ELO_64 engels 12-02-2004 08:56 Pagina 8

EN

Europe's Natural and Cultural Heritage

Carlos Otero & Tony Bailey
his book presents a cameo of private rural estates throughout Europe, and in particular their role in

T conserving Europe's natural and cultural heritage. As the European Union continues to expand and
faces ever increasing cultural diversity and economic change, it is timely to review the contribution
of the European Estate.
The present size of the European
Union exceeds 319 million hectares,
and with the accession of the 10 candi-
date countries this will increase to 393
million hectares. Of this, 40% of the
land mass is agricultural land and in
excess of 38% is forest - thus almost
80% of Europe is "rural land". In
Western Europe approximately 66% of
forests are on private estates and much
of the agricultural land is on the estates
or farmed by owner - occupier farmers.
The role of private owners is therefore
crucial to the well-being of the
European countryside.
European policy, in addition to
national, has considerable impact on
rural estates. The Common Agricultural
Policy (CAP) has greatly influenced eco-
nomic decisions on land use, but major
changes are underway. Although the
timescale of change may be lengthy, we
were concerned to find out how the
estate owners were adapting to change
as they faced agriculture's move to
unprotected global markets, and loo-
ked to diversifying their economic base
from the more traditional agriculture
and forestry Europe's environmental
policies also have a particular effect on
the rural estates. Our starting hypothe-
sis was that it was Europe's private lan-
downers who were the true guardians
of the countryside; it was their ste-
wardship that was conserving the spe-
cies, habitats, and landscapes that are
so highly valued by society. Yet there is
a growing amount of European environ-
mental legislation that seeks to prescri-
be future land-use and land manage-
ment. This is often at odds with the
enterprise and land-use choices of
owners, or involves costs that cannot
be covered.
We wanted to see how this potential
difficulty between the state and private
owners was resolving itself on the
Estates themselves in terms of conser-
vation and biodiversity. The passing of
recent decades has witnessed much
demographic change in the country-
side. In some parts of Europe many
people have left the countryside for the
towns, reflecting changes in traditional
rural industries and job opportunities. In
other parts there has been the reverse;
some have left the towns for a more
tranquil life in the countryside. Without
doubt there is an "opening up" of the
countryside, with considerable wider
public interest. Sometimes this is reflec-
ted in traditional tourism but more
recently in a growing trend of "eco-tou-
rism".
How well is this pressure being
accommodated, and is the very object
of the public's interest at risk from the
increased activity? In selecting the indi-
vidual Estates we have tried to take into
account European diversity in terms of
people, geography, history, size, flora
and fauna, landscape, land-use, and
enterprise. We visited the Estates, tal-
ked to the owners, their managers and
staff, took our photographs, and sought
the leads to our further researches
before we started writing.
From the north to south, from east
to west, we found some amazing
Estates and met some remarkable peo-
ple. The 61 chapters reflect big and
small Estates, some have been in the
same family for centuries, and others
are recent acquisitions. Some are very
traditional, whist others are very
contemporary; but all are involved in
managing change, sometimes on a
significant scale. We have included 2
Estates from the former communist sta-
tes of Central and Eastern Europe, to
show examples of how they are addres-
sing change.

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