ABSTRACT
The setting up of a Conservation Reserve in the UK would mark a new departure for British conservation policy, establishing conservation as an alternative land use in its own right and reintroducing woodland, grass, scrub and more specialised habitats into parts of the countryside that have sustained some of the greatest conservation losses in recent years. Greater public access could also result and some of the resource problems in farming could be alleviated. As has been seen, the American experience provides some essential clues about how such a Reserve should be established and managed, though the somewhat different nature of agriculture and environment conflicts in Europe, and especially the UK, suggest important differences in emphasis and approach. The prevention of soil erosion and water pollution might appear less important in a British context compared, for instance, to the restoration or recreation of habitat, or even the creation of new wilderness areas on the land rescued from agriculture. In this latter sense, establishing a Conservation Reserve could very substantially expand the ‘conservation estate’ by bringing about permanent shifts in land use on a large number and variety of holdings, with government paying farmers to produce CARE goods on the diverted land.
