Ban rewilding?

Derek Pearce

Rewilding redefined?

The Farmers Club

Charitable Trust

FROM Sir Charles Burrell’s 3500 acre estate in West Sussex to North Wales and the Highlands of Scotland efforts to return farmland to wild nature are drawing huge attention.

It isn’t without controversy. Commentators like Feral author George Monbiot have polarised the debate, arguing for an extreme approach. Many conservationists are conflicted. More understanding of what’s involved, and what’s at stake, is clearly needed.

The Farmers Club Charitable Trust financed Geoffrey Guy, Programme Area Manager for Landbased and Environmental Industries at Brooksby Melton College to examine this in 2019. His report on the FCCT website is fascinating reading (www.tfcct.co.uk ).

Earlier this winter he joined a Royal Geographical Society seminar where eminent conservationist John Harrold drew powerful messages from his collaborative biodiversity work in Snowdonia.

Being clearer about desired outcomes is key, Mr Harrold suggested. Is rewilding solely about creating ‘wild’ environments, benefitting a wide range of species, or focusing on ‘chosen’ species, reflecting the public’s penchant for top-of-thefood-chain predators and big herbivores.

Turn the lens around and take a look at the blind woodlice living in the nests of yellow meadow ants, ecosystem engineers that change the landscape in grazed environments, he argued. Not as appealing as the “furry few” and yet key to an entire ecosystem and main food source of the eye-catching green woodpecker.

Mr Guy agrees. “The iconic species, the charismatic megafauna, are great to talk about, but rewilding shouldn’t be about single species, it should be about ecosystems, habitats and landscapes. We have within our power in the UK to carefully manage the reintroduction of things like beaver and pine martens, and to improve a whole range of habitats to attract back bird and invertebrates, as they have been so successful with at Knepp with turtle doves, nightingales and purple emperor butterflies.”

So, does rewilding need to go back to bare rock or total forestation, or is a landscape influenced by humans for thousands of years, as hunter/gatherers, then farmers, more relevant? Rewilding may change a few thousand acres, but working with farmers to embrace tens of millions of acres will drive far greater biodiversity benefits, Mr Harrold noted.

Rewilding to help farmland birds thrive, such as golden plover, lapwing, grey partridge and yellowhammer, whilst making all of farming more sustainable makes sense, Mr Guy agrees.

What’s more, in many cases low impact agriculture achieves amazing results. Grazing livestock are vital tools to aid conservation management, which can make low input ancient grasslands ‘biological and ecological marvels’, typically supporting far more biodiversity than ungrazed grasslands.

But don’t make assumptions, Mr Guy adds. “Sometimes rewilding serendipitously gives far greater rewards then we expect. For example, in Yellowstone, wolf reintroductions to reduce elk have combined with recovering numbers of other predators to move deer out of river valleys, allowing beavers to recolonise, changing the flow and shape of rivers, and reducing bank side grazing.”

“Rather than farming detracting from nature, it is the combination of traditional practices and the biodiversity that depends on them that gives so much more meaning to landscapes where farms have been in place for centuries, if not millennia.”