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GREEN AND PROSPEROUS LAND
A BLUEPRINT FOR RESCUING THE BRITISH COUNTRYSIDE
Dieter Helm
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2019
Copyright © Dieter Helm 2019
Cover illustration by Jack Smyth
Dieter Helm asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008304508
Ebook Edition © 2020 ISBN: 9780008304485
Version: 2020-02-25
Praise for Green and Prosperous Land
‘Dieter Helm has taken a good, hard look at the state of our natural environment and the result could be one of the most important books of the decade’ Country Life
‘Helm’s solutions are refreshingly straightforward … The notion of the financial value of nature is long established. Helm takes this further to present a pure economic argument for conservation. We all need to listen to that’ Simon Barnes, Sunday Times
‘[Helm is] as eloquent with his recommendations as in analysis of the problem … This is an important analysis, argued with passion, intelligence and rigour. It is timely too, because – as Helm makes compellingly clear – of the urgency of the problem’ Financial Times
‘A trenchant manifesto for change … visionary, pragmatic and context-rich’ Nature
‘Delivers handsomely on the promise of its title’ New Scientist
‘Helm is able to explain how a price can be put on the intangible. Rather brilliantly, he does so through presenting future scenarios, imagining what the country will be like in 2050 if current practices continue, and then what the alternative is if an agenda of policies is introduced and properly regulated … He makes a more optimistic future conceivable through domestic reforms … There is an enormous amount to admire’ Times Literary Supplement
‘Hooray for this book! An economist dispensing with the usual nonsense, and applying his mind to the task of devising a sound economic plan for the protection and restoration of Britain’s wildlife … [This is a] brave and forthright attempt to begin a new conversation on how to pay to keep our wildlife’ British Wildlife
‘A tough-minded and eminently practical plan for the recovery of our natural capital and the protection of our renewables … that might just make the Britain of 2050 a success story’ The Herald Magazine
‘A good read and an important one too. I loved it, as I agreed with much of it and was interested by all of it’ Mark Avery
‘This book is urgent. It should be required reading for all interested in turning the 25YEP into reality. I wonder if the next generation will recognise this book as a Rachel Carson-style moment that helped to kick-start the wholesale recovery of nature: I hope so’ BTO News
‘Written with intelligence and rigour, this is an important work’ The Week
To Sue, Oliver and Laura, as always, and to Amelie and Jake of the next generation in the hope that the natural environment they will inherit will be in better shape for them to enjoy.
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell, 1970
I thought it would last my time –
The sense that, beyond the town,
There would always be fields and farms,
Where the village louts could climb
Such trees as were not cut down;
I knew there’d be false alarms
[ … ]
Things are tougher than we are, just
As earth will always respond
However we mess it about;
Chuck filth in the sea, if you must:
The tides will be clean beyond.
– But what do I feel now? Doubt?
Selected verses from ‘Going, Going’ by Philip Larkin, 1972
CONTENTS
