Was this what you meant Endy?

[Ereiam_jh]

Well the government are taking action to get rid of more agriculture. Will the land really revert to the ecological utopia that you claim? Or will it be covered in hypermarkets and suburban settlement instead?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1964977,00.html

 

[endymion]

Giles, you're going off on a tangent as usual.

I am not a fan of intensive agriculture and believe it should be more environmentally friendly. By environmentally friendly farming I mean things like proper mangement of hedgerows, planting wild flowers and grasses in field margins, reduction of organochlorine spraying ect. Of course every area is unique and needs its own specific managenmet plan but these are just general points.

Farmers are encouraged to do just these kind of things by various initiatives that reward them and I'm happy to say many are more than happy to change their farming methods if it's economically viable for them.

I havent read the article (v busy today) but suppose its got something to do with all these houses they want to build in the south/south east. Of course im not in favour as it is gonna devastate a huge green belt area but the problem remains that we have a large population and people need to go somewhere. Big cities like London are already jam packed and hardly anyone can afford to buy here as it's so expensive. The result is families renting tiny flats that are piled on top of each other and the rich business types with massive town houses. Where do you put the common working man and his family that have been priced out of the market by the rich? I don't know the solution to this problem, we need more houses but we need to conserve our natural environment too.

Any suggestions Giles?

 

[Ereiam_jh]

Well firstly doing away with the notion that if we stopped farming land it would revert to an ecological paradise, which is patently false. Seeing farming as the enemy is old hat.

Supporting ecologically sensitive farming through government schemes and consumer pressure.

Encouraging economic forms of rural land use. The two that come to mind are farming and country sports.

Preserving rural culture. Ditto for the culture of our towns and cities. Our strength is in diversity, we risk becoming a grey sub urban mass surrounding a few national parks.

More tower blocks but not used as social rubbish dumps. Less suburban sprawl.

More local democracy, less central planning.

Getting rid of the green belts isn't driven by social philanthropy, it's driven by greed.

We simply do not value our countryside enough. The blurb for the wind farm they are builing near us describes the locality as 'unremarkable'. Our countryside is unique and should be preserved.

 

[endymion]

I never said farming was the enemy.

If left alone the countryside would revert back to it's natural woodland state but I have never said that is what I wanted.

Hunting with hounds only takes in a fraction of the total revenue form rural sports, most of which is made through angling. See Foxing the Nation, the economic (in)significance of hunting with hounds. You'll get it on science direct.


Tpwer blocks? Are you nuts? You want to go live in one and tell me if you want to bring your family up there? People want a nice sized house with a small garden, a bit of greenery. . And they would have that in London if it's wasn't full of rich t*ssers from other cities moving in and buying up the houses that should be used for real London familes. And driving up the house prices while they are at it. You might hate suburban sprawl but if all you've seen for decades is concrete then it seems like paradise.

The fact remains that in the south east they're are more people than there are houses for and new ones have to go somewhere. As ive said, im not in favour of the mass housing developments the government are planning but i have no answers to this problem, people have to go somewhere and sticking them in a towerblock is not providing a good enough standard of living. In my opinion.

I am also anti-wind farms.

 

[Ereiam_jh]

If 'left alone' the countryside might revert to natural woodland, but you have to consider the effect of the creatures that live in the countryside and those that will move in when the existing ones lose their territories.

The creatures that have the biggest effect are of course human and you have to consider their effect.

Angling isn't strictly speaking a rural sport but yes it does provide considerable income, shooting contributes I believe £250 million a year to conservation measures.

I'm serious about tower blocks but not suggesting we revert to the nightmare of the seventies. What we need is imaginative high density housing in cities with the infrastructure to support it. City living can be fantastic. The fact is that city dwellers have far less environmental impact than country dwellers.

Rich t$$ers moving in? Tax them. Or make them move out to the countryside and become large landowners. If you want to preserve the countryside then you have to maintain large swathes of sparsely populated land. This traditionally occurs through land ownership and the social structures that support it.

Yes everyone wants suburban bliss, rural bliss, or four acres and a goat or whatever. Everyone also wants to be rich and fly all over the planet. However the fact is if they do then they will f%ck it up.

If you want to save the countryside then you have to have the right rurally based economic and social structures in place. Currently these are based on agriculture, country sports and tourism. If you tinker with the economic and social foundations of the countryside then you risk destroying it.

 

[endymion]

I agree with a lot of what you say but I dont think hunting with hounds is crucial to any of it. The rural economy and social structure will not crumble without it especially as there are alternatives such as drag and bloodhounds. You also have to remember that not everyone in the countryside takes part in or agrees with hunting with hounds.