APPENDIX 20
Memorandum submitted by English Heritage
(A27)
"We must use our rural development policy
to make sure that farmers farm in a way which is environmentally
friendly and which contributes to the preservation of our landscape,
which, may I say, is essentially a man-made landscape, created
by generations of farmers over hundreds of years. This landscape
is as much part of our cultural heritage as our historical cities
and towns."
Dr Franz Fischler, Member of the European Commission
responsible for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries,
Feeling the Pulse of the CAP (Cernobbio, 19 October 2001).
INTRODUCTION
1. English Heritage welcomes the opportunity
to offer evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select
Committee, as we believe that the future of agriculture is inextricably
linked to the future quality of the environment and landscape,
our national cultural heritage, and the vitality of the UK tourism
industry.
2. English Heritage is the Government's
principal adviser on all aspects of the historic environment in
England—including historic buildings and areas, archaeology
and the historic landscape—with a remit that extends to
both the urban and rural environments. We are sponsored by the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport, but work very closely
with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and
its sponsored agencies. While we are not directly involved in
agriculture or its related industries, our interest in environmental
and landscape issues provides us with a considerable stake in
the implications of farming and land management policy. In addition,
we are closely involved in the England Rural Development Programme
(ERDP), sitting alongside our sister environmental agencies on
the National Strategy Group for the ERDP and on the National Rural
Development Forum. We are also members of the Regional Programming
Groups of the ERDP and its Regional Rural Development Consultation
Groups.
3. Alongside our statutory duty to conserve
the heritage, we are also required to advance its understanding
and enjoyment by the public. As part of this function we manage
an estate of over 400 historic properties—attracting in
excess of 11 million visitors annually—the majority of which
are in the countryside. We are, therefore, significant participants
in the UK tourism business and are aware not only of the major
contribution of the industry to rural development, but also the
importance that the quality of the historic and natural environment
will play in maintaining the vitality of tourism in the future.
4. These important linkages between the
cultural heritage, the landscape, and economic development are
increasingly being recognised by land managers and by government
at a regional, national and European level. This is particularly
the case in the wake of the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak, not
least because of its severe impact on the tourism industry nationally.
For example, the report of the Rural Task Force Tackling the
impact of foot and mouth disease on the rural economy, released
in October, concluded that:
"Farming and tourism are interdependent
and intertwined with the wider rural economy. Farmers have a vital
role in the life of the nation as providers of food and managers
of the rural landscape. Future policies for farming must take
into account the links with the wider rural economy in a way they
have not done in the past."
and:
"Countryside tourism, dependent on access
to a landscape heavily influenced by farming, is a powerful economic
force in many rural areas, frequently worth more to local economies
in GDP terms than the farming that supports it."
5. While these linkages between the historic
and natural environment, land management and economic development
are clear in principle, little research work has been undertaken
to quantify the direct benefits to rural economies which accrue
from a healthy environment and well-managed landscape. One notable
exception to this is Valuing our Environment, research
recently published by the National Trust. This study demonstrates
that:
"Some 40 per cent of employment in tourism
depends directly on a high quality environment. In a rural context,
this dependency rises to between 60 and 70 per cent."
6. In the North East of England, for example,
the Trust and its partners (including English Heritage) have calculated
that 51,666 jobs and £1,106 million (some 5 per cent of regional
GDP) depend on a good quality environment. The non-intensive character
of much of the farming activity in the region is clearly a major
contributor to that quality.
The prospects for production subsidies and quotas,
against the backdrop of world trade liberalisation and the mid-term
review of the Agenda 2000 reform of the CAP
7. English Heritage has no special expertise
in the international aspects of agricultural policy, but we are
concerned that the current CAP regime encourages poor stewardship
of the land and continues to promote degradation of key environmental
features, including natural and cultural assets, as well as fundamental
resources such as soil and water. The impacts of agriculture on
the natural environment and natural resources are reasonably well
researched and will, no doubt, be set out in the responses of
others providing evidence to the Committee. The impacts on the
historic environment are far less well understood. One reason
for this is that the research programmes of MAFF (now DEFRA),
DETR and NERC have, in the past, been almost entirely focused
on ecological rather than cultural assets. For example, the valuable
Countryside Survey series, on which much of our understanding
of environmental trends is based, does not track changes in the
historic environment, resulting in an incomplete picture of change
in the countryside. These limitations on data have also been translated
into a lack of robust sustainability and best value indicators
for the historic environment at national and regional levels.
While English Heritage has undertaken some work in this area,
much remains to be done, and we hope that the new Department for
Environment Food and Rural Affairs will begin to develop more
holistic scientific, economic and social research programmes in
the future.
8. Nevertheless, despite the limitations
of our data, survey work in England has demonstrated that:
— since 1945 agriculture has been the
single biggest cause of unrecorded loss of archaeological sites.
The Monuments at Risk Survey (MARS) demonstrated that agriculture
has been responsible for 10 per cent of all cases of monument
destruction between 1945-95 and for some 30 per cent of piecemeal,
cumulative damage during the same period. This has resulted in
the wholesale loss of at least 2,350 unique and irreplaceable
archaeological sites;[15]
— thirty-two per cent of all archaeological
field monuments and 21 per cent of all scheduled (ie nationally
important) field monuments were also shown by MARS to be under
damaging arable cultivation when surveyed in 1995. The quality
of survival of 68 per cent of all recorded earthwork monuments
was categorised as "very poor" or worse;15
— a combination of erosion and desiccation
induced by cultivation and agricultural drainage has irrevocably
damaged or destroyed over 13,000 historic sites in our wetlands,
generally our most valuable and best-preserved archaeological
resource. These losses are in addition to those cases of damage
identified by the MARS survey;[16]
— one-third of hedges in England were
lost between 1984 and 1993 and that one-third of dry stone walls
were derelict in 1994. Although Countryside Survey 2000 suggests
that the net losses of hedgerows may have now been halted, this
is a result of the establishment of new hedgerows. Older hedgerows—with
far greater historic interest and biodiversity value—continue
to be lost.17, 18, 19,[17][18][19]
— in 1992, 17 per cent of listed farm
buildings were "at risk" and 24 per cent "vulnerable"
and a 1997 study of unlisted field barns in the Yorkshire Dales
National Park—notionally a "protected landscape"—by
the Countryside and Community Research Unit of Cheltenham and
Gloucester College of Higher Education, showed that less than
60 per cent were intact and that dereliction was increasing rapidly;[20]
— other distinctive landscape features
are also being rapidly destroyed as a result of farm intensification,
particularly the ploughing up or improvement of old grassland.
A recent English Heritage study of "ridge and furrow"
earthwork remains in the Midlands—widely believed to be
a common survival and the archetypal landscape of the region—has
demonstrated that of 2,000 medieval townships studied, only 104
retained more than 18 per cent of their ridge and furrow earthworks
in 1998, with many serious losses occurring in the last five years.
What was once common and unregarded is now rare and threatened,
and few sites now survive which could be used to educate children
about classic medieval strip-farming;[21]
This background of continuing damage to historic
landscape features and other environmental assets needs to be
fully appreciated by those concerned with devising agricultural
policy for the future.
How better stewardship of agricultural land can
be promoted, and the opportunities and difficulties faced by agriculture
as a result of possible reductions in production subsidies
9. English Heritage considers that the Government
has already taken important steps to secure better stewardship
of agricultural land in England through its decision, in 1999,
to commence the gradual transfer of resources from the first to
the second pillar of the CAP, and through the measures it put
into place by means of the England Rural Development Programme.
We believe that, if more widely applied, the philosophy which
underpins the Programme—balancing concern for the environment
(including the historic environment) with wider social and economic
factors—could provide the foundation for a farming industry
which is more environmentally sustainable. The increased emphasis,
within the Programme, on greater regional and local involvement
in land management decisions is also laudable. If this is further
strengthened in the future, we believe that this will be an important
contribution to agriculture regaining much-needed public esteem.
10. We have set out the conflicts between
the long-term conservation of unique and irreplaceable historic
features and the current unsustainable agricultural regime promote
by the CAP in some detail above. From this it is clear that the
potential benefits to the historic environment of a more sustainable
farming regime would be considerable. This regime could involve
a far greater commitment than at present to the repair, maintenance
and sympathetic re-use of traditional farm buildings; the improved
management of archaeological and historic landscape features;
the restoration of historic parkland; the removal from damaging
arable cultivation of the most significant archaeological features;
and enhanced public access to, and appreciation of, the historic
features of the countryside.
11. Many historic sites are already ecologically
diverse. Some survive as islands of grassland in highly cultivated
"prairies". Others preserve important priority habitats,
such as wood pasture within historic parklands. Conversely many
of the management problems experienced by historic sites reflect
wider landscape-scale problems of soil or water conservation.
Therefore, while care of historic features for their own sake
should be an important part of any future strategy for sustainable
land-management, action based on an holistic appreciation of the
environment will also help to deliver key biodiversity objectives,
and measures beneficial to the historic resource can be seamlessly
integrated within wider soil protection or wetland management
initiatives. This integrated approach to environmental protection—with
the potential for "multiple wins"—is already a
key feature of the ERDP, with all four of the national conservation
agencies represented on its advisory committees. While there is
a considerable way to go in achieving full integration in scheme
delivery "on the ground", encouraging progress has already
been made, particularly in the context of projects to facilitate
integrated land management, such as the pilot schemes carried
out at Bodmin or the Forest of Bowland, and the Countryside Agency
led Land Management Initiatives. Projects such as these, will
however, need to be adequately resourced over a far longer term
than has currently been the case, if they are to realise their
full potential.
12. Despite the encouraging first steps
delivered by the Agenda 2000 reforms, the process is very far
from complete. Many environmentally perverse incentives to farmers
remain in place and the scale of "second pillar" expenditure
remains insignificant when compared to production and export supports
still running at some £3 billion annually. Furthermore, the
costs of remedying the environmental impacts of intensive farming—a
sum which in 1996 was estimated at £2,343 million—still
remain largely external to the industry, and are not reflected
in the purchase cost of food, continuing instead to be met by
the taxpayer.
13. At this stage, therefore, the ERDP remains
an ambitious and courageous experiment. If the model of sustainable
land management, which lies at the heart of the ERDP, is to be
fully realised, far more determined action will be required on
the part of government both at the national and international
level. Environmentally damaging production subsidies and quotas
must be phased out in the short to medium-term, rather than the
long-term; the resources available to the Programme need to be
radically increased by further modulation towards the 20 per cent
ceiling permitted under the Rural Development Regulation; and
the Programme's agri-environment schemes need to be extended to
the majority, rather than a minority, of farmland.
CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
14. In conclusion, English Heritage wishes
to see:
— a future for the farming industry
which rewards farmers for their commitment as land managers and
which recognises that their social and economic contribution goes
far beyond the production of food;
— farming carried out more sustainably
and in a manner which conserves and enhances historic features,
biodiversity and the locally distinctive character of the landscape;
— greater engagement of rural communities
in decisions pertaining to agriculture and landscape management,
leading to restoration of public confidence in the farming industry;
and
— increased public access to and understanding
of the countryside and its historic features.
15. In order to achieve this vision, we
believe reform of the CAP is essential and we have recently developed
a 10-point list of actions that we believe should be considered
now, or following the mid-term review of the ERDP. While some
of our proposed actions relate to our particular interest in the
historic environment, many are equally applicable for those whose
concerns relate to biodiversity and the conservation of natural
resources.
We recommend:
(i) enhanced funding of the English Programme
by progressively increasing the rate of modulation to reach the
20 per cent ceiling permitted under the Rural Development Regulation
by 2007;
(ii) better integration of Programme measures—such
as the agri-environment schemes, the Woodland Grant Scheme, and
the Rural Enterprise Scheme—based on a clearer recognition
of the social and economic contribution made by the historic environment,
biodiversity and landscape character;
(iii) greater local accountability in targeting
and rates of grant-aid for all Programme measures, within a framework
agreed nationally, and with adequate representation of local authority
and non-governmental historic environment interests on national
and regional advisory bodies;
(iv) simplification of the current English
agri-environment schemes to create a single scheme which:
— draws on the best elements of
the existing schemes both in England, the UK devolved administrations,
and Europe;
— provides incentives to farmers
to protect the existing environmental quality of their land, as
well as to restore degraded environmental assets;
— provides greater support to farmers
for environmental enhancements, particularly in those areas where
uptake has previously been limited by inadequate incentives (such
as arable reversion and traditional farm building restoration,
in the case of the historic environment), balanced by a more critical
and informed targeting of resources on the most significant assets;
— makes greater use of landscape-scale
project targeting and whole-farm planning;
— permits selective farm survey
initiatives where the existing evidence base is inadequate to
support decision-making;
— is administratively simple in
order to encourage uptake and participation;
(v) greater emphasis on the facilitation
of applications by communities and individuals, including enhanced
and better co-ordinated environmental and business advisory services;
(vi) greater recognition of the special role
of local authorities in providing advice to DEFRA on the historic
environment in relation to Programme measures, and new initiatives
to support and enhance that role;
(vii) further strengthening of DEFRA's in-house
expertise in the historic environment in order to match more closely
its in-house expertise in the natural environment;
(viii) increased commitment by DEFRA to undertaking
social, economic and scientific research on the historic and natural
environment, in order to underpin and strengthen the evidence
base for Programme measures, including joint research initiatives
with the historic environment sector;
(ix) adoption of procedures for consultation
and advice on the historic environment for the Organic Farming
and the Energy Crop Schemes, which are based on "best-practice"
models already in use for the agri-environment schemes; and
(x) implementing the discretionary "cross-compliance"
provisions of the Agenda 2000 reforms, requiring minimum environmental
standards on landholdings in receipt of production and export
support payments.
English Heritage
13 December 2001
15 The Monuments at Risk Survey of England 1995
Bournemouth University and English Heritage, 1998. Back
16
Monuments at Risk in England's Wetlands, English Heritage
and Exeter University, forthcoming. Back
17
Hedgerow Survey, Institute of Terrestrial Ecology 1994. Back
18
The condition of England's dry stone walls, Countryside
Commission 1996. Back
19
Accounting for nature: assessing habitats in the UK countryside,
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and DETR, 2000. Back
20
Buildings at Risk: a sample survey, English Heritage 1992. Back
21
Turning the Plough, Midlands open fields: landscape character
and proposals for management, English Heritage and Northamptonshire
County Council. Back
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