Loss of Set-Aside Farmland “Will Affect Rare Birds’

RARE birds such as the stone curlew face a bleak future unless the government replaces set-aside land with schemes that will protect wildlife, the RSPB warned today.

Other farmland species in decline . . . including skylarks, yellowhammers, lapwings and barn owls . . . could be “devastated” if fallow land which provides food and shelter for birds is cultivated, the charity said.

The RSPB said conservation gains aided by set-aside, which was compulsory under the Common Agricultural Policy but will be scrapped next year, will be lost without government efforts.

The bird charity wants to see farm subsidies made conditional on leaving small areas of land fallow and in the longer term, money invested in green farming schemes.

But the National Farmers’ Union said measures to encourage birds must be integrated into productive agriculture rather than relying on setaside or a substitute scheme.

The NFU said less than 4% of the 363,000 hectares of compulsory set-aside in England is of “conservation value” and much of the fallow land will not be brought back into production.

The RSPB said it feared Environment Secretary Hilary Benn would ignore conservationists’ requests for replacement measures when he considers them today.

Dr Sue Armstrong Brown, the charity’s head of countryside conservation, said: “The loss of set-aside with no replacement is about the worst thing that could happen to stone-curlews and other farmland birds, at the worst possible time.

“More than one-quarter of stone-curlew chicks are raised on set- aside and far more skylarks nest on set-aside than on fields with crops.

“In winter, set-aside becomes a giant bird table for many species.”

Originally published by Newsquest Media Group.

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