project, enabled 3-D geospatial presentation of research findings on historical and contemporary aspects of sustainable land management; case study LandNote pages were presented on table-top displays during stakeholder workshops, and also remain live on the project website. The stakeholder meetings aimed to provide a forum for the dissemination of the research to key stakeholders and policy makers, and also to inform decision making by stakeholders seeking to improve the management of commons within the framework of the Commons Act 2006.