The time is now to Help Our Hedgerows

Yellhowhammer (c) Ben Andrew rspb-images.com

Today's Blog update comes from our Head of Sustainable Land use Policy in England, Alice Groom. She highlights the urgent need to fill the holes left in our hedgerow protection as the nesting season begins. 

Crucial refuges for wildlife

Hedgerows, and buffer strips, serve as crucial homes for a multitude of species, and deliver a range of ecosystem services.  The cross compliance regulations which protected these habitats came to end on 31 December 2023. Defra have said they will reinstate vital hedgerow protections “when parliamentary time allows”. But this has not come in time for this year's breeding season… 

From March every year many species of birds including Yellowhammer will begin to build their nests in the thousands of miles of hedgerow that crisscross the English countryside. These vital habitats also act as an important carbon store, and help make farm businesses and communities more resilient to climate change.  

Key protections lost

But as of the 1st of January, this year hedgerows lost key protections. Known as ‘cross compliance’ these safeguards required land managers to: 

• keep a green cover on land within 2 metres of a hedge, protected from cultivation and the application of pesticides and fertiliser.  
• leave hedgerows uncut from 1st March-31st of August. 

Last year Defra consulted on whether to replace these elements of cross compliance. The UK Government have now published their response, in which they committed to replicate the protections as they were under cross compliance.

Support for hedgerows was clear: the publication revealed that 96% of respondents supported keeping the 2m buffer strip, including 82% of farmers who responded. An overwhelming 97.8% of respondents were in favour of keeping the no cutting period, including 84.6% of farmers who responded.

Government also made clear their intention to make it easier to get exemptions to the regulations. For example, fields under two hectares will not need to keep a protective buffer strip for hedgerows. This is despite the majority of farmers (52%) who responded to the consultation saying fields under two hectares should not be exempt. Other exemptions, such as hedge cutting to sow oilseed rape in August, could be avoided with rotational management of hedgerows. It is disappointing that government has not taken this opportunity to strengthen protection for hedgerows.

The UK Government’s commitment is welcome news, but was caveated by the phrase “when Parliamentary time allows”. The RSPB hopes that Defra will do everything they can to lay the necessary statutory instrument, but this has not come in time for the start of this year’s breeding birds season.  

This matters as in just the last five years, the farmland bird index has declined by 8%. Time is running out to halt and reverse this trend and ensure the government meets the legally binding targets set out in the Environment Act 2021.   

Hedgerows (C) Andy Hay Rspb-images.com

Why are these protections needed? A quick explainer: 

2m buffer strips 

• 2m buffer strips are essential for maintaining the quality, resilience and retention of hedgerows and hedgerow trees. 
• Buffer strips are themselves vital resources for many threatened species, including farmland birds, invertebrates, rare plants and mammals. They provide connectivity and safe corridors for travel in fragmented landscapes, and protect watercourses from pesticide drift and fertiliser runoff. 

No cutting period, spanning from 1 March to at least the 31st August 

• It is essential that the no cutting period is reinstated. Any reduction in this period would place severe additional pressures upon farmland bird species already facing spiralling declines 
• For Red-listed species such as Linnet, Turtle Dove, Cirl Bunting and Yellowhammer, later broods make a disproportionately important contribution to population stability.  

Are hedgerows not currently protected?

The short answer is no. Whilst the UK Government will fund hedgerow planting and management through Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs), these schemes do not include protections for hedgerows that are so desperately needed.
It is also important to clarify that these protections do not exist under any current legislation. Cross compliance rules included a number of different environmental protections, including 11 standards of Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAECs) and 13 Statutory Management Requirements (SMRs). These rules were in place in the UK for nearly twenty years. Although the majority already have direct equivalents in our domestic law, some important ones do not. When cross compliance rules ended on 31st December last year, new gaps in protection were created and government have not yet filled them. Specifically, GAECs 1 (for water body buffers), 4 and 5 (protecting against soil erosion) and 7a (protecting hedgerows) have no equivalent protections in domestic law.

Hedgerows are a beloved landscape feature, a reservoir of pollinators and pest control services and the backbone of species recovery in England.  These regulations are not a new requirement and are something which farmers are used to working with. 

It is crucial that protections for hedgerows are urgently reinstated in law.  

Thank you to everyone who has taken action to Help Our Hedgerows, your voices have made a huge impact so far. But until these protections are bought back in, our wildlife is at risk. That’s why we are still calling on everyone in England to get in touch with their MP and urge them to Help Our Hedgerows!