CLA welcomes launch of Environmental Stewardship Scheme
02/03/05

The new Environmental Stewardship Scheme, launching tomorrow (3 March) will help unlock the potential of rural land to deliver major environmental benefits in an economically viable way says the Country Land & Business Association (CLA).

Douglas Chalmers, CLA Director North said:

"The new Scheme will certainly enable more farmers and landowners to consider Stewardship. Many farmers who have not felt their holdings suitable for the current schemes, but who nonetheless have managed areas of their land to a high environmental standard, will now be rewarded for this good practice, and perhaps be encouraged to introduce this approach on a wider basis."

The new three-tier schemes allows farmers to assess their land and to introduce measures which will benefit wildlife, the landscape, archaeology, voluntary public access and the conservation of soil and water, whilst still allowing the production of livestock, food crops and industrial crops.

"Our countryside is a managed landscape, providing a diverse network of wonderful views, important habitats, historical features and productive farmland, woodland and forest. It delivers major economic benefits to the country through the production of food and timber, business opportunities, recreation, tourism, and in no small way defines our national character.

"The Environmental Stewardship Scheme is a good example of how incentives and rewards will encourage farmers and land managers to produce more buffer strips, more winter stubbles for skylarks, more beetle banks in arable fields than any amount of red-tape and restrictions would ever do. The only cloud on the horizon is whether Defra will be successful in its negotiations with Europe to have enough money in the pot to fund the scheme from 2006."