Countryside Conservation Research Articles

More-than-land: conserving the social fabrics of the Kat O coastal settlements in Hong Kong

This article examines the unique self-organised spatial and social structure of the Kat O coastal settlements in Hong Kong. By problematising the identity politics between built forms and landscapes, this paper analyses the village’s deep-rooted history within the land‒water dichotomies, which have been shaped by government survey methods and conservation-development policies. Specifically, it presents the peri-urban condition of Kat O’s coastal settlements as a departure from the traditional urban‒rural continuum perspectives. Empirically, the field documentation of the self-built additions presents critical perspectives into the static understanding of land ownership, addition and adaptation strategies and the building materialities embedded within the government survey methods and conservation-development policies. Theoretically, this study provides an understanding of these coastal settlements as cultural landscapes that are dynamically related to the environment, as well as the changing sociocultural relationships among different communities on the basis of their unique conceptions of habitation and living. By examining past and current conservation policies, this article advocates for a water-centric vision for countryside conservation in Hong Kong that transcends the commonly adopted terrecentric perspective.

Countryside Conservation by Way of Promoting Community Farming with Land Consolidation

Countryside Conservation by Way of Promoting Community Farming with Land Consolidation

Green belt in a compact city: A zone for conservation or transition?

The paper examines the evolution, implementation and performance of the green belt in the compact and land-hungry city of Hong Kong. The green belt in Hong Kong comprises over 25% of all the land areas under the statutory land-use zoning plans. Its planning policy declares that there is a presumption against development in this land-use zone. Based upon historical study, cross-sectional examination of 109 statutory zoning plans and quantitative analysis of 1230 planning application cases, this study has evaluated whether the green belt was indeed treated as a non-building area for the purpose of landscape and countryside conservation. The conclusion is that the actual planning intention of the green belt has been ambivalent and flexible and it is a transition zone rather than a zone for conservation in Hong Kong.

‘How green is my valley?’ Desktop geographic information systems as a community‐based participatory mapping tool

Communities can be encouraged to participate in countryside conservation through mapping, expressing what they feel to be important or distinct locally. Established UK community ‘parish map’ projects focus on artwork. ‘Public participation geographic information systems’ potentially offer an alternative community mapping approach. Research sought to compare artwork and GIS mapping and their ease of use. Raster maps, digitizing of features and data table creation encouraged community groups to undertake thematic mapping themselves. Seamless maps removed perceived neighbourhood boundaries. Linking attribute data to maps offers an interactive approach to projects, including internet mapping. Findings indicated that hands‐on use of GIS, with support, could benefit and empower community groups when responding to local geographic issues.

The Politicization of Livestock: Rare Breeds and Countryside Conservation

Despite a recent emphasis on conflicts in rural areas, differences between members of the farming community over issues such as conservation remain to be fully explored. Focusing upon rare breeds of domestic farm animals, this paper investigates the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (rbst)and discusses its importance in the politicization of livestock.Actor network theory is used to provide a framework to analyse the development of rbst .Two phases of operation are evident, representing a shift from emergency measures towards a proactive strategy for livestock breed conservation. In both periods, there are ‘moments’ of problematization, interessement, enrolement and mobilization which establish the rbst as a powerful actor at the centre of a rare breeds network. Such has been the influence of the Trust that remarkably little conflict over the conservation of rare breeds has arisen. Rbst appeals to both farmers and conservationists,but success through increasing animal numbers and a lack of political effectiveness are found to be forces undermining its position of power in the network. Further questions are raised about the manipulation of animals to support political objectives.

The requirements of the UK statutory conservation agencies

Since the implementation of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the three Country Agencies (English Nature, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Countryside Council for Wales) have had the responsibility for licensing the capture and disturbance of birds. These agencies, in partnership with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), oversee the activities of ringing under Section 16 of the Wildlife & Countryside Act (1981) by the BTO operating the British and Irish Ringing Scheme. The country agencies rely on the JNCC to co‐ordinate their work and to undertake so‐called ‘special functions’, such as research and advice on nature conservation at the United Kingdom level and internationally. The JNCC/BTO partnership incorporates the various monitoring and survey projects that provide the basis for a significant element of ornithological advice in the UK. In addition to the administrative operation of the ringing scheme, there are elements within the partnership that interpret the data gained from the recovery of ringed birds and biometrics recorded at the time of ringing, as well as developing more standardised programmes of ringing such as the Constant Effort Sites and Retrapping Adults for Survival schemes. Many of the data gained from ringing increase our general understanding of the demography, movements and survival of species and are reported through the wealth of ornithological literature. These ‘ultimate’ uses of data are vital to inform the advice given by JNCC and the country agencies to central government, international bodies and Conventions relevant to the conservation of bird species and their habitats. The ‘raw’ recovery and biometric data collected through the Ringing Scheme are not used extensively by the statutory bodies at present. These ‘proximal’ data have the potential to underpin the designation of protected sitesby providing abetter understanding of the local and seasonal movements of our bird fauna; however, further work needs to be undertaken to improve access to these data. Several key research projects commissioned by the Country Agencies and JNCC use colour‐ringing, wing‐tagging and other unconventional marks to track the movements of key species. There are many examples where such data and further targeted studies could be used more extensively to evaluate the detailed habitat use by key species within protected sites, and their dispersal and seasonal movements between breeding and wintering grounds. Such uses could contribute to the understanding of national and international site ‘networks’, appropriate species recovery programmes, wider countryside conservation measures and international co‐operative action for migratory and quarry species.

Social norms, rationales and policies: reframing farmland protection in Israel

This paper analyzes the role of legitimization processes in the struggle over farmland protection policies in Israel. In the early sixties a centralized farmland protection program was institutionalized, curtailing private land owners` and leaseholders’ property rights on farmlands. The legitimacy accorded to such measures is explained as a function of the congruence between social norms, power structure and dominant ideology at the time. Then, the paper follows the changes in power, ideology, social norms, sanctioned discourse and the role of agriculture in the economy. These changes undermined the basis of the farmland protection rationales, and led to a crisis of legitimacy in the early nineties. As a result of several institutional and policy shifts in the early nineties, a time of rapid growth, concern shifted to the implications of growth for the future of open spaces. This concern over the loss of positive externalities was shared by environmentalists, urban and exurban consumption interests, planners and several elements within the rural establishment. As a result a new set of plans was introduced. Focusing on the central district, where the most severe development pressures are felt, the paper compares the sanctioned discourse and use of rationales in the new plans and documents to those of previous plans. These plans focus on averting the loss of positive externalities, rather than productive capacity, and are couched in economic terms, rather than ideological terms, reflecting the shift in language of the sanctioned discourse. It shows that the choice of rationales for legitimizing countryside conservation reflects the struggle over rural landscapes, as the rationales are used to cobble a coalition of planners, environmentalists, farmers, urbanites and exurbanites, against a powerful development coalition.

Review: Environmental Design: An Introduction for Architects and Engineers, Geographic Information Research: Bridging the Atlantic, Understanding Travel Behaviour in an Era of Change, Interpreting Official Statistics, Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, Countryside Conservation, Directions in Housing Policy: Towards Sustainable Housing Policies for the UK, GISDATA IV. Spatial Analytical Perspectives on GIS, Differential Urbanization: Integrating Spatial Models, Transportation and

Review: Environmental Design: An Introduction for Architects and Engineers, Geographic Information Research: Bridging the Atlantic, Understanding Travel Behaviour in an Era of Change, Interpreting Official Statistics, Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, Countryside Conservation, Directions in Housing Policy: Towards Sustainable Housing Policies for the UK, GISDATA IV. Spatial Analytical Perspectives on GIS, Differential Urbanization: Integrating Spatial Models, Transportation and

Towards a geography of agri-environmental policies in England and Wales

Agri-environmental policies have become increasingly prominent measures in the farm sector of England and Wales. This major development has not escaped the attention of agricultural geographers, but little work has emerged which overtly explores the geographical consequences of agri-environmental policy on land use patterns and countryside conservation. Understanding this geography is important in the evaluation of the unevenness of post-productivist processes in the countryside. Using different ‘scales’ of analysis and specific examples, this paper examines published literature, secondary and primary data to tease out the geographical impacts of agri-environmental policy. Each scale of analysis informs the interpretation of agri-environmental policy impacts in different ways. A national scale analysis provides a general impression of farmers' interest in conservation and their receptiveness to agri-environmental schemes. However, numbers of farmers enrolled gives little idea of the quality of environmental practices undertaken and any subsequent modifications to land use patterns. Moving to a regional scale permits greater sensitivity to interactions between scheme characteristics and factors peculiar to farming in a locality. A wide variety of agri-environmental policy outcomes emerge, demonstrating that a meso-scale analysis is a useful aid to detailed research into the geography of agri-environmental policy. Farm and field scale approaches show that existing studies concentrate on processes of adoption and less on outcomes ‘on the ground’. However, a selection of complex patterns at these scales are highlighted. Micro-scale aspects of agri-environmental policy deserve far more attention from agricultural geographers, although integrative research which draws upon insights gained from each scale is advocated to understand fully the geographical impacts of agri-environmental policy on land use patterns.

Integrated Conservation of Natural and Historical Aspects of the Countryside

This paper makes a case for interdisciplinary integration in countryside conservation. Traditionally there has been little communication between conservators of the built and the natural heritage. Valued natural and historical features often occur together—almost the entire British countryside is a human artefact, created by millennia of agriculture. Designed landscapes are important refuges for wildlife, and built structures shelter a rich and characteristic biota.True conflict of interest between conservation of the natural and cultural heritage is rare, but destruction can occur through a lack of awareness. Conservation legislation was partially responsible for the segregation of conservation skills, as legal protection of nature, archaeology and buildings developed separately and. in a piecemeal fashion.It is proposed that the segregation of conservation interests has hampered the efficacy of countryside conservation. It is important that sites are evaluated far the totality of their conservation interest, and management formulated to enhance all aspects where appropriate.The research on which this paper is based was undertaken for a Master's dissertation in Conservation Studies from the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies, University of York.1

The country parks programme and countryside conservation in Hong Kong

Urban and agricultural developments in Hong Kong are intensive and spatially concentrated in a quarter of the land, leaving a sizeable area of hilly countryside with unrestricted access, relatively empty and unspoilt. Care for this common heritage, in the past, focused on afforestation of the denuded hillslopes especially in reservoir catchments. The remaining parts, covered by grasses and shrubs, hardly received attention. The rapid population growth, urban encroachment and unplanned recreational use, threatened to engulf and ruin the countryside from the 1960s. A country parks programme was initiated belatedly in 1972, and was rapidly accomplished, so that in 1979 40 percent of the land was designated. The parks are broadly divided into high-intensity recreation, low-intensity recreation, and conservation zones. The programme has been successful in encouraging informal outdoor recreation, but has also engendered environmental problems which contradict the principal conservation goal. The overuse of sites and footpaths causes soil and vegetation damage. Hill fires, ignited by, and widely dispersed litter, left by, irresponsible and careless visitors, are additional forces of degradation. Long-term management should aim at containing these problems and plan for the anticipated changing recreational demands in the future.

対立から協調へ-示唆に富むイギリスの田園風景・環境保全へのアプローチ

対立から協調へ-示唆に富むイギリスの田園風景・環境保全へのアプローチ

Nature conservation in the Nordic countries: Consensus rather than conflict

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the aims, methods, planning and management, and current problems of countryside conservation in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. The traditional Nordic common-law of “every man's right of access” to the countryside is of longstanding. In these countries conservation is as much concerned with the protection, for public use, of landscapes of recreational and/or scenic value as with the conservation of ‘wild nature’. In addition, conservation is usually closely integrated with other aspects of physical planning, while responsibility for its management has been devolved, to a greater or lesser extent, from national or regional authorities to local government. The particular aims and methods of conservation, however, vary with the nature of the biophysical resource base, the legislative structure and the stage of conservation planning in the individual countries. In this respect, Denmark has the most sophisticated and developed system, Finland the least. The wider concept of conservation and its close integration with countryside planning in all the Nordic countries contrast with conservation in the U.K. It is suggested that the Nordic approach to the solution of conservation problems might be relevant to a solution of the increasing conflict of ecological, economic and social interests in the British countryside today.

Countryside Conservation.

Countryside Conservation.

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this article: Aerial Photography and Remote Sensing. Terrain Analysis and Remote Sensing. JOHN R. G. TOWNSHEND, ed. Environmental Data Use in Computer-assisted Data Handling Systems: The Results of a Survey of Applications in the Pacific Northwest States. KENNETH E. GORDON. Applied Land Use: A Spatial Approach. JOHN F. LOUNSBURY, LAWRENCE M. SOMMERS, AND EDWARD A. FERNALD, eds. The Second Battle of New Orleans: A History of the Vieux Carre Riverfront-Expressway Controversy. RICHARD O. BAUMBACH, JR. AND WILLIAM E. BORAH. Cultural Environmental Archaeology. MYRA SHACKLEY. The Immoral landscape: Female Prostitution in Western Societies. RICHARD SYMANSKI. life Among the Poor in Cairo. UNNI WIKAN, translated by Ann Henning. Women, Work and Property in Northwest India. URSULA SHARMA. The Domestication of Women: Discrimination in Developing Societies. BARBARA ROGERS Economic Optimization in Locational and Transport Analysis. A. G. WILSON, J. D. COELHO, S. M. MACGILL, H. C. W. L. WILLIAMS. New Tools for Economic Development: The Enterprise Zone, Development Bank, and RFC. GEORGE STERNLIEB AND DAVID LISTOKIN, eds. Regional Wage Inflation. R. L. MARTIN, ed. Finding A Place For Energy-Siting Coal Conversion Facilities. FRANK J. CALZONETTI WITH MARK S. ECKERT. Environmental Management, Resources, and Systems Environmentalism. Second Edition. T. O'RIORDAN. Countryside Conservation. BRYN GREEN. Medical Spatial Diffusion: An Historical Geography of Epidemics in an Island Community. A. D. CLIFF, P. HAGGETT, J. K. ORD, AND G. R. VERSEY. Philosophy and Geographic Thought Order and Skepticism: Human Geography and the Dialectic of Science. RICHARD SZYMANSKI AND JOHN A. AGNEW. Measurement of Subjective Phenomena. D. F. JOHNSTON, ed. Conceptions of Space in Social Thought: A Geographic Perspective. ROBERT DAVID SACK. The Association of American Geographers: The First Seventy-five Years: 1904-1979. PRESTON E. JAMES AND GEOFFREY J. MARTIN. The Life and Thought of Isaiah Bowman. GEOFFREY J. MARTIN. Physical River Basin Planning: Theory and Practice. SURANJIT K. SAHA AND CHRISTOPHER J. BARROW, eds. Soils and landforms: An Integration of Ceomorphology and Pedology. A. I. GERRARD Climatic Change and Society. Consequences of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. WILLIAM W. KELLOGG AND ROBERT SCHWARE. Political Political Redistrictings and Geographic Theory. RICHARD L. MORRILL. Population Studies in Spanish American Population History: Dell Plain Latin American Studies NO. 8. DAVID J. ROBINSON, ed. Population Redistribution in the Midwest. CURTIS C. ROSEMAN, ANDREW J. SOFRANKO, AND JAMES D. WILLIAMS, eds. Geographical Perspectives on the Elderly. A. M. WARNES, ed. Regional Perspective On the American South. MERLE BLACK AND JOHN SHELTON REED, eds. The Prairies and Plains: Prospects for the 80s. JOHN R. ROGGE, ed. Rural Rural Settlement in an Urban World. MICHAEL BUNCE. Social Accident at Three Mile Island: The Human Dimensions. DAVID L. SILLS, C. P. WOLF, AND VIVIEN B. SHELANSKI, eds. The American Small Town: Twentieth-Century Place Images. JOHN JAKLE. Urban A House of My Own. SUSAN LOBO. The City: Patterns and Processes in the Urban Ecosystem. CHRISTOPHER H. EXLINE, GARY L. PETERS, AND ROBERT P. LARKIN. Movement in Cities. P. W. DANIELS AND A. M. WARNES. Urbanization and Urban Planning in Capitalist Society. MICHAEL DEAR AND ALLEN J. SCOT, eds.

Reviews: Operational Urban Models—An Introduction, Land Use in America, Nepal in Crisis: Growth and Stagnation at the Periphery, Project Appraisal and Policy Review, the Factors Affecting Household Car Ownership, Car Ownership Modelling and Forecasting, High Technology Industry and Industrial Location, Urban Transport Planning, the Resource Management Series 3: Countryside Conservation—The Protection and Management of Amenity Ecosystems, the Land Use Policy

Reviews: Operational Urban Models—An Introduction, Land Use in America, Nepal in Crisis: Growth and Stagnation at the Periphery, Project Appraisal and Policy Review, the Factors Affecting Household Car Ownership, Car Ownership Modelling and Forecasting, High Technology Industry and Industrial Location, Urban Transport Planning, the Resource Management Series 3: Countryside Conservation—The Protection and Management of Amenity Ecosystems, the Land Use Policy

Green, Bryn, "Countryside Conservation: The Protection and Management of Amenity Ecosystems" (Book Review)

Green, Bryn, "Countryside Conservation: The Protection and Management of Amenity Ecosystems" (Book Review)

Countryside Conservation: The Resource Management, Series 3

Countryside Conservation: The Resource Management, Series 3

Countryside Conservation, by Bryn Green. (The Resource Management Series, No. 3.) George Allen & Unwin, London, Boston & Sydney: xiv + 249 pp., 24 × 16 × 2.1 cm, £13.00 (hardback) or £6.95 (paperback), 1981. - Perspectives in Landscape Ecology: Contributions to Research, Planning and Management of our Environment, Edited by S.P. Tjallingii & A. A. de Veer. Centre for

Countryside Conservation, by Bryn Green. (The Resource Management Series, No. 3.) George Allen & Unwin, London, Boston & Sydney: xiv + 249 pp., 24 × 16 × 2.1 cm, £13.00 (hardback) or £6.95 (paperback), 1981. - Perspectives in Landscape Ecology: Contributions to Research, Planning and Management of our Environment, Edited by S.P. Tjallingii & A. A. de Veer. Centre for Agricultural Publishing and Documentation, Wageningen, The Netherlands: 344 pp., 25 × 17 × 2.2 cm, [no price indicated], 1982. - Coastal Resources and Environmental Management: the Case of the Long Point Area, Lake Erie, Ontario, Edited by J.G. Nelson & Sabine Jessen. Contact: Journal of Urban and Environmental Affairs, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, Volume 12, No. 3, xiv + 168 pp, 23 × 15 × 1.1 cm, [no price indicated], 1980. - Volume 9 Issue 4

A conservation viewpoint

The term ‘conservation’ has been interpreted in many different ways. When applied to a single resource, for example water or soil, it is easy to understand; but when applied more generally to the environment or countryside it is more difficult. For the conservation of one resource often competes with the conservation of another. Two ideas seem to be important in any definition: the maintenance of potential and the element of social choice. A possible definition is the following: ‘the attempt to match the use of the land and of resources at any one time with the needs and aspirations of society at that time while, as far as possible, retaining their potential unimpaired for future generations’. The choice to exploit minerals seems to depend largely on economic considerations, although it would be possible and certainly desirable to concentrate more on the conservation of minerals (gaining the greatest human benefit per unit of mineral used), as, for example, by recycling or voluntary economy. Conservation of minerals is not generally adopted, however, until the resource becomes scarce or in times of national emergency. Countryside conservation, in contrast, concerns interests which in themselves may be mutually conflicting: the needs of traditional rural occupations; the demands for space of an urban and industrial society; and aspects of the national heritage. A simple antithesis between mineral exploitation and countryside conservation is therefore hardly possible because the considerations governing each of them are so different and because they are only two of the many interests concerned in the use of rural land. In Britain there is relatively little danger of causing irreversible damage to soil, water or air. Skills are available to undo damage done and there appears to be the political will to use these skills. The danger rather is of damage to aspects of ‘heritage’, due not to the total scale of mining activity but to the location of workings where other features of value can be irrevocably damaged. Conflict can be reduced by preparing strategic plans for each resource which identify areas of particular significance. The value of this approach is illustrated by the Nature Conservation Review of the Nature Con­servancy and the work of the Water Resources Board in planning water resources. The work on sand and gravel and on limestone illustrate what can be done with certain minerals. The case of non-ferrous metals is obviously more difficult but general indications of location and import­ance should be possible. Aspects of the national heritage can be grouped under five heads associated with: rural ways of life; beauty; nature and genetic resources; evidence of history culture and architecture; wilderness. National assess­ments are urgently required for landscape value and wilderness - both notoriously difficult to evaluate. Although such strategic assessments can reduce potential conflict, their effectiveness is greatly reduced because at present there is imperfect correspondence between value and the degree of statutory protection. A crucial measure in determining what this should be is how irreversible would be the change or irrevocable the loss. Conservation is concerned with gaining the greatest sustained use per unit of resource; economics, with return on capital invested. The two often conflict. There is a need to explore more deeply and critically the intellectual and philosophical basis of decisions about the use of resources.