tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/british-countryside-48258/articles
British countryside – The Conversation
2023-08-31T14:43:51Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/211214
2023-08-31T14:43:51Z
2023-08-31T14:43:51Z
What a Labour government would mean for the right to roam
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545746/original/file-20230831-29-6u0s12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C1998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hiker-crossing-stile-on-hadrians-wall-290157914">Duncan Andison/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Labour Party has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/18/labour-scottish-style-right-to-roam-law-england">promised</a> to introduce a Scottish-style right to roam over the English and Welsh countryside if elected to government. How might that change your ability to enjoy the great outdoors and what lessons does Scotland offer?</p>
<p>The debate over public access to the British countryside received fresh publicity in 2023 after a landowner in Dartmoor, a moorland in the county of Devon in southwest England, brought a legal challenge to the rights of wild campers to stay on his 1,619 hectare estate. While the landowner <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/31/wild-camping-dartmoor-court-appeal">lost on appeal</a> and the right to camp was restored, the right to camp still applies only to <a href="https://www.dartmoor.gov.uk/living-and-working/farming/the-commons">common land</a> in Dartmoor National Park.</p>
<p>Most visitors to the countryside in England and Wales have very limited rights of access. We have a right to walk on footpaths and a “right to roam” over mountains and open countryside, but this is usually restricted to walking and does not include higher rights of access such as camping, swimming or paddling. </p>
<p>In fact, a visitor who exceeds the rights provided by the existing law would become a trespasser and a landowner is entitled to use “reasonable force” to eject them. Campaigners estimate that this right to roam covers <a href="https://www.righttoroam.org.uk/#:%7E:text=In%202000%2C%20the%20Countryside%20%26%20Rights,coastlines">just 8%</a> of English land.</p>
<p>A Scottish-style right to roam would provide better access to the countryside than these existing rights and is likely to include a right to walk over a much wider range of farmland, including grazing land, and the right to wild camp, <a href="https://www.britishcanoeing.org.uk/news/2023/labour-would-pass-right-to-roam-act-and-open-up-waterways">swim or paddle a boat</a> across rivers and and other waterways.</p>
<h2>Labour and the right to roam</h2>
<p>It should come as no surprise that the Labour Party has thrown its weight behind the campaign for wider access to the countryside. The history of the Labour Party and the right to roam are heavily entwined. </p>
<p>Many of the most vocal rambling activists from the early 20th century were members of left-wing Clarion Clubs, which demanded greater rights for walkers and cyclists in the English countryside. Some form of wider access to land has been promised in every Labour Party general election manifesto published since 1950.</p>
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<p>If Labour was to win a majority of seats at the next general election, comparisons will inevitably be drawn with Tony Blair’s landslide 1997 victory for New Labour. His government introduced a new right to roam under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (CRoW Act). People in England and Wales gained the right to walk on mountains over 600 metres and over moorland, heathland and downland – land traditionally used by landowners for shooting game birds such as grouse and for grazing sheep.</p>
<p>The CRoW Act balanced a limited right of access on foot with significant powers for landowners to close their land temporarily. These compromises weakened the new right to roam, which was not extended to more accessible lowland areas, other farmland or woodland.</p>
<p>Opponents to a wider right to roam often cite the risk to the environment, farming and the privacy of landowners. The parliamentary debate on the CRoW Act included several contributions from members of the House of Lords who were concerned about walkers causing damage to their land. </p>
<p>There is some evidence that wider access since 2000, combined with a lack of investment in rangers and bins, has led to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/26/littering-epidemic-england-countryside-code">an increase in littering</a>. Even Scottish rights of access have been limited due to concerns over fire lighting and wild camping in more accessible beauty spots such as <a href="https://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/things-to-do/camping/campingbyelaws/#:%7E:text=The%20byelaws%20create%20Camping%20Management,or%20with%20a%20camping%20permit.">Loch Lomond</a>. </p>
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<img alt="A pair of grouse flying over heather behind a barbed wire fence." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545759/original/file-20230831-25-g8c84b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545759/original/file-20230831-25-g8c84b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545759/original/file-20230831-25-g8c84b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545759/original/file-20230831-25-g8c84b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545759/original/file-20230831-25-g8c84b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545759/original/file-20230831-25-g8c84b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545759/original/file-20230831-25-g8c84b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Landowners kill native predators to maintain grouse moors for shooting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/pair-red-grouse-flying-low-over-1841238313">Richard P Long/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Supporters of wider access to the countryside can cite several examples of landowner misfeasance to demonstrate that farming and hunting are also damaging for wild and beautiful places. Recent mass trespasses of private land by campaigners have frequently included time spent picking up <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/people-are-right-to-trespass-in-fight-for-right-to-roam-in-england-says-green-mp-caroline-lucas">existing litter</a>. </p>
<h2>What can be learned from Scotland?</h2>
<p>For a short time during the early 21st century, the laws on access were more generous in England and Wales than in Scotland, at least on paper. This was until the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 introduced a generous and sweeping right to roam. </p>
<p>Scottish rights of access are based on a small number of exceptions which tell people where they cannot go, such as private gardens or crop fields, rather than the English and Welsh model which allows access on specified types of land only. This simplifies access rights and removes the need for complex signage and maps full of dead ends and no-go areas.</p>
<p>The Scottish Land Reform Act makes an explicit connection between wider access and cultural heritage. And in truth, the people of Scotland have always enjoyed more generous rights of access through traditions and practice. Even before the act was introduced, it was common for people to enjoy walks across open Scottish countryside without needing to follow specific footpaths. In this way, new laws simply codified an existing freedom that few landowners would have challenged. </p>
<p>This might suggest the key to a successful right to roam is cooperation between walkers and landowners, and the discovery of common ground. Instead of conflict between enemies, there should be agreement between different types of land users who share a common goal in the protection of the countryside.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
<br><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeTop">Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead.</a> Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeBottom">Join the 20,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.</a></em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Mayfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Labour has promised to extend access rights enjoyed in Scotland to the rest of Britain.
Ben Mayfield, Lecturer in Law, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/202908
2023-04-17T14:56:16Z
2023-04-17T14:56:16Z
Your favourite walk may have an expiry date
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521259/original/file-20230417-20-df0kv7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C410%2C5079%2C2972&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/public-footpath-sign-countryside-hiker-on-2146814317">Wilkopix/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Public rights of way are legally protected footpaths which let anyone pass over private land so that they can access the countryside for leisure and recreation. Each path is recorded and maintained by local authorities to ensure they remain open, unobstructed and free for all to use. But not all paths are afforded these protections – and if they are not correctly recorded, the public may be prevented from using them at any time. </p>
<p>Groups campaigning for greater public access to the countryside have been trying to find and register these paths so they can be used in perpetuity. These efforts took off in 2000 with the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/37/contents">Countryside and Rights of Way Act</a> (CROW), which set a 2026 deadline beyond which pre-1949 evidence of paths would no longer be accepted as proof of a public right of way. Any paths which were not officially recorded after this deadline would be lost to the public.</p>
<p>It looked like the government would <a href="https://singletrackworld.com/2022/02/defra-repeals-2026-deadline-for-rights-of-way-registrations/">scrap</a> the deadline to register historic paths in England until recently, when the cut-off date was <a href="https://www.oss.org.uk/environment-minister-breaks-government-pledge-to-save-historic-paths/">changed</a> to January 1 2031 instead. While welcome news to <a href="https://www.farminguk.com/news/defra-to-commence-with-2026-cut-off-date-in-rights-of-way-law_62310.html">landowners</a> resistant to rights of way being claimed across their land, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/mar/22/government-accused-u-turn-england-footpath-promise">access campaigners</a> such as <a href="https://www.ramblers.org.uk/">the Ramblers</a> and <a href="https://www.oss.org.uk/">Open Spaces Society</a> have criticised the government for backing out of a promise to abolish the deadline completely. </p>
<p>Given how long it has taken to record these paths so far, the public is almost certain to lose many existing rights of way once the deadline arrives.</p>
<h2>Demystifying the ‘definitive’ map</h2>
<p>All public rights of way in England and Wales are recorded in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rights-of-way-order-information-decisions-and-maps">definitive map and statement</a>, which is the legal record maintained by local authorities. The original 2026 deadline gave the public 25 years to check that it was up to date in England, and, if it wasn’t, find the necessary evidence to add any missing paths.</p>
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<img alt="Cyclists pass between two large trees in a field." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521274/original/file-20230417-16-rxr0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521274/original/file-20230417-16-rxr0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521274/original/file-20230417-16-rxr0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521274/original/file-20230417-16-rxr0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521274/original/file-20230417-16-rxr0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521274/original/file-20230417-16-rxr0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521274/original/file-20230417-16-rxr0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A bridleway in Ettington, Warwickshire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_way_in_England_and_Wales#/media/File:Bridleway_in_Ettington,_Warwickshire.jpg">Bob Tinley/Wikipedia</a></span>
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<p>Definitive maps were first introduced in 1949 as part of a post-war planning boom. Everything, it seemed, could be quantified, mapped out and determined by “the man in Whitehall”. Despite the optimism of Clement Attlee’s Labour government, the task has proven to be complex and interminable for local authorities. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.allourfootsteps.uk/">own research</a> has revealed that determining the status of public rights of way takes a huge amount of work, particularly if there are disagreements and historic maps must be consulted and local memories interrogated. It took until May 1982 for the initial survey of counties to be completed, a total of 33 years – over <a href="https://www.local.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Councillors'%2520Census%25202022%2520-%2520report%2520FINAL-210622.pdf">three and a half times</a> the average tenure of a local government employee.</p>
<p>Subsequent legislation streamlined the process, but a backlog of applications has been steadily building, leaving many local authorities with years or decades of delays, and increasingly limited budgets to address it.</p>
<p>The situation has got so bad that it <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-64401044">recently emerged</a> that people in Gloucestershire are dying before their applications are being heard. The scale of the problem is difficult to assess, but the Ramblers’ <a href="https://dontloseyourway.ramblers.org.uk/">Don’t Lose Your Way</a> campaign has found over 49,000 miles of rights of way that could be lost if they are not added to the definitive map.</p>
<h2>The path ahead</h2>
<p>The government’s initial decision to abolish the 2026 deadline in February 2022 was surprising, given previous legislation which sought compromises between landowners and campaigners. It spoke perhaps to an exasperation with the existing system, an admission that it might be better to let it run its course, as well as some post-Brexit enthusiasm for a new, popular, and environmentally friendly settlement on the land.</p>
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<img alt="A wooden stile over a wire fence on moorland." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521275/original/file-20230417-16-7hvytl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521275/original/file-20230417-16-7hvytl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521275/original/file-20230417-16-7hvytl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521275/original/file-20230417-16-7hvytl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521275/original/file-20230417-16-7hvytl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521275/original/file-20230417-16-7hvytl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521275/original/file-20230417-16-7hvytl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Public access to the countryside cannot be taken for granted in the UK.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wooden-stile-leads-way-over-fence-181587596">Linda George/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>The reintroduction of the deadline is perhaps a reversion to type for the governing Conservatives, and has of course been welcomed by landowners: the Country Land and Business Association is reported to have <a href="https://www.cla.org.uk/news/rights-of-way-deadline-a-success-for-cla-lobbying/">lobbied assiduously</a> for a 2031 deadline. While this feels like a loss for access campaigners, the five-year extension to the original 2026 deadline would appear to strike a compromise, at least from the government’s point of view.</p>
<p>The government has cited COVID-19 as justification for the five-year delay, but the problem is more deep-rooted. Public rights of way are a contentious issue that expose deeper concerns around who has the right to enjoy the land, and how to properly care for it given the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/10/nearly-half-of-britains-biodiversity-has-gone-since-industrial-revolution">parlous state</a> of wildlife and habitats under Britain’s overwhelmingly private land ownership system. They are hard to deal with – and even harder to resolve. That alone explains the constant zigzagging of government promises and deadlines.</p>
<p>The government’s repeated U-turns illustrate the broader difficulties faced in England today. Is the time ripe for new and more expansive legislation? <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/27/labour-government-would-pass-right-to-roam-act-and-reverse-dartmoor-ban">Labour certainly thinks so</a> – but before it can implement any new settlement, the party will have to win a general election.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
<br><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeTop">Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead.</a> Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeBottom">Join the 10,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.</a></em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Breen receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>
The public has until 2031 to document all existing rights of way through the countryside.
Tom Breen, Postdoctoral Researcher in Landscape History, Oxford Brookes University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/202906
2023-04-11T16:12:15Z
2023-04-11T16:12:15Z
The Archers’ electric vehicle row shows why rural areas may oppose chargers – but they also have so much to gain
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520256/original/file-20230411-661-rhfmew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C194%2C5000%2C3128&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/fm-channel-playing-music-stylish-retro-1899377164">Muse Studio/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Long-running BBC radio soap opera <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-archers-and-who-listens-to-it-57390">The Archers</a> might conjure images of an idyllic country life, but its storylines frequently highlight real tensions in British society. </p>
<p>The series, set in the fictional village of Ambridge, has been criticised in recent years for storylines which supposedly <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11404361/The-Archers-blasted-trying-woo-trendy-young-listeners-fans.html">pander to younger listeners</a> or <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/06/rural-viewers-say-bbc-portrayal-lives-not-grounded-reality/">fail to represent rural life</a> accurately. But the Archers has never shied away from <a href="https://unbound.com/books/underneath-the-archers/">environmental issues</a>, from the escapades of eco-warrior Tom Archer in the late 1990s to more recent episodes about soil health.</p>
<p>Lately, Ambridge has been gripped by a campaign to halt the construction of a new electric vehicle charging station, proposed on a parcel of land being sold by David and Ruth Archer – long-running characters at the centre of the series. This has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001k7sn">provoked</a> protests, debates about civic duty and police involvement in the rural idyll.</p>
<p>The placards and slogans of local opponents have fused topics of net zero and the energy transition with anxieties about the future of the countryside. What does this storyline tell us about real rural opposition to such changes?</p>
<h2>Charging into trouble</h2>
<p>The UK government has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-takes-historic-step-towards-net-zero-with-end-of-sale-of-new-petrol-and-diesel-cars-by-2030">pledged to phase out</a> the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. If electric vehicles (EVs) are to replace them, charging infrastructure must be expanded to help people switch. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.zap-map.com/live/">By some estimates</a> there are over 35,000 active EV charging ports across the UK. The Department for Transport has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tenfold-expansion-in-chargepoints-by-2030-as-government-drives-ev-revolution">pledged</a> 300,000 public chargers by 2030 to stop a patchy network of charging points <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/electric-cars-batteries-fossil-fuel">putting some drivers off</a> buying EVs and allay concerns about their potentially <a href="https://www.nationalgrid.com/group/what-ev-charging-anxiety-and-range-anxiety-thing-past">shorter driving range</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An electric vehicle charging point in a quiet, coastal car park." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520248/original/file-20230411-16-plpe9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520248/original/file-20230411-16-plpe9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520248/original/file-20230411-16-plpe9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520248/original/file-20230411-16-plpe9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520248/original/file-20230411-16-plpe9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520248/original/file-20230411-16-plpe9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520248/original/file-20230411-16-plpe9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A public charging point in Shetland, Scotland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hoswick-uk-may-1-2021-two-1985615387">AlanMorris/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Infrastructure built to fulfil national commitments to cut emissions will have important local consequences. The concerns voiced in Ambridge might resonate in rural communities playing host to new construction projects which can bring with them increased traffic, noise and damage to the landscape.</p>
<p>When researching opposition to energy infrastructure for a <a href="https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/a-just-energy-transition">new book</a>, we learned about Littlehampton in Sussex, a seaside town where residents successfully opposed an <a href="https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/politics/council/littlehampton-residents-in-successful-fight-against-electric-car-charging-points-proposal-4060158">on-street EV charging scheme</a>. Residents complained about not being consulted beforehand and argued that charging points, built without off-street parking, would draw drivers from elsewhere who would take spaces from them. </p>
<p>Rural communities have also <a href="https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/23328983.opposition-lodged-solar-farm-yorkshire-farmland/">opposed</a> new <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2023-02-18/heating-or-eating-the-green-energy-dilemma-facing-welsh-farming">renewable energy projects</a>, such as <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-is-solar-power-a-threat-to-uk-farmland/">solar farms</a>, for their potential disruption or effect on property values. Many who moved to a rural area to enjoy its natural beauty argue that new infrastructure <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52841223">industrialises the countryside</a>.</p>
<h2>Finding community support</h2>
<p>In The Archers – like in Littlehampton, Sussex – local opposition to new EV charging stations derives from a feeling that something is happening to residents, rather than with or for them. Some Ambridge residents are suspicious of the shell corporation behind the scheme. In real-life Sussex, residents said that they weren’t properly consulted.</p>
<p>Rural opposition is not inevitable, however. With amenities and services often clustered in bigger towns, rural households must travel further to access them, making them particularly vulnerable to rises in the price of <a href="https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politics/petrol-price-rises-causing-real-hardship-in-rural-communities-tory-peer-warns-3730743">petrol or diesel</a>. </p>
<p>This vulnerability has been exacerbated by dramatic cuts to rural bus routes. An analysis by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/24/almost-one-10-local-bus-services-axed-last-year-great-britain">the Guardian</a> found that one in ten routes were axed in 2022, with <a href="https://thebristolcable.org/2023/01/west-of-england-bus-passengers-face-more-cuts-as-dozens-of-services-to-be-axed-in-april/#:%7E:text=Bus%20passengers%20in%20the%20West,will%20most%20likely%20be%20withdrawn.">42 routes</a> lost from the west of England alone. </p>
<p>Withdrawing public transport funding <a href="https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/local-news/were-being-cut-everything-say-8106800">cuts off</a> rural communities from essential services and friends and family elsewhere. These same communities could <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/rural-communities-could-benefit-most-electric-vehicles">benefit the most</a> from an expanded EV charging network.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A bus shelter beside an empty rural road." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520254/original/file-20230411-894-hzuvnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520254/original/file-20230411-894-hzuvnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520254/original/file-20230411-894-hzuvnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520254/original/file-20230411-894-hzuvnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520254/original/file-20230411-894-hzuvnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520254/original/file-20230411-894-hzuvnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520254/original/file-20230411-894-hzuvnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cuts to public transport funding have hit rural communities particularly hard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bus-stop-shelter-glass-on-road-1943044492">Harry Wedzinga/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some rural communities aren’t waiting for this to happen and have taken to sharing electric cars to fill the gaps left by lost services instead. For example, new <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-48011957">EV clubs</a> are being formed in Wales to give people easier access to shared transport. </p>
<p>These schemes ask people to pay an annual membership fee in return for being able to book a car 48 hours in advance. This is helping people get to GP appointments or job interviews. </p>
<p>But while those living in Greater London might access a charging point <a href="https://www.countycouncilsnetwork.org.uk/new-analysis-shows-chasm-in-electric-vehicle-chargers-between-rural-areas-and-cities-with-london-having-more-than-englands-counties-combined/">every mile on average</a>, this number jumps to one every 16 miles in <a href="https://www.countycouncilsnetwork.org.uk/about/ccn-councils/">rural areas</a>. </p>
<h2>Plugging the gaps</h2>
<p>One reason why rural areas are underserved by EV chargers <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/electric-vehicle-charging-market-study-final-report/final-report">concerns their cost-effectiveness</a>. In areas where there might be less immediate demand, the upfront investment needed to install a charging point will take longer to pay off. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Costs-and-impacts-of-on-street-charging-Ricardo.pdf">New subsidies and grants</a> could help install more chargers in more places. But it will be necessary to work with communities to prevent conflict. </p>
<p>Despite the uproar in Ambridge, rural areas have a lot to gain from charging infrastructure. Residents will have differing views which planners must address.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
What the BBC Radio 4 drama gets right (and wrong) about rural opposition to the energy transition.
Ed Atkins, Senior Lecturer, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol
Ros Death, Lecturer in Physical Geography, University of Bristol
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197943
2023-01-23T17:15:57Z
2023-01-23T17:15:57Z
Dartmoor wild camping ban shows why Britain needs a universal right to roam
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505870/original/file-20230123-16-p6b4by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4460%2C2944&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dartmoor ponies freely roam the moorland.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wild-dartmoor-ponies-visiting-female-camper-1181548321">William Barton/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the owners of the 4,000-acre Blachford estate in Dartmoor, a vast moorland in south-west England, recently won the right to exclude campers from their land, it demonstrated how fragile the right to enjoy Britain’s countryside is. </p>
<p>For the time being, an agreement between landowners and the national park means that wild camping will still be allowed, but with the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64333066">permission of landowners only</a>. Until access rights are properly protected by law, and recognised as important by everyone, wild campers would be advised not to make themselves too comfortable.</p>
<p>The public enjoy very limited rights over the British countryside. Following <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Darwall-v-DNPA-Final-Judgment-13-Jan-23.pdf">this decision</a>, wild camping outside of a designated campsite without the landowner’s permission is no longer legal anywhere in England and Wales. Access campaigners and conservationists are outraged, not least because Dartmoor was the last holdout of the right to camp without permission.</p>
<p>The decision centred on the interpretation of the Dartmoor Commons Act of 1985. This states that the public have “a right of access to the commons on foot and on horseback for the purpose of open-air recreation”. Despite its misleading name, all English and Welsh common land is privately owned. </p>
<p>In a legal challenge brought by the estate owner, the high court was required to decide what was meant by recreation. The National Park Authority (the local government body responsible for managing the park) had previously advised visitors that this included the right to camp. Sir Julian Flaux, chancellor of the high court, ruled that the act contained no provision to pitch tents or make camp overnight, and that “any such camping requires the consent of the landowner”.</p>
<h2>Access and trespass</h2>
<p>The decision in the Dartmoor case does not make wild camping a criminal offence. It does give a landowner the right to use reasonable force to remove a lawful visitor from their land once they begin to camp, or act in any other way that is not permitted by law. </p>
<p>The same principle was followed in the 1893 case of Harrison v The Duke of Rutland, which concerned an early hunt saboteur who entered a footpath on the duke’s estate to disrupt a grouse shoot. Harrison waved his handkerchief in the air and opened and closed his umbrella to scare the grouse. The duke’s gamekeepers seized him and held him to the ground. </p>
<p>Although Harrison was using a public right of way, the duke won the case. It was ruled that one becomes a trespasser when using a footpath for anything other than its very limited purpose, and that it is reasonable to use some degree of force or violence to remove them.</p>
<p>Little has changed since the 19th century, despite the introduction of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. This act established the first national parks, but contrary to their name, these are not owned by the state, nor are they public parks open and set aside for recreation. </p>
<p>All British land is owned by someone and it is estimated that the public has access to <a href="https://www.righttoroam.org.uk/">only 8% of it</a>. Of the land where open access is allowed, this is usually for only the most narrow recreational purposes such as walking, bird watching or perhaps a picnic. Other activities such as swimming, camping or a game of football would be an act of trespass.</p>
<p>The statutory rights in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 opened up access rights beyond existing footpaths and bridleways to include mountain, moor, heath and down. This land was opened to public access on foot, but there was no right to camp, swim, canoe or ride a horse. </p>
<p>Even these limited rights were fiercely contested by a landowner in Dartmoor National Park. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/outdoors/moors/2005/vixen_tor.shtml">Vixen Tor</a> is a rock outcrop, long open to the public and steeped in the myths and legends of Dartmoor. The owner successfully prevented this popular landmark from being opened to the public.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A distinctive rocky formation surrounded by moorland." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505871/original/file-20230123-7721-wooagh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505871/original/file-20230123-7721-wooagh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505871/original/file-20230123-7721-wooagh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505871/original/file-20230123-7721-wooagh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505871/original/file-20230123-7721-wooagh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505871/original/file-20230123-7721-wooagh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505871/original/file-20230123-7721-wooagh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Out of bounds: Vixen Tor at sunset.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rocky-outcrop-known-vixen-tor-sunset-1143489917">PJ Photography/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-64332831">new agreement</a> between Dartmoor National Park Authority and landowners allows camping to continue for now, but restricts wild camping to specified areas. The authority also agreed to pay these landowners an unspecified sum of money, when previously the right was enjoyed for free.</p>
<h2>A better right to roam</h2>
<p>Access campaigners are now calling for an expansion of the existing statutory right to roam provided by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act. Under Green MP Caroline Lucas’ <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-03/0044/220044.pdf">Countryside and Rights of Way Act (Amendment) bill</a>, which is due to be debated this spring, rights of access would be extended to grazing land, woodlands, green belt and river banks. </p>
<p>The right to camp on Dartmoor was based on a broad interpretation of a statute which extended only to commons on Dartmoor. This new act would restore the rights on Dartmoor and provide a statutory right to camp on all access land.</p>
<p>Supporters of a change in the law can expect <a href="https://www.nfuonline.com/updates-and-information/countryside-and-rights-of-way-act-second-reading/">fierce opposition</a> from landowners. It has been estimated that half of England is owned by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/apr/17/who-owns-england-thousand-secret-landowners-author">less than 1%</a> of the population. Defending this arrangement is the argument that landowners have served as custodians of the countryside for generations, and that wider access and recreation could bring <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/26/littering-epidemic-england-countryside-code">litter and environmental damage</a>. </p>
<p>It is worth noting, however, that landowners have been accused of failing to stem <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/25/two-thirds-of-cattle-farms-in-north-devon-cause-river-pollution">pollution</a> from farming on their land, for instance, including pollution to the River Taw in Dartmoor. Elsewhere, mass trespassers discovered a pit of fly-tipped rubbish and <a href="https://twitter.com/guyshrubsole/status/1523316776964087811?lang=en">dead pheasants</a> on the Duke of Somerset’s estate. Much of this would go unnoticed if not for the vigilance of the public.</p>
<p>Access rights in Scotland are governed by the Land Reform (Scotland) Act of 2003. These are more expansive than those provided to England and Wales under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, and include the right to be on most land for recreational or educational purposes. Not all land is open, with gardens and crops excluded. As with the original interpretation of the Dartmoor Commons Act, recreational purposes are broadly defined and include wild camping. This is not an unqualified right however, as wild camping by Loch Lomond has been <a href="https://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/things-to-do/camping/campingbyelaws/">restricted</a> for environmental reasons. Scotland’s greatest asset might not be the Land Reform Act itself, but the <a href="https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/act-and-access-code/land-reform-act/legislation-history#:%7E:text=In%20Scotland%20there%20has%20been,right%2C%20ie%20recognised%20by%20law.">longstanding culture of access</a> that preceded it.</p>
<p>As the wild campers of Dartmoor discovered, even statutory rights can be lost. If the British public are to enjoy a broader right to roam, as people visiting countries like Scotland or <a href="https://www.visitnorway.com/plan-your-trip/travel-tips-a-z/right-of-access/">Norway</a> do, the UK must expand existing statutory rights. This will require a culture change too – away from deference to landowners and towards a mutual recognition of the benefits of access to the countryside offers to all.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on January 24 2023 to make clearer the difference in legislation between England and Wales, and Scotland.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197943/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Mayfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Piecemeal legislation is easily unpicked, as the recent high court ruling showed.
Ben Mayfield, Lecturer in Law, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/182703
2022-05-12T13:53:40Z
2022-05-12T13:53:40Z
Right to roam: why activists are reviving the mass trespass protests of the 1930s
<p>By ascending the plateau of Kinder Scout – a mountain in England’s Peak District owned at the time by the 10th Duke of Devonshire and guarded by gamekeepers from his nearby Chatsworth Estate – around 400 walkers committed one of the most famous acts of civil disobedience in British history on the weekend of April 24 1932. </p>
<p>The Kinder Trespass, as it became known, included members of the Young Communist League and British Workers Sport Federation. Their trespass that day was met with violence. Six men were arrested for assaulting the gamekeepers, unlawful assembly and breaches of the peace. Supporters, landowners and newspapers such as the Manchester Guardian followed the subsequent trials with fascination. Ultimately, the episode gained attention for various clubs and organisations campaigning for greater public access to the English countryside.</p>
<p>The Peak District was a symbolic choice for the trespassers. Not only was the area rich in outdoor space and natural beauty, it was also accessible to several industrial towns in the North and Midlands of England, providing a weekend escape from working life. The first world war was still a close memory, and many walking clubs included former soldiers who recalled being asked to fight for the fields and woodlands of home.</p>
<p>The residents of Totnes in Devon and their supporters recently invoked the spirit of the 1932 mass trespass 90 years on with an organised trespass on the Duke of Somerset’s estate in Devon. Their reception was markedly different, however. These trespassers were able to sit, play music and eat picnics. Some explored the woodland, clearing up empty shotgun cartridges and litter from the estate’s pheasant shoot. </p>
<p>Despite the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/woodland-grants-and-incentives-overview-table/woodland-grants-and-incentives-overview-table">environmental grants</a> and farming subsidies paid to many landowners, it is claimed that only around 8% of land in England is <a href="https://www.righttoroam.org.uk">open to the public</a>. Just 1% of the population owns half of the land in England according to another claim, though the secrecy afforded to property trusts and corporate landowners make it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/apr/17/who-owns-england-thousand-secret-landowners-author">difficult</a> to provide an exact figure.</p>
<p>Unlike the mass trespass of 1932, there will be no high-profile court cases. Instead, the Devon trespassers have been able to use more modern methods to raise awareness of their cause. Someone in the group discovered <a href="https://twitter.com/guyshrubsole/status/1523316776964087811">a pit of rubbish and dead pheasants</a> on the Duke’s land and shared the images on social media, contrasting the care taken by the trespassers with the behaviour of the landowners.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1523743952834154497"}"></div></p>
<p>Still, there is much that unites the trespassers of 1932 and 2022. Groups that lobby for wider access to the land have always included environmentalists and ecologists eager to study and protect <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1560395#">fenced-off nature</a>. Both generations of campaigners have also drawn attention to the power disparity between landowners and the general public, and urged that more must be done to unite people with a countryside that should belong to everyone by right.</p>
<h2>The right to roam</h2>
<p>So what has changed, legally and socially, since 1932? In 2000, access activists would have been forgiven for thinking that the battle had been won. The Labour government was poised to introduce its wide-ranging Countryside and Rights of Way Act (CRoW Act) which promised to open up great swathes of the English and Welsh countryside for public access. When environment minister Michael Meacher introduced the act to the House of Commons, he even <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/2000/mar/20/countryside-and-rights-of-way-bill">claimed</a> it would bring “to reality the dream of [prime minister] Lloyd George that nobody should be a trespasser in the land of their birth”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A sign saying 'private woodland no public right of way' on a wooden gate." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462751/original/file-20220512-24-w5w78g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462751/original/file-20220512-24-w5w78g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462751/original/file-20220512-24-w5w78g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462751/original/file-20220512-24-w5w78g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462751/original/file-20220512-24-w5w78g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462751/original/file-20220512-24-w5w78g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462751/original/file-20220512-24-w5w78g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Much of Britain’s woodland remains under lock and key.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/livingston-scotlanduk-june-27-2020-sign-1764760838">D MacDonald/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The CRoW Act introduced <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/37/section/1">a limited compromise</a> between walkers and landowners. People were given the right to explore mountains, moors, heath and down (unfertilised, chalky grassland) as well as registered common land. Campaigners estimate that this only covers about <a href="https://www.righttoroam.org.uk">8% of land</a> in England and Wales. The CRoW Act excepted woodlands, grasslands and waterways in private hands, which remain closed to the public. Some landowners were even able to spread fertiliser to <a href="https://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/for_bidden.htm">change the plant species</a> growing on their land to exempt it from the new rules before the mapping process could be completed.</p>
<p>That the Guardian recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/08/picnic-protesters-duke-of-somerset-woods-right-to-roam-totnes">claimed</a> that “there is no right to roam in England’s countryside” is testament to the limitations of the 2000 CRoW Act and to the frustrations of the access lobby two decades on.</p>
<p>The pandemic demonstrated the importance of outdoor recreational space to our physical and mental health. The right to enjoy footpaths and moorland became a contentious issue once more, as some walkers were <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-52055201">targeted</a> by police for exercising in the Peak District during the first national lockdown.</p>
<p>As the cost of living crisis bites, many people ought to question how private landowners are funded and whether the public gets good value for the money it pays in taxes. Trespassers on the Duke of Somerset’s land <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/08/picnic-protesters-duke-of-somerset-woods-right-to-roam-totnes">noted</a> that the Duke was in receipt of public money to maintain his woodland, yet this funding came with no requirement to share the land with the public. Just as in 1932, the political and moral case for a wider right to roam is compelling.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182703/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Mayfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The recent efforts of countryside access campaigners evoke the Kinder mass trespass of 90 years earlier.
Ben Mayfield, Lecturer in Law, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/158555
2021-04-19T14:52:10Z
2021-04-19T14:52:10Z
Revealed: true cost of Britain’s addiction to factory-farmed chicken
<p>The first time I encountered an intensive “chicken shed” up close I was taken aback by just how massive it was – the huge industrial-looking metal clad building was well over 100 metres long by 25 metres wide. And there wasn’t just one, there were seven of these colossal sheds, the sun glinting off their roofs and adjacent clusters of tall silos. A constant hum emanated from them and periodically a strange clattering sound, possibly of grain being sprayed automatically from a silo into a shed. </p>
<p>There was a large, immaculately clean concrete yard and an almost uncanny lack of human activity. Finally, overwhelmingly, was the all-pervading smell. The malty, almost sweetish odour became increasingly unpleasant as I stood to take in the scene, making me feel slightly sick. </p>
<p>The distinctive stink followed me as I continued down the footpath. I began to develop a headache. I felt jumpy despite being on a public right of way – should I be this close to what I knew was an intensive poultry unit? Were there biosecurity risks? </p>
<p>And when the path veered close to the building I began to actually hear the birds inside. That triggered other emotions. I knew that the chickens were on a life trajectory of a mere six weeks (eight weeks for “slow grow birds”) before they would be loaded onto lorries to be taken to the processing factory. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Sun shines on multiple metal sheds by field." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394829/original/file-20210413-17-83dpcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394829/original/file-20210413-17-83dpcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394829/original/file-20210413-17-83dpcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394829/original/file-20210413-17-83dpcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394829/original/file-20210413-17-83dpcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394829/original/file-20210413-17-83dpcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394829/original/file-20210413-17-83dpcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An ‘intensive poultry unit’ near the author’s home.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Alison Caffyn</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Later, several farmers showed me round their sheds. Inside one, I stood rather stunned at the sheer scale of the building stretching in front of me and the 45,000 chickens crowded into the space. They pecked at plastic feeders or the occasional small bale of hay providing “environmental enrichment”.</p>
<p>This is how <a href="https://www.eating-better.org/uploads/Documents/2020/EB_WeNeedToTalkAboutChicken_Feb20_A4_Final.pdf">95%</a> of the one billion chickens raised in the UK each year are grown: chicken is the country’s most popular meat and these massive sheds are why it’s so cheap.</p>
<p>The premises which produce much of the UK’s meat are relatively hidden from view. Not only do most people not want to think about how meat is raised, it is in the interests of the intensive livestock industry to keep a low profile. Many meat eaters understandably <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190206-what-the-meat-paradox-reveals-about-moral-decision-making">tend to avoid</a> watching documentaries and reading about the horrors of factory farming. Out of sight, out of mind. The meat industry knows this too, and tries hard to keep the realities of the conditions that industrially farmed animals are kept in divorced from the product people buy in supermarkets.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-arent-we-more-outraged-about-eating-chicken-82284">Why aren't we more outraged about eating chicken?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But this article isn’t about animal welfare realities. It’s about how the poultry industry has managed to keep a low profile while undergoing a massive expansion to supply all the supermarkets and fast food chains. There has been an intensive poultry industry in the UK for over 60 years, but it has been upscaling in recent decades, becoming more like North America’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/18/rise-of-mega-farms-how-the-us-model-of-intensive-farming-is-invading-the-world">mega farms</a>.</p>
<p>For the last four years, I have been investigating how <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837721001381?via%3Dihub">intensive poultry units have been allowed to multiply</a> across certain parts of the UK. I have discovered that the poultry industry has taken advantage of weak regulatory and planning regimes in order to expand what is a very profitable business. I have traced how local people have become increasingly angry about the myriad impacts they face from the intensive chicken sheds – and how they have mobilised to fight the industry’s expansion.</p>
<h2>Chicken hub</h2>
<p>I live in Ludlow, Shropshire, close to the Herefordshire border. These two counties are at the heart of the UK’s chicken industry. My attention was first drawn to the issue in 2014, when I began to notice frequent articles and angry letters in my local papers, the Hereford Times and the Shropshire Star. The headlines read things like: “Stench from broiler units is inescapable”; “Protesters mass to fight ‘terrible’ chicken farm”. </p>
<p>Campaigns against several planning applications for what are known in the business as intensive poultry units (IPUs) had been launched in the Shropshire Hills (an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) and scenic and tranquil parts of Herefordshire. A significant controversy had kicked off. Some planning applications had hundreds of letters submitted objecting to the proposals. I wanted to know what had prompted the levels of outrage in an area where there has been commercial chicken farming since the 1950s, and set about researching the issue for my PhD.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p>When I began to trace the pattern of planning applications across Herefordshire and Shropshire, trawling through the records for each county, it became clear that the industry had expanded steadily over the 1990s and 2000s, with more and more farms investing in poultry and IPUs becoming progressively bigger. Where the average broiler (meat chicken) shed held 25,000 birds in 1990 and 40,000 birds in the 2000s, the new applications were for sheds to hold 50,000-55,000 birds at a time. By 2010 there were at least <a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1cqhjyDvMI8sb">800 chicken sheds</a>, for meat and also many for eggs, across the two counties, which I estimate to be around 20% of the UK total.</p>
<p>I found there had been a sudden surge in applications in the early 2010s, partly as a result of supermarkets wanting to source more chicken from the UK in the wake of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/horsemeat-scandal-was-a-damning-indictment-of-the-state-of-our-food-21490">horsemeat scandal</a>. In 2013-14 for example, the huge chicken processing plants in Hereford, run by multinational <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-most-powerful-companies-youve-never-heard-of-cargill-3191">Cargill</a>, took on a new contract with Tesco to provide an additional <a href="https://www.thepoultrysite.com/news/2013/11/cargill-to-upgrade-and-enhance-uk-poultry-processing-business">million chickens a week</a>. This required a further 90 chicken sheds within an hour’s drive of the plants and many farmers were keen to become suppliers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Graph showing growing number of IPU farms in Herefordshire (orange) and Shropshire (blue)." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394827/original/file-20210413-17-1hvjxw9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394827/original/file-20210413-17-1hvjxw9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394827/original/file-20210413-17-1hvjxw9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394827/original/file-20210413-17-1hvjxw9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394827/original/file-20210413-17-1hvjxw9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394827/original/file-20210413-17-1hvjxw9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394827/original/file-20210413-17-1hvjxw9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The number of poultry farms has been steadily rising.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alison Caffyn</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I started to interview as many people as I could: farmers, planners, local authority and environmental agency staff, councillors, objectors, campaigners and other local businesses; and began to understand why the controversy had erupted. </p>
<h2>The pull of poultry</h2>
<p>Going into poultry is an attractive proposition for farmers. Consistently the <a href="https://www.nao.org.uk/report/early-review-of-the-new-farming-programme/">most profitable</a> UK agricultural sector, poultry provides a steady income and is not dependent on subsidy, <a href="https://fullfact.org/economy/farming-subsidies-uk/">unlike most UK farming</a>. The farmers I spoke to wanted the “certainty” that a contract with a poultry processor gave them. Several wanted to expand and create a job for a member of the next generation and to make the farm more resilient, particularly given the uncertainties over Brexit.</p>
<p>Expanding into poultry is a big investment; in the region of £2.5 million for a four shed broiler unit. But I was told farms can pay off their investment within 10-15 years and more quickly if they also installed <a href="https://www.gov.uk/non-domestic-renewable-heat-incentive">renewable energy systems</a> such as solar, biomass and anaerobic digestion (AD) units, all of which receive government subsidies. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="More massive chicken sheds in rural landscape." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394830/original/file-20210413-17-1sg3ik8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394830/original/file-20210413-17-1sg3ik8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394830/original/file-20210413-17-1sg3ik8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394830/original/file-20210413-17-1sg3ik8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394830/original/file-20210413-17-1sg3ik8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394830/original/file-20210413-17-1sg3ik8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394830/original/file-20210413-17-1sg3ik8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Another IPU in the Shropshire hills.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Alison Caffyn</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But once the system is up and running, it doesn’t require much physical effort (at least compared to traditional farming methods). The vast majority of chicken farming in the UK has joined other forms of “precision farming” that uses smart technology within an integrated system owned and organised by a processing company. </p>
<p>Day-old chicks are delivered from the hatchery. The processor (such as Cargill) provides the feed and sends in “catching gangs” and lorries to pick up the birds after six weeks. The farmer never actually owns the birds but carries the risk if more than the normal <a href="https://www.ciwf.org.uk/research/species-meat-chickens/the-welfare-of-broiler-chickens-in-the-european-union/">5%</a> die before reaching the processing plant. </p>
<p>The farmer is able to monitor the shed temperature, humidity and check on feed, water and so on on their computer or phone. All it requires is for someone to walk through each shed daily picking up the dead and sick birds. This means the intensive chicken production provides only about 1.5 workers on each average farm of four to six sheds (although some of the operations have ten or 15 sheds). A poultry farmer told me that these larger businesses can make in the region of £1 million profit a year.</p>
<p>The justifications for IPUs I heard at planning committee meetings mainly revolved around the need for affordable, healthy protein to feed the nation. The UK is <a href="https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/markets-and-trends/outlook-2018-poultry-sector-is-well-placed-for-growth">about 75%</a> self-sufficient in poultry (according to figures published by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board in 2018, although little recent data has been made available). Emphasis was placed on how raising chicken in the UK is better in terms of food miles and animal welfare as the UK has higher welfare regulations than in many parts of the world. </p>
<p>Farmers applying for planning permission for new units stressed the supply chain and economic benefits as well as the jobs in the processing factory. They accused objectors of being incomers to the area; “NIMBYs” or “down-from-Londoners” who didn’t understand the realities of modern farming and who had unrealistic, idyllic ideas of what rural life is like. </p>
<p>They denied the IPUs would cause any environmental problems, saying that they had to meet environmental permit standards and that the Environment Agency would address any inadvertent pollution. They denied that IPUs smell and ridiculed those who complain about agricultural smells or noises in rural areas. </p>
<p>It is true that these intensive chicken units vary considerably. There is a huge difference between the larger sites, some owned directly by the processing company, where there may be ten or more sheds and very little other farming activities, and at the other extreme small farms that have diversified into free range eggs because their beef or sheep enterprise has struggled to make a profit. But both types can be controversial. </p>
<p>(Most UK eggs are also produced in intensive units; standard free-range units house 16,000 or 32,000 hens in systems where the birds have theoretical access to the outdoors, while in contrast conventional systems may house millions of hens).</p>
<p>The surge in applications to supply Cargill in 2014 included some in particularly scenic and biodiverse environments. This created a PR disaster. Local people who had always been largely tolerant of agricultural activities felt the expansion of the poultry industry had become “something other”, as one officer described. Resistance crystallised and a range of local people began to mobilise to fight the proliferation of further poultry units.</p>
<h2>The other side of the story</h2>
<p>So were these objectors really just retired NIMBYs and ignorant townies?</p>
<p>I interviewed numerous people who objected to the IPU proposals and followed one group of campaigners that formed in a small, historic village not far from my home. The farming family who own much of the land around the village was proposing to build a new poultry site, close to residents’ houses. I attended the campaign group’s meetings in the back room of the village pub. </p>
<p>I listened to them discussing what was meant by the scientific terminology used in the various odour, noise, ecology and visual impact assessments. They became increasingly expert in understanding the planning process and the technical information used. I heard their frustrated complaints about the unfairness of the process, the profits made by the interconnected farming families and the influence such landowners had on the parish council and local planning committee.</p>
<p>There was a sense of injustice that one business could inflict such change on the local area and community. Unlike with some invasive developments such as wind turbines, electricity pylons or housing developments, there are no financial payback mechanisms which would fund community projects or facilities in recompense. I regularly heard objectors mention the fact that farmers do not even pay business rates on their poultry operations as they are deemed agricultural developments. </p>
<p>The campaign group reached out to local experts to learn more about the impacts. They learned how the ammonia gas from the chicken faeces is pumped out of sheds into the air and damages <a href="https://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk/our-work/publications/we-need-to-talk-about-nitrogen">local habitats</a> and <a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/media/1687/ammonia-impacts-on-ancient-woodland.pdf">ancient woodland</a>, and how excess manure spreading has been found to cause illegal levels of <a href="https://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/++preview++/environment-and-business/challenges-and-choices/user_uploads/phosphorus-pressure-rbmp-2021.pdf">pollution in local rivers</a>. I joined the group on a visit to a nearby Site of Special Scientific Interest to see breathtaking swards of orchids and other rare plants in stunning wildflower meadows – also vulnerable to cumulative ammonia emissions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Long grass and wildflowers beneath blue sky and tree." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395238/original/file-20210415-15-2ugi9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395238/original/file-20210415-15-2ugi9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395238/original/file-20210415-15-2ugi9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395238/original/file-20210415-15-2ugi9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395238/original/file-20210415-15-2ugi9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395238/original/file-20210415-15-2ugi9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395238/original/file-20210415-15-2ugi9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the threatened meadows.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Alison Caffyn</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This group was typical of the objectors I met: a mix of some people who had moved to the area to work or retire, alongside long-time residents. Some were older but there were many middle-aged people, some professionals who developed the expertise in planning processes but also many others who supplied local knowledge, contacts and who simply cared about what was changing in their local countryside and how it impacted on their families and friends. </p>
<p>I also met several farmers who objected to intensive poultry. One told a friend of mine, while contemplating his neighbour’s new IPU, “That’s not farming.” Others voiced concerns and misgivings to me, but few felt able to disrupt relations within the farming community and go on the record against other farmers. </p>
<p>While each planning application was different, there were a number of concerns consistently voiced by objectors. These were the foul smell, the visual impact of the IPU on the landscape, noise from the units and from the associated HGV traffic, road safety concerns, water pollution affecting local rivers, biodiversity loss from ammonia and that the proliferating industrial buildings would damage the local tourism industry, which was economically much more valuable to the economy of the area than agriculture.</p>
<p>One issue which tended to creep up on objectors as they researched the impacts of IPUs was the uncertainty over health impacts – the ammonia and dangerous particulates <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29133137/">in the air</a>, which can cause serious respiratory problems, the potential for spread of <a href="https://www.ciwf.org.uk/research/animal-diseases/zoonotic-diseases/">livestock-related infections</a>, whether <a href="https://amr-review.org/sites/default/files/160518_Final%20paper_with%20cover.pdf">antimicrobial resistance</a>, of which intensive animal farms are a major source, could linger in the local environment and the existential threat of a bird flu outbreak which might cross the species barrier. This particular concern has hardly lessened in the last year.</p>
<p>And yes, people were also concerned about whether a large IPU built near their house might affect the value of their property or deter future business customers. Others were vociferous about animal welfare issues or the evils of <a href="https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2020-11-25/british-chicken-driving-deforestation-in-brazil">importing soya from South America</a> for the bird feed. But overall I found that most people had multiple concerns – for themselves, their family, their health and their finances but also for the community, other people, local businesses, plus concerns about farming systems, planning procedures, democracy and justice. </p>
<h2>Increasing awareness</h2>
<p>Clearly there are extremely polarised values and concerns involved in these arguments. Planning officers and committees have difficult decisions to make, particularly as there are almost no planning policies that govern where intensive livestock operations can be sited. There is a policy void. The repercussions of allowing intensive poultry units to proliferate have been ignored in favour of facilitating the expansion of agribusiness.</p>
<p>Local plans for both counties have almost no reference to poultry businesses despite the numbers of sheds now nearing 1,150 and the number of birds in the counties at any one time approaching 38 million <a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1cqhjyDvMI8sb">in my estimate</a>. I found that the local authorities had neglected (intentionally or not) to develop supplementary planning guidance which would have clarified the situation for everyone. </p>
<p>Decisions were therefore made largely with reference to vague objectives in national planning policy such as “<a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/810197/NPPF_Feb_2019_revised.pdf">sustainable development</a>” and boosting rural economies, and over 95% of applications between 2000 and 2020 were given permission. I found that the planning committees have been dominated by local politicians who are embedded in local agricultural networks and tend to accept the farming lobby’s arguments or be cowed by the dominance of major economic actors such as Cargill.</p>
<p>The application the group I followed were fighting, like most others, was approved. But the campaigners did not give up. There is no third party right of appeal in the UK so they could not challenge the decision directly, but they applied for, and secured, a judicial review of the decision-making process. At this point the county council ceded the case, accepting that they had made errors when assessing some of the likely impacts of the IPU. This has happened in several <a href="https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/help-stop-industrial-chicken-f/">cases</a> now. Local communities have lost trust in the planning system and local authorities’ <a href="https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/farming/2019/05/29/planning-consent-for-poultry-farm-near-bridgnorth-is-quashed-by-judges/">ability to make sound decisions</a>. </p>
<p>Ultimately, Cargill (now a joint venture renamed Avara) succeeded in having its 90 additional sheds built, although it took much longer than anticipated and there were many battles along the way. In the process, local awareness about the range of cumulative negative impacts has been raised. In Herefordshire, the increased nutrient pollution and algal blooms in the rivers Wye and Lugg has finally woken up the council to the links with <a href="https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/18503597.river-wye-turns-green-amid-chicken-farm-manure-claims/">vastly increased amounts</a> of poultry manure being spread on agricultural land.</p>
<p>In Shropshire, concerns over ammonia pollution of protected habitats now mean recent applications for IPUs must include technical fixes, such as expensive <a href="https://shropshire.gov.uk/environment/biodiversity-ecology-and-planning/new-interim-guidance-for-livestock-unit-lsu-applications/">ammonia scrubbers</a>. There is a better understanding of how local people, communities, environments and tax payers are paying the true costs of the <a href="https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/hidden-cost-uk-food/">externalities</a> from the poultry industry, which avoids picking up the bill.</p>
<p>The situation also raises broader questions such as whether intensive livestock operations should be treated in planning law as agriculture or industry. The scale, intensity and impacts have changed dramatically since the last relevant planning act in 1990. One councillor told me: “If these sheds were producing spring coils they wouldn’t be allowed. They’d be encouraged to go to enterprise zones and business parks, but because this is, in policy terms, deemed to be agriculture, that’s a real problem.”</p>
<p>What this all brings home is the wildly unnatural price of chicken in the UK. Why can you buy a whole chicken at Tesco for under £3? The actual, but largely hidden, costs associated with the production of cheap chicken are not passed on to consumers. Neither are they paid by the owners of multinational meat processing conglomerates, Tesco shareholders or poultry farmers. </p>
<p>The costs are being paid by local communities and environments in the damage to the landscape, air and water pollution and quality of life. They are also being paid by the taxpayer, in terms of health costs or pollution clean-up costs, or renewable energy subsidy costs. </p>
<p>Chicken is viewed as a healthy and convenient source of protein, but there are other more sustainable, cheaper and healthier protein options which could also be grown in the UK. These include peas, beans, nuts and lentils, some of which have the advantage of fixing nitrogen in the soil rather than increasing nutrients in the environment. People could substitute such plant-based protein for chicken in many meals.</p>
<p>So don’t wince when you see the price of chickens raised in better conditions – there are many reasons it’s more expensive and it’s not just the better environment the animals experience. You’ll be paying farmers who resist the dominance of multinational agri-industry and who are inflicting less harm on rural communities and localities. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
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<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-discovered-a-hidden-world-of-fungi-inside-the-worlds-biggest-seed-bank-156051?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">How we discovered a hidden world of fungi inside the world’s biggest seed bank</a></em></p></li>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Caffyn received grant funding from the Economic Social Research Council. </span></em></p>
A lack of policy has allowed industrial chicken farms to multiply in certain parts of the UK – with a lack of consideration of the environmental and social impacts.
Alison Caffyn, Research Affiliate, Geography and Planning, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/158901
2021-04-14T14:03:49Z
2021-04-14T14:03:49Z
How should the British countryside look post-Brexit? We asked the public
<p>Whatever your stance on Brexit, the UK’s departure from the EU has given the country a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine how it uses its land. When it was still part of the EU, the UK abided by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/common-agricultural-policy">the Common Agricultural Policy</a> (CAP), which provided subsidies to landowners and farmers based primarily on how much land they managed.</p>
<p>Earlier versions of the CAP contributed to the destruction of large swaths of the EU’s <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837718315321?casa_token=fuwjB8GZ9hEAAAAA:M3bh6gIErjoIC4KeBRXRJekU2v0AhqOVtRRycbvhte2BOAcp-tjpNq998JU_K_nMBOHowk8dvSk">forest and wildlife habitat</a>. The CAP has since undergone various revisions to try to address the environmental degradation of food production, but without much <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01426397.2011.637619">success</a>.</p>
<p>Policy analysts in Whitehall are busy devising <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8702/">new agricultural policies</a> that will decide how the countryside looks and the services it provides post-Brexit. As taxpayers will fund these new schemes, the public should have a say in how the country’s farmland will be managed and the environmental benefits it offers.</p>
<p>We set out to find what the UK public wanted from their countryside. But we didn’t want to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01426397.2012.691469">constrain</a> their imagination and creativity with a simple questionnaire. Instead, we combined a nationwide survey of 2,050 adults with an exercise in which 80 people created collages to demonstrate their vision for the future of Britain’s farmed landscapes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A herd of dairy cows stands on a grassy hill with a rolling field of hay behind." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395036/original/file-20210414-15-1dub9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395036/original/file-20210414-15-1dub9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395036/original/file-20210414-15-1dub9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395036/original/file-20210414-15-1dub9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395036/original/file-20210414-15-1dub9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395036/original/file-20210414-15-1dub9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395036/original/file-20210414-15-1dub9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A common sight: cows and vast fields dedicated to single crops.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/view-south-downs-way-footpath-sussex-131015750">David Hughes/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Livestock: nice to look at, bad for the planet</h2>
<p><a href="https://methods.sagepub.com/book/qualitative-inquiry-thematic-narrative-and-arts-informed-perspectives/i504.xml">Collages</a> allow people to express their ideas and desires in ways that are hard to capture with surveys and verbal interviews. Despite the obvious freedom the medium affords, collages are rarely used in studies attempting to understand how people would like their environment to look.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026483772100168X?dgcid=author#bib8">We asked</a> 80 participants to create two collages: one to show their ideal UK farm landscape, and one to show what they thought an environmentally friendly farm would look like. We then asked them to explain their design choices. We also asked 2,050 adults taking part in the wider nationwide survey to rate ten images of farming landscapes using similar images to those used in the collages.</p>
<p>What we found really surprised us. Both the surveys and collages revealed that most people in the study liked seeing livestock in their ideal landscape, but many thought that, for a farm to be environmentally friendly, it should have less livestock due to the greenhouse gas emissions they produce. Instead, most participants thought “green” farms should have lots of trees and renewable energy installations, though many admitted that they didn’t like the look of wind farms. Interestingly, there was no significant difference in the kind of landscapes preferred by farmers compared with the rest of the public we surveyed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394980/original/file-20210414-17-9zxbq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An example of one of the collages made in the study." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394980/original/file-20210414-17-9zxbq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394980/original/file-20210414-17-9zxbq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394980/original/file-20210414-17-9zxbq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394980/original/file-20210414-17-9zxbq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394980/original/file-20210414-17-9zxbq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394980/original/file-20210414-17-9zxbq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394980/original/file-20210414-17-9zxbq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wind turbines compete for space with cows, wildflower meadows and birds of prey.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Niki Rust</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most of the people involved in the study said they were keen for farms to produce a mixture of food and benefits for the environment – such as carbon storage, wildflowers for insects to pollinate and trees to improve air quality – rather than focusing on just food or environmental benefits. The majority of the people surveyed also wanted to increase food production in the UK rather than importing food from elsewhere.</p>
<p>These findings reveal the complexity involved in making green agricultural policy. There are numerous trade-offs in producing food while still protecting the environment. For instance, while most participants in our study stated that they were less interested in these landscapes producing cheap food, studies on buyer behaviour show that consumers, especially those on <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-health-nutrition/article/consumer-food-choices-the-role-of-price-and-pricing-strategies/4B275C4E232BAEE39FE2539F1E99365C">lower incomes</a>, are <a href="https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR4300/RR4379/RAND_RR4379.pdf">mainly motivated by price</a> when it comes to their food choices.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395055/original/file-20210414-13-5ed004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Another of the collages made in the study." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395055/original/file-20210414-13-5ed004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395055/original/file-20210414-13-5ed004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395055/original/file-20210414-13-5ed004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395055/original/file-20210414-13-5ed004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395055/original/file-20210414-13-5ed004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395055/original/file-20210414-13-5ed004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395055/original/file-20210414-13-5ed004.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most people wanted the countryside to generate more green energy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Niki Rust</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our participants often said they wanted farm landscapes to protect nature, but food production that is environmentally friendly is usually <a href="http://www.fao.org/organicag/oa-faq/oa-faq5/en/">more expensive</a> and produces less food overall, meaning <a href="https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2019/11/organic-farming-uses-more-land-than-conventional">more land</a> is needed. One possible solution is intensifying food production on existing farmland. Or, using <a href="https://www.agricology.co.uk/field/blog/introduction-agroecology-part-1">agro-ecological</a> methods which integrate farming with the local ecology. One example is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/alley-cropping">growing nut trees</a> which offer habitat and store carbon alongside arable crops.</p>
<p>The UK government clearly has its work cut out devising policies that produce food in an environmentally friendly way at prices cheap enough to ensure retailers don’t source food from abroad and effectively <a href="https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/428606/adbi-wp848.pdf">offshore</a> the environmental consequences. While it’s certain there will be winners and losers from Brexit, let’s hope the environment and the UK’s food security don’t fall into the latter category.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158901/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Niki Rust works for the North Pennines AONB Partnership. This research was funded by Newcastle University's N8 grant.</span></em></p>
A new survey serves up a tall order for UK agricultural policy outside the EU.
Niki Rust, Environmental Social Scientist, Newcastle University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/141413
2020-07-01T13:13:41Z
2020-07-01T13:13:41Z
Five reasons environmentalists should oppose Britain’s agriculture bill
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345020/original/file-20200701-159803-nkplqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5472%2C3645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/x5hFSPUT8uU">Rick Barrett/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>To many environmentalists, the new <a href="https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2019-21/agriculture.html">agriculture bill</a> for England and Wales seemed too good to be true. Instead of providing subsidies simply for owning and cultivating land, the bill – widely seen as a departure from previous farming governance under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy – promised “public money for public goods”. That meant farmers could expect state aid if they delivered things that everyone benefits from, but that the market doesn’t reward – such as clean air and water, biodiversity and access to beautiful landscapes. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, experience from the past 30 years of public goods-based agricultural policies in the UK and across the EU shows that rather than protecting or enhancing the environment, this approach only accelerates the race to the bottom for farming standards. Here’s why.</p>
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<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/agriculture-bill-heres-what-it-means-for-farming-and-the-environment-after-brexit-130091">Agriculture Bill: here's what it means for farming and the environment after Brexit</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>1. These payments are carrots, but we need sticks</h2>
<p>The public goods approach is based on landowners voluntarily providing environmental services in exchange for a subsidy. However, other subsidies are also on offer. The agriculture bill indicates that subsidies could be awarded for “improving productivity,” without necessarily providing public goods. </p>
<p>The most cost-effective way to increase productivity is often to rely on harmful <a href="https://www.pan-europe.info/old/Resources/Briefings/Pesticides_and_the_loss_of_biodiversity.pdf">pesticides</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/17/uk-has-nearly-800-livestock-mega-farms-investigation-reveals">intensive animal farming</a>, because these approaches reduce labour costs. These ecologically destructive practices would not only be permitted, but potentially rewarded in future policy. </p>
<p>Even <a href="https://www.fwi.co.uk/farm-life/agricultural-ancillary-careers-varied-exciting-satisfying">activities</a> such as running consultancies and farm auctions could be eligible for subsidies, so it really isn’t the case that farmers have to be producing public goods to receive public money.</p>
<p>On top of this, the most environmentally destructive farms do not need any public subsidies. <a href="https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-07-17/megafarms-uk-intensive-farming-meat">Megafarms</a>, which are among the most resource-intensive and polluting farms, tend to be profitable without any financial assistance – so for them, public goods subsidies are irrelevant. </p>
<p>Regulation is needed to prevent environmentally destructive practices. Instead of this stick, the public goods approach provides a carrot which not all farms will go for.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345029/original/file-20200701-159820-4uws2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345029/original/file-20200701-159820-4uws2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345029/original/file-20200701-159820-4uws2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345029/original/file-20200701-159820-4uws2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345029/original/file-20200701-159820-4uws2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345029/original/file-20200701-159820-4uws2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345029/original/file-20200701-159820-4uws2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Subsidies could still support intensive animal agriculture under the agriculture bill.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/farm-pigs-180973562">QiuJu Song/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Unlikely to change farming practices</h2>
<p>Farmers or land managers do not necessarily need to be producing food to receive public goods subsidies. This might result in the creation of more wildflower meadows or rewilded areas in England and Wales, but it would leave the majority of food to be produced in environmentally destructive ways. </p>
<p>This is because it is likely that relatively less profitable farms would opt for rewilding, while more profitable but less ecologically sensitive farms, either at home or abroad, would pick up the shortfall in food production. </p>
<p>If we care about the environment, then we must consider our ecological footprint across the entire food system.</p>
<h2>3. Pockets of habitat don’t work for wildlife</h2>
<p>You may still think that it’s worth creating more wildflower meadows despite the flaws in our food system. While there are certainly benefits in conserving or rewilding some of the land, we now know that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4124667?seq=1">our landscape is a mosaic of interlinked habitats</a>. </p>
<p>If parts of that mosaic are inhospitable to insects, birds and other wildlife, such as places where industrial farming practices continue, then these species will still suffer, even when habitats are created in other areas. This is because many of these creatures need to be able to migrate across entire landscapes.</p>
<p>Pesticides and pollutants such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/15/ammonia-emissions-rise-air-pollutants-fall-new-government-statistics">ammonia</a> contaminate both the <a href="https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/aqeg/2800829_Agricultural_emissions_vfinal2.pdf">air</a> and <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmenvaud/656/65605.htm">water</a> far beyond a farm’s borders, while also <a href="https://theconversation.com/nitrogen-fertilisers-are-incredibly-efficient-but-they-make-climate-change-a-lot-worse-127103">contributing to climate change</a>.</p>
<p>Trying to save wildlife on one patch of land while other areas are still dedicated to industrial agriculture simply doesn’t work for biodiversity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345023/original/file-20200701-159828-102zlxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345023/original/file-20200701-159828-102zlxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345023/original/file-20200701-159828-102zlxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345023/original/file-20200701-159828-102zlxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345023/original/file-20200701-159828-102zlxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345023/original/file-20200701-159828-102zlxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345023/original/file-20200701-159828-102zlxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Creating more wildflower meadows won’t offset the environmental impacts of industrial farming.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/UqJsmLA52Qc">Stephan Eickschen/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Subsidies will go for low-hanging fruit</h2>
<p>The public goods approach isn’t new. The UK and EU have run agri-environmental schemes based on the public goods model since the 1990s. These have compensated farmers on the basis of “income foregone” – or the income gap between their normal business operations and those which produce public goods. </p>
<p>Because the income farmers forego when they make the switch is much greater for intensive producers operating on high-quality agricultural land, subsidies have, historically, targeted the less productive and more marginal producers (such as farms in the hills and uplands), because it is cheaper for the government. </p>
<p>This has left intensive, environmentally destructive farms untouched.</p>
<h2>5. No action on causes of unsustainable farming</h2>
<p>Farmers currently need to cut costs ruthlessly to remain competitive. Mechanisation, large-scale operations, monocropping and the use of chemicals are largely substitutes for more <a href="https://www.agricology.co.uk/matter-scale-report-published">labour-intensive ecological approaches</a>. </p>
<p>To address these competitive pressures, we need more radical changes, along the lines of land reform and trade regulation.</p>
<p><a href="https://viacampesina.org/en/struggle-for-agrarian-reform-and-social-changes-in-the-rural-areas/">Land reform</a> can ensure it isn’t competitiveness that enables someone to acquire or keep land, but rather the amount of societal benefit they can provide in the form of healthy food and ecosystems. This would be a genuine commitment to the public good.</p>
<p>Better trade rules are needed so that our farmers are not forced to compete with farmers operating with lower environmental or welfare standards elsewhere. Unfortunately, an amendment to the bill to this effect was <a href="https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/fight-goes-on-over-food-standards-say-farm-leaders">rejected</a>.</p>
<p>We know how to produce food in ecologically sound ways. Agricultural markets as they currently exist will not support this, and the public goods approach does nothing to address it. While the rhetoric sounds good, environmentalists must not fall for this red herring.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141413/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elise Wach is a co-founder of Frome Field to Fork, which produces ecological food on the outskirts of Frome, Somerset. She is also a Research Advisor at the Institute of Development Studies.
Previously, Elise has received funding from the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation and the New Field Foundation for research related to agroecological food systems in England. She has also participated in the International Social Science Council project on Transitions to Sustainability which included a component in England related to agroecology.
</span></em></p>
Public money for public goods sounds great, but the reality could look very different.
Elise Wach, Doctoral Researcher (CAWR), Research Advisor (Institute of Development Studies),, Coventry University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/137206
2020-05-06T11:46:19Z
2020-05-06T11:46:19Z
Mountain bikers can strengthen the connection between humans, nature and recreational space
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330757/original/file-20200427-145553-13rya49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C19%2C4199%2C2805&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/red-kite-afternoon-sun-389511697">shutterstock/1000 Words</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Lockdown and socialising restrictions have led to many people increasingly appreciating the great outdoors. In many areas there has been a <a href="https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/news/scotland/sharp-increase-in-number-of-people-cycling-during-lockdown/">sharp increase</a> in the number of people out cycling and walking every day. </p>
<p>Some cyclists, though, have <a href="https://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/news/people/derbyshire-cyclist-experiencing-much-more-abuse-lockdown-started-2550113">reported receiving abuse</a>. This tension between people on bikes and people walking isn’t just restricted to urban areas. In recent years, mountain bikers have reported being verbally confronted and maliciously targeted through <a href="https://www.pinkbike.com/news/sheffields-steel-city-downhill-track-has-been-sabotaged.html">trail sabotage</a> – with traps constructed out of <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/booby-traps-putting-lives-of-mountain-bikers-at-risk-6dpzb2dp2">nails</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-52380893">metal or barbed wire</a> and fishing line. </p>
<p>These attacks indicate that there is a <a href="https://www.outdoorrecreation.org.uk/stories/where-does-mountain-biking-belong-a-tale-of-two-outdoors/">negative perception of mountain bikers among some in the UK</a>. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/11745398.2003.10600931">Research</a>, for example, shows many people feel mountain bikers have a <a href="https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/publications/Mountain-biking-in-Scotland.pdf">general disregard for members of the public</a>, and that groups of mountain bikers may cause damage to plants and wildlife – even though <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/11745398.2003.10600931">evidence doesn’t fully support this</a>. It also shows how deeply entrenched views are about leisure activities deemed “appropriate” in outdoor spaces.</p>
<h2>Rights of way</h2>
<p>Part of the problem is that in the UK, outdoor recreation is subject to different types of legislation, the most recent of which is the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/open-access-land-management-rights-and-responsibilities">Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000</a>. This gives right of access to land marked as “open country” or registered common land. This land is then divided further into footpaths, bridleways, byways open to all traffic and restricted byways. Footpaths being reserved exclusively for activities that take place on foot and bridleways allowing for wider recreational use – such as horse riding and mountain biking.</p>
<p>As of 2020 open access land accounts for only <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/15/tresspass-trap-law-land-travelling-people-rights">10% of all land in England and Wales</a>. And bridleways and byways - the only places where mountain biking is officially sanctioned - represent a small <a href="https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/article/20191029-Peak-District-MTB-launches-%E2%80%9822-%E2%80%99-campaign--0">part</a> of that. </p>
<p>The reason for this is that in the UK, rights of way are negotiated between the land owner and local councils. But these negotiations <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273127544_Mountain_Bike_Access_to_the_Countryside">have been shown</a> to be heavily influenced by stereotypes – often with a view that mountain bikers cause environmental damage and major wear and tear to tracks. This is in spite of evidence indicating the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/11745398.2003.10600931">comparatively small levels of erosion</a> and disruption caused by off road cyclists. </p>
<p>It is perhaps for this reason that 74% of cyclists in a <a href="https://www.cyclinguk.org/press-release/2017-02-15/first-road-cycling-report-gives-unique-insight-uk-scene">recent survey</a> described current rights of way as “unsuitable”. </p>
<h2>Mountain biker’s experiences</h2>
<p>We recently carried out a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02604027.2019.1698234">research</a> project to look at the relationship between mountain bikers, nature and their use of space. And we too found that many mountain bikers find access laws confusing and contradictory. </p>
<p>One person we spoke to described feeling pressured to use a bridleway on a rainy day when they knew it was more muddy and damaged than an alternative route, while another told us how a bridleway had transformed into a footpath without warning – leaving her with no choice but to continue. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B_LGSyMlYuv/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Riders also told us they are often made to feel unwelcome in the countryside – even when riding on designated bridleways and sanctioned mountain bike trails. Riders explained how they have come across bin bags full of household waste scattered across trails, strategically placed dog faeces on jumps, or healthy trees being forcibly relocated to obstruct the movements of riders. </p>
<h2>Nature appreciation</h2>
<p>As part of our research, we also spoke with people who build mountain bike trails to get an understanding of their perceived impact on the countryside and their adherence to access laws. And we found that those who create the trails are often more connected to the landscape than people think.</p>
<p>Indeed, many of the people we spoke with take part in community litter picks, work on behalf of conservation charities like the National Trust, and help to support <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2012/apr/26/steel-city-downhill-race-cycling-wildlife">local wildlife initiatives</a>.</p>
<p>We also found that trail builders <a href="http://peakdistrictmtb.org/event/dig-days-spring-2018-trail-maintenance-schedule/">develop a connection</a> with the objects they use (rocks, water and dirt) to build a rideable and sustainable trail. At the same time, they also appreciate that use of these objects may not always go to plan. For instance, water can make it easier to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02604027.2019.1698234">dig and sculpt dirt</a>, but rain can also destroy built features. Rocks can be fun to ride, but also dangerous for less capable riders. This leaves trail builders with a keen understanding of the “power” of nature, which can help sustain positive attitudes towards the environment.</p>
<p>In this way, our research suggests that in an age of growing uncertainty regarding our environmental future, there is much to learn from mountain bikers and trail builders on the fragile connections between humans, nature and recreational space. </p>
<p>After all, the countryside is there for everyone to share, and mountain bike trails can help people to get outdoors and active. They can also form part of the surrounding landscape – and as our research shows, trail builders play a big role in helping to maintain the upkeep and accessibility of such sites. </p>
<p>Ultimately, natural spaces must be available to everyone, not just those whose outdoor activities are deemed “acceptable” enough.</p>
<p>*<em>This piece was updated on Tuesday 19 May 2020 to include additional detail on how land is divided for use</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137206/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jim Cherrington does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Our research suggests there is much to learn from mountain bikers on the fragile connections between humans and nature.
Jim Cherrington, Senior Lecturer, sport sociology, Sheffield Hallam University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/118287
2019-06-04T13:10:33Z
2019-06-04T13:10:33Z
Hunting ammo: Britain’s shooters less divided on a lead ban than expected
<p>Lead is a toxic metal and for that reason it has been removed from petrol, paints and drinking water pipes. But it remains popular in the manufacture of bullets and shot for game hunting and target shooting, despite the effects it can have on wildlife and the risks it could have to human health.</p>
<p>In the UK, lead shot has long since been outlawed for use over wetlands, as grain-eating ducks and geese would mistake the small shot for seeds and grit. Yet it is still used throughout the countryside for other forms of hunting. While research from within the UK is scarce, evidence from elsewhere suggests that birds who feed on grains over fields can <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263045880_Ingested_shot_and_tissue_lead_concentrations_in_mourning_doves">collect and eat this lead shot</a>. Also, predators and scavenger species such as crows and raptors can <a href="http://oxfordleadsymposium.info/">accumulate lead and die</a> thanks to feeding on lead ingested by their prey, or game that was shot but not recovered. This, in turn, harms recovering populations of birds of prey such as red kites.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277935/original/file-20190604-69059-1swfmji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277935/original/file-20190604-69059-1swfmji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277935/original/file-20190604-69059-1swfmji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277935/original/file-20190604-69059-1swfmji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277935/original/file-20190604-69059-1swfmji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277935/original/file-20190604-69059-1swfmji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277935/original/file-20190604-69059-1swfmji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277935/original/file-20190604-69059-1swfmji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A selection of the alternatives to lead shotgun ammunition, including steel, tungsten and bismuth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tom Cameron</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To put this in perspective, if a commercial shooting estate were to offer a single day hunting pheasant with an expected bag of 200 birds and the hunters were half decent shots, they might expect a 1:3 kill to cartridge ratio. Using a standard game load of 32 grams of No. 5 lead shot, each cartridge containing around 248 pellets, that represents just over 25kg of lead shot. In the UK upwards of 30m game birds are released each year, with about half of these being shot and bagged and some being wounded and lost or die from other causes. While we could argue about how best to estimate the amount of lead spread in the UK countryside – it is clear that it’s a lot.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1079662439250182149"}"></div></p>
<p>Some conservation organisations, along with campaigners like Chris Packham and <a href="https://markavery.info/2017/12/01/ban-lead-ammunition/">Mark Avery</a>, have lead shot in their sight. With evidence that some commercial hunters are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/nov/10/ducks-lead-shot">not sticking to the current laws</a> the pressure has been building on shooting organisations to rise to the challenge. Unfortunately this has not happened, and instead the call for a ban on lead ammunition has been received with scepticism and as a general attack on shooting and hunting.</p>
<p>Some of this scepticism is borne out of a view that UK-based hunting is unique, with a focus on old “sporting guns” and “driven” pheasants – a form of collective hunting where some hunters flush birds with dogs forward to waiting guns. There is a a belief that non-lead shot is not a fit replacement for this style of hunting, and while ballistic tests suggest otherwise it could just be people dont want to change and like using old guns that cannot be used with modern shot ammunition. </p>
<p>The organisations who represent UK hunters and shooters could not be more clear that they support the status quo of <a href="https://basc.org.uk/lead/the-lead-ammunition-group-a-briefing-for-members/">no further regulation</a>. Fair enough, perhaps, but it does point to a lack of belief in what is now a robust body of evidence of lead impacts on wildlife.</p>
<h2>What hunters themselves think</h2>
<p>However, a new study published in the British Ecological Society journal <a href="https://besjournals.pericles-prod.literatumonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/pan3.30">People & Nature</a> does not focus on the views of hunting and conservation organisations, or vocal personalities on social media. Instead, it uses quantitative social sciences to examine the diversity of experiences and views on hunting ammunition among UK hunters. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277936/original/file-20190604-69083-1094og2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277936/original/file-20190604-69083-1094og2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277936/original/file-20190604-69083-1094og2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277936/original/file-20190604-69083-1094og2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277936/original/file-20190604-69083-1094og2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277936/original/file-20190604-69083-1094og2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277936/original/file-20190604-69083-1094og2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277936/original/file-20190604-69083-1094og2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greylag geese ‘harvested’ by the author with a magnum non-lead steel shot cartridge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tom Cameron</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Across that diversity, two statistically significant groups emerged. The first is the “status quo” group, who the hunting organisations champion. This group is reluctant to switch, is not convinced about the suitability of lead-shot alternatives and is not convinced by the science that birds suffer and die from spent shotgun ammunition. </p>
<p>The second group was “open to change”, and some conservation organisations and activists would have you believe this group does not exist. This group accepted that lead is likely to poison wild birds and wildlife, were very happy to use non-lead ammunition and importantly did not feel that any phase-out of lead hunting ammunition would lead to the demise of shooting and hunting in the UK.</p>
<p>The two groups did agree on a few things, including that lead is indeed toxic, which means there appears to be more scope to resolve the conflict than the recent breakdown of <a href="http://www.leadammunitiongroup.org.uk">government-convened talks</a> would have us believe.</p>
<p>Questions remain over what role the “open to change” group and hunting organisations could play in reaching out to the “status quo” to achieve a future with less lead and more respect for quarry species. In the meantime this new research is to be welcomed for taking a less polemic bridge-building approach to resolving conflicts in the British countryside.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118287/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Cameron is a paying member, on a personal basis, of the British Association of Shooting and Conservation in addition to several wildlife and conservation membership organisation.</span></em></p>
Thousands of tonnes of lead are dumped in the British countryside each year.
Tom Cameron, Lecturer in Aquatic Community Ecology, University of Essex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/110454
2019-01-30T13:30:09Z
2019-01-30T13:30:09Z
No wonder fox hunting is still prevalent – the ban is designed to fail British wildlife
<p>Despite overwhelming public opposition and a longstanding ban, fox hunting shows <a href="https://www.league.org.uk/news/eight-reports-of-kills-by-fox-hunts-since-boxing-day">no signs of abating</a> in the UK. The 2018 hunt season alone saw <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hunts-illegal-hundreds-autumn-season-figures-animal-rights-hunting-ban-england-wales-a8286336.html">550 reports of illegal hunting</a>, though these figures only represent known incidents. </p>
<p>In 2014 it was found that <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/countryside/11313805/250000-people-turn-out-to-support-Boxing-Day-hunts.html">250,000 fox hunters attended Boxing Day hunts</a> across the UK. In 2019, so far, at least <a href="https://www.league.org.uk/news/greene-king-urged-to-ban-fox-hunt-meets">21 foxes have been killed by the hunt and 151 incidents</a> of illegal hunting have been reported since the season began on November 1.</p>
<p>The Hunting Act, which prohibited hunting foxes and wild mammals with dogs, was approved by the UK’s parliament in 2003 with <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1846577.stm">362 MPs in favour and 156 against</a>. The following year it became law. In 2017, the British people were surveyed on whether they continue to support the ban on fox hunting and the result was resounding – the highest margin ever recorded on the matter - <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/attitudes-hunting-2017">85% thought fox hunting should remain prohibited</a>.</p>
<p>So if the ban is entering its 15th year, why is fox hunting still happening?</p>
<h2>A legal let-down</h2>
<p>This question is answered in the Hunting Act itself, particularly the manner in which it “outlaws” fox hunting. <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/37/section/1">Article 1</a> states that a “person commits an offence if he hunts a wild mammal with a dog”. But the provision continues: “Unless his hunting is exempt.”</p>
<p>Herein lies the deceit of the Hunting Act, for it lists a total of nine reasons <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/37/schedule/1">a hunt may flout the general ban</a>. One of the more commonly invoked exemptions maintains that it is legal to hunt foxes if they pose a danger to livestock, game, crops or fisheries. As such, fox hunting advocates would have us believe that Roald Dahl’s tale of Fantastic Mr Fox and his endeavours to outwit farmers is all too common a curse in rural communities. </p>
<p>This remains nothing more than a smokescreen to defy the ban. Research has shown that foxes naturally control rabbit populations that if left unchecked, would <a href="https://www.gwct.org.uk/research/long-term-monitoring/national-gamebag-census/mammal-bags-comprehensive-overviews/interpretation-of-ngc-trends-rabbit/">cause significant economic harm to farmers</a>. The UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) also advises against controlling foxes, and instead favours strengthening protection around livestock to <a href="https://www.discoverwildlife.com/people/do-we-really-need-to-control-foxes-in-the-uk/">guard against natural predation</a>.</p>
<p>Another commonly used exemption exploits a loophole around flushing foxes out to help birds of prey hunt. This has seen fox hunters disguising their true intentions by <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p06w6r99">taking birds of prey along with them</a> without ever letting them loose. </p>
<p>There is also the dubious practise of <a href="http://www.countryside-alliance.org/countryside-alliance-guide-trail-hunting/">“manufactured” trail hunting</a> in which hounds are supposed to follow an artificial scent trail with no animal chased or killed. In reality, hunt organisers use actual fox scent and lay routes deliberately close to where foxes are known to live, meaning they quickly become the subject of a hunt. Trail hunting is again an attempt to <a href="https://www.league.org.uk/trail-hunting">hide the true intentions of those that wish to continue fox hunting</a>.</p>
<p>Monitoring and gathering accurate information on all this to help prosecute offenders is a dangerous task, with members of the public often exposed to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/fox-hunting-uk-britain-mobs-driving-communities-apart-a7948516.html">insults, intimidation and threats</a> from hunters.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z5yw-heybH8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The inadequate Hunting Act and the nefarious practises of hunt organisers mean fox hunting endures in England and Wales. Scotland too, offers no refuge for foxes and the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2002/6/contents">Protection of Wild Mammals Act 2002</a> provides similar loopholes that allow hunting to continue.</p>
<p>Setting aside the cruelty of fox hunting, evidence from the Breeding Bird Survey suggests red fox numbers have <a href="https://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/bbs/latest-results/mammal-monitoring">declined by 41% since 1995</a>. Introducing a complete hunting ban is more essential than ever to protect the UK’s foxes.</p>
<h2>A fox-centric approach</h2>
<p>The Hunting Act has humans as its focus by specifying how people can bend the law’s provisions to their circumstances. Despite its prevalence in much of environmental law, this human-centric idea is entirely the wrong approach. Any future legislative efforts need to place foxes, and other mammals, at the centre of legislation.</p>
<p>Foxes must be protected for their own right, and a blanket ban on hunting, absent any exemptions, is the only way to safeguard populations. <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-fox-hunting-illegal-prison-sentences-boxing-day-hunt-sue-hayman-hounds-a8698871.html">Severe penalties must also be included</a>, to ensure that those already willing to flout the law will rethink their actions.</p>
<p>The likelihood of such a move materialising during this parliament is slim, however. Prime Minister Theresa May offered a free vote to repeal the Hunting Act during the 2017 election but <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/07/theresa-may-drops-manifesto-promise-to-allow-foxhunting-vote">withdrew the pledge after her disastrous election result</a>.</p>
<p>It’s essential that campaigns for stronger anti-hunting laws highlight how widespread resistance to diluting the ban is. The failures of the existing ban endanger foxes and betray the wishes of a majority of the public. Any update to the Hunting Act must crack down on those who think they are above the law.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ash Murphy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Fox hunting has been banned in the UK since 2004 – so why is it still happening?
Ash Murphy, PhD Researcher, Keele University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/95535
2018-04-26T09:56:05Z
2018-04-26T09:56:05Z
Has the National Trust forgotten the radical countryside?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216467/original/file-20180426-175035-4yefd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mam Tor, Peak District.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-hikers-walk-along-great-ridge-547057717?src=6Dah0_2nGxkTq0TYP41VjQ-1-63">Muessig/Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In her first interview since taking the helm, new director-general of the National Trust <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/press-release/national-trust-names-its-new-director-general">Hilary McGrady</a> has said she wants things to get “radical” at the charity, by looking to more urban conservation. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43819762">McGrady told the BBC</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want to reach more people, and more people live in urban areas. The days of walking in to one of our beautiful houses and saying a family lived here, that’s not going to do it.</p>
<p>We need to think about what’s relevant – why would someone in the middle of Birmingham say that’s interesting? What is it in Birmingham that they would get more value from?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The future McGrady sees is one where the trust expands its conservation role into cities by working with organisations including community groups and local authorities. But who is to say that the countryside can’t be just as radical?</p>
<h2>Don’t tell the Dowager</h2>
<p>Surprisingly, McGrady might find an unlikely ally in Downton Abbey character the Dowager Countess of Grantham. In <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4581398/?ref_=ttep_ep6">a 2015 episode</a> that saw Downton’s doors open to the public for a fundraiser day, the dowager countess poured scorn: “Roll up! Visit an actual dining room complete with a real life table and chairs!” She would have called for a stiff drink had she learned what was ahead – in 2017 alone, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41361095">24.5m visitors</a> paid to tour a National Trust property. </p>
<p>Downton doesn’t show us the National Trust, but plotlines about fading grandeur and financial ruin fill us in on the crises that befell country houses after the First World War. Many a threatened house ended up in National Trust care, including <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/knole">Knole</a>, and <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/basildon-park">Basildon Park</a> – home to some of Downton’s interior sets. <a href="https://www.highclerecastle.co.uk">Highclere Castle</a>, the “real” Downton Abbey, is still in private hands, but open to the public in summer.</p>
<p>But was stockpiling country houses really in the national interest? Back in the 1980s, the academic and writer Patrick Wright railed against preserving country piles. For him, the “heritage industry” was deeply conservative and out of touch. He might be pleased to see Hilary McGrady finally catching up. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=214&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=214&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=214&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216460/original/file-20180426-175074-72le1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Knole House, Kent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/knole-house-sevenoaks-kent-england-86307922?src=HzuCwreUjFZf-XH0hR3FpA-1-23">Standa Riha/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, as a rural researcher, I’m troubled by how McGrady’s idea of “radical” means “urban”. She’s talking Birmingham, not Betws-y-Coed. It’s as if nothing radical could happen in the countryside, and nothing countryside could matter to city-dwellers. </p>
<p>Imagine telling that to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/apr/17/kinder-scout-mass-trespass-anniversary">Kinder Scout trespassers</a>. 86 years ago this week, they claimed the right to roam against violent landowner opposition. Many trespassers came from the nearby cities of Manchester and Sheffield. They saw in the countryside not just rights worth fighting for, but a refuge from industrial smoke and graft. Some went to jail for the cause – and are <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/kinder-edale-and-the-dark-peak/trails/kinder-scout-mass-trespass-walk">commemorated by the National Trust</a>. </p>
<h2>Rural radicals</h2>
<p>Though the dowager countess would have released the hounds, at least one Downton resident might have joined in on a mass trespass. Kitchen maid Daisy cheered on the Abbey’s open day: “I think all these houses should be open to the public. What gives them the right to keep people out?”</p>
<p>Rights and justice have spurred on many a rural radical. The 19th century <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/">Luddites are now wrongly remembered</a> as stick-in-the-muds, but their fight was for <a href="http://protesthistory.org.uk/moors/rural-resistance-and-the-swing-riots">livelihoods and labour rights</a>. They met out on the moors, where non-conformist preachers – radically outside the stuffy established church – also roused crowds who gathered from miles around. A few centuries earlier, non-conformism led the <a href="https://www.wcml.org.uk/our-collections/protest-politics-and-campaigning-for-change/gerrard-winstanley-and-the-english-diggers/">Diggers</a> to their radical vision for farming common land. Fast forward to our own time and a piece of former commons was reclaimed as the <a href="http://www.greenhamwpc.org.uk">Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216462/original/file-20180426-175035-1ka1x9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216462/original/file-20180426-175035-1ka1x9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216462/original/file-20180426-175035-1ka1x9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216462/original/file-20180426-175035-1ka1x9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216462/original/file-20180426-175035-1ka1x9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216462/original/file-20180426-175035-1ka1x9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216462/original/file-20180426-175035-1ka1x9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216462/original/file-20180426-175035-1ka1x9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Worm’s Head, south Wales.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rhossili-wales-september-6-2016-old-622504568?src=6Dah0_2nGxkTq0TYP41VjQ-1-13">Tanasut Chindasuthi/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We needn’t just look back through history for radical rural goings-on. Too often, the countryside gets imagined as though it is a kind of surviving past, a bit simple, and more prone to outbreaks of Morris dancing than anything actually interesting. I suspect this is why Hilary McGrady thinks that a more relevant National Trust must be a more urban one. A real radical plan could be quite otherwise. </p>
<p>The countryside is and can be innovative. Through the <a href="http://rural-urban.eu">ROBUST</a> project, I’m joining with colleagues from across Europe to rethink the narrow notion that if cities are economic engines, then the countryside is just a carriage pulled along for the ride. We’re investigating better and more beneficial interconnections between rural and urban – even the middle of Birmingham. </p>
<p>I take a cue from another radical, William Morris. There’s probably some of the Victorian designer’s wallpaper in Downton, and the dowager countess would have approved of his soft furnishings. But he would have found more to talk about downstairs with Daisy. For Morris, utopia wasn’t back in a staid rural past or ahead in a science fiction city: he saw a <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3261">radical rural future</a>. Perhaps a radical National Trust might be just as visionary.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95535/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bryonny Goodwin-Hawkins receives funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 programme. </span></em></p>
New director-general Helen McGrady is looking to cities for a ‘radical’ future at the National Trust.
Bryonny Goodwin-Hawkins, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Geography, Aberystwyth University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/89432
2018-01-09T14:55:51Z
2018-01-09T14:55:51Z
How to stop the humble hedgehog disappearing from British gardens and countryside forever
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200676/original/file-20180103-26145-1k3gyfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Where have all the hedgehogs gone?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the humble hedgehog was crowned “<a href="http://www.discoverwildlife.com/british-wildlife/britains-national-species-revealed">Britain’s national species</a>” in a BBC Wildlife Magazine poll and “<a href="https://www.rsb.org.uk/news/14-news/1649-hedgehog-wins-favourite-uk-mammal-poll">Britain’s favourite mammal</a>” in a Royal Society of Biology poll, no doubt, sentimentalised memories of Beatrix Potter’s <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tale-Tiggy-Winkle-Beatrix-Potter-Originals/dp/0723247757">The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle</a>, played a role in swaying public opinion. </p>
<p>Ecologist and author Hugh Warwick <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4thqtHG8qfMzfhhKjB8kyLf/how-beatrix-potter-is-helping-to-save-britains-hedgehogs">explained how</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Beatrix Potter managed to sprinkle some magic over the hedgehog, transforming it into the irresistible companion of our gardens. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But despite their popularity, hedgehogs are now something of a rare sight in British gardens – and are in fact <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/06/hedgehogs-now-a-rare-garden-sight-as-british-populations-continue-to-decline">disappearing at the same rate as tigers worldwide</a>. Rural hedgehogs in the UK have halved in number since 2000, while urban hedgehogs have declined by a third. More widely, UK hedgehog numbers have dropped from an estimated 30m in the 1950s to under a million today. </p>
<p>So what’s to blame? We are. Well, the changing lifestyles and tastes of people, to be precise. Farming methods have changed dramatically over recent years – becoming increasingly intensive. This has led to the removal of many hedges, an important habitat for the British hedgehog. It has also had negative implications on <a href="https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/about-hedgehogs/diet/">their main diet</a> of worms, beetles, slugs, caterpillars, earwigs and millipedes.</p>
<p>It is also a fact that badgers eat hedgehogs and also compete with them for food. The <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-00378-3">estimated badger population</a> in England and Wales has risen from 250,000 in the 1980s to 485,000 in 2017 and various <a href="https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2006.00078.x">studies</a> have shown the presence of <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0095477">badgers</a> can have a negative impact on <a href="https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Hedgehog-10-year-strategy-master-document-v5.pdf">hedgehog density</a>.</p>
<p>In 2018, the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-30130-4">first field-based national survey of hedgehogs</a> found:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hedgehog occupancy was low (22% nationally), and significantly negatively related to badger sett density and positively related to the built environment. Hedgehogs were also absent from 71% of sites that had no badger setts, indicating that large areas of the rural landscape are not occupied by hedgehogs.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-30130-4">The authors of the study concluded</a>: “future work must…focus on identifying the exact biological mechanism(s) by which badgers negatively impact hedgehogs, and how these impacts can be managed effectively to promote the co-existence of these species”.</p>
<p>The country’s roads are also busier. <a href="http://www.mammal.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/RoadDeaths2001Report.pdf">Hedgehog road deaths</a> are estimated to exceed 100,000 a year in Britain. Road networks also cut through habitats leaving hedgehogs isolated, while our gardens are increasingly becoming more humanised. Lawns have been turned into tarmac for cars, foliage has been torn out, decking added, garden borders peppered with slug pellets, and hedges replaced by impenetrable fences and walls. All of which mean that hedgehogs are not only losing their habitats, but also their chances of survival.</p>
<h2>Hedgehog friendly gardens</h2>
<p>The plight is such that the <a href="https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/">British Hedgehog Preservation Society</a> and <a href="https://ptes.org/campaigns/hedgehogs/">People’s Trust for Endangered Species</a> launched <a href="https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/about-hedgehogs/how-many-hedgehogs-are-left/">Hedgehog Street</a> in 2011 to encourage people to champion the species and its habitat. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200680/original/file-20180103-26169-1iclnn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200680/original/file-20180103-26169-1iclnn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200680/original/file-20180103-26169-1iclnn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200680/original/file-20180103-26169-1iclnn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200680/original/file-20180103-26169-1iclnn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200680/original/file-20180103-26169-1iclnn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200680/original/file-20180103-26169-1iclnn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200680/original/file-20180103-26169-1iclnn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hedgehog feeding station.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/hedgehogsociety/photos/a.442940415835.239724.273196350835/273201305835/?type=3&theater">British Hedgehog Preservation Society Facebook</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show in 2014, designer <a href="https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/hedgehog-friendly-garden-hampton-court-palace/article/1304592">Tracy Foster</a> made <a href="https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/hamptoncourt/">Hedgehog Street a reality</a>, creating a summer garden to demonstrate “how neighbours can work together to help hedgehogs by providing routes through garden boundaries”. Sharing slogans such as “no one garden is enough” and “make a hole, make a difference”, the hedgehog haven won People’s Choice for Best Small Garden and the coveted RHS Gold medal. The first <a href="http://www.housebeautiful.co.uk/garden/news/a1608/permanent-hedgehog-street-garden-wildlife-rhs/">permanent Hedgehog Street garden</a> was unveiled at RHS Harlow Carr, in North Yorkshire in April 2017.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200678/original/file-20180103-26157-1074ykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200678/original/file-20180103-26157-1074ykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200678/original/file-20180103-26157-1074ykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200678/original/file-20180103-26157-1074ykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200678/original/file-20180103-26157-1074ykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200678/original/file-20180103-26157-1074ykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200678/original/file-20180103-26157-1074ykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200678/original/file-20180103-26157-1074ykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hedgehog highways.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/made-hole-fence-hedgehogs-yet/">Hedgehog Street/www.hedgehogstreet.org</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To make your garden a haven for hedgehogs doesn’t take a lot. Log piles, compost heaps, leaf piles, overgrown corners, wildflower patches, all help. As do gently sloping ponds, feeding stations, and specially made hedgehog houses. </p>
<p>But as “no single garden can offer everything they need”, make “holes for hogs” a community thing. Connect with your neighbours and think of your garden as a hedgehog highway – square holes in fences and walls – 13cm wide to be exact – allow for their safe passage. These changes can be made straight away, but be careful not to disturb hidden hedgehogs, as they hibernate until spring.</p>
<p>As well as ensuring there is hedgehog access in your garden, there are a wide range of small steps you can take to help save hedgehog lives. Checking compost heaps before digging with a fork, and checking long grass before using strimmers or mowers will stop horrific injuries. Moving piles of rubbish to a new site before burning and checking bonfires before lighting, will prevent deaths by burning. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"926559403117072384"}"></div></p>
<p>Keeping netting at a safe height will avoid tangling and starvation. Stopping (or reducing) the use of pesticides and slug pellets will stop (or reduce) poisoning. Providing an easy route out of ponds and pools will prevent drowning. And, responsibly disposing of litter will reduce hedgehogs getting <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-18195580">trapped in tins</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-34918950">rubber bands</a> and <a href="http://metro.co.uk/2017/12/06/throw-mcdonalds-rubbish-street-youre-responsible-harold-looking-like-7137932/">McFlurry lids</a>.</p>
<p>All of this is important, because the humble hedgehog is more fragile than its prickly exterior suggests. And if we want to continue experiencing their rustling and shuffling in the undergrowth, snuffles and snorts in the hedgerows, and foraging on the lawn before sunset, it is our responsibility to save them. </p>
<p>*<em>This article was updated Monday 18 May 2020 to look at badgers in terms of predation and competition</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89432/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Allen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Worldwide, hedgehogs are disappearing at the same rate as tigers.
Daniel Allen, Animal Geographer, Keele University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.