Conservation Legislation
Conservation Legislation
The continuing attractiveness of the local landscape is not accidental, but is due to the conservation efforts of individuals, organisations and government.
For many hundreds of years there was a balance between the demand for food and countryside resources and their availability.
Towards the end of the 19th century the damaging environmental impact of a rapidly growing population was becoming recognised.
In 1889 the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was formed in response to the near-extinction of the Great Crested Grebe. Within Oxfordshire, the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust ( BBOWT ) is the major non-government group active in establishing nature reserves and promoting wildlife.
Until the middle of the 20th Century, conservation was largely at the initiative of private organisations and individual landowners, but since then government involvement has also been important in protecting species, habitats and sites of landcape value.
National Parks, AONBs and SSSIs
- Legislation in 1949 established the idea of National Parks and Areas of Outstanding National Beauty. Within these areas, industrial and other detrimental activities would be restricted.
- The Nature Conservancy (forerunner of English Nature) became the government's first nature conservation body. The Wittenham Clumps lie within the North Wessex Downs AONB, established in 1972.
- Green Belts were designated around major towns from the mid 1950s to prevent urban sprawl.
- Sites of Special Scientific Interest have been defined under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to protect areas important for their wildlife or geological significance.
Since 1994 the UK government has promoted a Biodiversity Action Plan, focused on the national protection of species and habitats across the countryside (not just at protected sites).
Biodiversity and Agriculture
