Nature is everywhere, it’s all around us and it is in trouble in many places around us. When government was looking for areas to qualify as Nature Improvement Areas it had plenty of places from which to choose – 76 proposals came forward for the £7.5m funding that was available for just 12 sites.
Those sites cover a tiny proportion of the English land area and they are sites and areas of good will towards nature rather than areas where there is greatly increased funding or power for wildlife to flourish. In a very real sense we need all of England to be an area for the improvement of nature even if rather little of it can, at the moment, be a Nature Improvement Area.
I was interested by the response, mentioned yesterday, of the NFU to the announcement of these areas. The NFU doesn’t pay much attention to nature in my opinion, and when it does, it isn’t always to nature’s benefit. The recently, and narrowly, re-elected NFU Deputy President, Meurig Raymond, said : “In addition, we expect Defra and its agencies to maintain the balance of activity in these NIAs between wildlife and habitats and other equally important challenges such as water quality, soil conservation and climate change mitigation and the need for farmers to manage their businesses. We need to prioritise wider countryside measures, rather than simply focus our resources in smaller areas of the country.”
The NFU has realised that if NIAs work then they may become an alternative way for public money to be spent compared with agri-environment schemes. Those grants available for wildlife-friendly farming cover most of England’s farmland and farmland covers most of England. In contrast, these 12 NIAs cover 1-5% of England’s land surface depending on how you add up the figures). As Charles Cowap pointed out in his blog, the cost of scaling up the NIA approach to cover the country would be in the order of £750m whereas the cost of agri-environment payments is of that order every year. We know that an awful lot of that huge annual spend on the broad and shallow approach of the Entry Level Scheme delivers very little for wildlife at the moment otherwise wildlife indicators for arable plants and farmland birds would look a lot more healthy, and that the real value comes from the Higher Level Scheme spend where the taxpayer and England’s wildlife really see a benefit.
It will be interesting to see whether the NIA approach works well enough to outshine agri-environment spend in the 12 new NIA areas. We are talking about similar amounts of money being spent per hectare except that in NIAs the main recipients will not be farmers. Given the failure of the ELS to regenerate English wildlife it is wise to look for alternative approaches. In time one could imagine money being switched, in essence, from those failing elements of the agri-environment package to more targetted nature-focussed regional schemes as well as to the excellent HLS.
We may be seeing the first elements of competition between the top-down, left-wing, centrally-designed agri-environment schemes and the bottom-up, Big Society, make it up to suit local circumstances Nature Improvement Areas – or is that far too fanciful?
Either approach could work, and if both of them do then we will need more of both. But we know that the ELS is not working, and we know why, it’s because government has designed it badly (because it took too much notice of the lobbying of the NFU to make the scheme easy for farmers to enter) and not improved its design in the face of failure to deliver. We do not know whether NIAs will work – but we must hope that they do.
I wonder how we will know whether NIAs work? How clear and transparent are their aims? And who will measure them? It’s notable that the only real elements of scepticism about NIAs are from the farming and land-owning ‘representative’ organisations. The NFU is worried, I think, about a future loss of easy money for farming and the CLA ‘welcomed’ NIAs by saying that they mustn’t get in the way of development. The big NGOs, the National Trust, the Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB are all beneficiaries of the crumbs of NIA funding and so would have looked rather odd to have come out last week and greeted the announcement of the 12 successful NIAs (successful in terms of having got the cash) with statements saying ‘I’m not sure that this approach will work but since there’s some money available we’d better look enthusiastic’ and for the same reason they are now bought in to talking up the success of the dozen pilot projects.
Who will monitor the success of these schemes? Defra – who is funding them as a Big Society approach to landscape-scale nature conservation? Natural England – they are a delivery body so I’m not sure this is what they are allowed to do, and would they be allowed to say that things weren’t going well? The NGOs – they are all beneficiaries? The SDC or RCEP – no, they’ve been abolished? I wonder what the answer is.
There is always a tension between the broad and shallow and the narrow and deep approaches in nature conservation. For some species, say the bittern, only a narrow and deep approach will work – for rare species (even if once much commoner) their recovery needs to be based on targetted and detailed work in very small areas to engineer a recovery. Although I remember that some claimed you could, you will never save the bittern through broad and shallow approaches – even if they generate a few tiny reedbeds dotted across the country. But there is also a tension for how to conserve the more widespread species – let’s say the skylark as they are now bursting into spring song across the country. Given that half of them have gone, is it best to do a little bit for them everywhere ort a lot for them in a much smaller number of places? will the skylark benefit more from ELS or from that money being spent on HLS and NIAs?
It is possible that NIAs will help bridge the gap between the very targetted nature-first approach of nature reserves and the ‘every little helps’ approach of ELS. NIAs could do quite a bit for the rarer species in a few (but let’s hope more will come) discrete areas but also be exemplars for the wider countryside approach in the narrower countryside within the NIA boundaries. It is an interesting experiment and I wish it well – but who is measuring the results?
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It’s hard to say this without sounding as if I’m anti-nature-conservation . . . but I think farmers are under-valued in this country. Indeed, I think farming is our most important industry. And, if I were a farmer, I’d get a bit fed up with the idea that I am supposed to be a conservationist as well as a food producer.
Having said that . . . !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m also not a fan of the ‘Big Society’ approach when it comes to land (not to anything really – but that’s another matter) because it can put the sense of ‘ownership’ into the hands of a few dedicated individuals who, without meaning to, can thus take it away from the community as a whole – which might (I’d say ‘would’) have a negative effect in the long term.
It’s a full article, this. Lots to think about. And lots of bringing-one-up-against-one’s-own-lack-of-knowledge-ness in it too!
Lucy – welcome to this blog and thank you for your comment.
The crucial crunch is the question’who said farmers have to be food producers first and foremost ?’ The answer is a Government policy that made complete sense at the time – 1947. Its a long time ago and things have changed and we perhaps need to seperate the competing/confusing elements: on the one hand, the religious belief that farming for food production must come above everything, on the other farmers need to run viable land management businesses – whatever they are producing and whoever is paying. Even NFU isn’t as cast iron as it looks – a few years ago, talking about climate change, a vice president told ma that yes, farmers would farm water (eg absorbing peak flood episodes) if they were fairly paid to do it. Behind the NFU facade there are actually a lot of farmers, particularly where the land isn’t very competitive for food production, who are looking for alternatives – and, quietly, the system, especially through HLS, is working with them. There are even places where being inside the SSSI boundary has suddenly become desirable because it guarantees HLS – and a financial future.
I see the problem here on both sides of the fence – the risk is that the conservationists are seeing this as ‘their’ scheme, and the NFU are effectively agreeing by opposing it – but in the middle there are many, individual real farmers who would like to jump the conservation way if it keeps them in business managing the land – these are the people we really need to support.
Lower intensity management will mean less food, yes, but it definately doesn’t mean the loss of all food or other solid p[roducts of the land like timber – flood plains can be grazed, catchment wide flood mitigation vcan include woodlands for energy & wildlife – NIA can suceed if its used as jumping off point; as an end in itself its simply too small.
Lucy, being a food producer has got to go hand in hand with conservation. If we don.t look after the insects that pollenate our crops then we have no food. Many of my farming friends are conservationists too recognising we are interdependent
A very informative blog there Mark and really astute comments.I can only add that yes we need food and conservation but the food is now nothing to do with 1947,we need to produce as much of our own food as possible as it helps the cost of importing food and we should have a moral responsibility to produce as much as we can while being wildlife friendly so we do not take from the poorer nations because we are lucky to have relatively fertile land.
The big problem I would think is that the E U is in charge and getting things changed has to be passed by their smaller farmers lobby.
Dennis, I fear the CAP and US farm subsidies have probably done far more harm to the poorer nations by undercutting their own farmers when the 1st world dumps surpluses on them – thankfully not the problem it once was, but the damage is done. Would we perhaps do better thinking about how we can help some of these countries by paying fairer prices – as we do with fairtrade – for products like coffee and chocolate ? And might not the same apply in the UK itself where the ‘cheap food’ myth has ended up doing terrible damage to farming when combined with the to the death competition between supermarkets. Its hard to think about conservation when farm gate prices are being driven ever lower.
£7.5m for NIA’s and £250m for weekly bin collections – strange priorities indeed! Certainly not what we expected from the greenest government ever.
‘In a very real sense we need all of England to be an area for the improvement of nature …’
Exactly. Most constructive comment made in this debate Mark.
And indeed, who is going to monitor the success of this scheme. One thing for sure is whilst there is so much squabbling, posturing and political-agenda-advertising amongst all those concerned success will be limited – monitored or not.
Mark – Are you quite sure that you are taking the right approach in your blog over this NIA initiative. If the aim of these new NIAs is to deliver landscape-scale conservation, then there seems little alternative other than to engage positively with those who own and manage the overwhelming majority of the land area of the NIAs – farmers and landowners.
Of course farmers and landowners are likely to be wary, as experience has shown them, that many non- statutory designations are picked up by local authorities and incorporated into their local plans in a restrictive manner. Indeed from reading Defra’s press release of 27th Feb, that seems to be the objective.
And then there are those like me, who both farm and manage specifically for nature conservation in a sea (or do I mean a soup) of designations eg SSSI, SPA, Ramsar site, ESA, NNR etc who are likely to think that NIAs are yet another designation . Certainly those responsible for the new Greater Thames Marshes NIA haven’t exactly kicked it off in the right way as two of the three photos in the press release for the NIA are taken of land that we have the responsibility of managing and yet no one from the NIA has even mentioned, let alone discussed, the new NIA with us or our neighbours.
If these NIAs are to work, why not be positive about those, who by virtue of owning and occupying most of the NIAs on the ground, are likely to have the largest effect. And engage in a positive way with them – after all landscape- scale conservation needs good will to make it work.
PS. Of all the designations on our land – ESA is the one that is likely to have been most effective for conservation. No, not the Environmentally Sensitive Areas as marked on a policy maker’s map, but the ESA within the ring fence of a farmer’s skull.
Philip – hello. Am I taking the right approach? I’m not sure I am as I’m not sure that anyone is. The NFU and CLA already seem to have decided to be wary about them so that doesn’t seem like a good start.
To talk about these rather vague ideas as ‘non-statutory designations’ probably doesn’t help as it will just put off more landowners. They aren’t designations any more than ‘near where I live’ is a designation.
It remains to be seen whether farmers and landowners are actually those who are likely to have the largest impact but I’m sure that in all the NIAs the teams will be engaging as much as possible with landowners – indeed, one of the NIAs is farmer-led. I wonder how that one will do compared with the others?
There is a history of engaging positively with landowners and farmers – ELS. ELS couldn’t engage more positively with landowners – it pays them money for not doing very much and asks them through the CFE to do the right things – and yet there is very little return to the taxpayer for all this positive engagement backed up with millions of pounds.
I know that you have achieved a lot on your own land, but not with out a large input of public money through SSSI payments, ELS and HLS (I guess) – but very few of your neighbouring farmers and landowners have done a teneth of what you have done.
The jury is out on NIAs, as it would be on any new initiatiave, but who is the jury and who will collect the evidence?
Mark, thanks again for a thought-provoking blog, I always learn something new with each one.
I am having trouble though getting my head around all these different terms such as ELS and HLS and others like the CAP payments, what exactly are they and how do they work? I understand as much as they are payments for farmers but could you explain them for me in layman’s terms?
Thank for your time.
Sam
Sam – thank you. It is a bit complicated and full of acronyms.
Here is the shortest summary, I hope it helps.
The Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) is the Policy that applies across the whole of the 27 countries in the European Union (EU) that determines how taxpayers’ money goes to farmers. Although the policy is the same across the EU the details are slightly different in every member state (and in the four countries of the UK). In England most owners of farmland (not quite all) get ‘large’ payments (the Single Farm Payment – SFP) just for being farmers. It is an entitlement linked to the land – not to productivity of environmental goods (like wildlife) or crops and not related to need (the richest farmers will get these payments just as the poorest will). The only way for you to change these payments is to vote for a government that will work with those governments lected everywhere else in the EU to reform the CAP.
In addition, there are payments, much smaller ones, to thsoe farmers who voluntarily sign up to do good things for wildlife on their land. In England there have been lots of schemes in the past and some farmes are still paid under those agreements but all new agreements are made under two schemes – the Entry Level Scheme (ELS) which is easy to get into, easy to get the money and doesn’t do very much for wildlife and the Higher Level Scheme (HLS) which really delivers for wildlife. ELS needs to be tweaked because it is money for old rope for most farmers and provides little value for wildlife for the hundreds of millions of pounds that go into it. HLS is good value for money and needs more money put into it so that it can do more good.
Organic farmers get special treatment and are paid in a slightly different way.
Does that help at all?
That’s brilliant Mark, just what I was after. I actually live in the Highlands of Scotland. Is the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP) the equivalent to the ELS and HLS in England? What are the equivalent payment schemes in Wales and Northern Ireland?
Thanks again for your time.
Sam – yes you have the Rural Stewardship Scheme (part of the SRDP) in Scotland, Wales has Tyr Gofal and Northern Ireland has the Countryside Management Scheme – at least I think that’s right, it is difficult to keep up with the changes! In all cases there is money that farmers get for being farmers and money that they get if they volunteer to be wildlife-friendly farmers under one of the schemes.
Thank you again for taking the time to clarify this for me.
It should be mentioned that SPS payments can be reduced or lost altogether for non-compliance with “Cross-compliance”. Information here: http://rpa.defra.gov.uk/rpa/index.nsf/293a8949ec0ba26d80256f65003bc4f7/6eb355ea8482ea61802573b1003d2469!OpenDocument
As Mark points out, not every farmer claims the payment, but most do. They depend on it to stay in the black, with most enterprises producing world commodities with first-world input costs at a loss.
And the cross-compliance measures are hardly onerous.
Yeah but, no but – you are correct in that the practical aspects are not particularly exacting and amount only to good housekeeping. However, the recording requirements of XC are onerous to farmers in that they continually and incrementally add to the keeping of meticulous records about moving and multiplying goalposts, while not providing clear guidance on how to do this. It needs a degree of guesswork on the part of the claimant, with financial penalties for guessing wrong. The guidance is written, as always, in arcane Defrish and is difficult enough even for the literate – to the extent that a training industry has built up whose sole purpose is to explain XC. This is all of little use to those farmers who struggle with literacy.
Added to this – no two RPA inspectors can agree on the same interpretation of the XC guidance, and the search for The One who can tell you how to estimate useable areas where there is scrub has been called off.
Another acronym to define what is effectively nothing more than donating a childs paint brush towards the repainting of the forth bridge is hardly the ‘Landscape’ scale approach as per the ELC, which despite being ratified by the UK is still largely ignored. Comparing the intangible, think tank concieved ideals of ‘Big Society’ to a Landscape scale approach is wrong. As is it wrong to assume that communities are incapable of addressing the issues themselves, without corruption. I just hope that one day soon Defra will give up on trying to repackage everything with a misled conception that they need to placate everyone except the public and further embarrass themselves persistently in pushing these ideals into the European or global arena, (who now, rightly, ignore the UK and their lust for creating a ‘Heath Robinson’ approach to land management). Instead of the conservation / NGO fraternity dressed in their logo’d fleeces and shouting vitriol from behind the hedgerows, why not sit around a table with the research and facts laid out in front, talking with the practitioners, the landowners and the public?
Plenty of food for thought here. You write: “We are talking about similar amounts of money being spent per hectare except that in NIAs the main recipients will not be farmers … I wonder how we will know whether NIAs work? How clear and transparent are their aims? And who will measure them? It’s notable that the only real elements of scepticism about NIAs are from the farming and land-owning ‘representative’ organisations. The NFU is worried, I think, about a future loss of easy money for farming and the CLA ‘welcomed’ NIAs by saying that they mustn’t get in the way of development.”
It does sound quite threatening to farmers’ profits if NGOs are getting more of the taxpayer subsidy cake under NIAs – and even more so if the idea were to work and be extended more widely. Could farmers’ and landowners’ worries be solved by having some of the evaluation processes run in in an opaque and counter-productive way through The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) who may then conclude that the NIA model “does not work” and that we can go back to business-as-usual again with farmers taking the lion’s share of payments?