Posted on behalf of Niki Williamson, Fenland Farmland Conservation Advisor
Imagine the scene. You’re sitting in your home surrounded by your family with a fridge full of nice food when, out of the blue, somebody bulldozes it down around you.
Fleeing for your life, you take refuge in the nearest surviving shelter. As the dust settles, you gaze aghast on the devastation, trying to take in the new landscape. Homes have been flattened everywhere, it’s complete carnage.
But as the panic subsides, you start to take stock of what’s around you. You realise that, not only are you sheltering at an all-you-can-eat buffet, but someone has also littered the countryside with cake!
It all sounds like an apocalyptic dream from the tormented mind of a Farm Conservation Adviser, but actually, in the wake of this harvest season, I can imagine that this is what the countryside feels like to wildlife here in the East Anglian Fens – utter turmoil, a familiar landscape completely torn apart around you only to be replaced by a new one, rich in hedgerow berries, scattered seeds, and displaced creatures just waiting to be eaten.
Although food is abundant at this time of year, it disappears fast, and the winter is long. This is when the habitats that farmers provide through Environmental Stewardship schemes come into their own. Farmers can give nature a home through the winter by leaving their cereals stubbles in place, managing hedges to yield the maximum amount of fruit and shelter, and planting specialist unharvested crops, providing cover and food for a host of birds and mammals. Without this help, our wildlife would struggle to get through the winter in a modern farmed landscape.
As it happens, the harvest turmoil analogy holds true for a lot of us involved in wildlife-friendly farming at the moment. The current CAP programme is coming to an end, meaning entry into the Environmental Stewardship schemes – the ‘home’ of many wildlife-friendly farmers – has now been taken from the landscape. As the negotiations have trickled down the layers of European politics, the deal available for wildlife has been whittled away at every stage, and there is still a way to go.
The new environmental land management scheme is expected to open in 2015. For us, and for the ever-growing flocks of wildlife-friendly farmers, there is much work to be done to make sure the scattered seeds fall the best way, and that there will be enough to see us through the winter.