Worth noting when you see all the Team Bat/Team Newt stuff.
Ultimately we can't allow it to be either/or with nature restoration, housing, infra and growth. We have to do it all
Ultimately we can't allow it to be either/or with nature restoration, housing, infra and growth. We have to do it all
Reposted from
Guy Shrubsole
Been reading through the Government's new Land Use Consultation. Here's the juiciest bits I've seen so far!
An excellent, bold proposal to spare 9% of England's least-productive land for nature & carbon - restoring peat bogs & regenerating woods - & changes to ag land use over a further 10% /1
An excellent, bold proposal to spare 9% of England's least-productive land for nature & carbon - restoring peat bogs & regenerating woods - & changes to ag land use over a further 10% /1
Comments
60% of UK land is used for livestock farming.
We have to do it all and it's extraordinarily easy to do it all with no material losses.
Unproductive land, both economically and ecologically is the default and some wonder why we decline.
1000 year old land ownership structures don't help.
It's understanding the seriousness of our immediate & long term economic risks and reimagining land use.
Infra, housing, timber, carbon sink, ecological diversity, dynamic and accessible leisure etc etc
We have an awful lot of sheep grazing for a country that seemingly hardly eats sheep meat.
(I know some communities eat a bit more, but still, hardly the majority - and we import a lot of it from NZ).
50% of UK livestock farming is sheep.
£1 for a wool coat.
£500m exports of meat.
Vast % of the UK used for little else but lifestyles due to 'continuity'.
Most of us owe our wealth/health to the embrace of modernisation centuries ago.
So many oppose modernisation now.
But there's no justification for resisting wind farms, flood management or well-managed timber forestry.
Although more of it is suitable for housing and infra than the countryside alliance always try to portray.
Vast ancient estates of prime land that are often little more than grass fields.
So many ways to change it .
A thoughtful land tax most obviously.
Public awareness needed.
The bit that takes the hit, of course, is farm land
But politically it’s trickier, maybe
I don't think "yes, you can have a third runway, but also enjoy your bug-burger" was quite the intended message.
(And I've no personal objection to bug-burgers, provided they're healthy in other respects).