Category: Uncategorized

BRITISH WILDLIFE has been iconic for its diversity and stability for generations of writers. But since Marion Shoard's book 'The Theft of the Countryside' in 1980, the general public had been largely unaware of enormous changes in our countryside, in terms of landscape. View in LinkedIn

INTENSIVE FARMING. "After the Second World War Two major changes came to farming in Britain. The first was new technology: immensely powerful new agricultural machines, chemicals and techniques.the second, even more important, was the economic pressure to use all this to the uttermost, to squeeze every last penny of profit from the land." https://lnkd.in/esig3Kt View in LinkedIn

FIVE PERCENT MEASURE. "We can report quantitative trends for only 5% of the 59,000 or so terrestrial and freshwater species in the UK, and for very few of the 8,500 marine species. Our knowledge is strongly biased towards vertebrates and we know little about the fortunes of many invertebrates and fungi." https://lnkd.in/egeTAuK View in LinkedIn

MISPLACED TRUST. "Farmers were respected and seen in the public mind as the eternal guardians of the countryside and its wildlife, and consequently excluded from the planning system and in no way bound by its constraints. As Mr Schwarzenegger would say: Big Mistake." https://lnkd.in/esig3Kt View in LinkedIn

FIVE PERCENT MEASURE. "Our ability to monitor the state of nature, and respond with appropriate conservation action, is hampered by a lack of knowledge on the trends of most of the UK’s plant and animal species." https://lnkd.in/egeTAuK View in LinkedIn

"FRESHWATER and wetland habitats – our ponds, lakes, rivers, streams, ditches, canals, reservoirs, reedbeds, fens and marshes – occupy just 3% of the UK’s land surface, but support around 10% of our species." https://lnkd.in/egeTAuK View in LinkedIn

INTENSIVE AGRICULTURE. "Modern agriculture tends to simplify the landscape, with larger machinery and more specialised farming systems taking over from traditional mixed farming methods. These changes have increased agricultural yields substantially, but they have also had unintended consequences for the environment." https://lnkd.in/egeTAuK View in LinkedIn

INTENSIVE AGRICULTURE. "Although there are still some farming systems that are of high value for nature, most of the changes listed below can be attributed to a drive to maximise yields." https://lnkd.in/egeTAuK View in LinkedIn

UK HABITAT LOSS. "An estimated 80% of all the UK’s lowland heathland has been lost since 1800. 94% of Britain’s lowland raised mires...were destroyed between 1800 and 1978. Most of those remaining have been damaged. 44% of Scotland’s internationally important blanket peat bog was lost to afforestation and drainage from the 1940s to the 1980s." https://lnkd.in/egeTAuK View in LinkedIn

UK HABITAT LOSS. "The area of lowland meadow in England and Wales declined by 97% between the 1930s and 1984 – a total loss of 64,000 sq km. The area of coppiced woodland fell by at least 90% from 1900 to 1970." Exceptional report. https://lnkd.in/egeTAuK View in LinkedIn