Why is it that there has to be an either or?
Does farming the landscape have to make it unnatural?
Can't we have both alongside each other harmoniously?
What about the claims from the apologists for the farming and conservation industries that our landscape has been 'fashioned' by farming over the centuries and it's farming that makes it attractive?
That last one is the regular and overworked spin that's put on the situation by the vested interests. It really won't stand up to examination. Behind it is an assumption that every part of the landscape is better for the control and exploitation that has been visited upon it by those who farm, usually with livestock. Are the hills and moors really better looking for having no trees on them? Because that is what farm livestock does: their constant munchings have stopped the natural succession to a more wooded landscape. Those who benefit from the farm subsidies will tell us that we love it like that. And it's conceivable that some people might be tempted to agree without having any idea of how trees could make things worse.
But for once we might look at the valleys and the lower land where farming has a different role to that on the hills. Here are two pictures which should give pause for thought. The first is a recent picture looking to the slopes around Sheffield's Mayfield Valley. This is a favourite view and one much prized by estate agents. Some of its attraction is down to what it's not.
No housing estates for one. But it also shows a pleasing balance between scattered older settlements, irregular field shapes and occasional wooded copses that satisfy the eye when seen from a distance. The attractiveness does depend though on the fact that you can't see the plastic bales, rusting farm machinery and wind blown feed bags that are standard around many farms. And how pretty is the grass in the fields when you get close up? Usually the range of plant life is very restricted indeed if there have been sheep or cows in the fields. The most attractive parts then are in the lanes where no cows stray. Grazed fields do not have a show of wild flowers. so the fields may be nice to see from a distance but there is nothing to look at close to.
Now look at this picture taken in early June on Blacka Moor a couple of years ago.
In the foreground everything is teeming with interest because it is unmanaged. In the distance is farmland at its best. That is where the sheep and cattle should be not up here in the hills where the deer do their own thing; their grazing has an effect but a moderate one tempered by their needs rather than the artificially engineered needs of meat production for the human market. It is not on the industrial level of specially bred cattle with a mission to lay waste all the vegetation.
We need large land areas where no farming, no farm grazing takes place so that the interest on the ground is maintained. Simply land that is free and unexploited.
No housing estates for one. But it also shows a pleasing balance between scattered older settlements, irregular field shapes and occasional wooded copses that satisfy the eye when seen from a distance. The attractiveness does depend though on the fact that you can't see the plastic bales, rusting farm machinery and wind blown feed bags that are standard around many farms. And how pretty is the grass in the fields when you get close up? Usually the range of plant life is very restricted indeed if there have been sheep or cows in the fields. The most attractive parts then are in the lanes where no cows stray. Grazed fields do not have a show of wild flowers. so the fields may be nice to see from a distance but there is nothing to look at close to.
Now look at this picture taken in early June on Blacka Moor a couple of years ago.
In the foreground everything is teeming with interest because it is unmanaged. In the distance is farmland at its best. That is where the sheep and cattle should be not up here in the hills where the deer do their own thing; their grazing has an effect but a moderate one tempered by their needs rather than the artificially engineered needs of meat production for the human market. It is not on the industrial level of specially bred cattle with a mission to lay waste all the vegetation.
We need large land areas where no farming, no farm grazing takes place so that the interest on the ground is maintained. Simply land that is free and unexploited.
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