Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
AUTHORS Carlotta Olivari Zhuqing Li Yuanyuan Huang
AALU LANDSCAPE URBANISM Directors: José Alfredo Ramìrez Eduardo Rico Studio Master: Clara Oloriz Sanjuan
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to take the opportunity to thank our thesis advisors Clara Oloriz, Alfredo Ramirez and Eduardo Rico. We would like to express our sincere gratitude for the expertise, guidance, and the generous support. We would also like to thank AALU fellow classmates and our precious tutors Liam Mouritz, Teresa Stoppani, Daniel Kiss and Claudio Campanile. We would also like to thank our external jurors for their help and directions. Particularly, Eleaonor Salter who helped and inspired us to further studies. Finally we would like to take the opportunity to thank Joe Stanley and Alastair Leake of the Allerton Project for the amazing insightful conversation, and Mark Tufnell from Calmsden Farm for the help and time dedicated, among the others. All external sourced images have been labelled as "figures" with a detailed list of references provided at the end of each chapter; personal graphics are also sourced. Cover by Carlotta Olivari
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REWILDING UK | ABSTRACT
Tutors: Liam Mouritz Claudio Campanile Daniel Kiss Teresa Stoppani
In the UK, there is a dual opposition between nature and human footprint. The ongoing rewilding projects are prioritizing small wild areas creation over systematic and connective transitions at a large scale. The remaining land is mostly covered by conventional agricultural lands based on monoculture crops. This increases levels of soil erosion leading to extreme flooding hazards and loss of biodiversity. In this way, the research question of this project is how can we design an integrated strategy to rewild the agricultural land in a just transition? How to support farmers and ensure their voices are heard? Through a gradient of rewilding
actions, the aim is to re-establish a reciprocal relationship between human and non-human processes in alternative productive landscapes based on agroecological schemes. This thesis firstly introduces the issue of the current UK’s land management and environmental crisis, then tries to use the concept of rewilding to respond to these issues. Based on the existing literature and practices of rewilding, it proposes a new definition of rewilding. After this, a basin spatial mapping tool and a local handbook are proposed to engage and provide knowledge to the farmers about how to create the clusters and rewild their farmland step by step.
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TABLE OF CONTENT
[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
05. A REWILDING JUST TRANSITION
01. GENERAL FRAMEWORK 1.1 [ UK LAND MANAGMENT ] UK Environmental Emergency Moving beyond protected areas UK conventional farming Agriculture fottprint: a Global Atlas Technical Report 01: Semiology of graphic
06-27
1.2 [ BASIN SYSTEMIC APPROACH ] Extreme flooding condition Drainage basin eco - logics Technical Report 02: Eco - logics Uplands and Lowlands
28-45
02. REWILDING DEFINITION 1.1 [ REWILDING UK ] 46-71 Why rewilding? Wilderness in search of a definition Which Wilderness we are rewilding toward? Technical Report 03: Data scraping Rewild the productive landscape Technical Report 04: Web development
5.1 [ REWILDING HANDBOOK ] 150-165 General information Re-grade 2 actions Botany selection Re-grade 4 & 5 actions Basin tree selection Trees details Trees management 5.2 [ JUST TRANSITION ] Farmland analysis Transition process Year 1-3 Year 4-8 Year 9-13 Grants system Environmental evaluation
166-183
06. CONCLUSION 6.1 [ TRANSBASIN REWILDING NETWORK ] Time- process dynamic evolution
184-187
03. REWILDING PROPOSAL 4.1 [ EXISTING CONDITION ] 104-113 Agriculture land classification Farmland Woodland Flooding risk 4.2 [ BASIN PROPOSAL ] 114-149 How much land could be reclaimed Regrades actions proposal Regrades actions proposal Rewilding corridor Technical Report 05: Corridor creation Spatial mapping tool Technical Report 06: GAN tool 4
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01. [ GENERAL FRAMEWORK ]
1.1
[ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
08-11
UK Environmental Emergency
12-17
Moving beyond protected areas
18-23
UK conventional farming
24-25
Agriculture fottprint: a Global Atlas
26-27
Technical Report 01: Semiology of graphic
1.2
[ BASIN SYSTEMIC APPROACH ]
28-33
Extreme flooding condition
34-37
Drainage basin eco - logics
38-39
Technical Report 02: Eco - logics
40-43
Uplands and Lowlands
[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
UK LAND MANAGMENT UK Environmental Emergency
UK PEATLANDS Fig. 0.1
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The UK's climate is changing. The Earth has always been characterized by dynamic processes in continuous movement influenced by different types of manipulation, called disturbances. Disturbance is an ecological process used to describe changes in environmental conditions produced both by natural forces and human activities (Farina 2000). Over time, new disturbance regimes have been produced, which have continually reshaped landscapes (Naveh 2000). It goes without saying that the Earth is dynamic and human action also influences the transformation of physical landscapes.
However, the anthropic contribution, through the increase in atmospheric emissions, has led to an acceleration of these phenomena at a global level. The increased temperature and extreme rains become the materialization of the “space of repercussion” (Lahoud 2014) and melting at speeds never encountered in the past reveal a dynamic earth. As reported in the “UK State of the Climate report” (Kendon et al. 2021), “no other year is in the top 10 on all three criteria: warmer temperature, more frequent and intense rainy days and more sun”.
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
UK LAND MANAGMENT UK Environmental Emergency
GLOBAL DEFORESTATION by Carlotta Olivari
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The Climate Change Committee is claiming the drastic loss of biodiversity in the UK. The environmental crisis becomes visible if we think of some numbers: one in four of all species are possible extinction; moreover, in 2018 alone, 3.6 million hectares of Primary Rainforest was destroyed (Weisse and Goldman 2019). According to the CommonWealth “A Green New Deal for Nature” Report , the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth. Today, only 13% of the UK land is woodlands, but more than a half of these are pine trees that are not very beneficial to wildlife. (Lewis 2019)
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
UK LAND MANAGMENT Moving beyond protected areas
UH PRODUCTIVE LAND by Carlotta Olivari
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The past 30 years have failed to take decisive action on climate, radical action is necessary. C u r re n t l y, t h e U K go v e r n m e n t i s planning to join a global pledge to reverse losses in the natural world. To do so, the plan is to rewild 30% of the UK land by 2030. Today, 26% of the UK is protected. By analyzing the UK public data, it has been unveiled that protected areas in the UK are mostly in an unfavourable condition, due to the purpose for which it was created. In fact, according to the
2019 Wildlife Trust Report half of them are low effective, due to static borders and isolated and scattered woodlands. (Gaston et al. 2006) The complexity of the ecological processes challenges the static, fixed and two-dimensional contemporary vision of the protected areas border (Elden 2013b). The planet is in motion; therefore, also the boundaries that cross it must be recast as dynamic, not static, changing and even indeterminate processes.
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
UK LAND MANAGMENT Moving beyond protected areas
LAND MANAGMENT ISSUE Fig. 0.2
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P ROT E C T E D A R E A S LAND USE by Carlotta Olivari
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
UK LAND MANAGMENT Moving beyond protected areas
N AT U R E / H U M A N OPPOSITION by Carlotta Olivari
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In particular, the current UK land management prioritizes the separation between the so called protected areas and the productive landscape. On one side, the existing rewilding projects are prioritizing small wild areas creation over systematic and connective transitions
at a large scale. On the other side, there is the productive agriculture landscape that covers more than 70% of the UK land and it is the biggest driver of global environmental change on land (Lewis 2019). The English rolling landscape relates to this unbalanced land
management: the reasons for the barren lands could be traced back to the current UK land management. A large fraction of the UK upland regions are grouse moor estates currently managed for the shooting industry; moreover, to support deer stalking
estates, particularly in Scotland, a density of 30, 40 deer per square kilometer generates impossible conditions for woody vegetation to take root. But mainly, the land is cut, burnt and grazed in order to try to optimize the conditions for one activity: pasture and arable land.
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
UK LAND MANAGMENT UK Conventional farming
THE UK AGRICULTURE LAND by Carlotta Olivari
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THE UK WOODLAND by Carlotta Olivari
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
UK LAND MANAGMENT UK Conventional farming
CONVENTIONAL FARMING Fig. 0.3
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ALC GRADES PERCENTAGES by Carlotta Olivari
In particular, the current UK agriculture landscape is classified according to the Agriculture Land Classification. The ALC provides a framework for “classifying land according to the extent to which its physical or chemical characteristics impose long term limitations on agricultural use. The limitations can operate in one or more of four principal ways: they may affect the range of crops which can be grown, the level of yield, the consistency of yield and the cost of obtaining it.” (MAFF 1988). The physical factors of climate, site and soil condition form the basis for classifying land into one of five grades: Grade 1 to 3 land being of good quality for arable production. Grade 4 to 5 land of very poor quality for arable production. This system prioritizes conventional m o n o c u l t u re f a r m i n g , w e a ke n i n g agroecological integrated actions.
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
UK LAND MANAGMENT UK Conventional farming
THE UK FARMING EVOLUTION by Carlotta Olivari
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W h a t i s “c o n v e n t i o n a l ” f a r m i n g ? Nowadays, with this term we refer specifically to intensive farming practices. However, different agricultural practices have shaped the UK landscape for a long time. Particularly, thanks to the agricultural census of Great Britain (the first one taken in 1865) it is possible to have a look at the evolution of the productive landscape over the last 100 years. (Zayed and Loft 2019). It is interesting to note that the production of fruit and vegetables has drastically dropped, in favor of cereal boosts, such as wheat and barley. The timeline analysis highlighted the ways that agriculture has changed in response to different policies, such as the
post World War 2 Cereal boost, or the entry into the European Community with the CAP introduction. Other drivers, such as the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides or the improvements in methods of collection, are not sufficiently consistent or longstanding to include in this analysis. However, the aim is not to create a historical analysis of evolution of farming in the UK; rather, the intention is to highlight how what we call "conventional" today, namely intensive monoculture, is only the result of the last 20 years of practice. Furthermore, underline the close relationship that exists between a given policy framework and the production of the physical landscape.
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
UK LAND MANAGMENT Agriculture footprrint: a Global Atlas
T H E AG R I C U LT U R E FOOTPRINT by Carlotta Olivari
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T H E AG R I C U LT U R E FOOTPRINT by Carlotta Olivari
The UK conventional farming is characterised predominantly by cereal production. Moreover, it is notable that 55% of the UK agriculture production is for animal feed. This statement has consequences in the imports and exports at the global scale: the trend of fuel and feed production is common in the Global North, as shown in this planetary projection, while food for human production concentrates in the Global South. Wi t h i n t h i s co n t e x t , re w i l d i n g strategies should not depend on the instrumentalization of virtual agriculture from the Global South: a new green version of colonialism that waves the flag of global emergency to justify all the operations.
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
TECHNICAL REPORT 01 “Make a map, not a tracing”. Deleuze & Guattari, 1987 This report describes the implication of the use of the rhetorics of chartographic visualizations.
[ GIS ]
step 1
open data
projection
visualization
.shp .ascii .txt ...
equatorial
polar
oblique
data
semiology of graphic
visualization
step 2
projected map
projected map
rewilding projects
map
Projection and Semiology of graphic diagrams. By Carlotta Olivari
GIS becomes one of the tools used for the analysis and representation of geographic, sociological, economic, environmental data and for their processing and definition through a graphic code, sèmiologie graphique (Bertin 1968). Against the prevailing trend towards cartographic positivism, in which such data are presented as “neutral images”, the intention is to reveal the developments that mediate the construction of geospatial maps. The map therefore becomes an active tool by setting up a process (Corner 2011).
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Scale and projection. The global projection is used to unfold planetary patterns of food sovereignty. The chosen scale and projection are specifically set as a compromise between the objects to be visualised (agriculture footprint) and the image that would like to be conveyed (import-driven colonial model). Gradient. Referring to Bertin’s principles, color and pattern gradients are used to communicate complex aspects with maximum legibility. The use of color gradients is never neutral too.
THE UK GLOBAL ATLAS by Carlotta Olivari
FOOD COLONIAL MODEL The UK productive landscape is predominantly conventional farming based on monoculture cereal production. In fact, even if more than 70% of the UK’s land is dedicated to agriculture, just 15% is used to grow crops for human consumption and only 3% for fruit and vegetables. (Heron 2021) A consequence of it is that the UK’s food consumption habits rely on an import-driven colonial model. The planetary projection of agriculture footprint becomes the key element to
unveil these global trends, returning geospatial data into mappings: opendata collected (Cassidy, E. S. , West, P. C. , Gerber, J. S. , & Foley, J. A. 2013) about fuel/ feed and food production are projected at the global scale. The cartographic representation unveils a specific pattern: the food for human production concentrates in the Global South while fuel and feed production is common in the Global North.
instrumentalization of virtual agriculture from the Global South: a new green version of colonialism that waves the flag of global emergency to justify all the operations. How much land could be dedicated to nature without offsetting even more the imperial ecology model?
Wi t h i n t h i s co n t e x t , re w i l d i n g strategies should not increase the
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
BASIN SYSTEMIC APPROACH Extreme flooding
EXTREME FLOODING Fig. 0.4
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CAP and intensive farming have generated serious degradation from different perspectives: large-scale conventional agriculture based on monoculture crops, increasing levels of soil degradation and erosion with the most tangible consequence set in extreme flooding hazards and loss of biodiversity. S p e c i f i c a l l y, t h e C l i m a t e C h a n ge Committee has listed flooding as one of the greatest climate change risks for the UK. The Government stated that its flooding and coastal erosion policy statement “forms part of the government’s wider commitment to tackle climate change” (‘Flooding - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee - House of Commons’ n.d.). Nevertheless, the Government’s approach does not go far enough: a “breakpoint difference” rather
than “incremental” response is required. Flooding is not a catastrophic event per se, it is rather an ecological mechanism of a river ecosystem. Through this process, the riparian lands increase the levels of fertility and irrigate the land for agriculture production. Stated this, the extreme flooding episodes occurring in the UK should be considered differently since they are creating an environmental crisis. Extreme flooding is not only an environmental issue, but also social and economical: more than 3 million properties in England are at risk. An example of this is the winter 2014 flood events in Somerset. The best estimate of total economic damages is £1,300 million (Environmental 2018).
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
BASIN SYSTEMIC APPROACH Extreme flooding
next page LAND USE -FLOODING AREAS MAP by Carlotta Olivari % OF FLOODED AREAS by Carlotta Olivari
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According to the Environmental Agency (2007), the most common forms of floods are: river flooding “that occurs when a watercourse cannot cope with the water draining into it from the surrounding land”; coastal flooding that “results from a combination of high tides and stormy conditions”; surface water flooding “which occurs when heavy rainfall overwhelms the drainage capacity of the local area”. Moreover, flooding risk can be described using the method based on Annual Exceedance Probability: according to flood likelihood of occurring in any given year there could be low, medium or high risk. From 1976 until nowadays, the current flood trend magnitude is sharply increasing creating extreme flooding conditions. Understanding the chance of different sized floods occurring is important for managing flood risk (Science 2018).
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
BASIN SYSTEMIC APPROACH Extreme flooding
next page FLOODED TREND MAGNITUDE (1976/2013) by Carlotta Olivari
FLOODING EVENTS AND RAINFALL LEVELS (1880-2013) by Carlotta Olivari
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These trends are expressed as % change over the period relative to the long term average (data from the Met Office and CEH reports). More severe floods, due to climate change, bring more serious impacts of flooding such as damage to higher value property and contents, new development in high flood risk areas, reduction in property value. The last UK State of the Climate data shows that the UK’s climate is becoming more and more wet. Some indicators can confirm that: comparing the decades of 2008-2017 to 1961-1990, the values related to the highest rainfall totals over a five day period are increasing by 4%. The strictly related driver is the increasing tendency of rainfall levels. In the UK, extreme winter rainfall is now 7 times more likely than 1880 (Kendon et al. 2021).
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
BASIN SYSTEMIC APPROACH Drainage basin eco-logics
next page DEM BASIN MODEL by Carlotta Olivari
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Within this context, we consider the drainage basin to analyze the different disturbances that influence the flooding and ecological mechanisms. The drainage basin refers to the area of land where “precipitation is collected into a common outlet, such as a river”. The drainage basin “includes all the surface water from rain runoff and nearby streams that run downslope towards the shared outlet. Drainage basins connect into other drainage basins at lower
elevations in a hierarchical pattern.” (‘The Water Cycle - The Drainage Basin - CCEA - GCSE Geography Revision - CCEA’ n.d.). Thus, in the drainage basin the water runoff is collected to a single area. Moreover, each basin is separated topographically from adjacent basins, making up a succession of higher geographical features (such as a ridge, hill or mountains) (Institute of Hydrology 1987).
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
BASIN SYSTEMIC APPROACH Drainage basin eco-logics
next page LAND USES BASIN DISTRIBUTION by Carlotta Olivari
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In this context, humans had a dramatic influence on the overall flooding system. Having converted 70% of the UK soil to agriculture monocrops and overgrazing areas, the soil lost dramatically the capacity to drainage rainfall generating surface water run-off. A key driver is the lack of soil capability to drain away rainwater: water lies on or flows over the ground instead, increasing the risk of surface water and river flooding (Centre for Ecology & Hydrology 2020). Because of this, the process of ‘hardening' surfaces due to urban development, deforestation, loss of
vegetation cover and soil erosion become human accelerated factors. The left diagram aims to demonstrate how flooding mechanisms within a hydrological basin relies on "intensive" production landscapes, creating a basin systemic model. Different land uses act differently on the ground by interconnecting their influences creating different risk levels of high water runoff. Thus, the hydrological basin acquires importance in the analysis of ecological processes to mitigate flooding.
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
TECHNICAL REPORT 02 This report describes the basin implication of the water run-off and flooding mechanisms.
[ Rhino + Grasshopper DTM, Bison, Nudibranch, Scatter]
step 1
shapefile
ghrassopper
visualization
isocurves rivers flooding risk ... data
from isocurves to mesh
mesh
ghrassopper
water runoff
step 2
topography
mesh
water runoff calculation
runoff
"Terrain model and Water run-offcalculation diagrams" by Carlotta Olivari
DEM is utilised to extract isocurves of the selected area; then a mesh is built on them to visualize the topography. By crossrelating the land use to the topography some recurrent patterns can be extracted: the great majority of the uplands are barren lands; in the lowlands there is a concentration of urban settlements and arable lands. Isolated woodlands are scattered in the lowlands as well.
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The water run-off calculation and extreme flooding visualization across the landscape are the last step to be integrated in the analysis process. Having 70% of the UK soil as agriculture monocrops and overgrazing areas, the soil lost dramatically the capacity to drainage rainfall increasing the levels of surface water run-off.
WATER RUNOFF CALCULATION by Carlotta Olivari
The drainage basin is analyzed to highlight the ecological mechanisms. Specifically, it refers to the area of land where precipitation is collected into a common outlet, such as a river. Thus, the water runoff calculation becomes a key issue to analyze. Particularly, the topographical and land use analysis of it highlight the extreme flooding relationships to eco-logics:
barren uplands decrease the permeability; drained lowlands have less soil capacity to hold water. An integrated approach to the basin could provide a strategic environmental assessment to present a framework for future development: projects for water management for agriculture (irrigation and drainage), flood relief work.(‘25 Year Environment Plan’ 2018)
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
BASIN SYSTEMIC APPROACH Uplands and Lowlands
UK BARREN UPLANDS Fig. 0.5
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UPLANDS | LOWLANDS SECTION SCHEME by Carlotta Olivari
Considering this analysis, the catchment management is proposed to be considered as a fundamental indicator to reconnect the uplands and the lowlands through a systemic vision. On one hand, the barren uplands should be taken into consideration since they affect the river flow in lowland areas: the reduced waterholding capacity of the soil contributes t o f l o o d i n g d o w n s t re a m ( G i l l s o n 2016). On the other hand, the lowland landscapes should increase the water storage capacity, avoiding soil erosion and becoming the counterpart of effective flood management. (Carver 2016).
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
BASIN SYSTEMIC APPROACH Uplands and Lowlands
DRAINAGE AND STORAGE SCHEMES by Carlotta Olivari
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Flooding levels derive from surface water runoff, after extreme rainfall. But how water infiltrates in the soil depends on different factors. Infiltration capacity relates to the sufficient porosity of the surface soil to infiltrate rainfall. Moreover, infiltration is connected to vegetation type and coverage: forests could intercept more rainfall than grasses. Lack of soil permeability could
be linked to natural soil composition; however, human accelerated factors could contribute to decreasing the permeability capacity. In the uplands, overgrazing, managed burning, and deforestation increase soil acidification. This land management is strictly connected to soil erosion and degradation that, as explained before, reduce the soil water holding capacity,
leading to extreme water runoff from upland areas and increasing flood risk in the lowlands. In fact, tree coverage can intercept more rainfall than grasses, reducing the flood risk. The soil porosity and capacity drive the will of maintaining and restoring soil conditions through a mosaic of interventions to increase the soil infiltration capacity.
At the same time, channelization of rivers and arable landscapes development in the lowlands has drastically reduced the soil capacity of lowlands to store water and buffer waterflow. Again the land management increases the process. In particular, intensive monoculture crops decrease the level of biodiversity, increasing the soil evapotranspiration and erosion. (Gillson 2016)
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Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Carver, Steve. 2016. ‘Flood Management and Nature – Can Rewilding Help?’, 6. Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. 2020. ‘Integrated Hydrological Units of the United Kingdom’. https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/id/33000ce7-7d1c-4be2-bebd-7b4160f3adfc. Environmental Agency. 2018. ‘Estimating the Economic Costs of the 2015 to 2016 Winter Floods’, 50. ‘Flooding - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee - House of Commons’. n.d. Accessed 12 September 2021. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5801/cmselect/cmenvfru/170/17005.htm. Gaston, Kevin J., Kevin Charman, Sarah F. Jackson, Paul R. Armsworth, Aletta Bonn, Robert A. Briers, Claire S.Q. Callaghan, et al. 2006. ‘The Ecological Effectiveness of Protected Areas: The United Kingdom’. Biological Conservation 132 (1): 76–87 https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2006.03.013. Gillson, Lindsey. 2016. ‘Can Re-Wilding the Uplands Help to Prevent Flooding in the Lowlands?’ https://blog.oup.com/2016/02/uplands-flooding-lowlands/. Institute of Hydrology. 1987. ‘Hydrological Data UK’. Institute of Hydrology. Kendon, Mike, Mark McCarthy, Svetlana Jevrejeva, Andrew Matthews, Tim Sparks, and Judith Garforth. 2021. ‘State of the UK Climate 2020’. International Journal of Climatology 41 (S2): 1–76. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.7285. Lewis, Simon L. 2019. ‘A Green New Deal for Nature’. University College London & University of Leeds. https://www.common-wealth.co.uk/reports/a-green-new-deal-for-nature. MAFF. 1988. ‘Agricultural Land Classification’. Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. ‘The Water Cycle - The Drainage Basin - CCEA - GCSE Geography Revision - CCEA’. n.d. BBC Bitesize. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zxvw4qt/revision/1. Weisse, Mikaela, and Elizabeth Dow Goldman. 2019. ‘The World Lost a Belgium-Sized Area of Primary Rainforests Last Year’. https://www.wri.org/insights/world-lost-belgium-sized-area-primary-rainforests-last-year.
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THE LAND QUESTION. The climate emergency makes new demands on land. A wetter climate due to more frequent and heavier rainfall is the principal driver of flooding, but how the land is managed can be an extremely important catalyst. The productive landscape has progressively shaped the land, through urban development, soil drainage, deforestation, overgrazing, and channelisation of rivers that combined have worsened the flood problem. Studying and intervening in the UK context, means analyzing specifically the productive landscape, which covers more than 70% of the UK. Because of the deep-
rooted agricultural and environmental subsidies, the landscape management remains almost wholly focused on the not sustainable production of food with monoculture crops. The pressures on land to produce more is increasing and the reciprocal relation with nature processes is weaker than ever. However, this is the product of the evolution of the agriculture policy framework of the last 20 years, with the Common Agricultural Policy. In response to the endemic problems, the research looks at alternative methods to tackle the Climate Change consequences.
The strategy proposed here doesn’t refer to pouring more concrete flood defences to protect downstream communities or to dredge channels. Instead, we must reconsider the land use and management practices through a basin systemic approach. It is necessary to consider carefully the whole catchment area from a wide perspective: from the physical network (terrain, soils, vegetation, among the others) to the social, cultural, political and economic factors that govern land use, management, and ownership. This integrated approach would unveil the hydrological processes that determine extreme flood risk and eco - logics.
LIST OF FIGURES
REFLECTION
Zayed, Yago, and Philip Loft. 2019. ‘Agriculture: Historical Statistics’, 19.
Fig. 0.1 Grouse Moor Burning, Scotland, 2007_Source: http://scotlandbigpicture.com/ Fig. 0.2 Overgrazing effects_ Source: https://twitter.com/hashtag/overgrazing Fig. 0.3 Conventional Farming_ Source: AdobeStock Fig. 0.4 Flooding UK_Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk Fig. 0.5 Grouse UK_ Source: https://markrampton.com/gallery/
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02. [ REWILDING DEFINITION ]
2.1
[ REWILDING UK ]
48-49
Why rewilding?
50-51
Wilderness in search of a definition
52-59
Which Wilderness we are rewilding toward?
60-63
Technical Report 03: Data scraping
64-69
Rewild the productive landscape
70-71
Technical Report 04: Web development
[ CHAPTER O2_ REWILDING UK ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
REWILDING UK Why rewilding?
REWILDING TWITTER Fig. 1.1
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The UK government needs to enable major changes in land management to tackle the current environmental crisis. Giving more space for nature would allow a greater connection between people and nature with the right to Nature; more diverse landscapes would provide nature based solutions increasing biodiversity targets, without offsetting agricultural production outside the UK. Moreover, increasing the carbon storage capacity, the net zero emissions target would be tackled. (Lewis 2019)l Rewilding seems to be the means through which we reach these goals, but how can we define “rewilding”? This term is controversial and opens up different perspectives and approaches. To find out our own perspective, the first step has been narrowing down the “wild paradox” to understand which wilderness we are rewilding towards (Crosswhite 2004).
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[ CHAPTER O2_ REWILDING UK ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
REWILDING UK Wilderness: in search of definition
THE WILD PARADOX SCHEME by Carlotta Olivari
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Wi l d d e s i g n a t e s e v e r y t h i n g t h a t a r i s e s o r develops spontaneously, escaping cultivation and domestication. Whether it is an impenetrable forest or desert, it is indomitable: it is the hyperbole of nature. So at least we imagine it. Since the wild, in itself, would not even exist: it is our projection, a cultural construction (Cronon 1995). Therefore, it changes, following the geographies and chronologies of change
of the reference contexts. It is not a universal category, the evidence of the obvious escapes. It is a point of view, a way of looking at and interpreting the world as "other" from us. Thus, wilderness is usually intended as ‘pristine nature’: but what does it mean for the UK? Was the British Isles once covered by forest? Or by
grassland with trees and scrub? The answer is almost certainly a bit of both. But to complicate a reading of the past, this mosaic would have been shifting, the habitats perpetually shaped by migration and ecological eras. If the wild past was unbalanced and discordant, which wilderness are we rewilding towards?
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[ CHAPTER O2_ REWILDING UK ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
REWILDING UK Which wilderness we are rewilding towards?
next page REWILDING DEFINITIONS by Carlotta Olivari
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Three main approaches on rewilding can be described: On one extreme there is “real-wilding” that claims the necessity to establish corridors, cores and carnivores. This vision, that took hold in America with Michael Soulè in 1998, sets the clear impossibility of human presence within wild landscapes with the consequence of separation of those. The second approach is “realistic-wilding” that refers to making places wilder. If the first one considers people to be the antithesis of rewilding, the second moves from managed and depleted, to wilder and restored. But In both these two ideologies, wilderness is uninhabited, uncultivated and unspoilt: if so, does the pursuit of rewild require removing people
from landscapes? The third framework considers the relationship between man and nature passing from an uninhabited wilderness to a wildness inhabited. Differently from the two previous statements, here the co-existence of human and nature is set. In fact, quoting again William Cronon, wilderness cannot embody a dualistic vision in which the human is entirely outside the natural. If this is so, then also by definition it can offer no solution to the environmental and other problems that confront us (Cronon, 1995). Thus, human society and nature are recognized as the two main forces that shape landscape. The re-establishment of a reciprocal relationship between them has become a key question.
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[ CHAPTER O2_ REWILDING UK ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
REWILDING UK Which wilderness we are rewilding towards?
next page MAPPING PROJECTS by Zhuqing Li
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Across the UK different rewilding projects have been taken in place with different approaches. The map shows each project's location with the reference scale of intervention. Moreover, they are differentiated into two categories: first, the rewilding actions where the human presence is not included, predominantly based on habitat restoration, tree planting, species reintroduction, among others. The second type, the projects
re l a t ed t o s u s t a i n a b l e p ro d u c t i v e landscape, mainly including agroforestry practices. Here the reciprocal relation between human and natural processes is established. From the analysis it is clearly visible that the trend is to set up rewilding projects without considering a systemic and large-scale approach. As a result, the individual projects are isolated from each other.
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[ CHAPTER O2_ REWILDING UK ]
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REWILDING UK Which wilderness we are rewilding towards?
KNEPP CASTLE Fig. 1.2
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THE UK FLOODING NEWS by Zhuqing Li
More specifically, an example of a rewilding project related to human and nature separation is the Knepp Castle. Knepp is a 1400 hectares arable that has been drastically rewilded since 2001. Herbivores have been free to mimic the grazing of extinct aurochs, wild boar and wild horses. The barren monocultures of maize have been replaced, transitioning the conventional farming business into ecotourism. (Barkham 2017) However, even if Knepp Castle has become a biodiversity hotspot, how many farmers could leave productive farmland? Is it really possible to scale- up this model to envision a UK national rewilding goal?
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[ CHAPTER O2_ REWILDING UK ]
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REWILDING UK Which wilderness we are rewilding towards?
THE GREAT FEN PROJECT by Zhuqing Li
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The Great Fen Project in Cambridgeshire refers to the counterpart: a high land management landscape included in a productive land. The Great Fen aims to respond to the flooding issues by restoring the peated soil and locking carbon dioxide. In the past, this area was rich in peated soil, but it was drained due to agricultural use. The project tries to transform the farmland into sustainable wetland farming through agroecology. From left to right, it shows the rewilding process including grow the grass instead of food crops to remove the nutrients
from soil, harvest the hay, maintain the grazing activities to keep the grass, feed the water, and apply wet farming by planting bulrush, grain crop, flowers, reeds and moss. This helps the soil to keep moisture, which is good to store the water from the surrounding, and lock the carbon dioxide. This rewilding project deals with the creation of public goods, maintaining a level of food productivity. However, the main barrier to scale-up this process is that the fundings provided c o m e s f ro m p r i va t e l o t t e r i e s a n d stakeholders.
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
TECHNICAL REPORT 03 This report describes the implication of the use of the rhetorics of chartographic visualizations.
[ Rhino, Mosquito, Python ]
step 1
data collection
mca
criteria 1 ecology
criteria 2 economy
criteria 3 engagement
criteria 4 rewilding projects
data scraping
flooding mitigation
gh_mosquito
step 2
words
username o1 username o2 username o3
0
5
0
5
0
5
0
5
gh_mosquito
Criteria 1. [ Ecology ]
Criteria 2. [ Economy ]
selected cases
visualization
flickr all the alphabet to activate the researc
data structure
words and images 3 1 location
location
2 location
rewilding projects
cloud words
"Terrain model and Water run-offcalculation diagrams" by Carlotta Olivari
Criteria 3. [ Engagement ]
A complete analysis of the UK rewilding projects have been developed: the existing projects have been collected and analyzed to understand their main features. In particular, they were analyzed and categorized according to 4 main criteria: ecology, economy, flooding mitigation and engagement with the public. Through this classification, 24 projects stand out among others. A further deepening of these projects
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took place through data scraping, which allows the extraction of data from output generated from another program. Gh_ mosquito for Rhino: the keywords related to each project have been extracted through the most common twitters; in addition, Flickr images taken within the area of influence of these projects were collected to capture the visitor's perception of these places. Mainly the shots refer to wild animals or small
botanical elements such as flowers or mushrooms. In addition, the words most used to describe these places have been collected through some world clauses.
PROJECTS ASSESSMENT by Zhuqing Li
What emerged from this research is the fact that most of the rewilding projects fit into a model related to the restoration of wilderness without land management. The concept of rewilding projects where nature is understood as an
Criteria 4. [ Flooding relevance ]
uncontaminated place where man is only a visitor is reiterated within these landscapes. It becomes necessary to introduce a definition of rewilding that also includes man-made landscapes: farming landscapes.
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
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2
3
4
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Bunloit Estate
Dundreggan
Knoydart
Creag Meagaidh
Wild Ennerdale
RSPB Haweswater
Ingleborough
Wild Ken Hill
[ 1.6 ]
[ 0.2 ]
[ 0.5 ]
[ 0.6 ]
[ 3.0 ]
[ 2.0 ]
[ 1.6 ]
[ 2.8 ]
Ecology: 2 Economy: 0 Engagement: 2 Flooding relevance: 2
Ecology: 2 Economy: 0 Engagement: 0 Flooding relevance: 0
Ecology: 1 Economy: 0 Engagement: 2 Flooding relevance: 0
Ecology: 2 Economy: 0 Engagement: 2 Flooding relevance: 0
Ecology: 2 Economy: 2 Engagement: 2 Flooding relevance: 4
Ecology: 2 Economy: 2 Engagement: 2 Flooding relevance: 2
Ecology: 2 Economy: 2 Engagement: 0 Flooding relevance: 2
Ecology: 2 Economy: 4 Engagement: 4 Flooding relevance: 2
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7
8
17
18
19
20
Mar Lodge
Bamff Estate
Glenlude
Arran Seabed Trust
West Acre
Great Fen
Wicken Fen
Elmore Court Estate
[ 0.6 ]
[ 2.0 ]
[ 0.6 ]
[ 1.8 ]
[ 2.0 ]
[ 3.8 ]
[ 3.8 ]
[ 0.6 ]
Ecology: 2 Economy: 0 Engagement: 2 Flooding relevance: 0
Ecology: 2 Economy: 2 Engagement: 2 Flooding relevance: 2
Ecology: 2 Economy: 0 Engagement: 2 Flooding relevance: 0
Ecology: 2 Economy: 4 Engagement: 4 Flooding relevance: 0
Ecology: 2 Economy: 2 Engagement: 2 Flooding relevance: 2
Ecology: 2 Economy: 4 Engagement: 4 Flooding relevance: 4
Ecology: 2 Economy: 4 Engagement: 4 Flooding relevance: 4
Ecology: 2 Economy: 2 Engagement: 0 Flooding relevance: 0
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12
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Southern Scotland
RSPB Geltsdale
Geltsdale Farm
Lowther Estate
Sheepdrove Farm
Pirbright Ranges
Knepp Castle Estate
Upcott Grange Farm
[ 0.6 ]
[ 2.4 ]
[ 2.4 ]
[ 1.8 ]
[ 0.5 ]
[ 0.2 ]
[ 3.4 ]
[ 2.2 ]
Ecology: 2 Economy: 0 Engagement: 2 Flooding relevance: 0
Ecology: 2 Economy: 2 Engagement: 4 Flooding relevance: 2
Ecology: 2 Economy: 2 Engagement: 4 Flooding relevance: 2
Ecology: 4 Economy: 2 Engagement: 0 Flooding relevance: 2
Ecology: 1 Economy: 2 Engagement: 0 Flooding relevance: 0
Ecology: 2 Economy: 0 Engagement: 0 Flooding relevance: 0
Ecology: 2 Economy: 4 Engagement: 2 Flooding relevance: 4
Ecology: 4 Economy: 2 Engagement: 2 Flooding relevance: 2
"Cloud words and multi criteria analysis" by Zhuqing Li
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REWILDING UK Rewild the productive landscape
next page REWILDING DEFINITION by Carlotta Olivari
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REWILDING DEFINITION: To a d d r e s s t h e c o n t e m p o r a r y overexploitation of resources, and therefore ongoing social imbalances, alternative models, like agroecological practices, should be integrated to the current ones (Halladay and Gilmour 1995). More than a half of the terrestrial surface is covered by productive landscapes: agricultural land, grazing areas, and managed productive forests. Because of that, human disturbance clearly plays an important role in managing and shaping the landscapes. As the Committee on Climate Change reports, “using land released from agriculture for carbon sequestration and restoring natural habitats can deliver deep emissions reduction by 2050”.
Productive landscapes are the means through which re-connecting human and natural realms. Rewilding the productive landscape through alternative land management should be taken into consideration to “assure sustainable development, allowing local communities to exercise a much greater influence over the landscapes they live in” (Barrett and Farina 2000). I n l i n e w i t h t h a t , i n t h i s re s ea rc h thesis rewilding is stated as a dynamic process in time to [re]claim the land (agricultural land, livestock grazing areas, and managed forests) to [re]establish a reciprocal relationship between human and non human processes inside productive landscapes; it connects local
communities and nature; it relates to natural based solution to resist climate breakdown and wildlife loss; it is an environmental, cultural, economic and political proposition. To put these frameworks into a systemic approach, it is necessary to integrate e c o n o m i c s c i e n c e w i t h e c o l o g y, culture with nature to re-establish a reciprocal relation between man and nature (Costanza 1996). Moreover, the integration of these new approaches i n t h e c u r r e n t p o l i c y f ra m e w o r k would support the establishment of novel ecosystems from the different perspectives: the socio-economic and ecological context (Pettorelli et al. 2018)
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REWILDING UK Rewild the productive landscape
HUMAN NATURE SEPARATION by Carlotta Olivari
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The myth of wild nature produced a colonial history that crystallized in America with the establishment of national parks. The narrative of the European settlers was the means to build the premises: the “virgin wastelands, uninhabited lands of pure nature”, in
reality were nothing but “an environment a l rea d y s i g n i f i ca n t l y t ra n s f o r m ed by the indigenous people who lived there” (Perrault 2007). This paradigm helped produce the foundation of early conservation actions, in which “the only positive relationship a human being
could have with the natural world was as a visitor” (The Wilderness Act Of 1964, 2015). On the other side, the human footprint relates to productive landscape: from concentrated conifer forests, overgrazed grassland, degraded
peatlands to conventional farming based predominantly on monoculture intensive production. The soil erosion, lack of porosity and the lack of ecological continuity increase the flooding risk, loss of biodiversity and the separation between human and natural processes.
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REWILDING UK Rewild the productive landscape
REWILDING GRADIENT by Carlotta Olivari
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We propose to address wilderness through a new lens where culture and nature are not in opposition. Through a gradient of rewilding actions, the aim is to re-establish a reciprocal relationship between human and non-human processes in alternative productive landscapes
based on agroecological schemes. A series of interventions are proposed, from broadleaved woodland and riparian river land establishment to increase soil permeability and biodiversity; to hedgerows creation, to reconnect the scattered ecosystems; to silvo arable
and silvopasture practices to incentivise sustainable food production. On one side, the integrated mosaic of interventions would achieve ecological connectivity, maximizing the ecological benefits and re-naturalizing the productive landscape. On the other
side, the re-humanization of nature would involve community engagement from introducing the Right to Nature to educational proposing within the proposed interventions. Farmers are now seen as land managers, not only food producers.
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[ CHAPTER O1_ UK LAND MANAGMENT ]
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
TECHNICAL REPORT 04 This report describes the stakeholder engagement through website and interactive map development.
[ HTML, CSS, Javascript ]
step 1
input
visualization
output
contents development
text text
structure
text text
defined goals data
layout definition
process
input step 2
website
output
1. project 2. project 3. project n. project rewilding projects
mapbox gl
interactive map
"Terrain model and Water run-offcalculation diagrams" by Carlotta Olivari
REWILDING WEBSITE by Yuanyuan Huang
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Through programming in HTML, CSS and Javascript, with Visual Studio Code, a platform to engage the public is provided. Within it the rewilding definition has been embedded with a UK interactive map and reference case studies. In particular, through the combination of Mapbox functions, geographic information can be described in a dynamic and narrative perspective.
Through the rewilding website and interactive mapping, the audience can be informed of the rewilding process and more stakeholders can be engaged.
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Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[ CHAPTER O2_ REWILDING UK ]
Barkham, Patrick. 2017. ‘“It Is Strange to See the British Struggling with the Beaver”: Why Is Rewilding so Controversial?’ The Guardian. 2017. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/01/rewilding-conservation-ecology-national-trust. Carver, Steve. 2016. ‘Flood Management and Nature – Can Rewilding Help?’, 6. Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. 2020. ‘Integrated Hydrological Units of the United Kingdom’. https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/id/33000ce7-7d1c-4be2-bebd-7b4160f3adfc. Cronon, William. 1995. ‘The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature’. 1995. Environmental Agency. 2018. ‘Estimating the Economic Costs of the 2015 to 2016 Winter Floods’, 50. Escobar, Arturo. 1999. ‘After Nature: Steps to an Antiessentialist Political Ecology’. Current Anthropology 40 (1): 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1086/515799. Gaston, Kevin J., Kevin Charman, Sarah F. Jackson, Paul R. Armsworth, Aletta Bonn, Robert A. Briers, Claire S.Q. Callaghan, et al. 2006. ‘The Ecological Effectiveness of Protected Areas: The United Kingdom’. Biological Conservation 132 (1): 76–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2006.03.013. Gillson, Lindsey. 2016. ‘Can Re-Wilding the Uplands Help to Prevent Flooding in the Lowlands?’ https://blog.oup.com/2016/02/uplands-flooding-lowlands/. Institute of Hydrology. 1987. ‘Hydrological Data UK’. Institute of Hydrology. Kendon, Mike, Mark McCarthy, Svetlana Jevrejeva, Andrew Matthews, Tim Sparks, and Judith Garforth. 2021. ‘State of the UK Climate 2020’. International Journal of Climatology 41 (S2): 1–76. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.7285. Lewis, Simon L. 2019. ‘A Green New Deal for Nature’. University College London & University of Leeds. https://www.common-wealth.co.uk/reports/a-green-new-deal-for-nature.
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A FARMING QUESTION. Pro t ec t ed a rea s p ro j ec t a n o v e r l y simplistic and outdated understanding of the landscape: of protected against unprotected and culture against nature (Carver 2011). Furthermore, the warming climate adds further challenges. The static nature of protected areas such as parks cannot provide resilience in an age of climate change (Geldmann et al. 2019). As two-thirds of the planet’s land surface is covered by productive landscapes as agricultural land and grazing areas, human activities clearly play a primary role in the shape of the landscape; an integrated ecosystem management model
with community participation is needed (Agrawal e Gibson 2001). The protected area model cannot be the only tool at hand: this paradigm does not take into account the role of local communities in shaping ecosystems (Escobar 1999). Therefore, following what Cronon stated in his “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature”, the aim should be to establish a reciprocal relationship with nature not only in the so-called “wilderness”, but in the world that includes both of them.
LIST OF FIGURES
REFLECTION
Weisse, Mikaela, and Elizabeth Dow Goldman. 2019. ‘The World Lost a Belgium-Sized Area of Primary Rainforests Last Year’.
Fig. 1.1 Twitter Rewilding definitions_ Source: https://rewildingnews.com/ Fig. 1.2 Knepp Castle Project_Source: https://www.vogue.com/ Fig. 1.3 Pastures Threatened by Overgrazing_ Source: https://financialtribune.com/
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[ CHAPTER O3_ REWILDING PROPOSAL ]
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03. [ REWILDING PROPOSAL ]
3.1 76-77
Research questions
78-79
Why agroforestry
80-81
Agroforestry practices in the UK
82-83
Allerton project
84-85
Why cluster farm
86-87
Linces heaths cluster
88-95
Engagement Report
3.2
[ REWILDING POLICY ]
96-97
Existing policy framework
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Proposed rewilding policy
100-101
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[ RESEARCH PROPOSAL ]
Rewilding transition
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RESEARCH PROPOSAL Research questions
RESEARCH QUESTION DIAGRAM by Zhuqing Li & Carlotta Olivari
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The main research question of this project is how can we design an integrated strategy to rewild the agricultural land in a just transition to re-establish a reciprocal relationship between human and non-human processes? Unpacking this, several sub-research questions are put forward: How to rewild the agricultural land based on the agricultural land classification? How does the existing policy framework support the proposed rewilding actions? How to scale up the agroforestry In the transition process,
how to support farmers and ensure their voices are heard? What is the just transition? Just transition concepts were first proposed by labour unions and environmental justice organisations to provide just pathways for low-income workers to transition to other jobs and then expanded by the trade union movement (International Trade Union Confederation 2015) to include a range of social interventions needed to secure workers' rights and
livelihoods as economies shift to more sustainable modes of production, like solve the environmental issues and increase the biodiversity. Based on this, the rewilding just transition process for this project is aiming to guide farmers to transition their current conventional farmlands into ecological practices that could respond to climate change and protect biodiversity. More importantly, within the transition process, the farmers’ rights would be secured and their voices would be heard.
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RESEARCH PROPOSAL Why agroforestry
Fig.3.1 AGROFORESTRY PRACTICE
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AGROFORESTRY TYPRS by Zhuqing Li
Agroforestry is a type of land management that incorporates trees and shrubs into agricultural and animal production systems (Nair 1993). This technique has several advantages for both the farm and the environment. Farmers and the environment may both profit from agroforestry. It may generate a greater organic substance to enhance soil quality, and tree roots could improve the permeability of the soil to reduce the risk of flooding.
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[ CHAPTER O3_ REWILDING PROPOSAL ]
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RESEARCH PROPOSAL Agroforestry practices in the UK
AGROFORESTRY PRACTICES IN THE UK by Yuanyuan Huang
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AGROFORESTRY PRACTICES IN THE UK by Yuanyuan Huang
Agroforestry actions are characterised by an average dimension that lasts 1.5~50ha, less than 20% of each farm. This is caused by the lack of professional knowledge, policy support, and marketplace.
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[ CHAPTER O3_ REWILDING PROPOSAL ]
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RESEARCH PROPOSAL Allerton project
ALLERTON PROJECT MAP by Yuanyuan Huang
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ALLERTON PROJECT DIAGRAM by Carlotta Olivari
During the site visit of The Allerton project in East Anglia, we found out the agroforestry actions only occupy 1%. The barriers for farmers to establish agroforestry at a large scale are the longer time and the higher costs to get the balanced profit, compared to conventional farming. Farmers need to wait 10 years to get profits from trees.
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RESEARCH PROPOSAL Why cluster farm
Fig.3.14 FARM CLUSTER
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Farmers and land managers contribute a lot for the rural environment, yet a person can only do so much on their own, not on a bigger or landscapescale if they work alone. According to the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (‘Farmer Clusters - For Farmers, Facilitators and Advisors’ 2018), the farm cluster is a suggestion for scaling up individual actions and agroforestry practises. Farmers are attempting to collaborate through the 118 clusters that
now exist. A facilitator or adviser, as well as the supervision of a lead farmer and a trustworthy conservation advisor, assist in this partnership. Existing agrienvironment programmes are frequently involved. Farmers and land managers will be able to collaborate more effectively in their communities as a result of this. This allows them to offer higher advantages for soil, water, and wildlife at a landscape scale by working together.
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RESEARCH PROPOSAL Linces heaths cluster
CLUSTER FARM MAP b y Yu a n y u a n H u a n g & Zhuqing Li
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CLUSTER FARM DIAGRAM by Carlotta Olivari
The farm clusters enable farmers to share the fixed costs, tools, and knowledge. Moreover, the collaboration allows them to implement agroforestry at a larger scale through access to higher grants, giving farmers a voice in the just transition.
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Farmers, expert and forum consultation
[ FARMER ENGAGEMENT ] 1. Allerton project 2. Cluster farm
1. ALLERTON RESEARCH CENTER AND EDUCATIONAL TRUST The Allerton Project investigates various farming methods on wildlife and the environment, and then disseminates the findings through advisory and educational activities. This project occupies 320 acre demonstration farm in Leicestershire, England (‘The Allerton Project | Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’ n.d.). They seek out management that provides multiple benefits to rhe rural environment. Natural capital accounting, agri-environment schemes, and regenerative farming systems are the topics involved. The goal is to build farmland resilience, from soil and water to woodland and environmental habitat that increases biodiversity.
ENGAGEMENT MAP by Carlotta Olivari
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Fig.3.2 Joe is explaining how the agroforestry works.
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[ CHAPTER O3_ REWILDING PROPOSAL ]
Social engagement
The important lesson learned from the Allerton project is how they make efforts to engage the community. They organised a series of community events related to agroforestry practices. The community is invited to plant the fruit trees, manage the trees, pick up fruits, etc. In this process, they have good knowledge about this practice, gradually understand the profits of agroforestry, and then accept it mentally.
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
Leaky dam creation
According to Eden river trust (‘Leaky Dams’ n.d.), the leaky dam is the wooden barrier aiming to control the runoff from the upland. It could also contribute to restoring the water in the soil, which could eliminate the flooding.
Fig.3.5 Leaky dam in the sheep grazing field
Fig.3.3 Silvo-pastoral practices (orchards + sheep grazing)
Trees protection
Referring to the agroforestry practices in this project, the density of tree plantation varies. It ranges from 100 trees/ha to 1000 trees/ha, to 1600 trees/ha.
Drawing on the experience of the Allerton project, various methods of tree protection are considered. The aim is to prevent harm from the grazing animals. The most common one is the plastic tree guard, which is economical to install on a large scale. However, it is inevitable to suffer harm from some rodent animals. The hollowout tree guards are implemented to respond to this issue.
Fig.3.4 Different types of tree guards
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Silvo-pastoral practice
Fig.3.6 Agroforestry practices in medium density trees plantation
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[ CHAPTER O3_ REWILDING PROPOSAL ]
2. CLUSTER FARM Calmsden farm is another site visit place to understand the working flow of cluster farms and how a singular farm contributes to the collaboration actions. This farm cluster consists of six farms in Oxfordshire occupying around 2000 ha. Within this cluster, calmsden farm works as a leader farm.
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
Hedges within conventional farming
One of the collaboration actions is to consider creating hedges in a planned way within the farmland and the boundary of different farms, which is helpful to build connectivity.
Fig.3.9 Mark introduces the oat growing condition and hedges creation.
Fig.3.7 Document about agroecological actions
Soil benefits
Beetle bank creation
Learned from the creation of the beetle bank, it has several benefits, for instance, increasing biodiversity and improving soil quality.
After implementing the agroecological schemes, there are several environmental benefits, like the soil of the crops becoming darker and more fertile.
Fig. 3.10 2 metres beetle bank within the field.
Fig.3.8 Mark explains that the soil condition of crops is becoming better.
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[ FORUM AND ORGANIZATIONS ENGAGEMENT ]
2. FARMING FORUM
1. Great fen 2. Farming forum 3. Farm woodland forum
We also registered at the farming forum and created discussions with farmers about UK agroforestry and farm clusters.
1. THE GREAT FEN The great fen is located in Cambridgeshire aiming to respond to the flooding issues by restoring the peated soil and locking carbon dioxide. In the past, this area was rich in peated soil, but it was drained due to agricultural use. The project tries to transform the farmland into a wetland. In the meeting with the great fen team, we learned a lot about the rewilding process including grow the grass instead of food crops to remove the nutrients from the soil, harvest the hay, maintain the grazing activities to keep the grass, feed the water, and apply wet farming by planting bulrush, grain crop, flowers, reeds, and moss. This helps the soil to keep moisture, which is good to store the water from the surrounding, and lock the carbon dioxide. Apart from the ecological process to prevent the flooding, we are also inspired by how this project engages the local farmers and different stakeholders and learned how rewilding could relate to productive sustainable activities.
Fig.3.12 Posting the questions at farming forum
3. FARM WOODLAND FORUM Apart from this, we attended a lot of forums related to agroforestry practice in the UK. For instance, Defra’s agroforestry visions.
Fig.3.11 Meeting with great fen team
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Fig.3.13 Attending the agroforestry forum
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REWILDING POLICY Existing policy framework
POLICY FRAMEWORK by Carlotta Olivari
The English rolling landscape has been shaped by the Common Agricultural Policy (‘Common-Agricultural-Policy. Pdf’ n.d.): it excluded the possibility of integrating tree plantation within crops, separating forestry and agriculture grants. After Brexit, a new Agriculture Framework has been proposed based on
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the Environmental Land Management Scheme (‘Environmental Land Management Schemes: Overview’ n.d.), which finally recognizes agroforestry. Particularly, the scheme is divided into: Tier 1 that sustainable agroforestry incentives; Tier 2, on Nature Recovery; Tier 3 that set environmental landscape
goals. However, by interviewing farmers across the Farm Woodland Forum, some barriers were pointed out: Lack of agroforestry knowledge and unclear funding system; Clear targets and mapped habitat connectivity; The lack of national vision guided by spatial mapping.
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REWILDING POLICY Proposed rewilding policy
This project proposes a new rewilding policy based on the existing policy framework. There are five perspectives: regrade actions, rewilding grants, basin corridor, collaboration tools, and transition guidelines, which respond to the barriers of the current framework.
REWILDING POLICY by Zhuqing Li
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The current UK productive landscape i s c l a s s i f i e d b y A g r i c u l t u re L a n d Classification. Currently, the physical factors of climate, site, and soil condition form the basis for classifying land into one of five grades; Grade 1 to 3 land being of good quality for arable production. Grade 4 to 5 land of very poor quality for arable production. This system prioritises conventional monoculture production,
weakening agroecological integrated actions. Addressing farmers' concerns about ELM tiers on spatial mapping, knowledge, and economic support, a national rewilding network is proposed based on agricultural l a n d c l a ss i fi ca t i o n . A g ra d i e n t o f rewilding interventions is proposed to introduce farm quality and ecological sensitivity through spatial planning. A time-based transition is imagined, shaping a new landscape: Re-grades 4 and 5 relate to Tier 3, sustainable farming: conventional farming is gradually integrated with low-density trees, wood pasture and silvo-arable actions. Regrades 2 and 3 are activated through
medium density trees actions such as hedgerows creation and riparian river trees. Re-grade 1, with a predominance of natural processes, proposes higher density trees with sustainable management of woodland and reconnection of scattered natural resources with new woodland creation. The integrated mosaic of interventions would achieve ecological connectivity, maximizing the outcomes, activating Tier 2, local nature recovery, and Tier 1, Landscape recovery. Farmers are now seen as land managers to re-establish a reciprocal relationship between human and non-human processes, not only food producers.
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REWILDING POLICY Rewilding transition
TRANSITION PROCESS by Carlotta Olivari
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
[ CHAPTER O2_ REWILDING UK ]
‘Common-Agricultural-Policy.Pdf’. n.d. Accessed 16 September 2021. http://aei.pitt.edu/75450/3/Common-Agricultural-Policy.pdf. ‘Environmental Land Management Schemes: Overview’. n.d. GOV.UK. Accessed 16 September 2021. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/environmental-land-management-schemes-overview. ‘Farmer Clusters - For Farmers, Facilitators and Advisors’. 2018. Farmer Clusters (blog). 10 July 2018. https://www.farmerclusters.com/. ‘Leaky Dams’. n.d. Eden Rivers Trust. Accessed 16 September 2021. https://edenriverstrust.org.uk/your-eden/explore-edens-rivers/leaky-dams/. Nair, P. K. R. 1993. An Introduction to Agroforestry. Springer Science & Business Media.
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This chapter introduces the research question of this project: how can we design an integrated strategy to rewild the agricultural land in a just transition to re-establish a reciprocal relationship between human and non-human processes? By responding to this question, it proposes to apply the agroforestry practice since it combines nature with crops contributing to the environment. However, there are a lot of barriers to implementing this practice. Then, the farm cluster system is put forward to support the establishment of rewilding
actions and collaboration among farmers. Based on the existing policy, the new rewilding policy is proposed to support the rewilding actions. However, it is still ambiguous for the farmers about how to create the farm cluster. In this way, a spatial tool needs to be developed in the following step to guide farmers.
LIST OF FIGURES
REFLECTION
‘The Allerton Project | Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’. n.d. Accessed 15 September 2021. https://www.allertontrust.org.uk/.
Fig.3.1 - Fig.3.14 Stakeholder engagement. Source_Rewilding group
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04. [ EAST ANGLIA PROTOTYPE ]
4.1 106-107
Agriculture land classification
108-109
Farmland
110-111
Woodland
112-113
Flooding risk
4.2
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[ EXISTING CONDITION ]
[ BASIN PROPOSAL ]
114-115
How much land could be reclaimed
116-117
Regrades actions proposal
118-121
Rewilding corridor
122-123
Technical Report 05: Corridor creation
124-131
Spatial mapping tool
132-147
Technical Report 06: GAN tool 105
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EXISTING CONDITION Agriculture land classification
AGRICULTURE LAND CLASSIFICATION by Carlotta Olivari
The great majority of East Anglia basin, the prototypical case used, is dominated by agricultural land classification grade 2 and 3 with good quality agricultural production. Fig.4.1 AGRICULTURE LAND
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EXISTING CONDITION Farmland
FARMLAND by Carlotta Olivari
Because of this, East Anglia basin is characterised by an unbalanced proportion of conventional farming based on cereal production. Less than 1% of the basin is dedicated to organic farms. Fig.4.2 FARMLAND
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EXISTING CONDITION Woodland
WOODLAND by Carlotta Olivari
T h e d i s co n n ec t i o n o f t h e n a t u ra l resources from the semi-natural environment becomes evident and it is mainly related to scattered broadleaved and mixed woodlands. Fig.4.3 WOODLAND
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EXISTING CONDITION Flooding risk
FLOODING RISK by Carlotta Olivari
Moreover, the high risk of flooding in this context is a central issue for both cities and the productive landscape, threatening different properties.
Fig.4.4 FLOODING RISK
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BASIN PROPOSAL How much land could be reclaimed
[Agriculture land released in the Balances Pathway ]
LAND CALCULATION by Carlotta Olivari
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How much agricultural land can be reclaimed for Rewilding? The Climate Change Committee calculates, following current trends in diet change and food waste, that 21% of the agricultural land by 2035 and 35% by 2050 could be transitioned without outsourcing food from the rest of the world.
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BASIN PROPOSAL Regrades actions proposal
REGRADES PROPOSAL by Carlotta Olivari & Zhuqing Li
According to the presence of different alc, a gradient of rewilding actions is proposed: ALC 4 and 5 that are bad for arable, could be transitioned into regrade 1 -2 -3 in the percentage of 20 25, which relates to woodland creation and maintenance; ALC 2 and 3, that are good for arable, could be transitioned
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into re-grade 3 -4 -5 in the percentage of 15 - 20, which relates to agroecological schemes, such as hedgerow, beetle bank and agroforestry creation. ALC 1, which is excellent for arable land, could be transitioned into re-grade 4 - 5 in the percentage of 1-3, which relates to silvoarable and silvo-pasture practices.
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BASIN PROPOSAL Rewilding corridor
CORRIDORS by Carlotta Olivari
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In particular, farmers from the East Anglia basin would set rewilding priority targets such as wildlife connectivity, flooding mitigation, and sustainable food production. Several iterations are played to create the basin corridors for each rewilding target. The rules for running the iterations include agricultural land classification, proximity to existing organic farms, proximity to natural resources, proximity
to flooding areas, etc. Illustrating the flooding corridor as an example, the iteration starts activating all alc 4 areas to rewild, then reclaims the alc 3 areas based on the proximity to flooding areas and natural resources. The following step is to reclaim alc 2 and alc 1 based on the same rules as alc 3. The criteria for running the iteration is to check if the total rewilded areas have reached 23%. If not, the iteration will continue based on the
rules. If yes, the iteration will end, and the corridor is set up. Moreover, the range of percentage that could be reclaimed is calculated per each alc. This range of the percentage provides room for farmers to negotiate. The scenarios and the corridor formation are one of the strengths of the project in scaling up individual actions to a national policy level while giving room and support for a farmers' just transition.
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CORRIDORS by Carlotta Olivari
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CORRIDORS by Carlotta Olivari
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TECHNICAL REPORT 05 this report describes the process to achieve the priority targets corridor creation and activate the rewilding policy.
[ GIS, Linkage Mapper, Rhino, Grasshopper ]
step 1
input
reclassify
select criteria slope land use flooding
4% 12%
10
6
8%
8
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7%
slope
data
reclassify raster dataset
step 2
Corridor 3. [ Community Engagement ]
Corridor 4. [ Flooding mitigation ]
corridor
3
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raster calculator
"Dataset normalization and MCA diagrams" by Carlotta Olivari
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Corridor 2. [ Wildlife connectivity ]
reclassified input
mca
The rewilding policy would be activated by the corridor's development. The priority target would be selected by the farmers depending on their interests and common ground. In particular, the corridors are set cross-relating different relevant criteria, depending on the target selected: since territories are extremely complex, a multi criteria analysis is proposed to interpolate different fields from topographical aspects, land use, flooding risk and social variables.
Corridor 1. [ Sustainable food production ]
scaling value
topography
reclassified inputs
output
The use of the MCA allows to highlight the best option area, considering multiple criteria at the same time. Specifically, the areas would achieve connectivity issues, creating the basin corridors. The data for the selected criteria are set and their values are normalised; in this way different layers can be evaluated according to the same reference. The scale of value is defined, in relation to the aptitude of the specific criteria. Once all the data are reclassified and
mca output
have normalised values, the MCA is performed: the result it’s a combination of the different reclassified datasets by addition (raster calculation). The MCA is then used within the Linkage Mapper Tool in GIS as a resistance base to identify and map linkages between the specific core targets (McRae et al. n.d.). The set goal is to create target L I N K A G E M A P P E Rcorridors reconnecting core habitat areas. CORRIDORS The result visualizes the more potential by Zhuqing Li
connection between core areas. The proximity of the selected farm to specific targets -such as existing organic farms or natural resources- activates the corridors and informs the user of the stakeholder about it . The scenarios and the corridor formation are one of the strengths of the project in scaling up individual actions to a national policy level while giving room and support for a farmers' just transition.
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BASIN PROPOSAL Spatial mapping tool
MAPPING TOOL by Carlotta Olivari
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A spatial mapping tool is proposed to guide the negotiation process between f a r m e r s i n t h e b a s i n . H e re i s t h e simulation process between the 5 farmers’ negotiation. Their farms are located in alc 2. The dimension of their farms are between 60 and 140 ha and they mainly cultivate conventional crops leading to a monoculture landscape. Moreover, extreme flooding causes high damages to their fields every winter. Once set the common issues, farmers could visualize
the presence of the related priority targets. Their farms are located mainly within the flooding mitigation corridor. However, Mark and Tim have parts of their farm within the sustainable farming corridor. The farmers would negotiate between the different priority targets: the cluster will prioritize the flooding mitigation interventions, maintaining a small percentage of them dedicated to the sustainable food production target. Once the targets are defined, the next
negotiation should address the amount of land to be transited into rewilding actions. According to the policy, they could transition between 15% to 20%, achieving the tier 2 ELM grants (100 ha). But which regrade actions take place? The policy gives a range of actions where farmers have the room to negotiate: from re-grade 3 to 5. Hedgerows, beetle bank, wildflowers margins, and agroforestry are the possible actions that could be selected.
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MAPPING TOOL by Carlotta Olivari
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MAPPING TOOL by Carlotta Olivari
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BASIN PROPOSAL GAN tool
GAN TOOL by Yuanyuan Huang
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The GAN tool would visualize the negotiated actions. In the first step, farmers can negotiate and draw the sketch of their plans. In the 2nd step, the tool can provide a plan based on their drawing and show the percentage of each
action. In the 3rd step, it will provide the 3D perspective image to help farmers imagine and visualize the rewilded cluster. Farmers could iterate the scenarios until they are satisfied with the outcome.
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GAN TOOL by Yuanyuan Huang
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GAN TOOL by Yuanyuan Huang
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TECHNICAL REPORT 6 The last fuction of the app can make farmers to see their own design.
[ Gan Tool Proposal ]
THE GAN TOOL by Yuanyuan Huang
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The final step of this app is to help farmers decide on specific rewilding actions. Farmers can draw plans for different rewilding actions in the app, and then the machine will give renderings through machine learning, and farmers can adjust the plan according to the renderings. To achieve this function, we must prepare enough cases for machine learning to train a generative adversarial network(GAN) that can infer output based on input. In this way, the newly input sketch can infer the effect map based on the trained GAN. In order for this generative design
to be successfully implemented, we need to collect enough case pictures from the Internet, then process the pictures, prepare the corresponding picture sets A and B for training, and finally use programming to train GAN. Therefore, analyzing a large number of case pictures for machine learning to form a GAN that can achieve the goal is a necessary step.
HOW TO COLLECT DATA? by Yuanyuan Huang
In order to prepare reasonable data for training GAN. We used python to scrape satellite images of known farmer clusters as the basic image data for the examples. The chart above specifically explains how we collect these satellite images. First of all, we found the geographic data in the shapefile format of the existing farmer clusters on the Game& Wildlife website. Since the data only includes point-like position information, we converted the data into kml format through GIS so that it can be displayed on the satellite map on google earth. Then manually defined
the range of the cluster on the satellite map. The information of each case and the coordinates of the scope are recorded in the .csv file. Finally, using python code according to the information in the csv file, the satellite images are automatically saved in the local folder of the computer in a uniform scale and format.
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[ Satellite Images]
THE SATELLITE IMAGES by Yuanyuan Huang
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1
2
3
4
21
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23
24
Wyle Valley Farmers
Worcestershire Pollinators
Upper Thames
Upper Thames
South Devon Avon Valley
Torridge Headwaters
Arun to Ardur
Skerne Catchment
5
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25
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Morecambe Bay
River Petteril
Ribble Rivers Trust
South Lincolnshire Farmers
Lowther Leith Catchment
Crookhurst Catchment
South Pennines
Upper Nidderdale
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White Peak Farmers
Farmers for Aqualate
Wyre Forest
Worcester WT
Derwent Dales
Land Manager Guardians
Whiston Brook
Lonco Brook Catchment
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Leadon
Farmer Guardians
West Cambs
Hen & Abbotsley
Blithfield Catchment
Carrant Catchment
Go Wild in the Curl
Hereford Meadows
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Sandlings
Upper Wensum Cluster
Thames Farmers
Marlborough Downs
Wissey
Felixstowe Peninsula
Shotley Peninsula
Glaven
These are the 40 satellite images of 118 example farmer clusters.
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[ Orignal Idea and The Test ]
THE ORIGNAL PROPOSAL AND THE ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION by Yuanyuan Huang
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After preparing the satellite images of all cases, the next step is to process these images. According to our assumptions, there are two picture sets we need to prepare for machine learning. One should be the rewilding actions distribution line draft drawn based on the satellite image another should be the rendered floor plan. However, in fact, we have 118 example satellite images, so it is difficult to prepare a large number of data sets that can achieve results within the limited time. Therefore, in order to verify the success of this idea, we did a test to see if it is feasible
by replacing the line draft with a handdrawn draft and used different colored lines to represent different rewilding actions. Besides, we replaced the rendered rendering with processed satellite images. The alternative figure also uses different colors to emphasize different rewilding actions.
HOW TO PREPARE DATA? by Yuanyuan Huang
This diagram shows the three main steps for preparing two data sets. The first step is to clip the border of the farmer cluster according to the satellite image. In the second step, use Ai and Ps to draw manuscripts and corresponding fake renderings based on the clipped satellite images. The final step is to input the sorted data into the Pix to Pix GAN code to obtain a trained GAN model. It should be mentioned that we do not know the specific boundaries of these clusters, so some boundaries are defined b y o u r s e l v e s . H o w e v e r, w e d i d n o t
strictly unify the size and shape of these boundaries. This is because we want to allow people to actually use it so that it has a certain fault tolerance rate and can identify clusters of different sizes and different numbers of farms.
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[ Paired Image Data]
THE PAIRED IMAGES by Yuanyuan Huang
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1
2
3
4
1
2
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Wyle Valley Farmers
Worcestershire Pollinators
Upper Thames
Upper Thames
Wyle Valley Farmers
Worcestershire Pollinators
Upper Thames
Upper Thames
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5
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8
Morecambe Bay
River Petteril
Ribble Rivers Trust
South Lincolnshire Farmers
Morecambe Bay
River Petteril
Ribble Rivers Trust
South Lincolnshire Farmers
9
10
11
12
9
10
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White Peak Farmers
Farmers for Aqualate
Wyre Forest
Worcester WT
White Peak Farmers
Farmers for Aqualate
Wyre Forest
Worcester WT
13
14
15
16
13
14
15
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Leadon
Farmer Guardians
West Cambs
Hen & Abbotsley
Leadon
Farmer Guardians
West Cambs
Hen & Abbotsley
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18
19
20
17
18
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Sandlings
Upper Wensum Cluster
Thames Farmers
Marlborough Downs
Sandlings
Upper Wensum Cluster
Thames Farmers
Marlborough Downs
T h e s e p a g e s s h o w t h e h a n d - d ra w n drafts and processed satellite images we prepared. At present, we have prepared 40
corresponding picture data answers, which is enough to get some results.
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21
22
23
24
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South Devon Avon Valley
Torridge Headwaters
Arun to Ardur
Skerne Catchment
South Devon Avon Valley
Torridge Headwaters
Arun to Ardur
Skerne Catchment
25
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27
28
25
26
27
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Lowther Leith Catchment
Crookhurst Catchment
South Pennines
Upper Nidderdale
Lowther Leith Catchment
Crookhurst Catchment
South Pennines
Upper Nidderdale
29
30
31
32
29
30
31
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Derwent Dales
Land Manager Guardians
Whiston Brook
Lonco Brook Catchment
Derwent Dales
Land Manager Guardians
Whiston Brook
Lonco Brook Catchment
33
34
35
36
33
34
35
36
Blithfield Catchment
Carrant Catchment
Go Wild in the Curl
Hereford Meadows
Blithfield Catchment
Carrant Catchment
Go Wild in the Curl
Hereford Meadows
37
38
39
40
37
38
39
40
Wissey
Felixstowe Peninsula
Shotley Peninsula
Glaven
Wissey
Felixstowe Peninsula
Shotley Peninsula
Glaven
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[ Gan Tool Workflow ]
HOW DOES THE GAN WORK? by Yuanyuan Huang
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After preparing a certain amount of data, the next step is to use the code for machine learning to train the model. The code of GAN is mainly divided into three parts, data set, discriminator and generator. The generator will continuously generate hypothetical pictures in data set B based on the pictures in data set A. At the same time, the discriminator will discriminate whether the generated picture is a real picture in the data set. If it is discriminated as a fake picture, the generator will evolve the algorithm to generate a picture more similar to the real picture. The judgment
criteria of the discriminator will also be upgraded. Such an algorithm is the specific workflow of GAN.
This picture is a flowchart automatically generated when the GAN code is running in colab. In the picture, we can see the machine constantly updating the evolutionary cycle according to the input through the confrontation between the generator and the discriminator.
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[ Consequence ]
Input
THE OUTCOME by Yuanyuan Huang
Truth
Predicted image
Input
Truth
Predicted image
These are screenshots from colab, showing some of the results of machine learning. The left side shows the hand-drawn draft we input, and the middle shows the processed satellite image we prepared. The picture on the far right is the machine generated by the GAN algorithm. We can see that the map predicted by the machine is very close to the "rendered image" we actually drew. This proves that the potential of machine learning is sufficient to make our proposal come true.
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Step1. Draw the plans
[ How People Will Use The Tool? ]
Step2. Show the rendered image and percentage
Step3. Show the 3D model
THE NEW PROPOSAL by Yuanyuan Huang
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Although our current knowledge and technical capabilities of GAN are limited, according to our attempts at GAN we believe that this tool has room for further development. Therefore, we have developed the initial assumptions and added some functions of the APP. As shown in the figure above, we finally divide the generative design of the last part of the app into two steps. The first step is for farmers to draw a sketch of rewilding actions in the app. The app will convert it into a rendering image and display each action The proportion is for farmers to
review the results of previous discussions. In second step, the app can display the simulated 3D model based on the floor plan to give farmers a more intuitive display of their design. At the end of each step, the farmers can discuss and choose to return to redesign the sketch. The purpose of this function is to help farmers reach a consensus on rewilding actions' goals. The six pictures above show how this APP will display the above functions. THE GAN TOOL by Yuanyuan Huang
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rewilding actions collaboratively. Within this tool, Gan tool could help farmers to visualise their choices. The limitation of this basin proposal is that farmers are still lacking detailed knowledge about how to implement rewilding actions step by step. In this way, the handbook should be developed to illustrate the just transition process.
BIBLIOGRAPHY This chapter zooms in the East Anglia basin to explain how the policy will be implemented in the basin to empower the creation of farm clusters and activate rewilding actions? Firstly, it analyses the existing condition of the East Anglia basin in terms of agriculture land classification, farmland, woodland, and flooding risk. Then different rewilding corridors are set up through several iterations. After this, a spatial mapping tool is proposed where farmers could negotiate how to create clusters and how to implement
Rewilding UK AA Landscape Urbanism 2020-2021
‘The-Sixth-Carbon-Budget-The-UKs-Path-to-Net-Zero.Pdf’. n.d. Accessed 16 September 2021. https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/The-Sixth-Carbon-Budget-The-UKs-path-to-Net-Zero.pdf.
LIST OF FIGURES
REFLECTION
[ CHAPTER O2_ REWILDING UK ]
Fig.4.1 Source: Atlas of Places byThomas- Henriot. Fig.4.2 Source: Atlas of Places byThomas- Henriot. Fig.4.3 Source: Atlas of Places byThomas- Henriot. Fig.4.4 Source: Atlas of Places byThomas- Henriot.
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5.1
05. [ A REWILDING JUST TRANSITION ]
152-153
General information
154-155
Re-grade 2 actions
156-157
Botany selection
158-159
Re-grade 4 & 5 actions
160-161
Basin tree selection
162-163
Trees details
164-165
Trees management
5.2
150
[ REWILDING HANDBOOK ]
[ JUST TRANSITION ]
166-167
Farmland analysis
168-169
Transition process
170-171
Year 1-3
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Year 4-8
174-175
Year 9-13
176-177
Grants system
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Environmental evaluation
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REWILDING HANDBOOK General information
H A N D B O O K GUIDELINE by Zhuqing Li
COVER OF HANDBOOK by Zhuqing Li
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This project proposes the rewilding handbook to help farmers transit the conventional farming practices into agroecological practices. It includes the rewilding actions according to different targets, like flooding mitigation, sustainable food productivity and wildlife corridor. The suggested rewilding actions ranging from re-grade 1 to re-grade 5. These rewilding actions are proposed based on the existing agricultural land classification. Re-grade 4 and 5 are
related to sustainable farming actions: conventional farming is gradually integrated with low density trees, wood pasture and silvo-arable actions. These actions could be implemented on alc 2 and 3: Re-grades 2 and 3 are activated through medium density trees actions such as hedgerows creation and riparian river trees. Re-grade 1, with a predominance of natural processes, proposes higher density trees with sustainable management of woodland
and reconnection of scattered natural resources with new woodland creation. The potential places to implement regrade 1, 2, and 3 are alc 4 and 5 since they have the low food productivity. Based on these actions, this handbook provides the knowledge about the plants selection and spatial guideline for each re-grade action.
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REWILDING HANDBOOK Re-grade 2 actions
RE-GRADE 2 ACTIONS by Zhuqing Li
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Beetle bank creation is one of re-grade 2 actions. Beetle banks are 2 metre wide grass mounds that run through the centre of vast agricultural fields. Fields larger than 0.2 square kilometres may require more than one beetle bank; fields larger than 0.3 square kilometres may require multiple beetle banks (‘Beetle Banks | Conservation Advice For Farmers’ n.d.). There are several environmental benefits to create the beetle bank. It increases the numbers of insects and spiders on arable farmland which is helpful to pest control. It also serves as home for ground-nesting
birds and small mammals contributing to the wildlife increase. Wildflower margins are another re-grade 2 actions, which are plots of permanent wildflower-rich habitat within the farmland. They should be placed near other important habitats that already provide nesting sites and shelter, such as hedges and ditches, in order to provide the greatest benefit to wildlife. This also creates connectivity between grassland and other habitats, allowing wildlife to move around the landscape (‘Permanent Wildflower Margins and Corners’ n.d.).
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REWILDING HANDBOOK Botany selection
BOTANY SELECTION by Zhuqing Li
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The suggested plants to grow are listed. For beetle banks, seed the bank with a native grass seed mix that includes up to 30% tussock-forming species like cocksfoot or timothy. Fescues and bents can make up the rest of the mix. For good establishment, the seed should be broadcast at a rate of 70kg/ ha immediately after cultivation. Mixes
with tall, tussock-tolerant wildflowers can attract other pest predators like hoverflies and parasitic wasps, though they are more expensive. According to the report of Best Practice Guidance for Land Regeneration, the planting choices are listed to inform the local farmer, which is suitable to grow in the context of east anglia basin. (Jarvis, n.d.)
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REWILDING HANDBOOK Re-grade 4 & 5 actions
RE-GRADE 4 & 5 ACTIONS by Zhuqing Li
158
As for the re-grade 4 and 5 actions, they are related to the silvo-arable and silvopastoral. Silvopastoral agroforestry is the mixture between trees and grazing animals. It could happen on the existing grazing land combined with the new planted trees. The forest could also be the potential place to have this practice. Referring to the spatial arrangement of silvopastoral practice, trees should be planted at 28 metres between rows and 3 metres between trees within each row(Soil Association 2005), which is low
density trees plantation (similar to 27 trees per hectare). According to the agroforestry handbook, the silvoarable practice is the combination of crops and trees. Citing the practice of integrating a winter wheat field with an apple orchard. In practice, it is suggested to plant 85 trees per hectare in width of 24–36 metres between the rows and the spacing of trees should be every three metres (Soil Association 2005).
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REWILDING HANDBOOK Basin trees selection
B A S I N T R E E S SELECTION by Zhuqing Li
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Different tree species provide different tree output options. Some of the main tree options are illustrated, along with an indication of some of the key opportunities and considerations based on forestry practise. Specifically, the lists provide knowledge about outputs, suitable agroforestry practice, costs, and level of maintenance. In any case, professional advice should be sought before choosing a species, as a thorough understanding of the site and its potential for various options is critical to success
(Soil Association 2005). Besides, lists of tree selection are site-specific for the East Anglia basin. In the practice of silvoarable, the fruit trees were strongly recommended, like apple trees, pear trees, walnut trees, etc. This could not only have environmental benefits but also generate productive profits for the farmers. Oak trees require fewer costs and maintenance while they have quite a long rotation. In comparison, poplar trees have a shorter rotation but are much more costly.
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TREES DETAILS by Zhuqing Li
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TREES DETAILS by Zhuqing Li
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REWILDING HANDBOOK Trees management
TREES MANAGEMENT by Zhuqing Li
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Tree protection is quite significant in agroforestry practice. In the early stage of silvo-pastoral, tree guards are established to protect the animals from harm. Different types of guards are efficient for different animals. Single short post and plastic tube and welded railing could prevent harm from deer and sheep. Weldmesh and wooden short posts are working for the chicken and rabbit. In the silvo-arable practice, efforts should be worked on weed control. Although
black plastic mulches were initially effective, removing the plastic was timeconsuming. A grass mix containing cocksfoot and red fescue was also able to establish, reducing the number of weed species in the understorey. However, on the clay soil at the Cranfield site in Silsoe, couch grass and blackgrass remained a problem. Planting a wildflower mix in the tree row has been suggested as a more effective way of controlling the spread of aggressive weeds (Soil Association 2005).
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JUST TRANSITION Existing Conditions
Fig.5.1 CONVENTIONAL FARMING
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FARMLAND PLAN by Zhuqing Li
How would a singular farmer transition his field step by step? The project zooms into the field scale to provide farmers a clear knowledge about how to transit their farmlands in terms of rewilding actions and grants access in a just way. The first step is helping them to analyse the existing condition of farmlands. Citing Tom’s farmland as an example, all of his land are located in ALC2, and the existing farmland is dominated by winter wheat and field beans. There is also 10 ha of sheep grazing land. The conventional practices lead to the issue of soil erosion, biodiversity loss, and flooding.
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Year 0
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JUST TRANSITION
Year 1-3
Transition process
Year 4-8
Year 9-18
TRANSITION PROCESS by Zhuqing Li
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T h i s h a n d b o o k p ro v i d e s d e t a i l e d knowledge about the rewilding transition process to inform the farmers. This process is mainly divided into three phases: analyse the existing condition of farmland, then transform some percentage of conventional fields into organic practices in the first three years to provide the suitable soil condition for the later rewilding actions. After this, it is recommended to intervene in some agriecological schemes, like the beetle
bank, new hedges, wildflower margins, etc. The following few years are to establish the agroforestry practices that include silvo-arable and silvo-pastoral. Trees management consists of trees pruning, weed controlling, and mesh guard establishing, which is an essential step in the whole process. From year nine, the rewilding system becomes stable and there is a balance between costs and profits.
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JUST TRANSITION Year 1-3
YEAR 1-3 by Zhuqing Li
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This step is about transforming 5% of conventional practices into the organic way, which aims to improve the soil fertility to prepare the suitable condition for transiting into rewilding practices in the later steps. Crop rotation is a key action. By dividing the big plots into smaller parts, each plot grows different crops: wheat, beans, and clover in different years (‘Organic Farm
Conversion’ n.d.). The transition of the first three years is rather tough for farmers since the yield is quite low and the food is not recognised as organic. However, the existing grants that support these transition actions are quite limited. In this way, we proposed higher grants in the new policy.
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JUST TRANSITION Year 4-8
YEAR 4-8 by Zhuqing Li
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The next step is from year 4 to 8, including implementing regrade 2 and 3 actions, like establishing beetle banks, wildflower margins, hedges, and new woods. Regrade 4 and 5 are also implemented: The silvopasture is set up in the existing grazing land. The walnut trees are planted to increase the porosity of the soil and to create shadows for the grazing animals. Silvoarable is established on the wheat field, introducing 3 rows of apple trees. This system suits a low-density tree
planting of around 85 trees per hectare with a width of 24–36 metres in between the rows to allow access to the machine (Soil Association 2005). Engagement actions with the public could take place in this phase: planting day events would allow the community to be reconnected to the productive landscape. In this stage, the proposed policy would propose a change of the current grant system increasing grant support to bridge the gap between the high initial costs and the low yields in the early stages.
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JUST TRANSITION Year 9-18
YEAR 9-18 by Zhuqing Li
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In this phase, the management of the trees is rather significant. In silvoarable fields, pruning is necessary to increase the light accessibility for the arable crops. Planting the wildflowers understorey contributes to control the weeds rather than using pesticides (Soil Association 2005). From year 9, the trees become 100% fruit productivity. Because of the balance between the costs and yields, after this
year the grants become stable. The transition process contributes to improving the soil quality, sequestrating more CO2 and sucking more water during the flooding. This transition also provides the opportunity to engage the local community, like planting trees, picking up fruits, and education visits. In terms of the economic perspective, this process could increase new green jobs.
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JUST TRANSITION Grants system
GRANTS SYSTEM by Zhuqing Li
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The grants system is developed and proposed within the rewilding policy to help the farmers to implement the rewilding actions. The existing grants that support these rewilding actions are quite limited and ambiguous, including countryside stewardship and sustainable farming incentive. Both of these grants support the organic conversion and some agriecological actions, however, they are too limited to help the farmers
transit. What’s more, these grant schemes would be replaced by environmental land management in the following years. However, ELM is unclear at the moment and needs to be clarified. In this way, the grants are proposed to bridge the gap between the costs and yields of each practice, and based on the gross margin to make sure the farmers could smoothly undergo the transition process. This grants system changes in time.
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JUST TRANSITION Environmental evaluation
E N V I RO N M E N TA L EVALUATION by Zhuqing Li
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Environmental assessment is crucial in this just transition process. However, the literature about the criteria of how to assess the environmental outcome is limited and lacking. In this way, the proposed evaluation tool is based on the planetary boundary (Rockström et al. 2009) which is a concept that refers to earth system processes that are bounded by environmental boundaries. It includes 10 dimensions to assess: climate change, biodiversity loss, biogeochemical, ocean acidification, land-system change, freshwater use, ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosols, and chemical pollution. Learned from
this, the environmental evaluation tool is extracting several elements related to rewilding actions, like climate change, biodiversity loss, chemical pollution, etc. It also adds the dimension of social perspective to develop the evaluation system, for instance, community engagement and green jobs. What’s more, this tool intervenes in the scale dimension to measure the environmental outcomes. The scale dimension is related to three tiers of ELM: tier 1(500ha-5000ha), tier 2(100ha-500ha), and tier 3 (0-100ha). The more hectares of fields are involved, the higher environmental benefits will be obtained.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
[ CHAPTER O2_ REWILDING UK ]
‘Beetle Banks | Conservation Advice For Farmers’. n.d. The RSPB. Accessed 12 September 2021. https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/conservation/conservation-and-sustainability/farming/advice/managing habitats/beetle-banks/?utm_source=adgoal_eu&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=rspb-uk affiliate&mediacode=T15AFF0018. Jarvis, David. n.d. ‘WILDFLOWER MEADOW Creation and Management in Land Regeneration’, 7. ‘Organic Farm Conversion’. n.d. The Organic Research Centre. Accessed 14 September 2021. https://www.organicresearchcentre.com/farming-organically/converting-to-organic-farming/. ‘Permanent Wildflower Margins and Corners’. n.d. Farm Wildlife (blog). Accessed 12 September 2021. https://farmwildlife.info/how-to-do-it/flower-rich-habitats/permanent-wildflower-margins-and-corners/. Rockström, Johan, Will Steffen, Kevin Noone, Åsa Persson, F. Stuart III Chapin, Eric Lambin, Timothy Lenton, et al. 2009. ‘Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity’. Ecology and Society 14 (2). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-03180-140232.
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This chapter zooms in the field scale to provide detailed knowledge about how to transform conventional practices into rewilding practices step by step. The rewilding handbook is proposed to inform the farmers, which includes the spatial arrangement of each re-grade action and suggested plants and trees selection for the basin. Then, the timebased transition process is illustrated to guide farmers. Within this just transition, the grants system is developed to support farmers to undergo the transition. Besides,
this process includes the environmental tool to assess the outcome of each step. However, real-time feedback is lacking in this transition process. Farmers have barriers to update their fields’ current conditions and communicate with other farmers in time. This should be developed further.
LIST OF FIGURES
REFLECTION
Soil Association. 2005. Organic Market Report 2005. Bristol: Soil Association.
Fig.5.1 Source: Rewilding group
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06. [ CONCLUSION ]
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6.1 184-187
[ TRANSBASIN REWILDING NETWORK ] Time- process dynamic evolution
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TRANSBASIN REWILDING NETWORK Time- process dynamic approach
REWILDING ALC 3 by Carlotta Olivari
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The English rolling landscape is a dynamic resource that has been continuously shaped by human influence. The static model of protected areas that tends to separate human and nature has failed highlighting the necessity to bring new eco-logics. Through a critical analysis on basin processes, a multi-scale and time process is imagined to transition again the English productive landscape. The aim is not to offer a one-way strategy, which does not take into account the complexity of the landscape, but rather to imagine a gradient of alternatives.
A rewilding policy is proposed to bridge a gap between farmers and the possibility of integrated sustainable models: the production is notì more intended as just food growing, but the farmer is rather seen as a land manager to produce public goods. Priority targets corridors, at the scale of the basin activate farmer incentives to rewild at a larger scale; moreover, a time base grant proposal would sustain the long term strategies. The basin policy becomes a key element: it scales up individual actions to a national level giving room and support for a farmers' just transition.
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TRANSBASIN REWILDING NETWORK Time- process dynamic approach
TIME BASED REWILDING PROCESS by Carlotta Olivari
Wilderness is addressed through a new lens where culture and nature are not in opposition. Through a gradient of rewilding actions, the aim is to reestablish a reciprocal relationship between human and non-human processes in alternative productive landscapes: the social engagement, therefore the human factor, should be related and integrated to the natural process. A series of interventions are proposed: on one side, the integrated mosaic of interventions
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would achieve ecological connectivity, maximizing the ecological benefits and re-naturalizing the productive landscape. On the other side, the re-humanization of nature would involve community engagement from introducing the Right to Nature to educational proposing within the proposed interventions. The expected result is an endogenous strategy that avoids the risk of a superimposed intervention.
A time based process is imagined until 2035, reclaiming 35% of the productive land: the mosaic of integrated actions takes place establishing connectivity. A new re-established relationship between human and natural processes is claimed.
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