In the preface to his book, 'Our Heritage of Wild Nature' published in 1946, A G Tansley wrote:

The threat (to England's beauty) is more imminent and dangerous to-day than when he wrote, for the large-scale national planning that is now being done together with enhanced industrial activity and wide extension of transport will affect almost every corner of the country; and if the plans are carried into action without conscious and informed regard to the preservation of the beauty and character of our landscapes, the result must be a land that will have lost he greater part of its rural charm.

Whether we like it or not, large-scale planning for the post-war world is inevitable; but just as we can plan for freedom as well as for order, efficiency, and material well- being in the political and social spheres, so we can plan for beauty and dignity as well as for convenience and comfort in our physical urroundings. In the first place this matter involves the lay-out of our cities, owns and villages and the architecture of their buildings, but it is also conerned, and no less vitally, with the treatment of the countryside.

The thesis of this book is that planning for the preservation of rural beauty must be directed to the deliberate conservation of much of our native vegetation, since this is an essential element of natural beauty, and that such planning must be balanced and harmonised with land utilisation for agriculture and forestry: further, that to conserve our native vegetation intelligently and effectively we must understand its nature and behaviour under different conditions, an understanding that is gained through the modern science of plant ecology.

Every kind of vegetation has its distinctive population of animals, multitudes of the lower forms of animal life and smaller numbers of the higher, and these too make their own notable contribution to natural beauty. If we preserve the vegetation we automatically preserve the insects and snails and worms that inhabit it, but the warm- blooded animals—the birds and mammals—require additional measures for their conservation and regulation. Here again we need thorough knowledge of their habits, their special modes of life and their fluctuating numbers, if we are to devise the right methods of regulation. Regulation and control are essential because some of these animals, under existing conditions, are harmful to human interests. All this is the province of animal ecology. Plant and animal ecology are closely interdependent studies because plant and animal life are so intimately connected, and they are fundamental to effective nature conservation as well as forming an essential part of the scientific foundations of forestry and the management of grassland. The maintenance of adequate samples of wild plant and animal life is necessary to ecological work, for they furnish its basic material.