Launch of Future Countryside
24 July 2009
Shadow Environment Secretary Nick Herbert is today launching Future Countryside, a major exercise to engage informed expert views on new ways to promote a sustainable countryside against the backdrop of climate change and growing pressures on resources.
Launching the new website – www.futurecountryside.com – at a press conference at the CLA Game Fair, Nick Herbert said:
“Our countryside faces real challenges in the years ahead. Climate change, development and the over-exploitation of natural resources present critical decisions over how we will manage the countryside and enhance biodiversity in future.
Growing pressure on both natural and financial resources mean that conventional policy levers will be insufficient to deliver the change we need. Now is the opportunity for new thinking with radical ideas such as our proposal for a scheme of conservation credits to help us protect habitats and enhance biodiversity.
As part of our commitment to new politics, we want to open up this debate. Future Countryside will provide a public forum for those with real insight and practical experience to discuss the long-term policy decisions that will decide the future of our countryside.”