ABSTRACT
Farming plays a crucial role in maintaining the distinctive landscape and wildlife quality of many upland areas in the UK (Thompson et al., 1995). Very few of our most treasured habitats can be described as ‘natural’, with landscapes such as heather moorland and chalk downland relying for their conservation on certain farm management regimes (typically, low-intensity livestock-grazing). This dependence of habitat quality on the maintenance of ‘traditional’ farming systems can also be found throughout Europe, for example on ‘karst’ limestone pastures in Slovenia, and in wooded meadows in Estonia. In the UK, hill farming steadily intensified throughout the twentieth century. For example, in 1975, 1995 and 2000, farms in the hill parish of Tintwistle in the Peak District were running 318 per cent, 432 per cent and 702 per cent more sheep than they ran in the mid-1930s (Anderson and Yalden, 1981).
