ENVIRONMENT Secretary Caroline Spelman last week called for a new focus on preserving the countryside’s vitally important natural assets.

A new Defra White Paper focuses on endangered animals, cleaner water and other aspects of the natural environment which, it says, were neglected during Labour’s years in office. The problem is particularly acute in the south-west because of the unprecedented population growth pressures it faces over the coming decades due to it being the most popular tourist destination within the UK and the large number of people who move to the area on retirement.

The new government intends to bring in new legislation to safeguard the environment and has asked the public to let it know what their top priorities are.

Mrs Spelman said: “The countryside, green spaces, wildlife, rivers and seas shape our quality of life, while there is also a wider, national value.

“It underpins our economic prosperity, our food security, our health and our ability to adapt to a changing climate and to reduce the greenhouse gases which cause these changes.”

However, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has expressed disappointment there was little mention of the key role played by farmers. It warned that if ministers were serious about tackling what they called the “piecemeal degradation” of the countryside, they had to involve farmers. The countryside is worth £15 billion a year to the economy. Mrs Spelman said: “We want everyone to contribute their views on the national environment, whether they are concerned at the plight of songbirds in their gardens, the quality of air in their towns, flooding problems worsened by paving over gardens or the fate of our wider countryside.

“We have the chance to be the generation which puts a stop to the piecemeal degradation of our natural environment.”

Ian Johnson of the NFU in the south-west said: “It is disappointing farmers were not even mentioned as important contributors to the debate, despite approximately 70 per cent of the entire area of England being farmland.

“It may well be that, as she says, ‘nature is our ultimate producer and supplier’, but she omits to mention this is not without considerable input from responsible agriculture, in terms of producing food for our national larder and shaping our landscape.”