Current thinking, which accepts that there is a relationship between the quality of the environment and economic activity in rural areas, views the rural landscape as a multi-functional resource that has a number of roles. These include:
- a base resource for renewable resources, e.g. fisheries, agriculture and forestry products;
- a product itself, e.g. landscape as a resource for recreation;
- a 'sink' for waste and pollutants;
- a life support system for humans and all other forms of life; and
- a resource with aesthetic value that contributes to the quality of life.
It is unfortunate for policy makers that the environment, as an unpriced and public or collective consumption good, has not been well explored with respect to rural development. The research that has been undertaken in this area appears piecemeal and too specific, for example, in concentrating on certain types of landscape and land resources at risk, or heritage artefacts. Moreover, investigation and assessment of the impact of, and the linkages between, the rural environment and economic activity has, with the exception of leisure and tourism, been limited.
In the absence of empirical data on the nature and strengths of the links between environmental quality and rural development, Government and NGOs are reduced to framing rural policies based on extremely broad assumptions. For instance, assuming that safeguarding and enhancing the rural environment in toto will facilitate rural development by increasing its ability to attract businesses and encouraging people to want to live and work there.
OBJECTIVES
- The main objective of this project is to identify and measure the key economic benefits associated with the quality of the environment and to make environmental management recommendations that will generate sustainable economic growth in rural areas.
- This proposed study, building on the Defra scoping study into the key drivers of economic development and social exclusion in rural areas (Defra, 2002), is designed to address the issues outlined above, and has the following specific objectives:
- To review and build upon existing literature to identify key areas of economic activity that are generated because of the quality of the environment in which they take place;
- To quantify the relative contribution of aspects of environment quality (discounting for other drivers) to the types of economic activity so identified;
- To explore, using regional case studies, the differential impact of environmental quality in economic development, in particular focusing on reasons for success, failure and potential opportunities for further development; and
- To make recommendations for changes to environmental management policies to further the generation of sustainable economic development in rural areas.
- The introduction of new, or expansion of existing, forms of rural business may help to overcome some rural problems (e.g. social exclusion, rural unemployment and low incomes). However, this new economic activity might itself have an adverse effect on environment quality. For example, it might increase demand for development, impair landscape character through visual intrusion, loss of land resources and wildlife habitats, create land and water pollution and cause general congestion. If policy instruments aimed at rural development through environmental enhancement are to avoid such negative environmental consequences, these feedbacks must also be understood. Thus, this project will also explore these issues.
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