RURAL reality doesn't take kindly to government mistakes, especially in agriculture. And those mistakes go back a long way. At the end of Hitler's War there were 500,000 miles of hedgerows in the UK. Now there are less than half that number.

The grubbing-up of hedges was government subsidised well into the 1970s. Then, under pressure from conservationists, the campaign to restore old hedges began, in a faltering sort of way. But it would be unfair to lay the blame entirely at bureaucracy's feet. Poor hedge management and downright neglect by some landowners and farmers contributed to the problem.

On the other hand, we're indebted to the agricultural community for creating the rural landscape many of us enjoy. But this doesn't give farmers and landowners the right to dismiss our concern about certain aspects of rural management and rural life as townie sentimentality.

My hatred of otter hunting goes back to the late 1950s when I followed the hunt on a few occasions to separate fact from fiction. The anti-hunt lobby then was embryonic.

Otter hunting was the only summer blood sport. And like hare coursing, stag hunting and the rest of the medieval pastimes enjoyed by 'real country people' it was sacrosanct in rural tradition.

Hunt supporters claimed it wasn't the kill that attracted them to the 'sport' in the first place. It was the freedom to follow streams across private land, the exercise, comradeship and so on. But at the end of the chase was the kill. And to witness the death of an exhausted otter under the hounds in the shallows of a South Devon brook was harrowing in the extreme. In practical terms the farming community has rarely questioned the proposals or dictates of urban-based, scientific 'experts' if those schemes appeared to be profitable. The removal of hedges to create bigger fields for machines like the combine harvester to work in, and the nationwide acceptance of toxic pesticides, confirm this.

The cirl bunting declined rapidly during the 60s and 70s due to the pace of change in the way our land was farmed. In 1989 the UK population was down to about a hundred pairs, confined to South Devon. Urgent action was necessary to save the bird from extinction in Britain.

The RSPB researched the cirl bunting's problems and joined forces with the farming community to reverse the bird's fortunes. By encouraging farmers to farm in a wildlife-friendly way the cirl bunting population recovered, with 350 pairs in South Devon in 1997.

Beyond the sort of rural elitism that condones and supports everything country people do, irrespective of the moral and environmental issues involved, there are those who truly care about the conservation of wildlife and green places for their own sake. So, providing a voice for the voiceless is sound commonsense, and a real investment in the future.

And we must continue the campaign from the downland of Kingskerswell and Galmpton Common, to Westerland Valley and other green places necessary to wildlife and the well-being of our species.