wharfe - Conserv@tion: Page 4

BAP's to become statutory

The government has agreed to give Biodiversity Action Plans, devised for 400 endangered and declining species from farmland birds to the common skate, the power of law. Official departments and local councils will have to take account of the Plans when making policy decisions.

Lord Whitty, junior Environment, Transport and the Regions Minister, undertook to introduce amendments at the report stage of the Bill. The move will be a major step forward in the battle to protect the rarer species.

Voters back the Bill

A poll carried out on behalf of the RSPB, reveals that 83 per cent of voters say it is important for the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill to become law before the next election. Voters want this Bill more than any other legislation in the current Parliamentary session.

The poll showed that respondents thought it most important that the Countryside Bill make it through the parliamentary process. The Freedom of Information Bill and Criminal Justice Bill also scored highly. These results show a remarkable similarity to a poll carried out by the RSPB last year which revealed that 81 per cent of swing voters said that they would be more inclined to vote Labour if the Government were to give greater protection to wildlife. The Countryside Bill would implement this manifesto commitment.

£1.6 billion for the countryside

The government announced a massive £1.6 billion aid package to restructure and modernise the farming industry last month.

The seven-year programme will see cash switched from propping up production to new schemes aimed at boosting the rural economy and promoting green farming practices. The money will go to existing schemes to enhance the farmed environment, plant or manage farm woodlands, convert to organic and support hill farming. New projects to aid marketing farm products, the establishment of energy crops and help for retraining in farming and forestry will also be established.

"The Government is committed to sustaining and enhancing the distinctive environment, economy and social fabric of the English countryside for the benefit of all," said Nick Brown, the Agriculture Secretary. The programme was drawn up across key Government departments and statutory bodies after talks between farmers and rural interest groups. It has now been agreed by the European Commission and only awaits the formal go-ahead.

The Programme includes a doubling, from £97m in 2000/01 to £197m in 2006/07 of funds for conserving and improving the landscape, wildlife and historic heritage of the countryside and aid for farmers converting to organic farming. This will mean more than £1bn on continuing the Environmentally Sensitive Area Scheme, and on expanding the Countryside Stewardship and Organic Farming schemes, with £140m of this for organics. From 2001, the new Hill Farm Allowance Scheme will help preserve the farmed upland environment and contribute to the maintenance of the social fabric of upland communities; a total of £239 million over 6 years.

England Rural Development Programme

Countryside funding shortfall

The autumn pre-Budget statement is thought to be bad news for the countryside, according to Richard Wakeford, the Countryside Agency's chief executive.

Mr Wakeford has warned senior staff that the agency was "having to be cautious about commitments" as a result of what he had learned about the Treasury spending round. In his memo he wrote: "We know that the countryside appears to have done very badly from the settlement. The Government have advised us that we may need to readjust our priorities because the additional elements are likely to be insufficient for all the Rural White Paper schemes."

Part of the reason for the shortfall is the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill, to be passed this autumn, which requires the agency to organise a mapping exercise to register four million acres over which there will be a right to roam.

Environment Agency funding boosted

Environment Minister Michael Meacher has announced a major increase in resources for the Environment Agency to help it carry out additional new duties.

In 2000/01, for example, the Agency will be spending a further £2 million on monitoring and tackling pollutants to groundwater and a further £1 million on improvements to the navigation infrastructure it owns on several major rivers. In 2001/02, a further £2 million will be dedicated to work to implement the Birds and Habitats Directive, to safeguard important wildlife sites, and additional resources will be made available to ongoing work to tackle pollution to air, land and water.

The Agency will receive a further £3.2 million grant from DETR in 2000/01; £7.1 million in 2001/02; £15 million in 2002/03 and £16 million in 2003/04.

"This is a major boost for the environment and demonstrates the Government's ongoing commitment to efficient and effective environmental regulation," said Mr Meacher. "I am confident that the increases I am announcing today will allow the Agency to make significant progress in all sectors."

Salmon threatened by cutbacks

In contradiction to the recent massive increase in countryside funding announced by Nick Brown recently, a quiet cutback in funding is undermining efforts to save English salmon conservation.

Mr Brown is slashing by a third the money available next year for the Environment Agency's salmon conservation effort in England, from £4.6m to £3.1m. As a result, anti-poacher patrols on England's salmon rivers are to be cut by half, water bailiffs and scientists will be transferred to other jobs, and a whole raft of salmon conservation measures will have to be abandoned.

The cuts are being imposed to pay for pet passports and the BSE enquiry, and because the agriculture ministry had failed to sell a surplus building in London. Mr Brown's antipathy to field sports is suspected as another factor in the decision.

The Agency is preparing to ask the Government to be relieved of its statutory duty to prepare Salmon Action Plans for England's 40-odd salmon rivers. Sir John, former Labour leader of Kirklees council in West Yorkshire, said: "The effect of the cut will be to severely affect the agency's ability to protect salmon and maintain their numbers at a time when stocks are already under severe pressure. It is very difficult to understand the rationale behind it."

Chris Poupard, director of the Salmon and Trout Association hit out at Mr Brown's action. "In terms of total Government expenditure, £1.5m is just petty cash," he said. "But in terms of salmon conservation in England it represents a huge sum. The cut is a disgrace. It's diabolical."

New policy makes more quarries unlikely

New planning guidance issued in the Government's long-awaited consultation paper on minerals planning means that new quarries will become a matter of last resort and sound the death knell of predict-and-provide planning, says CPRE.

"This is crunch time for the huge swathes of countryside currently threatened by quarrying," said Henry Oliver, CPRE's Senior Natural Resources Campaigner. "The Government now has a choice: either it can transform minerals planning to put the environment and communities first or it can allow the quarrying industry to continue its needless assault on some of England's finest landscapes"

Existing Government guidance on planning for aggregate minerals is set out in Minerals Planning Guidance note 6 Guidelines for aggregates provision in England (1994), known as MPG6. MPG6 forecast an increase in aggregates demand of 3.8% per annum. between 1992 and 2006 (four thousand million tonnes in total), but production has actually fallen by nearly 30%, from 304 million tonnes in 1989 to only 220 million tonnes in 1997. Because Mineral Planning Authorities must plan to meet the demand forecasts in MPG6 (1994), they have earmarked land reserves for quarrying which could affect an area of countryside four times the size of Manchester.

In the Mendip Hills in Somerset, around Wells, Shepton Mallet and the historic villages of Nunney and Mells, for instance, 931 ha. of attractive countryside already has permission for destruction by quarrying. Some of these permissions do not expire until 2042, ensuring that neither local communities nor the County Council will have any say over what happens to their threatened landscapes for another 40 years.

Anglo-Celtic green group born

The first British-Irish Council, one of the products of the Good Friday Agreement, on the environment met last month.

It was set up after the main council - made up of top politicians throughout the British Isles - identified the environment as a key issue for closer co-operation. Heading the meeting were British Environment Minister Michael Meacher and Noel Dempsey, Minister of the Environment and Local Government for Ireland.

Other members are Northern Ireland Assembly ministers Sam Foster and Martin McGuinness, the Scottish Parliament's Minister for Transport and the Environment Sarah Boyack, while the Welsh Assembly was represented by Bob Macey. Isle of Man Environment Minister Walter Gilbey, Jersey's Nigel Queree and Guernsey's Roger Berry completed the line-up.

Grouse coming back

One of Britain's endangered birds, the black grouse, is making a comeback under a scheme in which farmers and landowners are paid to protect the bird's moorland habitat. After a decade when the number of black grouse males slumped drastically, populations in 10 north Pennine strongholds have shown a 7 per cent increase over the past four years.

Fears that the impressive bird would disappear from English uplands now appear unnecessary. Populations in the 10 areas covered by the Government's Countryside Stewardship Scheme have recovered, says David Baines, of the Game Conservancy Trust's grouse research unit.

"This year there were probably 145 displaying males," he said. But he warned that there were still problems with broods of young being lost due to wet weather and adults being hit by disease.

Under the Scheme, farmers are paid between £4 and £525 per hectare to reduce sheep grazing which protects the plantlife that provides food and habitat for the black grouse.

"MAFF is committed to turning around the decline of important bird species and the Countryside Stewardship Scheme plays a vital part in helping us achieve this," says Countryside minister Elliot Morley. "The increase in the number of black grouse is an illustration of what can be achieved with the assistance that stewardship provides, and the careful managing of the land from farmers and landowners."

Magpies - murderers after all?

A recent study into the breeding rates of song thrush and blackbird has suggested that falling populations may well be due to crow predation. The study was commissioned by the British Trust for Ornithology, which has always maintained that magpies do not pose a national threat to songbirds.

The research team studied 6,600 song thrush and blackbird nests across Britain. It found a link between the density of magpie and jay populations in an area and the survival rates of eggs and chicks in the nest. The study backs up research by the Game Conservancy Trust after observation on an 830-acre farm at Loddington in Leicestershire.

It found that the nesting success of blackbirds more than doubled and that of song thrushes more than trebled when magpies were culled.Nigel Boatman, director of the GCT study, said "Our work at Loddington demonstrated that the nesting success of blackbirds and song thrushes was worse when more magpies and crows were breeding and that nesting success was very low when crows were not controlled."

Corn buntings threatened by agriculture

Recent research into the reasons for the steep decline in corn bunting populations has once again identified intensified agriculture as the culprit.

Published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, the report, by Nick W. Brickle, David G.C. Harper, Nicholas J. Aebischer and Simon H. Cockayne, confirms what many would immediately suggest - that modern farming and birds do not mix. The authors studied birds South Downs in west Sussex between 1995 and 1997 and found that pesticides are reducing the number of invertebrates available to chicks and parents are having to travel further for food. This has reduced the survival rates for nestlings.

The authors suggest that set-aside and the spring-sowing of cereals (especially if undersown with grass) are among changes in practice which would benefit corn buntings. However, small-scale changes, such as the provision of grassy margins or beetle banks and selective spraying of headlands, would also be helpful.

RSPB demands help for farmland birds

MAFF is currently evaluating the success of the arable stewardship scheme, the agri-environment scheme which has been piloted in only two English regions. But because this evaluation may be too late for some birds, the RSPB is calling for the scheme to be rolled-out immediately, to stop species like the skylark from disappearing from some arable areas in England. Skylarks have declined by 52 per cent since 1970.

MAFF is officially committed to turning round the declines of key farmland birds by 2020, as part of the government’s Public Service Agreement, the RSPB believes that immediate roll-out of three arable stewardship options - winter stubbles, conservation headlands and wildbird seed mixtures - would be the first new step to help achieve this target.

"The early roll-out of these three measures will be a lifeline for farmland bird populations which are on a knife-edge in some areas. Its now up to MAFF to take action before its too late," says Dr Sue Armstrong-Brown, the RSPB’s agriculture policy officer.

In addition, the RSPB is urging MAFF to set up two ‘Special Projects’ under the countryside stewardship scheme, to help two red-listed upland bird species - black grouse and twite.

All quiet at night - not!

It seems that songbirds are not really sleeping, though they may have their eyes closed - they are going over tomorrow's performance to get it note-perfect!

Scientists believe the birds dream of singing to help them hone a range of different tunes. The new finding emerged from a study of the electrical brain activity of zebra finches.

A team from the University of Chicago found that sleeping birds fired their neurons in complex patterns similar to those produced when the birds were awake and singing. Young birds learn to sing by listening to adults and then practise by listening to their own attempts. The research suggests the songbirds store a song after hearing it, then rehearse it later in their sleep.

"From our data we suspect the songbird dreams of singing," says Professor Daniel Margoliash who led the study. "The zebra finch appears to store the neuronal firing pattern of song production during the day and reads it out at night, rehearsing the song, and, perhaps, improvising variations. The match is remarkably good."

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