Claire’s talk will focus on the achievements of “Our Upland Commons Project” which was a £3 million 25-partner project helping to secure the future of upland commons in the Yorkshire Dales and other areas. Commoning involves a group of farmers having “commoners rights” to graze their animals on a shared piece of land without fences or boundaries between them. The sheep don’t need fences, through flock memory passed down through the generations they stay on their patch of the common, known as a heft. The heritage of commons isn’t just about commoners and livestock, it’s about some of the UK’s most spectacular landscapes, its most biodiversity, geology and its history of settlement and industry. It is also about the natural systems which shape and support our everyday lives.