Restructuring the Countryside: Environmental Policy in PracticeAuthor(s): Gordon ClarkSource: Area, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Jun., 1991), pp. 169-170Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20002961 .

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IBG Annual Conference 169

(Bristol), in a study of an oak woodland subjected to aerial fallout from Avonmouth RTZ smelter. As well as illustrating the compartmentalisation of lead, zinc and cadmium in different parts of the above and below-ground system, they demonstrated the use of woodlice, or at least their hepatopancreases, in which they accumulate ingested heavy metals, as environmental indicators of the spatial distribution of heavy metal pollution from a point source. Despite evidence from many studies indicating longterm retention of heavy metals in soils, they also reported that cadmium and zinc became mobile over their ten year study period, and migrated down the soil profile.

Effects on British ecosystems of caesium fallout from the Chernobyl explosion has been studied by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology. Dave Horrill and Gill Clint (Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Merlewood) reported that in heather moorland, the soil litter layer contains up to 50 per cent of the caesium in soil. Mycorrhizae aid caesium uptake by heather seedlings, but caesium from both litter and fungus can be readily leached. The effects of acid rain in mobilising aluminium from upland and afforested soils was discussed by Mike Hornung (Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Merlewood). Using Welsh forestry examples, he suggested that Al mobilis ation in stagnopodzols was not yet high enough to cause root dieback in pine and spruce. Links between soil anion activity, particularly nitrification, and aluminium mobilisation, and studies of streambed release of aluminium, look promising for future study.

Sheila M Ross Bristol University

Restructuring the countryside: environmental policy in practice

The restructuring of the countryside is a key area in current rural research and Andrew Gilg (Exeter) convened the Rural Geography Study Group's session on this theme, bringing together 13 papers and 7 policy makers as discussants. Some of the papers had a strong environmental theme-Bunce (Institute of Terrestrial Ecology) on the ecological effects of land-use changes,

Gerrard (Birmingham) on the pedological consequences of moorland improvement, and the two papers on nitrates in water (Ilbery and Foster, Coventry Polytechnic; Cox and Seymour, Bath). Several of the papers were progress reports on research in hand, particularly that under the aegis of the various countryside initiatives from the ESRC-for example the papers by Munton (University College, London), Willis (Newcastle), Cox (Bath), Walford and Ward (University College, London), and Potter (Wye College).

The preliminary nature of the reports (most were only 20 minutes long) and the lack of printed papers limited the extent to which the audience could glean ' results ' from the session. What was clear, however, were the common threads to the research agenda today in many of the sub-fields of rural geography. The first point echoes the familiar tag that ' all geography is historical geography '. There is an increasing realisation that a full understanding of processes of rural change requires one to consider long-term issues which work themselves out over decades (such as family life histories or changes in political ideology) as well as more quickly acting processes. The papers by Potter (Wye College), Furuseth (UNC, Charlotte) and Munton (University College, London) stressed this dimension of longue duree. A related theme is that of geographical scale, both literally and rather more metaphorically. Many of the authors stressed how essential it was to link small-scale and large-scale processes. Issues such as post-modernism, the service economy and the workings of the CAP or GATT can be understood only in relation to the grass roots forces which nourish them. Equally their working out in practice will be uneven and this can be fully explained only when it is related to the distinctive mix of conditions found in each locality. Briggs (Huddersfield Polytechnic), Tarrant (UEA) and Brotherton (Sheffield) showed how patchy the uptake of extensification and set-aside has been, while explaining farmers' responses to new technology was the prime focus of the paper by Walford and Ward (University

College, London). Equally valid is the need to ground locality studies in strong policy and

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170 IBG Annual Conference

theoretical frameworks which allow for the interplay of 'internal ' and 'external ' factors, themselves scale-dependent terms.

While the importance of these issues of historical and geographical scale has been recognised for some time, a more recent perspective is that of' discourse '. The UCL group has adopted land development as a focus for their research and they model this as a contest between conflicting groups each seeking to extend its influence, power and property rights by moulding the dis cussion along its lines. The groups seek to set an agenda, prioritise issues, use scientific evidence or even use words in such a way as to make more likely an outcome favourable to their interests. This was neatly illustrated by the panel of outside speakers from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Countryside Commission, the Council for the Protection of Rural England, the Country Landowners' Association, the Peak District National Park and the Institute for European Environmental Policy. Their commentaries on our work not only added a policy dimension missing from some of the academic papers but demonstrated how their sectoral interest controlled their use of language, their choice of issues to highlight and their attitudes to certain evidence. The importance of the social construction of knowledge was amply demonstrated by these policy-makers.

The session was very well attended-up to 70 in the audience-and the Rural Geography Study Group would like to thank most warmly the convenor, Andrew Gilg and the chairpersons (Drs Gerrard, Ilbery, Tarrant and Bowler) for an excell-2nt programme.

Gordon Clark Lancaster University

A changing world: a chaAiging discipline?

This three-module session was convened by the Institute's President to discuss aspects of a rapidly-changing world and how geographers should respond to the challenges posed. The first two modules each comprised three 'scene-setting' papers identifying salient elements of the changing world; the third contained four short, provocative statements designed to focus attention on the needed response.

The first module-'Changing world society'-had papers on economic, social and political changes. Peter Dicken (University of Manchester) looked at the organisation of the global economy, emphasising two concentration-dispersion dimensions-organisational and geographical-and the role of the state as a regulator of the global economy, with particular reference to trade policies, regional economic blocs, and foreign direct investment. Within social change, Susan Smith (University of Edinburgh) focused on the problems of marginalised groups in societies lacking the rigid class structures of the past, and the inequalities and injustices which these groups face. She used the natural science metaphor to analyse the naturalisation of gender differences in economic restructuring, the medicalisation of social life in the field of welfare (as illustrated by British housing policy), and the racialisation of culture in the political sphere. (Later discussion indicated that environmental movements could also be incorporated within this schema.)

Graham Smith's (University of Cambridge) theme was 'The end of state socialism ': he emphasised that two transitions were occurring, one from socialism to capitalism and the other from the unitary, multinational statre to nationalism. He stressed the longevity of attachments to place as illustrated by the continued sense of nationhood in many parts of eastern Europe and the USSR, and pointed to the paradox of disillusionment with the state at the same time as a strong state was required to promote accumulation.

The second module looked at ' Changing environments', which are now high on the public and political agenda. Ian Simmons (University of Durham) took a ' long view ' in analysing the inter-relationships between societies and their environments. He emphasised the great differ ence between background and current inter-relationships, as illustrated by erosion rates and

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