I have, I read all this stuff when it was first published there too. I was going to include this further page of letters in my earlier post but figured it would be superfluous. It basically replies to points from the article you linked: www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/15/the-lake-district-is-indeed-a-sheepwrecked-landscape
In a way it comes down to one of the main ideological differences in environmentalism: the romantic and the love of traditions versus the technocratic. I tend to lean towards the former but consider it remiss not to be aware one is doing that with an understanding of information which can conflict with it. (Although the technocratic one is more commonly keen on human-led activity and preserving the environment for human benefit but here that's an exception, here it points to leaving nature to itself.)
Personally as I am pessimistic about what might happen to unfarmed land, I wonder if it might be better to keep some of it as it is so that it isn't just built on or used for other activities with a heavy level of human interference. It seems hard to imagine neoliberal government in a small country actually leaving it alone.)
There is also the question of whether one would like the UK to improve its food and produce self-sufficiency, and for that there would be an argument for continuing hill farming as well.
And in local politics and on a community basis, people's jobs and much loved family traditions are important, although this unfortunately isn't too likely to have an impact on government decisions if they decide they can't afford the subsidies after Brexit.
Here is some of the info from one of the earlier ones, but from the BBC if Monbiot is not an acceptable source (he does provide plenty of links to other sources, it's not just opinion):
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28858289
The meat industry accepts these figures sufficiently to use them in one of its own reports: beefandlamb.ahdb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Change-in-the-Air.pdf
From a long discussion thread by scientists and the director of the Soil Association:
"hat early work suggested that for products like poultry and eggs, ghg emissions for organic were significantly higher than for non-organic (the same was assumed to be true for pigs). More recent Defra-supported research projects3 showed that greenhouse gas emissions for organic pigs or poultry are equivalent to non-organic free-range pig and poultry systems, per kg of production, although both free-range and organic have higher ghg emissions than non-organic intensive, indoor systems. These calculations did include the relevant IPCC factors for Land Use Change (LUC) attributable to soya production in Latin America – the source of most of the protein fed to non-organic UK pigs and poultry (and indeed dairy cows), but many earlier LCAs did not. Organic soya imported in to the UK does not usually come from Latin America, but will currently come with a high ghg footprint from transport."
I will admit I haven't had time this evening to look at some of these studies and check in which ones the following was taken into account re grazing and carbon sequestration:
"'The second most significant ghg emissions from farming come from methane – around 44% of farming’s emissions in the UK,13 and higher than that globally. Here, grass-fed livestock, particularly extensive beef and sheep, will have a significantly lower carbon footprint, if the carbon sequestered in permanent and semi-permanent, natural and semi-natural grazing land is taken in to account.14 In non-organic systems, the higher ghg emissions associated with cereal and protein feeds (typically wheat and soya) need to be added to the ghg emissions of methane from the animals themselves."
Another researcher added across two posts:
^"In my experience (my research focuses on modeling resource use per unit of food, specifically in the beef and dairy industries) the negative impacts of lower yields in organic livestock production outweigh the positive impacts of reduced inputs, certainly in terms of land use, water use and carbon footprint per kg of milk or meat. For example, with regards to carbon footprint, transport and cropping account for
