More than five million hectares of land in England, an area roughly twice the size of Wales, are now covered by schemes which aim to conserve our valuable landscape and its wildlife, according to a report published by Defra and Natural England.

Environmental Stewardship is the latest phase of 21 years of agri-environment schemes, which have brought real benefit to the countryside and is a government-funded scheme open to all farmers, which funds the delivery of environmental benefits through agriculture. The scheme aims to conserve wildlife, maintain and enhance our landscape quality and character, protect our natural resources, and promote public access to the countryside.

These schemes across England have repaired more than 17,000 kilometres of hedgerow, created more than 4,800km of footpaths, and 2,400km of cycle paths and bridleways, assisted recovery of a range of species and are on target to bring 95 per cent of Sites of Special Scientific Interest into favourable condition by 2010.

The report makes a number of recommendations for the future of the scheme, in particular the need to address the scope that Environmental Stewardship has to help combat climate change and help mitigate its effects on wildlife and habitats.

Secretary of state for the environment Hilary Benn, who launched the report, said: “Environmental Stewardship is our flagship scheme for farming and the environment. It is open to all farmers in England and has introduced a wealth of improvements to our countryside. Our farming industry has such an important role to play here, and I’m pleased that with their help we are seeing real changes.

“I am delighted that so many farmers have entered Stewardship and hope that more will now do so. The scheme's additional focus on tackling climate change is particularly important.

“I warmly welcome the recommendations of this review and we will now work closely with Natural England to implement the changes to the scheme options and to develop the other ideas on scheme design to ensure that Environmental Stewardship continues to achieve its aims,” he added.

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