Registered Charity No. 279968

Stephen Tapper The Game Conservancy Trust Fordingbridge, Hampshire, SP6 1EF Tel: 01425 651021 Email: stapper@gct.org.uk

Front cover picture: Stephen Tapper Design and layout: Sophia Miles Paper Leaflet Printing: James Byrne Printing Website Creation: James Long

© The Game Conservancy Trust 2002 No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved.

What the Government must do

In 2001 the Prime Minister commissioned Sir Donald Curry to review the future of Food and Farming. In his report Sir Donald endorsed the idea of switching some of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidy to support the environment. He believed this would be in the public interest. In particular he suggested a new ‘broad and shallow’ Agri-environment Scheme in which most farmers could participate and which would pay them for protecting the environment and encouraging wildlife.

The Government should finance these Curry recommendations and work with other EU states to follow-up the Agenda 2000 mid-term review, turning much of the CAP into a countryside and wildlife conservation support mechanism on working farms. It’s what the public wants and what Britain’s wildlife needs.

Key Game Conservancy Trust papers on farmland wildlife

Potts, GR & Vickerman, GP (1974) Studies on the cereal ecosystem. Advances in Ecological Research, 8, 107-97.

Rands, MRW (1985) Pesticide use on cereals and the survival of grey partridge chicks: A field experiment. Journal of Applied Ecology, 22, 49-54.

Dover, JW, Sotherton, NW & Gobbett, K (1990) Reduced pesticide inputs on cereal field margins: the effects on butterfly abundance. Ecological Entomology, 15, 17-24.

Aebischer, NJ (1991) Twenty years of monitoring invertebrates and weeds in cereal fields in Sussex. In: The Ecology of Temperate Cereal Fields. Eds LG Firbank, N Carter, JF Darbyshire & GR Potts. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford. 305-22.

Thomas, MB, Wratten, SD & Sotherton, NW (1991) Creation of “island” habitats in farmland to manipulate populations of beneficial arthropods: predator densities and emigration. Journal of Applied Ecology, 28, 906-18.

Stoate, C & Leake, A (2002) Where the Birds Sing. The Allerton Project: 10 years of conservation on farmland. The Game Conservancy Trust, Fordingbridge, Hampshire.