If the appolling Terrorim Bill goes through, protesters coho threaten to destroy, or destroy, GM crops, trill be faced with long prison sentences Outlook T he government's new Countryside and Rights of Way Bill takes a few faltering steps forward: and improvements in the protection of "Sites of Special Scientific Interest" - some of our top wildlife sites covering about 6% of Britain What fails to do is address any of the key issues: the conservation of biodiversity and scapes in development sustainable, healthy agriculture, or tryside with real opportunities for land-based work.
It step backwards, and farmers a new casy route to climinating troublesome rights of way.
All the pressure on our rights of way is from landowners secking deletion and diversion of are only created on a permissive basis which does not compromise future land values or COOTSTOOP Our countryside is increasingly dominated by ing ruling class it ever more efficiently for the profagribusiness, leisure or housing development, treat it as a preserved Shangri La of quaint villages, pony paddocks and land cruisers.
Whilst the Bill makes (commer cially worthiess, 1OU14H and moor, as well as heath, down and common, subject to a right to roam, there are many constraints built in which will size limit for accessible sites will cut out many heath and downland sites which have been fragmented and eroded by productivism. The use of existing data sets of eligible land, which are palpably inadequate, and conserva tive definitions of habitat eligibilit will noobie access campaiges in argument.
M ost importantly, the Bill excludes woodland from the categories of accessible land. Yet over vast midland and eastern the interesting countryside to have surfarming.
Furthermore, woodland is one of the most popular landscape types.
In West Sussex this will mean that increases in public access on the western Sussex Downs will be minimal. Similarly, access to riversides and lakesides has been blocked by the massive lobbying of coarse and game fishing interests.
The gorgeous chalk rivers and the rushy meres of Cheshire will remain barred to us.
In West Sussex more than 30 km of (of national landscape importance) and 20 km of the River Arun between Amberley and Billingshurst (much designated as SSSI) will remain forbidden to the River Rother almost all within the area future South Downs National Park.
Council for Wales has come out gainst future increases in access.
The approach they are taking mapping access areas under the Bill will exclude all outlying areas of qualifying habitat which are 108TH blocks. (Indeed, the cash-strapped CCW has recently had to stop much of its important conservation work, drastic lack Work on Biodiversity Action Plans has been dropped, because there is no statutory duty on the cow to acher these.
The government has nended inclusion of coastal land (including both cliffs shore) in a fixture extension of the much of this right to roam, though already has informal access. How much access actually achieve on the ground will depend on the fixture guerrilla war between them and farmers and landowners over whether particular sites qual No doubt, small neighbourhood organisations, urban groups, and with a radical programme (like The Land Is Ours) will be excluded from the "Access Forums"
the (mostly conserto be set up by vative) rural local authorities. many ce, like nose of apis fre like those and Berkshire, expect to benefit, we may get very La wildlife conservation Bill merely addresses Sonne nesses of the SSSI syssay about the wider countryside, where the majority of wildlife is to be found.
An increase in compulsory pur chase powers for SSST's subject to damage is long overdue, as are powers for English Nature to prevent The land is oursand increased powers of entry to SI's, and that" they should be given powers impose Management Schemes. measures will not address the fundamental problems of the SSSI assemblage. Most of the wonderful Pevensey Marshes, in Sussex, are protected by SSSi designation, instance, measures will not prevent the subtle but per vading damage caused by changes in the water regime, or water borne pollution.
English Nature will not have the resources or the political will to impose the necessary management regime on the nearby Firle Estate, whose neglect ancient, species-rich chalk grasslands (those thenged much of them into a rank have destroyed) has mess of harsh Tor Grass with little The government has offered no statutory protection to the whole local authority system of designated Local Wildlife Sites (or their equiralents), whose importance is often Many Local Wildlife Sites are is urban or urban fringe areas and desperately resources and protection against predatory development. They are often the most loved arcas, and are especially used by children and those with limited mobility.
The wider fabric of landscape fea- hedgerows, farmland trees, ponds, uncultivated corners well as the value of cultivated land itself- for birds, small mammals, invertebrates, or wasteland plantsis ignored in this Bill. Yet once common and much loved farmland birds, like sparrows, lapwings, and continue their crashing decline, which signals far broader losses of biodiversity:
'he BU Birds and Habitats Directives both require conserva tion measures for species and habitats in the wider countryside. and other countries such as the US, Australia and New Zealand, require the drawing up of "Action Plans" to save endangered species. No such mcasures are pio posed in the present Bill.
W the government will the key issucs or sanc and monopoly, and of a market-driven agriculture, in driving working people out of land-based employment, and of excluding urban people trom their rural heritage. The government even a rudi mentary tussle with the cultural power of landowners in refusing to Instead, the government proposes the loosening of planning law to actise cu key the Country Landowners Association), bungs some small change in the direction of producers, and urges them to respond more closely to their mar keting: Indeed, if the appalling Terrorism goes protestors who tarcaten to aesary, or destroy, GM crops, or who use to prevent habitat destruction will be faced with long In no way are we ever told that the farming crisis affects agriculture differentially - on class lines. It is farm workers, and workers in allied industries, such as abattoirs, processing and packing plants, farm suppliers, as well as all small and undercapitalised producers, who will go to the wall. The biggest producers, meanwhile, tinue their crazy intensification, and turn to new and lucrative forms of profit realisation, in leisure and built development.
Whilst we repeatedly W hear the painful stoout of business, we are not told the stories of farm workers made redundant. Yet farm workers iobs is even steeper than that of farm businesses.
In East Sussex, the number of farm workers iobs is now less than that of farmers themselves. And whilst repeated glossy magazine articles tell us of the plucky fight of farmers' wives to take on farm jobs vacated by sacked farm staft, we do not hear of the plight of farm workers' families forced into hardship by redundancy.
Indeed, though it is true that large numbers of farmers are going out of not true that large numbers of them are becoming bankrupt, given that most of them are sitting on large assets in land, whose value remains Ironically, the energy to push for a democratic, sustainable agriculture, and to dciend our whale ard reclaim our countryside, can only come from the 9u%% of folk who bou live in towns and cities. It's up to us to take the land back! Let there be 100 Kinder Scouts and Iwyford Downs!
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