The Wildlife and Conservation Act 1981 established that SSSIs would be protected by management agreements between a landowner (or farmer) and the Nature Conservancy Council. The landowner receives a compensation payment to reflect the loss of profit foregone as a reult of voluntarily abandoning a proposal for agricultural intensification in the interests of wildlife conservation. Such compensation has proved controversial in principle and practice. A detailed case study of a theoretical but realistic proposal to reclaim and drain Skipwith Common shows that the financial guidelines can be manipulated to increase or decrease compensation by varying estimates of productivity, capital costs, interest rates and borrowing periods. If agricultural use of a site is abandoned as in this case study, management by a conservation body may be necessary which imposes further costs additional TO any compensation payable. (Journal abstract) (MENTIONED IN THE SSSI READING LIST FILED ON GALLERY IN MET