Aims

To consolidate and supplement material acquired in earlier modules and to apply it to countryside management issues and problems ranging from the role of non-government organisations in the countryside, to country sports, agri-environment instruments and public participation in countryside recreation.

Outline Of Syllabus

1. The Management Framework
Organisations in the countryside;
2. Countryside Management Issues
The provision of public and private goods in the countryside; the role of the National Lottery in supplying countryside goods; country sports; managing countryside information; the demand for countryside recreation.
3. Approaches to Countryside Management
Regulatory and incentive mechanisms for countryside management; countryside access; management agreements; managing demand for countryside recreation; participation in countryside recreation.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lectures provide the basic knowledge framework and appropriate further reading will provide additional insights that together will enable students to critically analyse a range of countryside management problems and suggest and evaluate a range of potential approaches to solving them. Open discussions within lectures will provide further opportunities to articulate and develop alternative approaches to the achievement of key countryside management objectives. They will also provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate that, when appropriate, they can suggest new hypotheses, and show initiative and originality in applying their knowledge to the solution of management problems.
Workshops will help students to develop the funding proposal for Assignment 1 and drop-ins will provide an opportunity for students to ask questions about revision material. If exam length is reduced to 135 minutes then the format of the exam will change to 2 questions from 5. Summative written exercise length should be 1700 words (needs a little extra as the application form requires some factual information which will not be considered in the marking).

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The assessed exercise reflects real-life funding challenges, while the formative assessment encourages students to reflect on the challenges of a contemporary policy issue. The end-of-year exam tests students' ability to integrate and apply the theoretical and applied material presented in the course in order to identify and critically evaluate approaches available to tackle contemporary problems in countryside management.