Green and Prosperous Land. Dieter Helm
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current agricultural policy is remotely economic, or even that it focuses on the core food products or provides for food security. The fact is that it isn’t economic. It is chronically inefficient, greatly distorting production. It is hard to think how the economic costs of the current agricultural systems could be more adverse. The vested interests would probably not want to admit that the net economic value of agriculture as it is – the agriculture that has produced the monochrome landscapes, destroyed insect life and led to great declines of farmland birds – is in fact approximately zero.
In chapter 4 the startling arithmetic will be set out, and it is this that needs to be compared with the prize of the colourful, beautiful, vibrant and noisy landscape we could have instead, with all the economic benefits it would bring.
The prize would have pay-offs beyond the landscape and biodiversity. The river catchments cannot live up to their potential, and hence their part of the prize, without dealing with the agricultural pollution and silt. The coasts cannot escape the plumes of algae from river mouths. That is why it all keeps coming back to agriculture: it is the key to an enhanced environment. Without a radical change the ambitions will be disappointed. The fact that it makes economic sense to do this brings the prize within our grasp.
Of all the natural capital that agriculture relies upon, soil plays a central role. Even holding the line here is a big ask. The Fenlands will carry on losing soil for a long time to come.[10] The prize is a healthy soil. Soil, like many marine habitats, may be largely out of sight, but it contains a mass of biodiversity, and it is the foundation of the food chains of almost everything else. The bacteria and fungi make plant growth possible. It harbours invertebrates and insect larvae. The prize of healthy soil is an economic necessity if farming is to continue, and if the broader biodiversity is to thrive. Even in the narrow context of carbon emissions the soil is critical. Improving the carbon content, which farmers have been depleting, increases the soil’s ability to support crops and helps in the battle against climate change. Economically it is yet another no-brainer.
Many of our uplands are a shadow of what they once were. To the untutored eye the rolling hills signify ‘wildness’ and ‘raw nature’ – they are anything but. These are managed landscapes, and they have been managed with specific interests in mind. These are mainly extensive agriculture and game in a mix of small marginal farms and large private estates. Our uplands are overgrazed by sheep and manicured for the shooting fraternity. Imagine if the heather moors were managed not just for grouse and deer, but also for the wider public benefit. Imagine if the hen harriers were not persecuted, so people could watch the male bird pass its prey in mid-air to the female, and watch as the birds hunt low over the land. Imagine if the wild flowers were given a chance by much reducing the uneconomic sheep densities. Imagine if deciduous trees thrived alongside the Scots pines and the larches, and dark and dense timber forests were diversified.
The costs of transforming our uplands are even lower than for the lowlands. Reducing grazing densities saves money. For the deer-stalking, the grouse and pheasant shoots, the problems are rather different. They are about incorporating the costs these activities give rise to, reducing the deer numbers and the destruction they cause, regulating the deposits of lead shot and the poor management of feed for the game birds, and enforcing the law. As so often happens when businesses do not pay for the pollution and environmental damage they cause, they get over-extended. Making the polluters pay would improve the management of the uplands. Making those who break the law face the consequences and pay the proper costs for crimes would be a big win for the economy and the overall economic prosperity of the uplands.
When it comes to the coasts, we are already on the way to opening up a path around the whole of England. Imagine what will have been achieved when this is finally in place. Imagine the economic gains it will bring to those whose health and well-being benefit, and to the tourist industry (which is much more economically significant than agriculture and without large subsidies). Imagine if the beaches were cleared of all their plastic rubbish; if the fish and the seabirds had enough to feed on; if fishing were managed for the long term; and if the cold-water corals and the underwater wonders were allowed to return to where they were before fish farms polluted them and trawling and dredging scoured them away. Imagine if there were no longer any need for Surfers Against Sewage, and it was no longer possible to see the algae plume from the Thames right out into the North Sea (joining the plume from the Rhine).
It might even be possible to make an economic merit out of cleaning up the beaches. It could be a form of national service, or a task taken on by local communities and local schools. They could take ownership of keeping their patch of the coastline clean, and in the process gain from the community involvement and mental health benefits – as well as the exercise it would involve. Many economic activities are outside the formal measured GDP, but they matter for prosperity.
Finally, imagine what our towns and cities could be like if we invested in their green infrastructure. Imagine how much healthier and more vibrant they might be. Imagine if every child had access to a green space within a few hundred metres of their home. Imagine if today’s developers actually built houses with proper back gardens. Imagine allotments for many more people, green roofs and green walls, and new and enlarged parks. Imagine if the parks were vibrant healthy environments, with lots of biodiversity, instead of the mown monochrome lawns. Imagine if plants were encouraged alongside railway lines, road verges and urban canals, and trees planted in every street. Imagine if nature’s much more messy beauty replaced the ugliness and sterility that straight lines and tidiness bring.
Britain’s gardens comprise an area the size of the Norfolk Broads, plus Exmoor, plus Dartmoor, plus the Lake District. Acres of Britain are gardens and they have an enormous potential as wildlife havens.[11] Indeed, they already are: gardens can be much more biodiverse than intensive agricultural land. Imagine if every garden had a small pond and a patch of wild flowers, besides the conventional palette of garden plants, fruits and vegetables. Imagine if all of these were chemical-free. This would be a great refuge for bumblebees and honey bees, lacewings and spotted flycatchers, swallows, frogs, newts and toads, and hedgehogs too. It would also bring many who have nature-deprived lives, and especially children, face to face with the beauty of nature. They might even dig up their concrete driveways and allow water to be absorbed by the ground, reducing flooding and creating sustainable drainage.
Putting all this together would create much greater genuine prosperity. It would be the right thing to do, because it would be both the economic thing to do and, in the process, would deliver the environment that many environmentalists who reject economic approaches would want too. It would also be ethically right, fulfilling our duty as stewards of the natural environment on behalf of future generations. There would be hen harriers and golden plovers and curlews and flycatchers, and there would be all sorts of plants, insects and other fauna.
It would not be a wild world, and it certainly would not be a ‘re-wilded’ world. It would be every bit as managed as it is today. Even those areas left aside would be deliberately chosen for intentional neglect. Deer would be culled, hedges would be reinstated and managed, rivers would be built around natural capital deliberately put in place, and city streets would be planted with trees. The prize is not an abandonment of the land to the ‘forces of nature’, but the replacement of a badly managed natural environment with a much better managed one. We have witnessed the disastrous consequences for people of taking the nature out of their lives, and we can redress this, but we cannot take the people out of nature.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this was what we could pass on to the next generation?
Imagine waking up in May 2050. You might remember the May mornings before 2020. This was a time of bright yellow oilseed rape fields. There were still some swallows, a few swifts and the occasional cuckoo. In the right place you might have heard a curlew. If you were really lucky you might have seen a spotted flycatcher. In 2050 it will be very