The common agricultural policy - a brighter future for Habitat?

In a previous post I highlighted the surprising number of animals registered for common land in Commons Commissioners Decisions in the late 1980's. There was a great enthusiasm by those with commoning rights for registering sheep and on one common of 2,136 acres partly designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) 18,643 sheep were registered by commoners! The Commons Commissioner noted that

"It is I suppose obvious that those numbers of sheep could not sensibly all be grazed at the same time."

It seems that the Common Agricultural Policy at one point made payments per head of livestock grazed and sensible numbers of sheep were not grazed as UK and Wales government official historical sheep numbers appear to trend with the European Union Common Agricultural Policies of payments per head of livestock.

Parliament Research Briefing paper Number 03339, 21 January 2016 Agriculture: historical statistics - researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN03339/SN03339.pdf

The effect of European Union Common Agricultural Policy payments can be demonstrated by considering the Sheep population of the UK. The dramatic fall in 2001, was a result of culling in the Foot and Mouth outbreak and the policy of payment per head of livestock was phased out in 2005 and a single farm payment introduced. Demand from overseas markets (China) has kept overall numbers high and there seems no apparent appetite by UK livestock farmers to return to previous historic levels for sheep numbers.

http://gov.wales/docs/statistics/2015/151119-survey-agriculture-horticulture-june-2015-en.pdf

In 2013 a collaboration between 25 UK conservation and research organisations produced a report titled the State of Nature 2013, which highlighted the decline of UK habitat and species under the European Union Common Agricultural Policies.

Illustration from the 2013 State of Nature Report

• We have quantitative assessments of the population or distribution trends of 3,148 species. Of these, 60% of species have declined over the last 50 years and 31% have declined strongly. 
• Half of the species assessed have shown strong changes in abundance or distribution, indicating that recent environmental changes are having a dramatic impact on the nature of the UK’s land and seas. There is also evidence to suggest that species with specific habitat requirements are faring worse than generalist species that are better able to adapt to a changing environment. 
• A new Watchlist Indicator has been developed to measure how conservation priority species are faring, based on 155 species for which we have suitable data. This group contains many of our most threatened and vulnerable species, and the indicator shows that their overall numbers have declined by 77% in the last 40 years, with little sign of recovery. 
•  Of more than 6,000 species that have been assessed using modern Red List criteria, more than one in ten are thought to be under threat of extinction in the UK. A further 885 species are listed as threatened using older Red List criteria or alternative methods to classify threat. 
•  Our assessment looks back over 50 years at most and over a considerably shorter period of time for many species groups. It is well accepted that there were considerable (albeit largely unquantified) declines in the UK’s wildlife prior to the last 50 years, linked to habitat loss.

The supplementary report for Wales stated  :

Due to a lack of suitable data, we were only able to present quantitative trends for about 5% of the UK’s species, and when we look at a smaller scale, the problem becomes even greater. As a result, although we report the best available data here for Wales, the picture is far from complete – we simply don’t have sufficient knowledge to make a robust, quantitative assessment of the state of nature in Wales. 

In 2015 The European Commission produced the State of Nature Europe, Reporting under the EU Habitats and Birds Directives 2007–2012 Across the EU a glance shows an unfavourable status for species.

screen grab from http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/pdf/state_of_nature_en.pdf

Screen grab from http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/pdf/state_of_nature_en.pdf

The growing concern and criticism from conservation organisations of the declining habitat in Europe has necessitated a revised Common Agricultural Policy and in the UK this has seen a change from from the Single Farm Payment into a Basic Farm Payment Scheme (BPS) that will aim encourage farmers to prioritise Habitat Nature Value.

Greening Under BPS, farmers have to meet the ‘greening’ rules to receive a greening payment as part of their total BPS payment. The greening payment will be worth about 30% of a farmer’s total payment.

The Common Agricultural Policy new payment structure in the UK do appear to place an onus on habitat conservation and enhancement, it will be interesting to read how the new policy plays out.