Countryside
Changing Face
of Countryside?
Contributor Tony Ridd
Set-a-side and arable with woodland planting in front
The landscape around us is
experiencing some of the
biggest changes that many
of us have ever witnessed.
Over the next few months
Tony Ridd will be finding out
what we can expect! He will
be speaking with landowners,
farmers, and organisations
associated with the care and
management of our Island, and
asking, who are the custodians
of our countryside and what
can we do to help?
help to bring the countryside alive
enhancing new reserves and public
As a rough guide, twenty years
with their colour and movement.
areas allowing greater access and
ago there were over 200 dairy farms
Unfortunately some farms are being
more appreciation of our landscape.
on the island, today there is less
sold off or broken up and our views
The introduction of Stewardship
than twenty five!
maintenance.
The Forestry
increasingly are being impaired by
Schemes has seen a rise in brown
Commission employed 5 men and
stables, caravans and piles of rotting
hares and native grey partridges
now we are lucky to see them visit
hay under flapping blue or orange
on the island. Field corners and
from the mainland once a week.
tarpaulins with fields divided up by
margins are being planted with wild
electrical tape.
flowers to encourage butterflies and
We didn’t have a ragwort problem
until farmers were encouraged by
There are however lots of positive
bees. An increase in farm shops and
DEFRA (then MAFF) in the early
things happening in the Islands
the availability of locally produced
90’s to provide set-a-side, now we
countryside.
Over the last few
meat, vegetables, fruit and milk has
see swathes of poisonous yellow
years landowners have benefited
helped sustain farmers and improve
flowers all over the island. Over 90%
from grants encouraging them
our diet.
I appreciate that we have to
of the complaints DEFRA receives
to plant over 500 acres of new
The sale of small parcels of land
change with the time and that
about injurious weeds concerns
native woodlands and miles of
can, also have a positive effect for
life moves on, but when it comes
ragwort.
new hedgerows.
wildlife, with many owners planting
to our countryside, the wildlife
I like the idea of estates or large
Wildlife and
conservation groups such as Wight
hedges
and
trees,
increasing
that we have is because of the
farms.
The way, they manage
Wildlife, The AONB Partnership,
habitats and green corridors for the
way we have managed the land,
their land give us the panorama
BTCV and The National Trust have
red squirrel and the endangered
be it arable and livestock farming,
that we are used to.
Grassland,
enlisted the help of volunteers
dormice.
woodland coppicing or waterway
arable fields and grazing animals all
to assist them in preserving and
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