Sheepwrecked - Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life - page 160

roughly tripled. Yet there has been no commensurate rise in rainfall. 20
Two things have changed. The first is that, as I have mentioned before,
until the late 1990s the authorities dragged woody debris out of the
upper reaches of this river, hastening the flow of water to the flooding
zones. The second is that, as sheep numbers have risen, grazing in the
watershed has intensified. Environmentalists have tended to blame all
increased flooding on climate change. It is rapidly becoming a major fac-
tor, but until recently that was not the case. The land's reduced ability to
absorb the water that falls on it appears to have been more important.
The rivers which drain the Welsh uplands, the Severn and Wye in par-
ticular, flow, when they reach the lowlands, through some of the most
productive parts of Britain, where the soil is fertile enough to grow fruit
and vegetables as well as cereal crops. Many of the farms here depend
on irrigation. Many lose crops and opportunities when the land floods.
It is not easy to estimate how much potential food production might be
lost in such places as a result of the increased volatility of the rivers that
pass through them, and I can find no research which attempts to do so.
But, given the remarkably low output in the upland areas of Britain, it is
within the range of possibility that hill farming creates a net loss of food.
There must be few industries in which such extensive environmental
damage supports such small gains and so few people.
Grazing is one of the least productive uses to which the hills could be
put. Despite the vast area it occupies and the subsidies it receives, farming
in Wales contributes just over £400 million to the economy. 21 Walking,
with much lower environmental impacts, produces over £500 million,
and 'wildlife-based activity' generates £1,900 million.* 22 The National
Ecosystem Assessment shows that, across most of the uplands of Wales,
switching from farming to multi-purpose woodland would produce an
economic gain. 23 In other words, the current model of farming, far from
being essential to the rural economy, appears to drag it down. The barren
British uplands are a waste in two senses of the word.
All this would be less of our business if we were not paying for it. Hill
farming is entirely dependent on subsidies provided by taxpayers. In
Wales, the average subsidy for sheep farms on the hills is £53,000. Aver-
* This covers conservation work, wildlife tourism, other jobs which would not exist
were it not for wildlife, and academic and commercial research and consultancy.