Everywhere you take your car or your dog, or ramble through the fields, you will see this devastation in front of you. Hedgerows across the whole country are being rendered unsustainable at an alarming rate, cut back savagely every year with tractor-driven rotary and flail blade equipment.
Increasingly, landowners have taken to cutting a second time
just before the season closes in March, to further compromise potential growth.
Why?
Whatever the reason, this has to stop NOW.
In the last 20 years, rotary and flail blade tractor attachments have seen a sharp rise in popularity. Easy to use and quick to cut large sections of hedgerow, these labour-saving devices require no specialist license for operation and the City and Guilds certificate says nothing about best practice in relation to the environment they are designed to manage (see below). Many rural government grants at this time do not require cross-compliance to best-practice directives in order for them to be paid. This omission does not support the health of the countryside, the taxpayer providing the funds, or the people who live, work and recharge in rural environments.
Operators have carte blanche to cut into the foliage as deeply as they see fit, and if they have been instructed to cut the hedge back to the same height, or decide to do so for themselves, the plant cannot grow properly. Hard annual cutting destroys berry, nut and seed harvest - most hedgerow species bear fruit only in the second year of growth. Cutting again in spring further weakens the plant, eventually rendering it unviable and ultimately killing it completely (cutting twice in one growing season is a fairly new trend).
Without legislation to protect it, more sustainable, healthy hedge line has vanished every year. Stubby, unproductive stalks are all that remain of lush, mature foliage that once housed all manner of wildlife. Finches, warblers, thrushes and buntings - no threat to the farmer but reliant on thick hedges for safe nest sites - have seen rapid decline in the past ten years.
Hedgerow Defenders is not anti-farming, nor do we seek to demonise landowners in any way. We call for greater protection of this habitat because it is important at all levels - for wildlife, people and the environment as a whole - and we challenge any argument that supports savage cutting, demanding due consideration of the genocide it causes. Through subsidies, we pay for farmers to husband the land appropriately and need to ensure that our money is well spent. We need a healthy countryside, too!
In late spring, long after nesting birds have established their breeding sites, green growth will cover the damage done. Absence of blossom and fruit is evident right through the growing seasons. As is the dwarfish height of the hedgerow - in many cases, the cow parsley is taller! Nesting in hedges like this is not an option for most farmland birds, which need dense cover under a full canopy to ensure protection from predators and weather. Birds that are doing well by comparison are those happy to nest close to humans, such as blackbirds, robins, and sparrows.
Insects have plunged into sharp declines, with many now on the endangered list as key pollinators fail to retain sustainable colonies. Hedgehogs and dormice, too, depend on this unique habitat for survival - hedgehogs appeared on the Red List in 2020.
