Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
Director of the World Land Use Survey, known for mapping global land use and writing books on land resources.
Eight records
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
What have you observed about the dangers of using chemicals and fertilizers in agriculture?
Uh
Presenter asks
What about the wastage of land, marshes, forests, and reclamation of land from the sea? Is that being given attention to?
Uh yes, well in one of my books, uh Our Developing World, uh I do attempt to show that there's probably four times as much land available for proper use or cultivation than that which we are using at the present. So there's a great possibility of expansion in area as well as an expansion in intensity of use. Great possibilities for the scientists.
Presenter asks
You've expressed concern that our methods of trawling are one day going to empty the oceans of fish.
Well, you know, when we go to sea we're still in the Stone Age. We go out hunting. And just depends whether we're lucky or not as to what supply we get. There's no doubt in my mind that in the near future we shall be cultivating the sea. That is to say, we'd probably be breeding fish and then putting them in the sea in suitable places, then catching them perhaps in controlled areas when they are ready. There's a need for great international collaboration in this work of rarely husbanding properly the resources of the sea.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 1
This Is the B B C.
Speaker 1
This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen sixty three, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.
Presenter
Now Dr. Stamp, as well as your university career and your writing and travelling, you've held a number of important administrative posts. For example, you were director of the World Land Usage Society.
Professor L Dudley Stamp
The World Land Use Survey, yes, that is so. And our object there is to record, particularly on maps, the present use of the land
Professor L Dudley Stamp
according to a common system in the countries all over the world.
Presenter
Yes. You produced a number of books on the subject.
Professor L Dudley Stamp
Oh yes, yes.
Professor L Dudley Stamp
Do it.
Presenter
Uh
Professor L Dudley Stamp
Yeah.
Presenter
We use land reasonably sensibly or not.
Professor L Dudley Stamp
Well, uh we've got this great problem all over the world that the population is increasing very rapidly indeed and so we've got a pressure on land resources and uh one country after another is being forced to carry out a survey of resources with the idea of making their own land produce more and more efficiently than at present.
Presenter
With more intensive cultivation, isn't there a chance that the the use of chemicals in fertilizers and and so forth uh are going to reduce the value of food, and indeed that ultimately we risk poisoning the land?
Professor L Dudley Stamp
We risk
Professor L Dudley Stamp
Because you're asking me to give a lecture which I want at least an hour.
Presenter
Ha ha ha ha.
Professor L Dudley Stamp
But uh I know what you're thinking of. That's this present problem about the use of uh chemicals, fertilizers. Now we've got two things.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Professor L Dudley Stamp
There is, with careless use, the very great danger of poisonous chemicals destroying natural vegetation, destroying our wildlife.
Professor L Dudley Stamp
But we've got to remember at the same time
Professor L Dudley Stamp
That there's this question of freeing the world from hunger. And if those same chemicals are properly used, that gives us the solution.
Professor L Dudley Stamp
to the problem uh it is at the moment whereby we may say half the world goes to bed hungry. So there's the use and abuse. We mustn't confuse the two.
Presenter
Uh
Speaker 1
Uh
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
What about the wastage of land, marshes, forests, reclamation of land from the sea? Is that being given attention to?
Professor L Dudley Stamp
Uh yes, well in one of my books, uh Our Developing World, uh I do attempt to show that there's probably four times as much land available
Professor L Dudley Stamp
for proper use or cultivation than that which we are using at the present. So there's a great possibility of expansion in area as well as an expansion in intensity of use. Great possibilities for the scientists.
Presenter
Yes. You've expressed concern that our methods of trawling are one day going to empty the oceans of fish.
Professor L Dudley Stamp
Well, you know, when we go to sea we're still in the Stone Age. We go out hunting.
Professor L Dudley Stamp
And just depends whether we're lucky or not as to what supply we get. There's no doubt in my mind that in the near future we shall be cultivating the sea.
Professor L Dudley Stamp
That is to say, we'd probably be breeding fish and then putting them in the sea in suitable places, then catching them perhaps in controlled areas when they are ready. There's a need for great international collaboration.
Professor L Dudley Stamp
in this work of rarely
Professor L Dudley Stamp
husbanding properly the resources of the sea.
Speaker 1
You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co dot uk slash radio four. This is the BBC
“Oh yes, yes.”
“We use land reasonably sensibly or not.”
“We risk”
“Uh yes, well in one of my books, uh Our Developing World, uh I do attempt to show that there's probably four times as much land available for proper use or cultivation than that which we are using at the present. So there's a great possibility of expansion in area as well as an expansion in intensity of use. Great possibilities for the scientists.”
“Well, you know, when we go to sea we're still in the Stone Age. We go out hunting. And just depends whether we're lucky or not as to what supply we get. There's no doubt in my mind that in the near future we shall be cultivating the sea. That is to say, we'd probably be breeding fish and then putting them in the sea in suitable places, then catching them perhaps in controlled areas when they are ready. There's a need for great international collaboration in this work of rarely husbanding properly the resources of the sea.”