PRESERVING HARDY'S HEATH
N. W. Moore on the ways
of saving the delights of Dorset for the future
IN DORSET the landscape changes every feW miles. In one walk in the Isle of Purbeck you can savour the Breton heaths, the South Downs, the Weald and the Cotswolds. And, at the end of your walk, YOU can sit on a cliff top and watch the guillemots return to their ledges while fulmars glide by: you might be in Scotland. lo no other place in Britain can you see a Dartford warbler, a chalkhill blue butterfly and a puffin in the same morning. The existence of the Dartford warbler and the c.halkhill blue butterfly along with sand lizards, marsh gentians, early spider orchids and many other species depends on ways of managing land which are impossi- ble on farms where maximal production of food is the sole objective. I have known and loved Dorset for over 5. 0 years and have observed the changes in its landscape. In their different ways Tho- mas Hardy and Paul Nash have shown that Dorset is shaped and haunted by its past. As a conservation biologist I am concerned about the future; for conservation is essen- tially care for the future within the context of the present. How are we to reconcile the Short-term requirements of our genera- tions with our long-term obligations to the future? That is the key question, and I believe that what is happening in Dorset can help us understand it and show us what to do.
When I first knew Dorset much of it consisted of chalk and limestone pasture and Thomas Hardy's Egdon Heath stretch- ed from his birthplace at Higher Bock- hampton near Dorchester to Studland and the New Forest. Today less than a third of the original chalk grassland survives and less than a fifth of the heathland. The causes of the declines are obvious. Econo- mic forces and government policy which favoured maximal food production have made it profitable to turn downland into Forn and both downland and heathland into grass leys. Valuable resources of ball Clay, sand, gravel and oil underlie much of the heathland, and many heaths provide suitable areas for growing conifers and for industrial and housing developments. The Wonder is not that downland and heathland have disappeared, but that any remains. Why have the remnants survived?
Some downland has survived fortuitous- ly, because it is too steep to plough or is situated in army ranges. In a few instances landowners and farmers have forgone some financial gain and have deliberately conserved downland. However, an increas- ing proportion of the remaining downland owes its survival to deliberate action by national and local conservation bodies, notably the National Trust, the Nature Conservancy Council and the Dorset Trust for Nature Conservation.
Heathland shows a similar picture. A large proportion of the remaining heath- land survives for the time being because it is in army ranges or is awaiting mineral development. Some heaths are still there because their owners have conserved them deliberately; other owners have tried to exploit them but have been restrained by planning authorities who have recognised the national and international value of heaths. (Taking the world as a whole, heathland is a rare habitat and the British Isles have more than their fair share.) Over a quarter of the surviving heathlands have been saved by conservation bodies. For many years the Nature Conservancy Coun- cil held the fort,, but more recently the 'Your condom or mine?' conservation of heathland in Dorset has been a joint effort among the Nature Conservancy Council, the National Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Dorset Trust for Nature Conservation.
In pre-industrial society, wildlife habi- tats were the unsought by-product of low input/low output agriculture. Experience in Dorset (and elsewhere in Britain) shows that conservation will no longer occur by accident: it will have to be achieved con- sciously by individual landowners and far- mers and by conservation bodies.
The cereal and butter mountains are causing changes in government support for agriculture, but it is too early to predict their likely effects on conservation. Some farmers will need to intensify their opera- tions to remain solvent, and they will have less money to spare for conservation. On the other hand, agricultural land that is set aside can be used at least partly for conservation, and a drop in land prices will help conservation bodies to acquire more land for nature reserves. What is certain is that the scale of the conservation problem is such that neither individual farmers nor the conservation bodies can do what is required without help from the rest of us. Conservation, like any other activity which has to cater for the future as well as the present, should receive support from the country as a whole. In other words, land- owners and farmers will need to be encour- aged financially to integrate conservation with food production; and the conservation bodies, both national and local, official and non-governmental, will need considerably more support than they are getting.
Will this support be forthcoming? Only if people and hence political parties and hence governments think that conservation really matters. Conservation is much more than a concern for rare species. It is about keeping the options open for the future, about ensuring that the world can continue to support life and future evolution. Even so, most people still do not take it serious- ly. We need to know the reasons; I discuss them in a book on the science and politics of nature conservation (The Bird of Time, Cambridge, £9.95). One reason stands out particularly clearly: conservation issues are raised piecemeal in penny packets: a habi- tat is threatened here, a species is en- dangered there. In the face of urgent requirements such as houses and village bypasses, the conservation case often looks trivial. But if we look at the sum of lost habitats and species over time, the result is very significant and disturbing.
It was by studying the evolution of the Dorset heathlands in detail that I came to recognise that the importance of conserva- tion only becomes apparent when it is placed in• the context of time. Our con- servation activities are a measure of our faith in the future.
N. W. Moore was chief advisory officer of the Nature Conservancy Council until 1983.
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