It is a delight to be in an area which is so beautiful. I enjoy spending time outdoors, always have done, and this is so regardless of the weather. We are particularly blessed to have a good mix of grazing, arable, common and rough ground in this area. A walk in an orchard can be followed later by a climb up one of the Black Mountains.
I know that I am not alone in observing the changes in land use and management. Nor is this a new and recent thing. As time passes and demands change, so the visible landscape follows suit. From a teenager I lived in Warwickshire and saw in that part of the world smaller grazed land replaced with larger arable fields. Hedgerows are quite inconvenient when it comes to ploughing and harvesting a crop. I have every sympathy with farmers who respond to the market as set by supermarkets, food producers, and us as consumers. I have found it bizarre that in some areas Councils have gone for meat and dairy free menus, spurning local produce and having to rely upon imported foods which were most likely intensely farmed.
We see some of the impact in our local area along the Wye. Farmed land is holding less water so it is running off onto roads and into streams and rivers. This is resulting in more localised flooding as roads, drains and rivers cannot hold such a quantity of water. There are various places, subject to flooding in the past month, which are not adjacent to rivers nor are places which have historically flooded. Meadows and grazing land are no use to a farmer who cannot make a living from livestock or dairy farming. Nor can a polluted and degraded river support the plant life which helps in managing water flow.
The previous Pope, Benedict XVI, said the following in 2008:
‘The family needs a home, a fit environment in which to develop its proper relationships. For the human family, this home is the earth, the environment that God the Creator has given us to inhabit with creativity and responsibility. We need to care for the environment: it has been entrusted to men and women to be protected and cultivated with responsible freedom, with the good of all as a constant guiding criterion.’
He is, of course, correct. We have a responsibility to use the created world well and in accordance with the ways in which nature works. We need to have a more grown-up conversation about consumption and waste. We need to have a more grown-up conversation on the effect that changing use of land has upon water flows and wildlife. A four-hundred acre ploughed field may well assist the efficient production of a crop, but it is no home for bird or mammal. We need to talk more with those who have grown-up knowing the land and the seasons, rather than denigrating them for changing practices so that a home can be kept. And when I say we, I mean you and me along with those who direct public policy both here and abroad.
Please God, let it be that the Blessed Saints, most particularly Our Lady, continue to pray for us!
Fr. David
