As intensive agriculture inland provides fewer and fewer places for wildlife, and as agricultural land itself is taken over for urban development, our coasts assume greater importance as natural areas where wildlife can thrive and where people can enjoy natural beauty.

Intensive agriculture
Intensive agricultural practices can result in loss of hedgerows and other landscape features.

Intensively farmed countryside can suffer from unsympathetic buildings and reduced bio-diversity. Changes to the land come from ploughing up traditional pastures and the draining of wetlands (particularly important for breeding waders and wildfowl). There is a risk of pollution from fertilisers and pesticides.

Using agriculture to benefit the coast
In some coastal areas, arable cultivation has virtually reached the cliff edge. A different problem occurs when there is too little grazing on the coast, as a result of which many cliff tops have changed from grasslands rich in plant species to monotonous bracken and scrub.

The National Trust's response in some areas has been to reintroduce grazing to cliff tops, to the considerable benefit of the flora.