Selina Scott is rewilding her 200-acre farm on the edge of the North York Moors. She says she reluctantly decided to control crows to protect endangered ground-nesting birds, including lapwing and curlew, that nest on her new wetlands. But the Yorkshire-born broadcaster- turned-farmer complains she cannot save her threatened birds because her brother, Robin (a former editor of Sporting Gun magazine), is now banned from shooting the crows that prey on helpless chicks.

Town and country need each other. From one flows ideas and people. The other provides peace and quiet, space and food

Scott is the latest figure to denounce Natural England’s decision to rescind the “general licence” that previously allowed landowners and farmers to freely shoot 16 species of “pest” birds. The cancellation of the licences came about after a legal challenge by Wild Justice, a new campaign group led in part by another broadcaster, Chris Packham.

The fallout has been considerable. Forget the haves and the have-nots, Brexiters and remainers, north v south: some people are determined to make our disunited nation’s ultimate binary division the one between town and country. According to the popular caricature, one camp lives in concrete and glass towers, imbibes polluted air and superciliously treats the countryside as a playground for Disneyfied nature. The other resides in leafy lanes, brandishes shotguns and is increasingly besieged and undermined by city dwellers’ laws.

These two tribes, we are told, have clashed over foxhunting – a unique tradition or a barbaric relic according to taste. They’ve battled over badger culling – a vital disease control measure to protect cattle farmers or an unscientific muddle that’s cruel and pointless. And they’ve gone to war over dairy farming – an environmentally friendly and nutritious food production system or a cruel industry that turn animals into machines. Tthe row over bird shooting licences is presented as the latest expression of the great divide. Is it a perverse attack on country livelihoods by townies who are happy to see curlews become extinct and lambs’ eyes pecked out because they hate shooting so much? Or is it an overdue, rational move to bring licences into line with wildlife laws and stop people massacring harmless jays and rooks for fun?

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These disputes are real. But the supposed “culture war” between the countryside and towns is a distortion of what’s really happening. The outrage about licences is a political confection. The Tory MP James Cartlidge (a businessman raised in London) called the licence changes a criminalisation of “the real guardians of our environment”. Supportive tweets say people such as Packham (a countryside dweller) admire the countryside “for leisure and literary purposes”, as opposed to “those who have to work it and by doing so preserve it”.

But country livelihoods and identities are not so simple. My claims to be a countryman are stronger than those of most gun-toting landed gentry, whose wealth is derived from towns and who spend most of their lives in urban boardrooms, clubs and luxury flats. I was born and raised in the country, and my livelihood – writing about wildlife, and showing people its wonder – depends on a healthy, wild countryside. I have friends who farm and never shoot. Other neighbours work with the land: they run forest school nurseries; they are wildlife photographers; they manage community veg-growing schemes, and set up wildlife tourism businesses. People who derive livelihoods from the land are not all hunters, shooters and fishers. As polls consistently show, a clear majority of us country folk oppose foxhunting.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Selina Scott on her farm in Yorkshire. Photograph: Samuel Atkins/Rex/Shutterstock

Equally, however, farmers make some fair points about attitudes towards their workplaces. Anyone outraged by the shooting of wood pigeons to protect peas should, if they are to be consistent, never eat chicken or bacon from pigs raised in cages. If farmers’ use of pest control measures is to be tightly licensed, there should be similar control of domestic cats, which kill far more wildlife than corvids. And ignorant walkers with out-of- control dogs almost certainly kill many more sheep and lambs each year than crows, magpies and ravens.

The burgeoning vegan and animal rights movement also needs to pay attention to the complexity of the choices we face over wildlife “management”. In a countryside bereft of meadows and marshes, we will lose breeding species such as curlew if we don’t shoot foxes and crows, at least until we restore more suitable habitat. If we want to retain certain rare plants, birds and butterflies, our record high wild deer population must be culled. Why not allow responsible shooters to do so? If people must eat meat, then our most ethical national dish is currently wild muntjac.

Town and country need each other. From one flows plentiful new ideas and new people; the other provides peace and quiet, space and food. We need the countryside for sustenance but also for clean water, clean air, and our own physical and mental health. A Danish study of nearly 1 million people shows that those growing up with the lowest levels of green space have a higher risk of developing a psychiatric disorder. Rather than dividing ourselves into caricatured rural and urban tribes, we would be a happier, healthier and more prosperous nation if we bridged the gulf between town and country.

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Big landowners are still lavishly rewarded by farm subsidies via the taxpayer, but rural infrastructure is a poor relation. Governments must also invest in helping urban dwellers benefit from more time in the countryside. This means better access from cities to national parks and better rural public transport. Children need to know more about where our food comes from, and how it is produced. We all do. A brilliant, practical proposal in Chris Packham’s People’s Manifesto for Wildlife is to twin every primary school with a farm. Farms receive financial support for providing long-term access to schoolchildren. Everyone benefits.

If town and country spent more time together, sharing land and respecting difference, we could become the first urban nation to bury these toxic and futile culture wars.

• Patrick Barkham writes for the Guardian on natural history. He is the author of Islander, The Butterfly Isles and Badgerlands