Current farming policy may be imperfect (National parks: where our wildlife goes to die, March 24) but it has not stopped many committed farmers, including the RSPB’s own Hope Farm in Cambridgeshire and ours in Leicestershire, where songbird numbers are up by 42%, from showing that abundant wildlife and commercial farming can go together.
The challenge, as we leave Europe, is to ensure Government policy motivates others to do the same. Some want even more regulation, but we feel incentives through payments for public goods based partly on GWCT research are the right way. It will be even better if the Government provides incentives and advice for farmers to work together in ‘Farm Clusters’ to manage the countryside. Wildlife knows no boundaries, inside a National Park or not.
Sir Jim Paice
Chairman of Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust