Countryside Management

The factors affecting the wider environment are constantly increasing and range from agriculture and forestry to recreation, urban development and population growth. These in turn have knock-on effects such as climate change, water and food shortages, habitat and species loss and the impact of non-native species. One of the areas where these factors come together is in the field of countryside management where the public use of the countryside interacts with professional land managers and can result in conflict. In the context of this programme and the degree programme from which it has developed the term countryside management encompasses a broad range of topics and land uses ranging from conservation management to rural land use planning and interpretation to land use history. Applications are accepted from those both with or without specifically related previous qualifications - previous students have included graduates of History, Education, Business Management and Engineering, as well as Biological and Natural Sciences. Non-graduate entrants have included students with significant experience in aspects such as countryside rangering, town & country planning and ecology. Students are expected to have a broad knowledge of how the countryside that we see around us has developed in a historical context and how this relates to factors such as climate, ecology and soils. This in turn helps to determine current land use practice whether it be for agriculture or forestry, conservation management or recreation. Inevitably these land uses are interlinked in complex ways and the countryside manager is expected to be able to identify the potential conflicts and to arrive at appropriate management options. Of course there is rarely a simple answer in such situations and the resulting decisions have to be based on an understanding of the competing claims and an awareness of how to work with individuals, interest groups and communities to ensure that stakeholders' views have been taken into account.