Light pollution becoming a big threat to the North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales
Dark Skies Officer, Mike Hawtin, wants people to come away from the festival with a better understanding of why light pollution could be so harmful
The North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales National Parks are at risk of having their International Dark Sky Reserve titles stripped from them if light pollution keeps increasing.
In 2020, both parks were awarded this accolade after almost four years of hard work, but the title could be taken away if the dark skies aren’t preserved.
The Dark Skies Festival which kicked off last Friday and runs until March 6 across both national parks is hoping to raise awareness of light pollution and educate the public on how they can do their bit to keep the skies dark.
Dark Skies Officer, Mike Hawtin, wants people to come away from the festival with a better understanding of why light pollution could be so harmful and ideas of how they could make a difference.
“It’s not about telling people you’ve got to turn all your lights off, stumble around in the dark. It really is about making sure we only light what we should be lighting, whether that’s getting to your front door and using your key, or whether that’s operating complex machinery,” Hawtin explained.
“If nothing else each one of those people will go home and think well actually that light on the side of my house isn’t great, and they might adjust it, they might tilt it down. Then a neighbour might say ‘why’ve you done that to your light?’ And then it just starts to spread.
“Hopefully before we know it, it’s not just the North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales that we’re protecting, but it’s also the towns, the villages.”
Not only could too much light pollution put the dark sky reserve title in jeopardy, but it could also impact local wildlife, astrology tourism and even public health in the same way blue light from phone and laptop screens affects us.
Hawtin is worried that if the North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales no longer has dark skies, then there’s not a lot of hope for the rest of the UK.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity where we’ve got hundreds if not thousands of people attending events where we need to get the message across that if we don’t protect the dark skies then we won’t be doing that in future years.
“85% of the UK’s population will never see the Milky Way, so places like national parks, places like the North York Moors are the only places you can come and experience that.”
The Dark Skies Festival started on February 18 and finishes on March 6, spanning across both the North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales with such as mindfulness walks and canoeing evenings, underlined with the importance of reducing light pollution.