Rural areas are under threat as never before and England faces losing most of its real countryside within a generation if current trends continue, a new report claims.

This is the key finding of a report from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Your countryside, our choice. The report identifies alarming trends, which the CPRE says will lead to a rural England changed beyond recognition within a generation.

The CPRE document said rural traffic is getting heavier, bird species are dying out and farm workers are declining in number. The proportion of England's land area enjoying truly dark skies fell from 15% to 11% between 1993 and 2000 — a drop of more than a quarter in just seven years.

Poet Laureate Andrew Motion said the report "distils the essence of current questions about how best to manage, maintain, develop and preserve the natural environment. I urge everyone to read it, and join in the debate. It's one of the most important of our time."

The report opens with a scenario of how England might look in 2035. Large scale new house building spread over increasing areas of green field land, the constant roar of traffic between ever expanding retail and business parks, the ceaseless overflying by air traffic and a farmed landscape wrecked by abandonment, development or increasingly intensive agriculture.

The CPRE said their report spells out why each one of us should take a share of the responsibility for the future of the countryside if we want it to have a worthwhile future.

Countryside under attack: a damage assessment

• Traffic is growing faster on rural roads than in urban areas in England.
• Since 1990, 60% of the English landscape has changed in ways that are 'inconsistent' with its traditional character.
• Many species of farmland birds are in a precipitous decline.
• The proportion of England's land area enjoying truly dark skies fell by more than a quarter in just seven years.
• 81,500 farmers and farm workers left the land between 1995 and 2004.
• 21 square miles of countryside — an area the size of Southampton — is lost to development every year.
• The total area of 'tranquil countryside' declined by 20% between 1960s and 1994, and continues to do so.