IT WAS during the long dark days of spring that the region's naturalists began to think the unthinkable. Agriculture was in the most severe crisis it had ever known as foot-and-mouth ran riot and the countryside was scarred with images of smouldering carcasses, grim-faced farmers and white-suited slaughtermen.

Yet for all it was a tragedy, naturalists realised that it was also the greatest opportunity which had occurred in their lifetime to reverse the damage done to wildlife over many decades by farming.

They voiced such beliefs privately at first, reluctant to be seen as taking advantage of farmers' misfortunes, but six months after the outbreak began, most individuals and groups concerned with country life are openly calling for sweeping reforms.

Those supporting change, the National Farmers' Union among them, argue that with the Government determined to steer farming away from intensive methods, the European Union pledged to reform its controversial Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and huge numbers of sheep and cattle removed from the land in culls, foot-and-mouth presents a golden opportunity to redraw the rural map.

To appreciate why reform is needed it is necessary to turn back the clock more than 100 years to a very different Britain in which farmers protected the mosaic of woodland, hedgerows and grasslands crucial for the survival of flora and fauna.

However, in the early decades of the 20th Century, Britain's population began rising rapidly and agriculture came under increasing pressure to feed the new mouths by whatever means necessary.

By the end of the century, farmers, encouraged by financial incentives from the European Union and the British Government, had largely abandoned their old ways and felled woodland, torn out hedgerows, ploughed up grasslands and drained moorlands to exploit every last piece of land.

Huge areas of countryside were smothered with pesticide to allow crop growth or crammed full of cattle and sheep, financed by subsidies paid per head.

The effect on wildlife was devastating and, although town planners, industry, housebuilders and roadmakers must shoulder their burden of responsibility for wrecking habitats, naturalists feel intensive farming did most damage.

Everywhere are stories of disaster: Britain has lost approximately 95 per cent of wildflower meadows and up to 40 per cent of hedgerows in the last 50 years.

The British Trust for Ornithology and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) says most rural species have declined dramatically - lapwing, skylark and tree sparrow among them - many by well over 50 per cent. Even starlings are in trouble, less than a million pairs are left nationally, down 61 per cent on 25 years ago.

The loss of woodland, grassland field margins and hedgerows, allied to changes in agricultural practices, also robbed small mammals of habitats. Harvest mice, for example, were virtually eradicated in the North because modern cornfields are quickly re-ploughed after harvesting, destroying nest sites.

Pesticides have destroyed huge numbers of butterflies and other insects such as grasshoppers, and DDT came close to wiping out otters and birds such as peregrine falcon and buzzard 40 years ago, the species only now establishing a perilous hold on survival.

Intensive upland grazing has altered the speed of rivers, sweeping away sand martin and kingfisher chicks in torrents which also destroy the shallows used for fish spawning.

Frogs, toads and newts are struggling because 140,000 ponds and small lakes disappeared nationally in just 40 post-war years, and grass snakes have disappeared from much of the North because intensive fertilisers mean fewer manure heaps in which the creatures lay eggs.

And conservation charity Plantlife has warned that wild flowers are disappearing with alarming speed: one species a year in agricultural counties like North Yorkshire and almost as bad in County Durham, where 68 were lost between 1900 and 1988 alone.

The evidence is overwhelming and farmers, supported by the Government, official agencies and naturalists, are increasingly adopting environmentally-friendly schemes.

But rural pressure groups still feel more drastic action is needed - and that means reforming the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, which has so far rewarded farmers who follow intensive agricultural methods.

John Gorst, Reserves Project Officer at Durham Wildlife Trust, said: "The CAP in its present form is outdated and unsustainable. The original aims were sound, to provide western Europe with a safe, affordable and plentiful food supply. This has been achieved but at great cost to the rural environment in terms of species diversity, habitat loss and a general decline in rural communities."

Andy Bunten, Regional Manager of the RSPB, said: "There is a widespread acceptance that the agricultural system we have got is not sustainable and needs to change. The impact on the environment has been tremendous in terms of loss of biodiversity."

Like most environmentalists, he does not blame farmers but the subsidy system. "If you are a homeowner and you are paid £20,000 to paint your house pink ever year, you would have to be some kind of maverick not to paint your house pink. The farmers followed policy and the system said, 'produce more food, produce more food'."

The arguments have not fallen on deaf ears: the European Union has pledged to reform CAP and the British Government published a blueprint earlier this year, based on consultations with countryside groups, which heralded a move towards more environmentally-friendly schemes.

And in the North-East, regional development agency One NorthEast will publish its own document on the future of the countryside within the next couple of weeks, supporting reforms to farm subsidies and more schemes which help rural businesses.

Alec Turnbull, the National Farmers' Union senior policy advisor in the region who has been seconded to One NorthEast to work on the report, said the farming industry had accepted that there was no longer the need for mass production which previously produced European butter and grain mountains and wine lakes.

He said: "The CAP has been there for decades and has been very efficient in what it was set up to do - the aim post-war was to ensure that the country was self-sufficient in food. But that need has changed."

The support for reform is wide-ranging - the problem for naturalists has been that they could not see it coming rapidly enough to save species from extinction.

Until foot-and-mouth began to stalk the land.

l Tomorrow, in the second part of the series, John Dean examines how foot-and-mouth could be a catalyst for change

Read more about foot-and-mouth here.