Aspects of Applied Biology 85, 2008 Shaping a vision for the Uplands 1 Shifting ecosystem services through time in the North West uplands and implications for planning adaptation in the future By H SHAW 1 and I WHYTE 2 1 International Centre for the Uplands, University of Cumbria, Penrith Campus, Newton Rigg, Penrith, Cumbria CA11 A0H, UK 2 Department of Geography, Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA1 4YW, UK. Summary Environmental historians and palaeoecologists have argued for a long-term approach to the understanding of nature conservation designations and environmental management, favouring long-term views of ecological dynamics. This contrasts with the approach of planning for stasis and stability within reserve-based nature conservation. The current shift to an ecosystem services and ecosystem function approach advocated via recent Defra policy proposals in the wake of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) may allow for a more dynamic focus. Local historical evidence for shifts in ecosystem services from North West England, and recent stakeholder discussions of possible future changes demonstrate that ecosystem services have shifted through time in upland pastoral landscapes and will need to continue to shift in the future due to economic imperatives from regional, national and international drivers. Key words: Landscape history, palaeoecology, ecosystem services, ecosystem function, landscape change, resilience Introduction This paper contributes to a workshop examining the usefulness of the concept of ecosystem services in an upland environment. The ecosystem services concept is a valuation tool (Daily, 1997; Costanza, 1997) introduced to the policy and planning agenda by the MEA via a broader concept, the ecosystem approach. The approach is subsequently in the process of being assessed and adopted by Defra and Natural England and is therefore set to become an important strategy or framework for future land management decisions in the uplands of the UK. In the UK, upland land management is a cultural, a socio-economic and an ecological pursuit. Each have previously been entrenched in their own sectoral perspectives; with agriculture and forestry driven by productivist focused policy and subsidy; ecological concerns over biodiversity implemented in reductionist, reserve-based, nature conservation; and cultural values of community and tradition being reinforced by touristic visions of a cultural idyll. These have been exemplified by similar governmental policy separations (Haines-Young & Potschin, 2007) and a post-war separation of nature and landscape conservation (Smout, 2000; Adams, 1986). Detailed management-relevant knowledge of, and research into, temporal change has been sidelined in favour of ecological concepts of stasis (cf. Shaw & Tipping, 2006) or the economics of linear growth. The role of the palaeoecologist and historian has been frustratingly limited.