THE WORLDWIDE Fund for Nature has accused Europe's Common Agricultural Policy of causing severe damage to Europe's natural environment. In a report published this week, it calls for approval of a new European directive on preserving habitats, mandatory environmental impact statements for large-scale agricultural and forestry developments, and a European system for monitoring changes in land use and its environmental effect.
WWF wants the proportion of Community funds given to poorer farmers who work 'environmentally sensitive' land to be increased from 25 to 80 per cent. This would keep intensive agriculture excluded from areas which are not yet damaged.
Europe's landscape is so conditioned by centuries of farming that it is not proper to talk about 'natural' habitat, says the WWF. Its report, Agriculture and Habitat Loss in Europe, by David Baldock of the Institute for European Environmental Policy, charges that even the semi-natural habitat of farmland, which dominates from ...
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