Disappearing countryside

Trees, flowers, fields and hedges

Biodiversity is all around us - in our gardens, parks, rivers, fields - playing a big part in our quality of life. But we're:

Burying wildlife under new houses, roads, ports and airports.
Ripping out wildlife-rich hedgerows to make bigger fields.
Digging up peat bogs for garden fertiliser.

Did you know?

95 percent of our wildlife-rich lowland peat bogs have been destroyed in the last 50 years.

Image © English Nature

Hidden threats

It's easy to see how biodiversity is lost when habitats are bulldozed. There are other less obvious threats:

Intensive agriculture
Global trade rules and supermarkets force farmers to find ways to produce bigger harvests at the lowest cost.
Genetically modified crops
Some GM crops resist the herbicides that kill all other plants in a field - yet those so-called weeds often provide food for insects and birds.

Did you know?

Studies show that looking at gardens and natural spaces can help to relieve stress in as little as five minutes.

Image © English Nature

After years of campaigning by Friends of the Earth, the Government passed the Countryside and Rights of Way Act. The law protects our most precious wildlife sites - home to birds, bugs and mammals. Yet despite the law, wildlife is still losing out to development.

We need tighter planning controls to protect our wildlife and fundamental changes to farming and transport policies.