Patchwork Guilt

Landowner power is threatening the future of the unique Somerset Levels

The Guardian, July 1999

Britain's most important wetland is in big trouble. So claim environmentalists in the West Country, who have been fighting for decades to protect the unique landscape of the Somerset Levels from intensive farming, overdrainage and government apathy. Now, with landowners and conservationists flinging accusations at each other across the drainage ditches, the Environment Agency - the government's official conservation watchdog - is being accused of sacrificing the remarkable environment of the Levels to the interests of intensive farming.

The centuries-old patchwork of drained marshes, water meadows and fens that surround Glastonbury is the only landscape of its kind in Europe, and its 250 square miles are wreathed in legally protected areas: 18 sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs); European Special Protected Areas for waterfowl; RSPB and Wildlife Trust reserves; MAFF-designated environmentally sensitive areas (ESAs). In addition, the majority of the area is designated a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar convention.

On paper, the Levels are well protected. In reality, one major obstacle is preventing this plethora of laws and directives from being backed up with action. That obstacle is control of the land.

The key to the entire environment is drainage: the Levels were under water in prehistoric times, and it is only a complex system of drainage ditches, pumps and sluices that makes them suitable for modern agriculture. Whoever controls this drainage system effectively decides to what extent the traditional, wildlife-rich wetlands survive, and how much land is drained for arable farming. But who does control it? The answer depends on who you talk to.

Barri Hitchin is coordinator of the Somerset Levels Campaign, an informal group of more than 200 local people concerned about the decline of the landscape. He is fiercely critical of the way the environment is currently managed.

"The sluices and dams are controlled by unaccountable groups of local landowners, known as Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs)," he explains. "They're an anachronism dating back to the enclosure acts. They're stuffed with intensive farmers, so it's in their interests to drain the ditches down to the mud, to maintain as much farmland as possible. In doing so, they are killing off the wildlife. What's really outrageous is that many of them are in receipt of MAFF grants which they're supposed to spend on looking after the designated ESAs."

Environmentalists agree that overdrainage is the single biggest threat to the Levels. According to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the vast numbers of overwintering wetland birds which have thronged the area for thousands of years now thrive in only a few reserves, and some breeding waders are in danger of becoming locally extinct. This, says Mark Robins, of the RSPB, is a direct result of overdrainage.

Roger Martin, director of the Somerset Wildlife Trust (SWT), has long been critical of the IDBs. "They are basically unaccountable," he says, "and they regularly pump areas dry, even SSSIs. The boards are filled with farmers;there's a built-in bias in favour of overdrainage."

But both the Levels campaign, and the SWT direct their heaviest criticism at the Environment Agency (EA). "They are legally obliged, under the water resources act, the land drainage acts and the EU birds and habitats directives, to control the IDBs, and to ensure that wildlife does not suffer through the activities of the farmers," says Hitchin. "I have photographic evidence showing that the ditches and fields are regularly overdrained, even in nature reserves. The EA is in clear breach of the law. For the benefit of a few landowners, the area is being turned into a monoculture, and the agency won't act to stop it."

Martin says: "The situation won't change until the EA plucks up courage and starts to veto the decisions of the drainage boards."

Naturally, the landowners see things differently. "I don't know what people mean when they say the Levels are overdrained; they are not," says Peter Maltby, the farmer who chairs the Aller Moor drainage board. Jonathan Comer, who sits on Lowbury drainage board, says: "I'm not anti-conservation. If conservationists want to see water levels change, they should come and talk to us." Both stand firmly behind the right of the IDBs to make land-use decisions. "We've managed our affairs well for hundreds of years," says Maltby, "and largely, we still do."

But this may not be enough any more. As well as the SWT, the Green Party and Friends of the Earth South-west, who are all critical of the current management of the Levels, English Nature and the RSPB have both expressed disquiet about the damage being done to the ecosystem. Hitchin is currently considering taking the EA to judicial review for alleged breach of the law. Almost all environmentalists agree that the EA will need to be pushed from above if it is to confront the destructive land ownership regime.

But would New Labour, famously nervous about crossing swords with the rural landowning lobby, be prepared to step in to save the Levels? Before the general election, the then environment spokeman, Michael Meacher promised, in a letter to Hitchin, that Labour would instruct the EA to end damaging overdrainage. It hasn't happened.

At the EA, they say they are about to launch a major action plan, put together, they claim, with the support both of drainage boards and conservationists. It will lay out strategies for wildlife protection, and will set out recommended levels for water tables and drainage. It will seek to prevent pollution of ditches, and to begin restoring damaged wetlands. The key to its success, says Martin Weiler, of the EA, will be consensus. "Of course our job is to stand up for this very important environment," he says. "But remember, this is a manmade landscape. If it wasn't for farming, it wouldn't exist. Clearly there are tensions, but in working towards a solution, we need to take the local farming community with us."

Yet the issue that lies at the heart of the problem remains unsolved. What happens if the IDBs don't like the EA's new recommended water levels? Who, ultimately, has the final say on drainage? Weiler says that the EA is "seeking further advice" from the government as to its powers.

But Hitchin says: "I have written evidence that the EA have been informed by the government exactly what their powers are. They know they have the right to overrule the drainage boards, but they are terrified of doing it."

Roger Martin agrees. "Privately, the EA know they are going to have to confront the drainage boards. I have been seriously thinking about denouncing their entire action plan as a fraud. If I do attach the Wildlife Trust's name to it, it will be with a statement making it clear that the EA will need to be prepared to get tough with the IDBs."

The EA's task is not an easy one. Environmentalists want to see it encouraging the spread of land-use systems that allow wildlife to flourish outside the reserves, such as small-scale organic farming and a revival of the ancient willow withy industry. Meanwhile, the landowning and farming lobbies are waiting in the wings. "The Country Landowners Association has sent the EA a clear message, that if it acts to affect landowners' interests without their consent, it will take civil action," says Robins. "That's the line they have to tread."

So, the ball is in the EA's court. With local disquiet about the management of the Somserset Levels growing, it will need to prove fairly quickly that its consensual approach will be an effective means of restoring the landscape of the Levels, rather than simply a tightrope act designed to mollify the landowners who have had their own way for so long.