Abstract :
The paper explores the spirit and purpose of nature conservation as it has developed, first as a wholly voluntary movement and then with direct Government support. A major stimulus has been the increasing input of ecologists, first in campaigning for a series of National Nature Reserves and an Ecological Research Council, and then in undertaking the survey and research required for underpinning and executing conservation management. Contrary to expectations, advances in agriculture became a major obstacle to the preservation, let alone enhancement, of wildlife, particularly in the wider countryside. A more supportive context for nature conservation has only begun to emerge in the late 1980s.
