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Liam O'Dell
Apr 17, 2023
Related video: Snow on the Brecon Beacons
Cover Media - Raw / VideoElephant
To badly misquote a musical number from a classic 1960s film, the hills are alive with the sound of right-wing commentators crying over a Welsh national park changing its name.
On Monday it was announced that the Brecon Beacons would become Bannau Brycheiniog (pronounced Ban-eye Bruck-ein-iog), and ditch the images and references to wood-burning, carbon-emitting beacons which no longer align with the park’s ethos.
Catherine Mealing-Jones, the park’s CEO, told the PA news agency: “Given that we’re trying to provide leadership on decarbonisation, a giant burning brazier is not a good look.
“Our park is shaped by Welsh people, Welsh culture, and as we looked into it we realised the brand we’ve got and the name we’ve got, it’s a bit of a nonsense, it doesn’t really make any sense – the translation Brecon Beacons doesn’t really mean anything in Welsh.
“We’d always had the name Bannau Brycheiniog as the Welsh translation and we just felt we needed to put that front and centre as an expression about the new way we wanted to be celebrating Welsh people, Welsh culture, Welsh food, Welsh farming – all of the things that need to come with us as we go through this change in the management plan.”
A video posted on the park’s official YouTube channel on Sunday, starring Good Omens actor Michael Sheen, describes Bannau Brycheiniog as “an old name for a new way to be”.
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Its name coincides with the launch of a five-year management plan for the park, which includes working towards hitting net-zero by 2035, clean water environments by 2030 and meeting the health, economic, recreational and residential needs of people in the park by 2028.
Oh, and for those wondering, ‘Bannau’ is the Welsh plural for ‘peaks’, while ‘Brycheiniog’ concerns the old kingdom of fifth-century monarch, King Brychan.
It all sounds encouraging and positive, but because there’s a name change involved and a plan for improving its environmental impact, conservative commentators are – of course – absolutely outraged:
\u201cWe are losing our minds. \n\nhttps://t.co/b7evfmAZBQ\u201d— Nigel Farage (@Nigel Farage) 1681715257
\u201cEvery statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. https://t.co/PFQWgMAHVL\u201d— Laurence Fox (@Laurence Fox) 1681719373
\u201cSo the PC brigade have removed the name \u2018Brecon Beacons\u2019 ,because the word \u2018beacon\u2019 doesn\u2019t align with the climate change agenda\u2026\nBut they have renamed them \u2018Bannau Brycheiniog\u2019 which is just the same words in Welsh lol\n\nStop this shit, it\u2019s pathetic https://t.co/YEvA45zI2v\u201d— Adam Brooks \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7 (@Adam Brooks \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7) 1681721716
\u201cMore eco lunacy! The Brecon Beacons renamed "Bannau Brycheiniog" because wood-burning braziers, from which its name is taken, "no longer appropriate as they try to make the area net zero by 2035" \ud83d\ude29\nhttps://t.co/Bf3dPr7PkM\u201d— Martin Daubney \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7 (@Martin Daubney \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7) 1681711139
\u201cThis is insane. \n\nBrecon Beacons to be renamed over links to climate change https://t.co/zGGgQYb102\u201d— Nile Gardiner (@Nile Gardiner) 1681687773
\u201cStuff this wokery. \nThe Brecon Beacons are the Brecon Beacons and I'm not calling them anything else.\nhttps://t.co/DHyPiMBqsR\u201d— David Kurten (@David Kurten) 1681715790
\u201cWe are now in the realms of mental illness. \n\nAt what point do we say NO to this BS? \n\n\ud83e\udd21 https://t.co/uG404flCyQ\u201d— Mark Dolan (@Mark Dolan) 1681723767
It’s just some hills, people. Get over it.
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