National Wildlife Organisations
National Parks, AONBs and SSSIs
Legislation in 1949 established the idea of National Parks and Areas of Outstanding National Beauty. Within these areas, industrial and other detrimental activities would be restricted.
The Nature Conservancy (forerunner of English Nature) became the government’s first nature conservation body. The Wittenham Clumps lie within the North Wessex Downs AONB, established in 1972.
Green Belts were designated around major towns from the mid 1950s to prevent urban sprawl.
Sites of Special Scientific Interest have been defined under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to protect areas important for their wildlife or geological significance.
Little Wittenham Nature Reserve (see next section) became an SSSI in 2000, and has since also been designated as one of Europe’s Special Areas of Conservation, recognising the international importance of its population of Great Crested Newts.
http://www.jncc.gov.uk/protectedsites/sacselection/sac.asp?EUCode=UK0030184
Since 1994 the UK government has promoted a Biodiversity Action Plan, focused on the national protection of species and habitats across the countryside (not just at protected sites).
Biodiversity and Agriculture
Agricultural policies are changing to provide more favourable wildlife habitats. The specific protected sites (such as SSSIs or Nature Reserves) serve as refuges for species which should then be able to migrate across a linked network of habitats as external conditions (such as climate) change in the future.
