Duncan Wise, visitor development officer for the Northumberland National Park Authority, helped to lead the campaign for dark-sky status. “We tend to look at landscape as everything up to the horizon,” Wise said. “But what about what’s above it?” Wise and others spent years preparing their application to the IDA, collecting thousands of light readings and producing an exterior lighting master plan that influences the construction of new developments in the area. Their efforts have been rewarded. Many of the 1.5 million who visit Northumberland each year are now aware of its Dark Sky status. “We get a lot of people coming here to see the sky now,” says the man at the car-hire firm in Newcastle. “They come in autumn and winter, when it’s darkest. It’s good for the local hotels because they get business all year round now.”
According to Duncan Wise, what do people normally consider as “landscape”?
Everything below the horizon Everything below and above the horizon Everything that can be appreciated all year round Everything above sea level