State of ecological intensification

2 thoughts on “State of ecological intensification”

  1. I fear in this new world of buzz words and quick fixes’ it is all too easy to forget that many remnants of traditional land management are much, much more than a conservation method. The hedgerows studied in South Devon (and clearly apply across the county) were built along contours, with special drainage contained – these landscape features should not be viewed as ‘intensive’ conservation, but as essential in land use management to the benefit of everything, together with a source of additional income from honey, (which is significant – and a hedgerow can produce up to 5,000litres of nectar per km per annum!), and other supplementary produce.
    I am saddened by unnecessary ‘hedge laying’, disappointed with nationwide guidance and deeply troubled whenever ‘re-wilding’ is mentioned. If we do not accept that 1000’s of years of managing the land had created as close to a perfectly balanced landscape for all for the envy of the world then we deserve the catastrophe of a landscape destroyed because people are too busy looking for media soundbites’! Look what has happened to the Mother of all Parliaments – we cannot risk this loose in the wider countryside…

  2. Thanks Pip. My provocative ref to “intensive” was in focusing on best ways to undertake conservation in a modern multiple-output-demand stressed countryside with perhaps too many actors wanting in on the action.

    Not convinced by ‘perfectly balanced’; as one person’s scrub is another’s abandoned land in an evolving landscape.
    Best wishes

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