The Future of The Countryside and Its Funding.
With the Brexiteers victory in the recent Referendum, what of funding for farmers and land managers working in the British countryside? It has to be remembered that a great many tourists visit Britain to explore and admire our green and pleasant land and so therefore, contribute to our economy…
That ‘greeness,’ highlights one of the current problems with our countryside. It is all, very green and very pleasant – until the more knowledgeable soul decides to set foot outside their car and explore and actually see what biodiversity is present. I can answer that: nothing like as much as say half a century ago! Development, roads, pollution, globalisation and modern chemical farming have devastated much of our wildlife whether it be water habitats (including marine), grasslands, heathlands or woodlands, they all have seen dramatic changes and these negative insidious, changes are still taking place.
So what will the Theresa May’s band of Three Brexiteers bring to the agricultural and ecological table. During the flawed Referendum debates, both bio-diversity and climate change received very little attention considering how pivotal they both are to our well-being.
Andrea Leadsum, DEFRA’s new minister, has gone on record as being rather ignorant when it comes to the facts on climate change; she has made sweeping un-qualified statements about badgers and fox control. She has also questioned the continued current EU regime of agri-payments to farmers and landowners for various work and services in the countryside. On this however, one has to say that the current system could most certainly be improved upon. We must look on the optimistic side on this subject and hope for a better system in the years post EU? But will there be the funding given all the other demands on the new Government?
Perhaps it’s time to throw another cap into the ring… There has been much talk of ‘rewilding’ during the last few years. There are as I recall only a handful of significant schemes operating in the UK at the moment – the Alladale Wilderness Reserve in northern Scotland, Wild Ennerdale in Cumbria, the Great Fen Project in Cambridgeshire and the Knepp Castle Estate in West Sussex. These are all significant schemes but with all the various demands upon land within our small island, how realistic is it to envisage many more extensive versions? Perhaps the answer is to take out of food production, smaller areas of poor, or low productivity land such as some moorland or areas of heavy clay lands and subsidize a slightly less ambitious form of re-wilding – islands (where possible, connected by wildlife corridors), in an otherwise busy, income-generating countryside. Then there are the possibilities of the use of primitive breeds of domesticated bovine and equine livestock; free-range beef? However, I feel that if we were to go down this route, these areas should be viewed as permanent, rather than existing for several decades and then being cleared and returned to agriculture and new replacement wildlife oasis’s formed, this all part of some grand rolling programme. Morally and economically, except in specific cases, I feel this would be unacceptable.
There is also the role of reintroductions and revival schemes bringing missing, or currently scarce species due to past human practices, back into the wider British countryside. Current examples being beaver and lynx in the former category and wild boar, otter, polecat in the latter category.
Recent article for further reading:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/16/rewilding-britain-conservation-dartmoor-lynx