Changes to Britains Landscape

Changes to Britains LandscapeThe past few decades hand witnessed an explosion of concern about the ways in which the countryside is changing in Britain. This burgeoning of interest seems to revolve around one main set of issues relating to mental imagery affair and management and to issues about the conservation of the earthy environment and landscape. This set up be seen in the Ho utilization of Lords report (1990 7) on the future of sylvan society, recognising that, era historic all(prenominal)y, bucolic communities realise been based on the exploitation of the natural resources of the countryside , now priorities have changed. Therefore, this essay aims to investigate the changes that have occurred in the British landscape since the post-war period, the reasons for these changes, and the likely future trajectory of change and policy implications. This pull up stakes be done by looking at cultivation, migration and touristry as factors of environmental change in the Bri tish countryside.The many changes in agriculture since 1945 can be aptly described as revolutionary in that farming at the beginning of the twenty-first century is a vastly different proposition than at the beginning of the twentieth century. A teddy covering all farming systems has been effected through the interaction of many factors. The overwhelming commitment of government to aid and subsidise agriculture has been vital in helping to stabilise the industry. The growing wealth of the nation as a whole increased demand, especially for luxury foods. There has been a green revolution in which new techniques have supplanted old traditions, with automation becoming commonplace. The decline of the cosmopolitan sylvan labourer has continued to be replaced by fewer skilled workers operating new machinery or functional as a specialist in a particular subdivision of farming. In terms of production, the extent of the revolution can be gauged from much(prenominal) statistics as t he doubling of the wheat yield between 1915/19 and 1965/9, the doubling of milk and egg production between 1935/9 and 1970/4, the overall devil and a half(prenominal) times increase in the subject bea crystallize output between 1937/9 and 1971/3 (Donaldson, 1972), and a four-fold rise in wheat production from the late 1940s to the early 1980s, and a 30 percent increase in the production of beef and pork during the aforementioned(prenominal) period (Soper, 1986).The effects upon the landscape of post-1945 changes in agriculture were described for atomic number 74 Berkshire by Bowers and Cheshire (1983 29 51) who stressed the role played by subsidies gainful to farmers. Their study realm included both clay vale and grouch downlands which were studied by air photographs and ground survey and can be taken as representative of much larger trends occurring nationwide. Between 1947 and 1976 the compass had lost over one-third of its hedges, half its footpaths and tracks and ne arly two-thirds of its ponds. There was a small decline in the area under woodland whilst the tot amount of farmland had decreased slightly as a get out of residential and recreational growth. Within agriculture itself permanent pasture had go by nearly 80 percent, being replaced by cereals and a red-blooded area of oilseed rape. The number of farms in the area fell from 19 in 1947 to 12 in 1981. The great increase in the area under cultivable meant that chalk downland pasture was completely eliminated. This typifies a general trend throughout most of Britain toward a more open, less enwrap countryside, much different from that of the previous centuries, where many of the study landscape types have been altered, with deterioration occurring more widely and to a greater degree than at any other time in modern history (Bowers and Cheshire, 1983 48).The sterling(prenominal) visual change in the landscape was the loss of pasture and its fill-in by cereals being grown in enlarge d fields. This enlargement had been at the expense of hedgerows, of which 55km out of 129km in the study area discussed above had been outside between 1941 and 1981. The loss of hedgerows was identified as being part of a vicious circle (Bowers and Cheshire, 1983 39). Rising rents and land prices promoted intensification, leading to greater use of capital which, in turn, was favoured by subsidies on capital inputs. The subsidies have excessively promoted the use of chemical inputs and mechanisation, producing further intensification and landscape change (e.g. Cox et al., 1986). The arable monoculture that has been the result of this intensification selects few stock-proof barriers and is operated by means of larger machines which need bigger fields. Hence, there has been little incentive to retain hedges, especially as they require maintenance and so would require additional expense to pay for the wasted work required. This degradation of the land stock should be halted and sust ainable agricultural practices implemented through the involvement of farmers in decision making as well as policy implementation.Along with changes in agricultural practices, it is the revitalisation of state growth in agricultural areas that constitutes a key amaze of fundamental changes that are now occurring in the countryside. Forty years agone discussion of rural affairs was dominated by the issue of deuniverse, however, the rural population turnaround identified in the 1970s has become the prevailing pattern of contemporary rural population change. The underbounding of urban areas and local anesthetic metropolitan decentralisation represents most clearly this new post-industrial settlement pattern. The statistical usher marshalled for the UK points to a definite change in population trends affecting enormous rural zones, and this is not just limited to the fringes of larger cities. An analysis has exhibit the large scale of the turnaround in the most rural split of B ritain, which had a population growth rate of 8.9 percentage points above the national average between the 1971 and 1981 Censuses, compared with one 5.5 points below the average in 1951-61 (Champion, 1989). This population growth has taken the form of conversion of old agricultural buildings, nurture of unused farmland and the encroachment of housing onto pristine greenfield sites. The surrounding countryside has besides been changed due to the high level of infrastructure and services which this new population group requires.Another type of usage of rural localities causing major conservation issues is tourism. Rural tourism, which goes hand-in-hand with urban-rural population migration, however, is not a discrete legal action divorced from other forms of leisure activity. Visitors on holiday in rural areas may spend round of their time visiting towns or resorts. This alliance between tourism in rural areas and other places is important, and holds part of the attend to addres sing the problems. The countryside is an important resource for tourism in Britain, attracting a quarter of all domestic holiday nights and a third of all day trips. British people take some 10 million holidays and spend some 45 million nights in the English countryside as well as making over 1,000 million day visits. Up to a half of Englands 20 million overseas visitors likewise visit the countryside while they are in England and place a high value on its attractiveness (Countryside relegation, 1995).With the decline in agricultural employment, many rural areas are looking to tourism to make an even greater contribution in the future. However, as well as bringing social and economic realizes to the countryside, tourism can also brings costs, through intrusive development, traffic congestion, erosion and intervention to wildlife and local people. Such problems are often compacted due to their highly local and seasonal nature.With the problems above outlined, it is clear that the re is a need for a policy of sustainable use of the British countryside, which integrates the problems associated with modern agriculture, tourism and urban-rural migration. The surround Act (HMSO, 1995) has gone some way to mitigating these issues, but there is even so work to be done in the new millennium. The problem of mode change will likely exacerbate an already delicate ecologic situation in some localities, with increased temperatures and reduced rainfalls. There is also the question of whether the encroachment of rural development upon natural resources can be halted, either through regulation of planning laws or the development of sustainable consumption, ecotourism and environmentally friendly technology. These initiatives may be stifled under the ongoing regime of agricultural subsidies and ignorance toward greenfield development which plagues the current system. At all levels, use of rural areas must become sustainable if they are to remain as productive as they hav e been since 1945, while maintaining their ecological integrity for the benefit of future generations.ReferencesBowers, J. K., Cheshire, P. (1983) Agriculture, the countryside and land use, Methuen, London.Champion, A. G. (1989) Counterurbanisation The changing pace and nature of population decentralisation, Edward Arnold, London.Countryside Commission (1995) Sustainable rural tourism, HMSO, London.Cox, G., Lowe, P., Winter, M. (1986) The state of the farmer perspectives on agricultural policy, in Cox, G., Lowe, P., Winter, M. (eds), Agriculture, people and policies, Allen Unwin, London, pp. 1 19.Donaldson, J. G. S. (1972) Farming in Britain Today, Penguin, Harmondsworth.HMSO (1995) The Environment White Paper, HMSO, London. reside of Lords (1990) The future of rural society, HMSO, London.Soper, M.R.H. (1986) British agriculture today, Association of Agriculture, London.