Month: September 2022

HALF OF EVERYTHING. "60% of over 3,000 species studied in the UK have declined over the past 50 years." https://lnkd.in/e8YUWEr View in LinkedIn

"HEDGEROWS provide the framework of the English countryside. In the form in which we know them in Britain, hedgerows exist in only a handful of other spots around the world...By providing abundant cover, hedgerows have made England's wildlife richer by far than that of other lands." https://lnkd.in/eEGs6ZT View in LinkedIn

"ANCIENT HEDGEROWS, which tend to be those which support the greatest diversity of plants and animals, are generally defined as those which were in existence before the Enclosure Acts, passed mainly between 1720 and 1840 in Britain." https://lnkd.in/ehWUhtW View in LinkedIn

DRASTIC LOSS. "Since 1945 there has been a drastic loss of hedgerows through removal and neglect throughout the UK, especially in eastern counties of England, which continues even now. It has been estimated that some 42% of the remaining British hedges, or about 154,000 km, are ancient and/or species-rich." https://lnkd.in/ehWUhtW View in LinkedIn

"A NEW AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION is underway. If allowed to proceed unhindered, it will transform the face of England." https://lnkd.in/eg8ti6k View in LinkedIn

SYSTEMATIC CHANGE. "Already a quarter of our hedgerows, 24 million hedgerow trees, thousands of acres of down and heathland, a third of our woods and hundred upon hundred of ponds, streams, marshes and flower-rich meadows have disappeared. They have been systematically eliminated by farmers." https://lnkd.in/eg8ti6k View in LinkedIn

GRUBBING OUT HEDGEROWS. "Today, however, our hedgerows are disappearing fast. Farmers removed a quarter of the hedgerows in England and Wales between 1946 and 1974, about 120,000 miles in all, or 4,500 miles a year." https://lnkd.in/eEGs6ZT View in LinkedIn

GRUBBING OUT HEDGEROWS. "The loss is continuing, as the hedgerow gets in the way of a wide range of new agricultural techniques." https://lnkd.in/eEGs6ZT View in LinkedIn

INDUSTRIAL FARMING. "In the 1950s and 1960s, it was on the arable lands of East Anglia and, to a lesser extent, on the mixed farming lands of southern England that most hedge removal was taking place." https://lnkd.in/eEGs6ZT View in LinkedIn

INDUSTRIAL FARMING. "Hedges were removed to create more cropland and to make way for the big new machines in which arable farmers were investing heavily." https://lnkd.in/eEGs6ZT View in LinkedIn