Research
Novel approach needed
Land needs to be better managed to meet the competing demands for food
production, wildlife conservation and access to open spaces, says a new
report prepared by Professor Jules Pretty OBE, Rachel Hine and Joanne
Peacock from the Department of Biological Sciences.
The team was commissioned by the National Trust to help them assess the
environmental, social and economic benefits that come from good land
management. The researchers developed a new methodology to identify and
measure the multiple benefits to be gained from varied land use at six
locations in the east of England.
They worked at Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire, Hatfield Forest in Essex,
Dunwich Heath in Suffolk, Blakeney Point on the north Norfolk coast and
Flatford Mill in Suffolk, assessing representative visitors’ views of the
different health and environmental benefits which can be provided by green
space, including farming, wildlife habitat, flood protection and leisure.
The research makes a number of recommendations including calling on
agencies responsible for maintaining the natural environment, such as
Natural England, to take a lead role in promoting a more integrated
approach to land management and for planners and developers to ensure that
people and communities, especially new ones, have quality, accessible
local green space.
Professor Pretty, who is Head of Biological Sciences said: 'Our
research has shown just how important it is to think of the multiple uses
of land.
'In these times where there are growing pressures on food production,
it is even more important to maintain a productive landscape as well as
one that also produces vitally important environmental and health
services. The land can be good for wildlife, agriculture and people, all
at the same time. But it does require novel thinking, clear policies and
clever management.'
Activity levels in children investigated
With a third of children in the UK either overweight or obese,
researchers from the Department of Biological Sciences are gathering
much-needed information about activity levels in school-age children.
The project, led by Dr Gavin Sandercock, started last year with the
first of two cross-sectional studies of local schoolchildren. The second
study is now underway and a longitudinal study has recently started.
The team found last year that 39 per cent of the children they surveyed
were overweight or obese, 33 per cent had low physical activity and 25 per
cent were unfit.
Dr Sandercock said: 'As a nation we consume less calories than we did
in 1980 and yet we are the fattest nation in Europe. Our study aims to
find out why.'
The team has surveyed 3,000 11 to 16 year olds from the Colchester area and
this year will measure another 3,000 along with around 600 primary school
children.
As well as weighing and measuring the youngsters, the team is
investigating other factors to try to determine why they are overweight.
Questions include how the children get to and from school, how much
‘screen time’ they have daily, how much exercise their parents do and
socio-demographic data. Such factors are not currently investigated by the
national Health Survey.
Dr Sandercock explained: 'Screen time is a particularly interesting
factor. This doesn’t just include watching television, but also surfing
the internet and playing computer games. On average, the children we are
surveying spend two and a half hours per day in front of a screen with the
most unfit children spending nearer to four hours per day engaged in these
activities.'
The longitudinal study involves 1,200 Year 7 children from local
Colchester schools who will be assessed at 11, 13 and 15 years old charting their
weight and fitness levels.
Dr Sandercock added: 'Our study will eventually provide vital ‘normal
values’ for things such as how strong children are, how fast they can run
and how high they can jump. Such figures are measured routinely in many
European countries but the UK is one of the few that does not conduct
tests of this sort. This has led to a significant gap in the data
available to researchers which our study will address.'
Also in the printed June edition of Wyvern:
