Natural England

Natural England welcomes the Government’s announcement that the Environmental Stewardship scheme is to remain open to new applications from 1 January 2007.

Entry Level schemes are open to all farmers and land managers. To date almost 25,000 Entry Level Stewardship (ELS) agreements have been signed, bringing some 3.5 million hectares under environmental management.

Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) is a more targeted scheme and supports only the highest quality applications. In recent months, however, Natural England has supported a significant increase in agreement numbers for HLS, bringing the number of HLS agreements to almost 1,000, covering over 65,000 hectares.

Welcoming the government’s announcement, Helen Phillips, Natural England’s Chief Executive, said, “Environmental Stewardship is fundamental to Natural England's work to secure a healthier agricultural landscape and helps meet the Government's environmental Public Service Agreement targets. We will strive to make it a sound business choice for farmers.

“Farmers in their thousands have already signed up to manage their land in an environmentally friendly way. The management options offered under Environmental Stewardship are essential to maintain the landscape and its value for wildlife and people.”

Entry Level, Higher Level and Organic Stewardship schemes will remain open to new applications, although the agreements will be provisional pending the approval of the new Rural Development Programme. This means that agreements might have to be amended in light of any changes that come out of the approval process.

The existing agreement holders are unaffected provided their agreement was signed before the end of 2006.

In return for long-term commitment to environmental management, over £65 million has been paid to land managers since the launch of Environmental Stewardship in March 2005.