This is where we could have a serious problem. Rapid change shortens the time scale, but if species and their habitats are allowed to move: to cooler areas as ambient temperatures rise, or salt marsh moving inland as the coast erodes, they can buy time for natural selection to have an effect. Unfortunately human activity is so widespread that we can block such progressive change with our constructions, such as highways, cities, and dams.

Our species is enhanced by rich biodiversity; think of how our food is produced, and where many medicines are sourced. It’s clear we need to adopt a more holistic approach to the natural world: it’s essential it becomes an integral part of our lives.

This imperative is reflected in a change in the way conservation is being approached, as noted on Page 5 of Living landscapes: A call to restore the UK’s battered ecosystems, for wildlife and people, published by The Wildlife Trusts.

To recreate genuine living landscapes, we need to embrace this approach:

• Move from dominators and controllers of nature to
  appreciators and influencers of nature;
• Move from nature as special interest to nature as
  providing our living conditions – locally, regionally and
  globally;
• Move from a situation of nature in boxes to nature in the
  neighbourhood and nature in the landscape.

Everyone has a part to play in this kind of strategy, so when considering flood defences, coastal erosion projects, transport systems, or even paving your garden, please consider the impact on our living landscapes.

Four types of field margin are defined by the UK Biodiversity Partnership and the UK Government in Action plan for Cereal field margins.

• A ‘Wildlife Strip’ 6m wide adjacent to a cereal crop, together with a.1 m ‘Sterile Strip’ between the wildlife strip and the crop. The wildlife strip is cultivated once a year but not cropped; the Sterile Strip is maintained so as to prevent aggressive arable weeds spreading into the adjacent cereal crop.
• A ‘Conservation Headland’ either 6m or 12m wide forming the outer margin of the crop and separated from an adjacent field boundary or other vegetation by a.1 m Sterile Strip. The Conservation Headland is cropped with cereals but is managed with reduced inputs of pesticides so as to favour wild arable plants and invertebrates.
• A combined wildlife strip and Conservation Headland, separated by a Sterile Strip and managed as described as above.
• Game crops, stubble or grassland fallows lying between annually cropped land and the field boundary.

According to their figures such land could be very significant, more than compensating for the lost set-aside.

The margins of cereal fields could be managed in ways which would benefit wildlife, without having serious detrimental effects on the remaining cropped area. Estimating average national field size to be 12 ha suggests that there are about 400,000 km of cereal field edge in the UK. If all such boundaries included a 6m managed margin, some 200,000 ha of land would be brought into sensitive management (600,000 ha at 12m width).

It seems to me that this approach could be far more useful than its predecessor: a network of margins could link the whole countryside with designated nature reserves and urban spaces. These are exactly the type of ‘green corridors’ that a landscape ecology approach requires.

However, this idilic concept may be limited by the use of non-organic farming methods on the main crops. What about the traditional meadow required for many wildflower species? Find out more about the benefits of this system for birds and small mammals at the RSPB. Buglife, in association with the UK DEFRA, further discuss of the pros and cons, especially for insects.