The significance of EU agricultural policy on the nature conservation of pastoral farmland

The European landscape reflects several centuries of interaction between people and their natural environments. These "cultural" landscapes are overwhelmingly the product of man's farming activities. Many such landscapes are linked even today with pastoral farming systems. The rapid modernization of European agriculture, which spread Out from the Atlantic lowlands of the north-west, has resulted in intensification, marginalization, concentration and specialization of farming. This modernization continues today in southern Europe and has begun and is certain to increase in central and eastern Europe. It has resulted in a fundamental imbalance between farming and the environment. Only in recent years has the agricultural policy of the European Union started to respond to the environmental implications of this imbalance. It includes application of compulsory regulation to ensure minimum standards, and promotion of agri-environment programmes to encourage positive environmental actions. But both measures have had limited effect to date. The latest reforms of the "Common Agricultural Policy" - known as "Agenda 2000" have placed greater emphasis on this kind of programme and especially on the concept of "integrated rural development". The fundamental linkage between extensive farmingand especially with pastoral farming and biodiversity leads to the rationale of why certain styles of fanning should be central to future rural development policies, as in the Agenda 2006/2007 concept.