Making Space For Nature - 741,000 Acres To Be Turned Into Nature Reserves

    LONDON, ENGLAND January 10, 2022 /24-7PressRelease/ - Historic policy coming out of the United Kingdom in support of rewilding and nature conservation is moving the needle in a big way! Recently the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) unveiled a £2.4billion-per-year plan to replace the European Union's common agricultural policy.

Regardless, support for nature is a very good thing, and we need more of it. Luckily for the environment, farmers in England will now be granted taxpayers' cash to rewild their land under proposals for large-scale nature recovery initiatives outlined by the government. As a result, enormous expanses of land will be re-managed to protect species, provide habitat for wildlife, and restore river and stream health.

The 'Sustainable Farming Incentive' will replace the EU's common agricultural policy that was worth more than £2.4billion a year. Under the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, farmers were given taxpayers' money from Brussels broadly based on the amount of land they farmed. This meant that the more land they had, the more cash that came their way.

Today the UK's new program, Local Nature Recovery, is the improved and more ambitious successor to the Countryside Stewardship scheme in England. It will pay for locally-targeted actions to make space for nature in the farmed landscape and the wider countryside, alongside food production. This is great news for nature lovers.

Through Local Nature Recovery, farmers will be able to contribute to important national priorities, including:

- reversing the decline in biodiversity
- improving water quality
- net zero
- building the resilience of the environment to climate change
- improving air quality
- natural flood management
- coastal erosion risk mitigation
- heritage and access

By 2030, the UK government hopes to stop the loss of wild species abundance, manage 30% of land for the good of nature, and ensure that farmers contribute to the climate crisis rather than add to it.

The policy has been met with some pushback, with journalist Janet Street-Porter from the Daily Mail, slamming the movement and labeling it a hobby for the rich. Regardless, there is overwhelming support for such policies in the United Kingdom from land owners and environmentalists.

We can only hope the United States and the rest of the developed world will follow suit.

Rewilding is 'halting man's manipulation of the landscape to allow animals and plants to return.'
- Stanley Johnson

For more information please visit Local Nature Recovery:

UK - Local Nature Recovery

HFF Nature Trust is a charity established to promote the interest of nature worldwide. HFF produces nature films, operates nature programs and supports environmental policy worldwide. HFF Nature is an affiliate of the Hagan Family Foundation, a private foundation headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and London, England.

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