̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - countryside

Farming loved but misunderstood, survey shows

bjb42 — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 10:44:35 +0000

A survey exploring public opinion about the UK’s agricultural sector has revealed that farming has a special place in most people’s hearts, even though they know surprisingly little about it.

̽��ֱ��results of the YouGov-Cambridge poll show that large numbers of people believe that farming is important for both the environment and the economy, visit the countryside regularly and appreciate living near rural green space.

But it also uncovered a surprising level of ignorance about the extent and contribution of farming in the UK. A majority of people (72%) feel that they do not know much, or know nothing, about the sector. That appears to be substantiated by the fact that most people dramatically underestimate the proportion of land used for farming, while overestimating its economic contribution.

Only 10% of respondents knew, to within 10 percentage points, the actual amount of land that is farmed nationally. ̽��ֱ��mean estimation put forward by those taking part in the survey was about 35%. In fact, farming takes up about 75% of available land in the UK. On the other hand, the mean contribution of farming to the national economy was reckoned to be about 24% by most participants. In truth, farming contributes closer to 1.5% of GDP.

̽��ֱ��study was conducted in collaboration between YouGov-Cambridge and Mark Reader, a specialist in farming at the Department of Land Economy, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, who argued that the findings would be useful for both agricultural policy-makers and from the point of view of public well-being.

“If we want to legitimise agricultural policy, but also make sure that it is tailored to the needs of the populace, we need to know what people think,” he said. “If people thought that farming wasn’t important, that would be a big problem for those working in the sector.”

“In fact, there is clearly a lot of affection for farming, which is surprising given how much people underestimate the amount of land it takes up. It is heartening to see this because food security is going to be an important issue in the years to come, as recent droughts in North America have shown. At the moment the UK is managing to feed itself surprisingly well on a calorie basis. But, as policy adapts to cope with new pressures and changes, this kind of public appreciation and recognition will prove increasingly important.”

̽��ֱ��survey was based around an online questionnaire which was carried out with 1,736 people, drawn from a panel of individuals who have agreed to take part in YouGov surveys. ̽��ֱ��figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).

Along with specific findings about the agricultural sector, it revealed evidence of a clear and widespread passion for the British countryside. A majority of people still visit the countryside more than once a month and 82% said it was either fairly important, or very important, for them to live within 30 minutes’ striking distance of rural green space. Significantly, 73% of Londoners - many of whom do not live within easy reach of such areas - felt this way.

“Given that a wealth of recent studies about happiness and well-being have pointed to the role our physical location plays in determining our sense of life satisfaction, that is significant,” Reader said. “We should be making sure that they do not feel deprived of access to green space.”

Most people also clearly see the countryside as being under threat, although not from farming. ̽��ֱ��most troubling incursions were seen as being those of new building projects, roads and airport extensions, as well as the dumping of rubbish.

Farming itself is perceived in broadly positive terms. 75% of respondents said it played an important role in protecting the environment and only 5% considered it unimportant in this respect. 85% see farming as important for the UK economy as a whole. Despite this, there was an air of pessimism about the results, with roughly two-thirds of people adding that they believe farming’s contribution to the British economy will get smaller over the course of the next 10 years.

“Most people’s hearts appear to be in the right place about farming and the countryside even if they have some misconceptions about it,” Reader added. “That matters less than it would if there was widespread negativity about agriculture in the UK on a mistaken basis. It’s fantastic to see that people appreciate the contribution of the agricultural sector, given its likely significance in the future.”

A YouGov Cambridge poll has revealed widespread affection for agriculture, even though there is a surprising level of ignorance about the sector and its contribution to the economy.

Most people’s hearts appear to be in the right place about farming and the countryside even if they have some misconceptions about it.

Mark Reader

MAClarke21 from Flickr.

Green and pleasant land: A farm near East Meon in Hampshire.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes

Benefit changes raise pressure on country life

bjb42 — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:49:19 +0000

̽��ֱ��study, published by the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC), says that people in rural districts who rent their homes from the local authority or housing associations may be forced away by a number of changes to the way in which benefit is allocated.

In particular, it says that the 2012 Welfare Reform Act, which comes into force next year, has exposed a shortage of smaller properties in rural areas while at the same time cutting benefits from working age social tenants if they are unable to move to smaller homes.

It warns that vulnerable and younger people may be forced to move away from these settlements, even though the provision of affordable rural housing is critical to ensure that young people growing up in rural areas are able to remain in their communities.

̽��ֱ��report, Rural Housing at a time of economic change, was produced by the Centre for Housing and Planning Research at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge on behalf of the CRC. It is being made available for free download at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/commission-for-rural-communities

Anna Clarke, the lead researcher, said: “ ̽��ֱ��changing benefit criteria are likely to lead to increased demand for smaller social rented properties in rural areas. We also found problems with housing quality and fuel poverty in rural areas, and concern over the affordability of the new ‘Affordable Rent’ product, which is largely replacing the construction of new social housing.”

CRC Commissioner, Professor Mark Shucksmith, said: “Changes to benefit eligibility sometimes have unintended consequences. ̽��ֱ��Commission is concerned that these changes will affect vulnerable people in rural areas in ways that have not been anticipated and will lead younger people to move out of small rural settlements.”

“Other people, too, may lose benefit unless they move to smaller homes – perhaps away from their friends and communities. There is a real danger that such places will be less sustainable and less able to support jobs and services.”

One of the main findings in the report concerns the stipulation within the 2012 Welfare Reform Act that, from April 2013, social housing tenants of working age will only be able to claim housing benefit for the size of property they are deemed to need. Those considered to be “under-occupying” their home will be subject to a reduction of 14% of their benefit if they have one spare room, and 25% if they have two or more, forcing them to search for smaller accommodation.

But the researchers found that in rural areas, not enough smaller accommodation exists. This may force people to choose between losing benefit, or moving away from their friends and communities, often to urban areas where such properties are more common.

In addition, a higher proportion of households underoccupy in rural districts, partly because social landlords often house small or young families in larger accommodation, so that if their family grows they do not have to move on.

Now it seems that many may have to do so anyway. ̽��ֱ��report points out that there is an “acute shortage” of one-bedroomed properties nationally, but that it is worst rural areas, which typically have fewer flats. ̽��ֱ��scarcity of such property means that many social tenants could be uprooted.

̽��ֱ��study also found that homes in rural areas are substantially more likely to fail to meet the decent home standard, especially in the private rented sector. They also have much higher rates of thermal inefficiency, with 56% of private rented homes in hamlets or isolated dwellings falling into the lowest category under the Standard Assessment Procedure – the Government measure used to assess the energy ratings of dwellings. “With rising fuel prices and falling incomes and benefit levels, this raises real concerns over fuel poverty,” the report adds.

Rural housing is already under considerable strain. According to recent estimates by the CRC, the population of rural areas is growing faster than urban. ̽��ֱ��ONS predicts that the rural population will increase by 16% by 2028, compared with a 9% increase in urban areas.

At the same time, affordable housing in rural districts is hard to come by. Rural England has, over the last 30 years, seen the steepest decline in the stock of social rented homes. In 1980, 25% of the housing stock in rural areas was social housing compared with 36% in urban areas. By 2007, those figures had decline to 13% and 21% respectively. ̽��ֱ��gap between average rural house prices and cheaper, urban homes is also widening.

̽��ֱ��findings of the report will be circulated to key Government agencies including the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Full details can be downloaded from the CRC website: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/commission-for-rural-communities

Significant numbers of social tenants in rural areas may have to move away from their friends and communities because of changes to housing benefit criteria, a report reveals today.

There is a real danger that rural communities will be less sustainable and less able to support jobs and services.

Mark Shucksmith, Commission for Rural Communities

Image Worldislandinfo.com from Flickr.

Chipping Camden, Gloucestershire. A new report argues that changes to the ways in which housing benefits are administered are likely to force large numbers of people who rent from the council or housing associations in rural areas out of their communities

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes

Landscape, literature, life

lw355 — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:00:02 +0000

Over the past few years, the genre of ‘nature writing’ has seen a new sense of urgency, fostered by a growing awareness of a natural world under pressure. Dr Robert Macfarlane, from the Faculty of English, believes that writers have played, and continue to play, a central role in conservation by engaging our hearts and our minds.

Last November a new word – “scrattling” – emerged briefly into the world. ̽��ֱ��journalist Mark Cocker, a regular contributor to ̽��ֱ��Guardian’s Country Diary column, coined it to describe the sound made by starlings settling down to roost overnight in his roof in rural Norfolk. Cocker talks about the wild “excess of energy” in the arching movements of a flock of starlings and the “grey, clamped-down stillness” of November. In focusing on his own delight in the ebb and flow of a flock of birds in the darkening sky, he expresses something universal about our inmost connectedness with nature.

Country Diary has long been a tiny island of nature writing, taking readers away from their homes, trains and offices to the wilder and less-trammelled spaces of moor and mountain, coombe and common, wilderness and wasteland. There was even a sense that those who wrote for this slot and others like it were an endangered species, donning their boots to tramp back into a landscape that no longer held any relevance for most of us.

Not any more. Prompted largely by a growing awareness of a world under threat, a steady resurgence in forms of ‘new nature writing’ has been seen during the part decade. ̽��ֱ��human population is expanding and limited natural resources are under pressure; scientists recording the numbers and diversity of flora and fauna show us that precious habitats are being lost and vulnerable species driven to extinction. Nature writing is succoured by accurate description, while at the same time draws attention to large-scale environmental crises and local losses. It is driven by a sense of purpose that gives it an important role within modern conservation, informing us in ways that are both factual and emotionally affecting.

How literature shapes, and is shaped by, our awareness of nature – and how this awareness, or the lack of it, intersects with our behaviour – is central to the research and writing of Cambridge academic Dr Robert Macfarlane, who has made a substantial contribution to placing nature writing centre stage of recent environmental discussions in this country. His work explores the traditions of British, Irish and North American literatures that deal with nature and its relationship with humankind – from the late 18th century through to the present day. His research is located within the lively interdisciplinary field known as ‘cultural environmentalism’, which considers the ways in which not only literature but also sculpture, dance, film and music might influence ecological awareness and environmental activism.

“Literature is just one of the cultural forms that shape our place-consciousness, and that carry out particular kinds of thinking about how we fit within the biosphere,” he explained. “ ̽��ֱ��sculptures of Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy, and the scripts of the latest blue-chip David Attenborough nature documentaries also bear upon the ways we treat that web of species, interrelations, co-dependencies and chemicals that we have relatively recently come to know by the group-noun ‘environment’. ”

Increasing specialism within the conventional British education system has often set science and literature at opposite ends of a spectrum. In his teaching and research, and as the author of two highly acclaimed books of nature/travel writing (Mountains of the Mind, 2003; ̽��ֱ��Wild Places, 2007; and a third, ̽��ֱ��Old Ways, to be published in 2012), Macfarlane is keen to reconcile the two broad areas. Talking about his respect for conservationists, he quotes the poet W.H. Auden: “When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing-room full of dukes.” He is eager, however, to highlight the role that literature has played in the history of environmentalism.

“Whenever I ask professional conservationists what first inspired them to get involved in the protection of the environment, they invariably mention either a book or a place,” he said. “ ̽��ֱ��experiences of reading, or the physical effects of being in the landscape – of being exposed to the elements and feeling the land underfoot or under-hand – have proved profoundly influential for so many environmental policy makers and researchers. Nature writing has, in the past, been cartooned variously as reactionary ruralist or as sentimentalist. But, in many ways, and for many people, it’s been decisively life-shaping.”

Our everyday discourse is rich with metaphors and similes taken from earth, sea and sky – from the subtext of individual sounds in words to the grandest panoramas of desert and wilderness that have become symbols of states of mind. We live increasingly in cities, yet some of our greatest literature draws on nature not just as backdrop but also as active agent, shaping character, behaviour and morality. ̽��ֱ��classics of children’s literature, in particular, use wetlands and waterways, farm and forest as the settings and atmospheres for powerful characters and narratives.

Yet what we love, and what feeds us both literally and metaphorically, we also destroy. It is in drawing attention to the vulnerability of the natural world to greedy humanity that nature writers can play a role, believes Macfarlane: “Wendell Berry, the American farmer and essayist who is too little known in America, let alone in this country, once wrote that environmentally we require not ‘the piecemeal technological solutions that our society now offers, but ... a change of cultural (and economic) values that will encourage in the whole population the necessary respect, restraint, and care.’ I’m interested in how literature might have urged, or at least have tried to urge, such changes.”

“Every now and then,” he continued, “the imaginary forms of literature feed back into the lived world with startling consequence. They assume real-world agency in ways that exceed the cliché of ‘life imitating art’. In terms of environmental history, I think of John Muir, who took himself off to become a shepherd in the Sierra Nevada and whose essays became crucial in determining the national-parks policy of Theodore Roosevelt. Or I think of the thunderclap publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), which led to the banning of DDT in the US and arguably stimulated the creation in 1970 of the State Environmental Protection Agency. And then there’s the vast and as-yet-unmapped influence of Cormac McCarthy’s ̽��ֱ��Road (2006), a novel that chills its readers to their cores, and which the campaigner George Monbiot described as the most important environmental book ever written.”

Macfarlane has been working hard to bring lost or neglected works from the nature writing tradition back to light, and to introduce them to new generations of readers. He has written essays to accompany reissues of books by W.H. Hudson, Edward Thomas, Nan Shepherd, J.A. Baker and John Stewart Collis, among others. Next year, HarperCollins will reissue works by Jacquetta Hawkes (A Land), Richard Jefferies (Nature Near London) and Hudson (Adventures Among Birds); all three will carry introductions by Macfarlane, who added: “Over the past five or six years I’ve become addicted to digging into the ‘lost decades’ of 20th-century British nature/topographic writing. I feel passionate about championing writing which I feel might change its readers’ relationship with nature.”

Next year an opera with music by the jazz double-bassist Arnie Somogyi and with a libretto by Macfarlane will be performed on Orford Ness, a vast offshore shingle spit on the Suffolk coast that is both ecologically and historically unique. ̽��ֱ��opera has been part-commissioned by the National Trust, which owns the Ness and is keen to explore artistic responses to this extraordinary landscape. For Macfarlane, it’s an opportunity to bring culture and environment together in a thoroughly unacademic fashion, and to create, with Somogyi, an artistic form that will be responsive to the character of the landscape. What Macfarlane and Somogyi find most fascinating and suggestive about the terrain is how the lean and tapering shape of Orford Ness is constantly shifted and reformed by time and tide – a scaled-up, slowed-down, stone-and-water version of the wild wheeling arc of starlings in the sky.

Whenever I ask professional conservationists what first inspired them to get involved in the protection of the environment, they invariably mention either a book or a place.

Dr Robert Macfarlane

Rosamund Macfarlane

Crummock Water, Cumbria

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes

Translating science for conservation: bees benefit first

bjb42 — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

For the first time, scientific knowledge and experience about how to conserve wild bees around the world has been brought together by conservation scientists led by Professor William J. Sutherland and Dr Lynn Dicks at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

̽��ֱ��synopsis of evidence on bee conservation is meant to inform people taking action or spending money to help wild bees - anyone from farmers to international NGOs - about what works and what doesn't. It is part of a project called Conservation Evidence, which aims to make conservation practice more science-based.

Bees are the most important pollinators globally, and their decline has received much publicity. "There are more than 25,000 species of bee worldwide," says Dr Simon G. Potts, an expert on pollinator conservation from the ̽��ֱ�� of Reading who advised on the development of the bee synopsis. "In areas where good quality data are available, severe declines in many species have been documented." In response, governments and international organisations are now investing in pollinator conservation.

̽��ֱ��bee synopsis, developed in partnership with an international group of bee experts, lists 59 different actions you could take to benefit wild bees. They range from providing nest boxes or planting flowers to training beekeepers to keep native species. For each intervention, evidence is summarised in plain English.

In some cases, the evidence tells a clear story. Leaving strips at the edge of crop fields untreated with herbicides and pesticides does not help bumblebees, for example - two replicated trials in the UK have found no more bees on these strips than in ordinary crop fields. But there is evidence from many parts of the world that providing nest boxes on agricultural land can benefit solitary bees. Twenty-nine studies show that solitary bees, including endangered species, will use nest boxes and three studies show numbers of nesting bees can double over three years with repeated nest box provision.

Bees can be problematic in places where they are not native, and there is some evidence about how to reduce the impacts of invasive bee species. A concerted effort to eradicate European buff-tailed bumblebees from small patches of Japanese countryside, for example, increased numbers of native bumblebees, but did not remove the invaders altogether.

"This synopsis is a great step forward in providing a clear evidence base for anyone setting out to conserve wild bees, from conservation agencies to individuals," says Professor Andrew Bourke, a bumblebee expert from the ̽��ֱ�� of East Anglia, UK, and member of the Advisory Board for the bee synopsis. He was surprised by the often low success rate of artificial nest boxes for bumblebees. "This work highlights how much more there is to learn about bees," he says.

As well as helping to inform decisions about bee conservation, the synopsis shows where there are gaps in our knowledge. There is no direct evidence to show whether increasing the amount of natural habitat in farmed areas can help bees, for example, and very little evidence for the effects of restricting pesticide use on bees, although conservationists often advocate these actions. "Habitat preservation and the proper application and use of insecticides are the most important issues in bee conservation now," says Peter Kwapong, of the International Stingless Bee Centre in Ghana, a member of the Advisory Board. Clearly, these are areas where research should focus.

̽��ֱ��Conservation Evidence project also has an open access journal where conservationists can document their experience and an online database of evidence published elsewhere, relating to conservation interventions. ̽��ֱ��series of synopses, of which Bee Conservation is the first, will cover other major species groups, habitat types and issues. Synopses are already being prepared for birds, butterflies, grassland and farmland.

" ̽��ֱ��bee synopsis brings together, for the first time, a systematic overview of conservation practices that can really help protect bees," says Potts. " ̽��ֱ��challenge now is for policymakers to take up these actions."

A project to make conservation science accessible and relevant to conservationists and policymakers launches its first major synopsis of evidence, on bee conservation.

In areas where good quality data are available, severe declines in many species have been documented

Dr Simon G. Potts

rumpleteaser from Flickr

Bee in flight

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes

Young archaeologists dig up a mystery

tdk25 — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Watch how a group of teenagers taking part in a Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� archaeological dig unexpectedly unearthed the mysterious remains of a woman who could be more than 1,000 years old.

Pupils from Sir John Leman High School in Beccles and Kirkley Community High School in Lowestoft uncovered the ancient skull during a Higher Education Field Academy dig in the village of Chediston, near Halesworth. ̽��ֱ��dig was organised by Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� archaeologist Carenza Lewis - familiar to television viewers from Channel 4's Time Team.

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� experts believe that the body, the rest of which is likely to lie east beyond the excavated area, belonged to an adult woman who lived in the village either in medieval or Anglo-Saxon times. But the site of the burial is mystifying, leading to questions about who she actually was.

In particular, the woman was buried outside the churchyard - although tantalisingly close to it. ̽��ֱ��burial site is just a stone's throw from the graveyard of St Mary's Church (itself an ancient site) and there have been no other human remains found so far in the immediate area.

"At the moment we don't know why this woman was buried outside the graveyard. She may have committed some awful crime, or been thought not to be Christian," Carenza said.

From the medieval period onwards it was firmly believed that burial in unconsecrated ground condemned the soul to limbo, with no chance of ever going to heaven. People who could not be buried on consecrated ground included suicides, criminals, un-baptised babies and non-Christians, although the Church usually tried to apply such rules as charitably as possible, denying as few people as possible the awful fate of perpetual limbo.

̽��ֱ��woman was, however, buried oriented east to west, the standard form of Christian burial, suggesting that those who buried her must have considered her to be a Christian. With this in mind, the other possibility experts are considering is that the burial of this woman actually occurred longer ago, before the graveyard occupied its present position.

" ̽��ֱ��skull was found in an area of the village that in the past has turned up pottery and other remains that are late Anglo-Saxon in date, including a timber building," Carenza added. "It may be that a church much older than the present building stood near here before the Norman Conquest, and that the body we found was buried in its graveyard, which was in a different place to the one we know today. Discoveries of this sort are very rare, and so this is very important. If this theory is correct, it is likely there will be other bodies buried nearby."

̽��ֱ��dig in Chediston was part of an ongoing series of Higher Education Field Academies run by Access Cambridge Archaeology. ̽��ֱ��scheme, based at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, aims to bring together school pupils, rural residents, local history societies and the ̽��ֱ�� in an ongoing archaeological investigation into the development of villages and hamlets across the country.

Young people have the chance to run their own mini-excavations over two days and the hope is that this will give them the chance to develop skills, confidence and enthusiasm for attending university in the future. Previous Field Academies have generated a 60% increase in numbers wanting to go on to higher education.

At the same time, the project is revealing important new information about the development of different communities dotted around the English countryside and their past.

"Archaeology is quite a unique subject in that, with the right expert support, you can get involved and actually make important new discoveries without any previous experience," Carenza, who directs Access Cambridge Archaeology, added.

"This kind of find is part of the beauty of these field academies. We don't know what's out there and what the results are going to be - we send these children to live excavation sites, and the evidence they uncover can be quite spectacular."

For further information about the field academies and Access Cambridge Archaeology as a whole, visit the website linked to the right of this page.

Watch how a group of teenagers taking part in a Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� archaeological dig unexpectedly unearthed the mysterious remains of a woman who could be more than 1,000 years old.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes