ABSTRACT
In exploring the relationship between recreation and the environment more fully, this chapter develops two themes. First, it considers this relationship in public policy by assessing the relative importance accorded to recreation compared to conservation and other environmental factors in policy and legislation. Second, it investigates this relationship ‘on the ground’ by evaluating evidence in relation to the environmental impacts of recreation-the damage that it does to the countryside. It is upon the presumption of this environmental damage that the ethos of statutory land-use planning for countryside recreation has been largely based.
