This is not about religion, race, colour, ethnicity and so on. It is about communities which share a common cultural activity. Being listed is the first step to being officially recognised as a minority Cultural Group. In itself it provides no legal protection, but that is already in place under the Equality Act 2010 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/equality-act-2010-guidance. Nor does it provide you with grant money, although it could help in your applications.
Think of yourself as a Great Crested Newt or a Bat. If someone wants to make a new railway, road or building development they are obliged to provide an Impact Assessment, and if necessary change their plans to enable you to survive. If a new law is proposed that could impact your cultural activity, legislators are obliged to consider your needs under the Precautionary Principle. If a law has already been passed that impacts your minority unfairly, you could challenge it retrospectively.
It will also help you recognise yourself as a community, helping you to value and sustain your cultural heritage which until now you had taken for granted and could not appreciate that it could be diluted, eroded or taken away from you. We hold the batons of our culture; we have to cherish them and pass them on to our sons and daughters. We cannot be the generation who drops them.
You may think ‘My activity is huge, its mainstream, it doesn’t need any special recognition’. The draught horse almost disappeared in one generation with the advent of the tractor. And along with it went all the skills of the cartwright, the wheelwright, the harness maker, the carter and the grooms. Communal sheep-clipping, hay making and harvesting have been taken over by contractors and by silage making.
Our children are brought up on their phones, computer games and social media – how many will be interested in our country ways? Children have their views on the countryside formed by saccharin wildlife programmes rather than real life. Artificial Intelligence is taking over huge swathes of our lives. We must value what we have.