Action Outside Sites
Recommendation (q). We recommend that all types of traditional field boundaries should be protected so as to ensure the continued presence of habitats for some species and corridors for the movement of others. Hedges, banks, ditches, dykes and walls should all receive legal protection where they are identified as being important either nationally or locally for biodiversity or other reasons.
The Government recognises the importance of field boundaries for biodiversity, as well as for their landscape benefits and historical importance. We consider the best way of securing their long-term health and retention is by encouraging their active management, through advice and incentives, rather than by extending the legal protection already given to important hedgerows. The results of Countryside Survey 2000, which showed that stocks of these features in England and Wales were stable between 1990 and 1998, suggest that these measures are working. Since 1998 they have been further strengthened, not least by our doubling the funding for agri-environment schemes in England.
Recommendation (r). We recommend that English Nature be given the power to negotiate and enforce management agreements with landowners outside Sites of Special Scientific Interest, to cover features of importance to biodiversity, and are pleased that such powers will now result from the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill. We anticipate that English Nature will need some additional resources to be able to fulfil the potential which this option offers.
Part III of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 now provides English Nature with the power to negotiate management agreements with landowners outside SSSI’s where such agreements can support the features of special interest. English Nature’s Grant-in Aid will be increased by 16.6% in 2001-2002, in part to enable it to exercise the new duties and powers provided to it by the Act.
Published 21 May 2001
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