Countryside Management Association News

Don't you just love new words? Anyway, another Times article, this time on the benefits of "green" exercise on mental health:

"Alternative therapies for depression – such as country walks and care farms, where patients are prescribed agricultural work – are being ignored as Britain becomes ever more reliant on chemical treatments, campaigners say.

Findings from two studies released today suggest that “ecotherapy” – which includes such simple exercises as outdoor walks – can improve a person’s poor mental health dramatically. The studies have prompted calls for the approach to become a recognised frontline treatment.

Ecotherapy: The Green Agenda for Mental Health, in which the studies are published, is the first report to look at how “green” exercise affects those suffering from depression.

Researchers from the University of Essex compared the benefits of a 30-minute walk in a country park with a walk in an indoor shopping centre on 20 people affected by depression.

After the country walk, 71 per cent said that they felt less depressed and tense while 90 per cent reported increased self-esteem. After the walk in the shopping centre only 45 per cent felt less depressed and 22 per cent actually felt more depressed. About 50 per cent felt more tense and 44 per cent said that their self-esteem had dropped.

The researchers conducted another study in which they asked 108 people with various mental health problems about their experiences of ecotherapy. Ninety-four per cent said that green activities had benefited their mental health and lifted depression and 90 per cent said that the combination of nature and exercise had the greatest effect.

The mental health charity Mind described ecotherapy as “getting outdoors and getting active in a green environment as a way of boosting mental wellbeing”.

The charity said that if it was prescribed as part of main-stream practice, ecotherapy could potentially help millions of people. It would also be vastly cheaper than antidepressant drugs.

Mind said that Britain lagged behind the rest of Europe in prescribing agricultural work to treat mental distress. The Netherlands had 600 care farms operating as a fully integrated part of the health service, while Britain had only 43, the charity said, and none was dedicated to mental health.

Paul Farmer, Mind’s chief executive, said: “It is a credible, clinically valid treatment option and needs to be prescribed by GPs, especially when for many people access to treatments other than antidepressants is extremely limited.

“We’re not saying that ecotherapy can replace drugs but that the debate needs to be broadened.”

According to an article in The Times newspaper "The Government is considering a billion pound-plus sale of the country’s canals and waterways.

British Waterways, the government-controlled body responsible for 2,200 miles of canals and rivers in the UK, is running a beauty parade of banks with a view to kick-starting a strategic review in the summer. The review will examine all options for the business, including a sale of all or parts of the portfolio, a possible stock market listing or other partnership or funding structures.

A sale could raise as much as £1 billion for the Treasury.

British Waterways is sitting on a property goldmine that includes all the towpaths and land alongside the canals. The company last valued its portfolio at more than £500 million, but that figure could more than double over the coming years as it shares the spoils of housing and office regeneration schemes on its land.
Any sale of British Waterways land would attract interest from Britain’s big property developers and supermarkets.

It is understood that British Waterways, which falls under the remit of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), has written to several banks, including Rothschild, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, seeking proposals for the review. It expects to appoint an adviser this summer.

The move follows Gordon Brown’s announced plan to reap billions of pounds from selling off a swath of the Government’s £337 billion of assets.

A Defra spokesman said: “Privatisation [of British Waterways] is not government policy, and that’s what we’ve said at the moment.”

British Waterways relies on Defra for annual grants to help it to maintain and restore the waterways. The public corporation has made no secret of its desire to become less dependent on Defra and seek greater commercial freedom. “At the moment we’ve told them to go and explore ways of doing that,” the Defra spokesman said.

The corporation’s most valuable regeneration scheme is a proposal, dubbed Wood Wharf, to build about 5.5 million sq ft of Docklands housing and offices next to Canary Wharf. Once built, the scheme could be worth more than £4 billlion, property sources said. British Waterways has a 50 per cent share in Wood Wharf, with the rest owned by Canary Wharf Group, the Docklands developer, and Ballymore, the housebuilder.

Speaking at British Waterways’ annual meeting last year, Robin Evans, the chief executive, said: “The continuing demand for residential units, the vibrant commercial market and the attractiveness of our waterways have combined to create proposals for a quite remarkable £6 billion, not million, billion, worth of regeneration alongside our waterways.”

Since 2000 British Waterways has received £520 million in grants, including £57.5 million so far this year. But recent grant cuts prompted a rise in mooring and licence fees.

British Waterways had an operating profit last year of only £400,000 on revenues of £190.5 million. The backlog of maintenance work on the waterways totals £119 million."

Writtle College’s Centre for Environment and Rural Affairs (CERA) is illustrating just how easy it can be to save energy by staging a Big Switch Off Day on Thursday 17th May. All staff and students using the main building at Writtle College will be asked to be as energy conscious as possible to see how much electricity they can save simply by making a few, small changes to their day.

Climate change is on everyone's minds as we bask in the sunshine of one of the warmest Springs on record. While we are all familiar with the worst predictions of how global warming could impact our lives it is not too late to do something about it and Writtle College is making sure it plays its part.

Following advice from the Carbon Trust and Energy Savings Trust we can all reduce our energy consumption, both at home and at work. Staff and students at the College are keen to prove just how much can be achieved through simple measures such as turning off unnecessary lights and not leaving electrical equipment on standby.

If you would like more information please contact Sarah Willsher or Carole Randall on 01245 424200 or email cera@writtle.ac.uk. Results of this experiment will be published at www.cera.org.uk