Access to Nature is Key to Our Wellbeing So We Need to Countryside to be Accessible to Everyone. By Adam Colclough

 

North Staffs Green Party have joined the Ramblers Association in calling on the government to include improving access to nature something farmers are given funding to do as part of the government’s Environmental Land Management Scheme.

In a letter sent to Lord Benyon, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State & Minister for Rural Affairs, access to nature and Biosecurity they write that the Agriculture Act (2020) under which the scheme falls is ‘a once in a generation opportunity to reshape our relationship with the countryside. In doing so there is the possibility to strengthen the connection we have to the natural world’.

Adding that ‘a key part of doing so is actively involving the farming community, something the government has repeatedly promised to do through the Environmental Land Management scheme’.

In early December, Environment Secretary George Eustice set out the governments ‘vision’ for the role agriculture will play in their ‘levelling up’ plans in a speech to the Country Land and Business Association.

He outlined the role the Environmental Land Management Scheme will play in the government’s Sustainable Farming Initiative, which among other aims will pay farmers for actions under three universal ‘standards. These are Arable and Horticultural Soils, Improved Grassland Soils and Moorland and Rough Grazing, with payments ranging from £22 to £58 per hectare.

No mention was made of using the scheme to encourage farmers to do more to improve access to the countryside.

The Ramblers Association described the announcement as a failure on the part of government to live up to the commitments it had made about access and said that it had failed ‘to make the most of the opportunities in its grasp, this time in relation to details on its new system of funding from the public purse to support the farming community’.

In a statement published on their website they go on to say ‘In theory, this is a radical and welcome shift away from the system of subsidies towards a new approach that sees farmers and land managers provided with financial assistance for the actions they take to deliver benefits that are of value to wider society – cleaner water, healthier soils, nature-rich environments and improved public access to the countryside, to name but a few’.

Adding that ‘repeatedly, as more details are announced, access is falling through the cracks with no evidence that ministers intend to deliver on their promises that the new funding regime will help improve our connections to the natural world. This flies in the face of the knowledge that access to nature is good for us for a whole host of reasons – as highlighted during Covid-19 restrictions’. 

 

 

A spokesperson for North Staffs Green Party said, ‘access to nature either in the countryside or urban green spaces is key to maintaining good physical and mental wellbeing,’ adding that ‘many farmers want to help people enjoy the countryside safely and responsibly, but they need support to do so, and the government have missed a huge opportunity to provide that support’.

In October the Ramblers Association published a ‘score card’ based on the government’s performance on improving access to nature, it does not make for happy reading. On overall national leadership on the issue, they score a disappointing D, failing among other things to provide long-term targets that focus resources where they are needed most.

The Ramblers Association have joined other countryside charities in calling on the government to earmark part of the £2.4 billion of public funds set aside to support the agricultural sector for improving public access as part of ‘a new contract between taxpayers and the farming community’, adding that it is their ‘hope that ministers and officials responsible for the ongoing development of Environmental Land Management will recognise the opportunities that lie ahead, and that future announcements will give us cause for celebration’.

Further announcements about how the Environmental Land Management Scheme will be developed are set to be made next year, the Ramblers Association is encouraging members and supporters to write to their MP, find out more here.