EVERY household will be within a 15-minute walk of a green space or water, under a major environmental improvement plan for England set out by the government on Tuesday. (last week)

The long-awaited measures will include commitments to restore at least 500,000 hectares (1.2m acres) of wildlife habitat, and 400 miles of river. This will include 25 new or expanded national nature reserves and 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of new woodland along England’s rivers. 

A new species survival fund will target some of the most threatened wildlife, including hedgehogs and red squirrels.

Farmers will play a big part in this as much of the land will come from them.

At first read this looks like very good news, but the devil is in the detail. To be able to walk to a green area or water in 15 minutes from home is what’s needed. 

How they will achieve this in big city centres and even harder in some urban sprawls, I am not really sure.

It will need billions of pounds to really make the difference that is needed. 

It’s not just about having a green area to walk your dog; in fact, the dog may frighten the new wildlife. 

If it’s to help the wildlife then some of these new areas need to be people and especially dog free, or at least low footfall.

The wildlife in England is at a low ebb and one of the most depleted in Europe, mostly due to urbanization. 

To reintroduce wildlife will need a long careful plan to make a difference. And while we are talking about reintroducing wildlife, I do have some worries over the controversial plans to introduce wild cats and wolves in some areas. 

In this country farming is quite intense and the last thing we want to hear on the news is farm animals and other depleted animals like voles and rabbits being killed by reintroduced animals.

The reality is, unless we stop building on more and more farmland, we wont be able to rewild properly or feed ourselves fully in the future. 

Maybe we should adopt the tradition of Croatia, which is: to grow more of your own food for yourself. Even countries with such a strong self-sufficiency have struggled to feed themselves lately without importing lots of food.

In the future, home grown food, and the need for wildlife and open spaces for people’s sanity, is going to be a struggle to achieve in the UK without a freeze on population grown. 

Farmers will play a real and active roll in the future to get this done, or it won’t happen.

Twenty five new or expanded reserves is great news, but to make a real impact on nature, we need thousands of small local wildlife areas and not just a few reserves many miles away and only available to car drivers.