Where there is hope for Britain's wildlife and landscape:

Did anyone see Chris Packham's The Nature of Britain: a User's Guide (Wednesday 10 pm BBC four)? For those that didn't I'll summarise it here (along with my take on it):

In the past conservation projects have tended to focus on nature reserves or re-introductions of single species. Unfortunately the projects have not always worked well, particularly with regard to the re-introduction of single species, and all we create with nature reserves are small islands surrounded by seas of grazing or arable land. It may seem okay at first sight, but miles of monoculture are no good to most wildlife. There are no corridors for the wildlife to spread out from. Basically, after the last world war, Britain's farmers were given the job of feeding the hungry nation. This led to the widespread decimation of important sanctuaries for wildlife (like hedgerows) and consequently the well publicised demise in British wildlife. Nature reserves don't seem to help wildlife that much. They provide an oasis where we can go and see the surviving strands.

So what can we do instead?

What we need is conservation on a landscape scale. :( I can hear the long sigh: surely that'll be too costly, it'll never happen. But apparently Plynlimon (Cambrian Mountains, central Wales) has been earmarked for one of Britain's first landscape scale conservation projects. The area is about the size of the Isle of Wight, and the aim is to get all 300 farmers on board.

It’s an area of open hillside and wooded valleys. As with most places the hillsides have been decimated by sheep grazing. They look nice, but as Chris Packham said: to wildlife they may as well be covered in Astroturf. We need to get the geography, biology and economy of the whole working together to the benefit of wildlife and crucially the local people.

To do this we need to look at what we lost when we created the grazing land. The answer is upland or blanket bog, which harbours a multitude of plants in a wet environment, suitable for the breeding of many insects, which provide food for small animals, which in turn feed the larger, more visible ones. So you can see how getting rid of the lowest common denominator has had a domino effect on the more visible species.

I'm sure this isn't news to many of you, but bear with me because this is where the good bit comes in. Obviously we need to bring back the blanket bog and heather. But where will the money come from such a large project? After all if farmers are to change their ways it's only fair to make up for their lost income by paying them a subsidy from managing the land well.

Before I answer that let's think about one of Britain's biggest current problems - flooding. At the moment we seem to have a problem of huge amounts of rainfall in short spaces of time. Because grazing land has been created by draining, the water runs off quickly into the rivers, wreaking havoc downstream. If the blanket bog was replaced, this would soak up a large amount of rainfall, releasing it slowly to the rivers, alleviating the problem. Insurance companies stand to benefit from fewer expensive claims, and may want to come in with some sponsorship. The government might chip in some of the money, rather than spend millions on flood defences. Lastly power companies have shown a real interest, because they know the blanket bogs will drip feed their reservoirs all year round, rather than risk having them empty at certain times of year.

In summary: it seems obvious to me that we need conservation on a landscape scale to make any real difference. There are areas of the country that are suitable for this. Enough people stand to benefit from the schemes and provide a source of funding for the local communities. And therefore, in theory at least, we should be able to put right the damage that has occurred in the last 60 years or so.

Now that's got to be the best bit of news I've heard in a long time. :D

Sounds good. I remember these ideas being talked about six or seven years ago in relation to flooding further downstream so it's good that people are at least trying to make it happen.
If you're interested in other examples of conservation on a landscape scale I'd recommend trying to take a look at Heritage Lottery projects funded under the banner of Landscape Partnerships - these are set up to benefit large and distinct areas through long term conservation, access and partnership working. Examples I can think of off the top of my head are the Quantocks, North Cornwall Coast, North Pennines, and the Isle of Bute.

Ian,I think thatyou are right,Nature reserves only seem to creat an oasis in the middle of a green desert.In our area on the edge of the Plain of York there is a few good examples of this where the reserves seem to hold a lot of birds but when you try counting birds in the surrounding farmland there seems to be a definite decline.This is more applicable to the lower lands than the hill country where birdlife has never been there in great numbers.The setaside system did seem to help quite a few species but I think this has been kicked into touch now.How we start repairing the damage of the last 60 years should get the experts thinking but I am not sure how much better it will be allowed to get in my lifetime I am not sure.I have noticed that some of the drainage ditches on some of the moors around the Dales are being blocked off in places so at least some landowners may have seen the light.

Landscape...Now what is that. Landscape is purely what's already there.

Whilst agreeing that nature conservation has to move away from the postage stamp idea, I am afraid that Chris Packham is a bit outdated in his ideas of where conservation is at. The fact is that the nature reserves exist to conserve generally rare species or habitats. They are islands because all the other habitats have been lost around them. We still need these islands for species to "jump" out of.

The whole of UK nature conservation is based on artifical management mostly dictated to by grazing. They are seeking to replace one system of artificial management with another.

I'm sorry but blanket bogs won't grow on sides of hills! The natural vegetation of the welsh hillsides would be a mixture of woodland, grassland, bogs, mountain vegetation and wetlands.

What we really need is to let natural processes come to the fore. That can only be acheived by nature deciding how the land is, which means we need natural herbivores and natural predators, not wooly ones.

Since the sheep farmers will be getting paid already for there acreage as headage payments are out the window, subsidies are hardly the answer.

How many of us can afford to eat lamb on a regular basis, yet we support its husbandry to the max.

The fact that not many of us cannot eat lamb on a regular basis is not due to the price the farmer recieves at the market.Locally last year the Dales farmers were getting less at the marts for a single lamb than a diner paid for a lamb chop dinner at some of the local better known hotels so someone inbetween must having a heck of a mark up.
Back to the nature reserve issue,having just watched The Nature of Britain on telly I get the impression that waste and brownfield areas support as much wildlife as the organised reserves.

I wouldn't interpret Chris Packham's piece as meaning that Nature Conservation has failed. Where would we be without the reservoirs of nature. At the time, few people were conserved with nature conservation, so the reserve approach had to be enacted.

Now more people are interested in wildlife and more of us want to see nature on its own terms, rather than limited to these little ghettos.

We still have this ethic that every single piece of land has to be economically productive, with even nature having to have to prove that it brings in money. Is upland hill farming a wise use of the land if it is such a failure, that it can't even survive when the state is paying the wage of the hill farmer?

Even though the title of this thread is "Nature Reserves are No Good" I don't think this headline is absolutely true. If you look carefully at my initial post you will see I suggest that they are useful for bringing nature closer to the masses. I actually feel that this is an important tool if nature conservation is to matter to a substantial number of people, and as Kneel says they will provide a springboard for the rarer species to spread from. But we need a habitat for these species to spread to.

Chris Packham's point was that when it comes to the bigger picture they don't do a great job. He cited the case of a butterfly that had died out in Britain. It was given its own reserve, but the re-introduction failed because there was nowhere for it to go but the desert of monoculture around the reserve.

I can't speak for Chris Packham, but I'd be surprised if he didn't see some benefit in nature reserves. What he is suggesting is that if we allow the hills of Plynlimon (and other areas) to go back to a more natural state, ie more blanket bog, it will allow species to come back in much greater numbers than the reserves ever can. This seems like a leap forward from the possibly outdated focus on reserves. If we have the chance, and it seems like the money might be there, I think it's a great opportunity for the British landscape.

I guess Kneel is right in saying that not all of the hill will revert back to bog. It will be mostly the flatter areas and hollows, although I have come down steep hillsides that were indeed boggy. Plants and insects only need patches to thrive in and spread from. Lots of patches adds up to a much greater biodiversity than we have currently on the well drained grazing land. Even better, because of the scale of these schemes, it will be spread over a much greater area. It might not be the perfect ancient Welsh landscape, but it'll be a huge step towards it. If money is to be put into such a project it needs to come from someone, and that someone will inevitably only do so from a business point of view. I'm afraid that's the world we live in, and I can't see that changing in the foreseeable future.

I agree that Chris Packham's views of nature reserves are more than a little outdated and generalised. In the Vale of York there are a series of small reserves along the river Derwent, including Wheldrake Ings, run by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. These are beginning to form a very important wildlife corridor, especially for migrant birds, but also for other species, plant and animal, as the river links them fairly well.

Another reserve familiar to me is Tophill Low on the river Hull - surrounded by miles of intensive farming this reserve nevertheless is home to a very wide range of species indeed and is hardly no good (I understand your point though Ian and how you've qualified that comment - I agree with you).

That said I agree entirely that conservation must be a country-wide, indeed world- wide, effort. Gardens can be an excellent example of habitat creation on a wide scale - as could environmentally aware farming. Not necessarily organic but carried out with some consideration for wildlife - a small effort on the part of most farmers would have a huge impact.

We can all help in small ways - millions of small ways. The walker that I saw throw away his plastic cup on the Across Ross Walk some years ago could have done his little bit - as could those who litter Snowdon and the Cairngorm (including the developers and planners!).

Let's not dismiss nature reserves - they are extremely important - but they should be a part of the solution - not the whole.