Journal of Rural Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 339-36t), 1991 0743-0167/91 $3.00 + (I.00 Printed in Great Britain Pergamon Press plc

Book Reviews

Management Agreements for Nature Conservation in Scotland, L. Livingstone, J. Rowan-Robinson and R. Cunningham, 6l pp. + 3 Appendices, 1990, Department of Land Economy, University of Aberdeen

The purpose of this publication in the report of a research project carried out in 1989 and 1990, and funded by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the University of Aberdeen, was to assess the effectiveness of Management Agreements concluded between the Nature Conservancy Council and owners and occupiers of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) under Section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. The Act is seen 'essentially as a means of resolving conflict' (p. 13), working through the system of reciprocal notification and Management Agree- ments, involving payments under the Financial Guidelines which amount, in effect, to compensation for profits foregone.

Management Agreements are the crux of the provisions of the 1981 Act for the protection of the SSSI system: what North (1982) called the government's 'determined volun- tarism'. Their inflexibility and high predicted cost were key features of critiques of the 1981 Act by conservation- ists through the early 1980s (Adams, 1986), and were (to an extent) supported by the calculations of consultants (Gould, 1985) and borne out by the facts of NCC expenditure.

None the less, there are now a substantial number of management agreements in force on SSSIs. This report gives the 1988 figures (1053, 2{)4 in Scotland), but this is rising steadily [1759 in March 1990, of which 299 were in Scotland, covering 34,322 ha (NCC, 1990)]. They are an important and entrenched feature of SSSI protection, and moreover one which is potentially of wider interest as a conservation mechanism. As the statutory conservation agencies are dismembered and re-assembled, there will be need for constructive lateral thinking on the costs and benefits of different approaches to countryside con- servation. The legislation establishing Scottish Natural Heritage in 1991-1992 will need to take account of the success of the 1981 Act's provisions. This research is therefore timely.

It is also unusual in being able to escape the mantle of secrecy which is drawn over all details about particular management agreements bv the NCC south of the border. Although NCC Scotland were not willing to make information available on agreements (either under nego- tiation or completed) in Scotland, this information is in the public domain in the Register of Sasines. The NCC did agree to discuss cases identified in this way. All Manage- ment Agreements registered in October 1989 were there- fore analysed, and a sample of 34 was drawn to give a range of habitat, land tenure and areas of Scotland. NCC Regional Staff or Land Agents, owners and occupiers and

professional advisers were then interviewed. In several cases, a number of agreements related to the same SSSI.

The results are to an extent predictable, but it is none the less interesting to see them set out. Interviews underlined the fact of local opposition to SSSI designation, particu- larly in places such as Orkney where up to 20% of land and water area are of SSSI quality (compared to 6-7% nationally), and the NCC is seen as 'judge in its own cause as regards designation' (p. 20). Interestingly, the report suggests that the NCC has in some cases responded "pragmatically', failing to designate land of SSSI quality. Communication and mutual understanding between NCC and owners or occupiers is essential to the successful establishment of Management Agreement, and the NCC sees the way forward as 'partnership'. The 1981 Act's procedures, where negotiations about management have to be triggered by the proposal of a Potentially Damaging Operation (PDO), do little to promote this, and the NCC Assistant Regional Officers (AROs) are too overworked to be able to spend enough time developing practical partnerships with owners and occupiers.

The survey suggests that the problems associated with the burden of SSSI renotification have been reduced. AROs have become more skilfull in presentation, and owners have certainly become more aware of the value of compensation payments. Owners copy neighbours, but it is argued that opportunism (seeking 'easy money' from a Management Agreement) or spurious proposals are relatively rare. Professional advisers may help filter these out, and also smooth the process of agreement. None the less, it takes far more than the statutory four months allowed under the Act to negotiate Management Agree- ments, sometimes up to two years. Most owners and occupiers are satisfied with agreements, but annual payments are low compared to England (£81 per ha compared to £304), reflecting lower gross margins.

Lists of Potentially Damaging Operations (PDOs) remain daunting and alienating to owners and occupiers, but some 75-90% of notifications by farmers of PDOs are agreed to by the NCC. In some cases time-limited consents are issued to allow for monitoring of impact. In others, AROs suggest modified proposals to avoid what is seen as the cumbersome procedure of a Management Agreement. It can be argued that the element of negotiation in Manage- ment Agreements has significant implications for the kind of management proposed. Agreed management is a trade- off between ideal and practicality, the interest of the NCC and of the owner or occupier. Positive rather than restrictive management is difficult where desirable tra- ditional practices are dying out; it requires good under- standing between parties and (oddly perhaps) positive measures are financed by a separate budget within NCC, which is tightly restricted. Indeed, budget restrictions dominate discussion of Management Agreements: restrict-

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ing the NCC's capacity to establish ideal management prescriptions, monitor sites and build partnerships.

Unremarkably, the authors of this report conclude that agricultural and forestry policy are central to habitat conservation, and that the NCC needs more resources for staff to take on 'partnership building', site monitoring and owner/occupier-education roles. These conclusions echo the 'unfinished business' alluded to by the Chairman of the NCC in the 16th Report (NCC, 1990, p. 10). The need for proper resourcing of nature conservation is a particularly vital issue as the ground rules of conservation shift with the creating of new statutory agencies and the dismemberment of the old.

If partnership is indeed the way forward, then habitat protection must surely be founded on a broader base which embraces the wider influences on land-use change. Management Agreements may be a necessary element in the future of nature conservation, but they cannot be sufficient. The continued loss and damage of SSSIs [415, 89,000 ha, in the year 1989-1990, (NCC, 1990)] might suggest that this report 's sanguine conclusion that 'there seems no doubt that the 1981 Act has achieved its primary objective of preventing immediate damage to SSSIs' (p. 58) is open to question. None the less, the importance of the Management Agreement mechanism to the survival of the battered remnants of the SSSI system, at least in the short term, cannot be in doubt.

W.M. ADAMS Department of Geography

University of Cambridge, U.K.

References

Adams, W.M, (1986) Nature's Place: Conservation Sites and Countryside Change. Allen and Unwin, H e m e l Hempstead.

Gould, L. (1985) Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981: Financial Guidelines for Management Agreements, Final Report. Department of the Environment, London.

Nature Conservancy Council (1990) 16th Report. Nature Conservancy Council, Peterborough.

North, R. (1982) £20 million needed, £600,000 offered. The Observer 14 March 1982 (p. 15).

Technological Change and the Rural Environment, Philip Lowe, Terry Marsden and Sarah Whatmore (eds), 202 pp., 1990, David Fulton, London

This edited book is the second in the Critical Perspective on Rural Change Series. A central focus of this anthology is the social basis of technological change in rural areas. Although the authors address a variety of topics, almost all of them discuss the emerging possibilities, and limitations, of biotechnology for agriculture, nature, and society. Through several case studies the authors argue that agricultural technology is neither inherently harmful, nor beneficial, but instead the consequences of technological development are shaped and influenced largely by social forces. Among the authors contributing to this volume, technology is not separable from social relations. Farming has a unique economic structure because of its dependence on biological process. As a result technological changes directed at overcoming these 'natural ' obstacles will have

dramatic consequences for the relationships between the farming sector and the rest of the food system.

Most edited books today have a serious flaw in that there is very little integration among the various contributions. In general, this book does not suffer from this problem. The exception is Margaret Fitzsimmons' discussion of the new work in geography, and how it relates to recent developments in rural sociology (Chapter 1). Although I found Fitzsimmons' chapter interesting, it is the only chapter in the book that does not focus explicitly on technological change in rural areas. If there is any continuity at all with the rest of the book, it is on the issue of how the subsumption of farming to capital involves both internal and external factors related to the farm. Fitz- simmons cautions us against assuming that farming can be understood solely by internal relationships of the enter- prise or larger structural tendencies.

One of the most fascinating chapters in the book is by Miklos Persanyi on post-socialist rural environments (Chapter 2). Most of us are now somewhat familiar with the extent of environmental degradation in Eastern Europe. Persanyi demonstrates how many of the environ- mental problems in rural areas of Eastern Europe are due to socialist policy which centralized the population as much as possible and established large-scale state and co- operative farms. The nature and extent of the environ- mental problems (e.g. mechanization and chemicalization) in Eastern Europe are remarkably similar to those we are experiencing in the West. Although there appears to be a growing number of protests over the ecological crisis, Persanyi contends that these protests are not due to increased environmental awareness or concern, but in- stead to the growing inequities between rural and urban areas.

In Chapter 3, Lowe et al. discuss some of the critical issues related to regulating farm-based pollution. They correctly point out that most forms of environmental regulation are set up for industries that have much different organiz- ational structures. Farming is different from most other industries because it tends to be based on a large number of producers facing a relatively competitive market of consumers. The authors point out, however, that market- oriented regulatory initiatives are likely to fail in the case of agriculture. A central problem in the market-oriented approach is that environmental standards cannot be set by aggregating the utilites of individuals. One issue not addressed in this chapter is: Who will bear the costs of environmental regulation? In most industries, environ- mental issues involve a conflict between state managers and large private sector firms. The result has been that the state or consumers bear many of the costs of environ- mental improvement. Because the economic structure of farming is different from that of manufacturing, external- ities are not easily passed on to the state or consumers.

The focus of Michael Redclift 's chapter (Chapter 4) is on sustainable development and agricultural technology. Using basic concepts of uneven and combined develop- ment, Redclift analyses the possibilities and problems associated with promoting new agricultural technologies in Third World countries. Redclift's proposal is to develop a Iow-input/high-tech alternative for these countries. Bio- technology and genetic engineering can be adapted to the needs of small farmers who are unlikely to be able to purchase industrial inputs and are constrained by several structural factors in low resource areas.