British hedges ( in woodlands, gardens and farms)
by Angus, 12 October, 2012, 5 comments
We British like our hedges - perhaps it's part of the British reserve, keeping people at arms' length, or maybe it's because they are very functional for keeping stock in fields and marking boundaries. For wildlife, hedgerows have long been important avenues of local migration and hedges represent their own distinct habitat.
The attitude of the authorities towards hedges has undergone a roller coaster ride over the last 50 years. In the 1970s, the government were paying grants for the removal of hedges with the objective of encouraging the creation of larger fields to make agriculture more efficient - these were bad times for conservation - Oliver Rackham describes these as "the locust years". More recently grants have been available for planting hedges and their unauthorised removal in the countryside has become a criminal offence with the Hedgerow Regulations of 1997. Read more...
