Eradicated Elk, amongst many.
Our planet is living through a biodiversity crisis. Scientists increasingly find consensus in the idea that we are living through Earth’s sixth mass extinction event. Everything from long lost megafauna to tiny Hawaiian snails have been banished to history. We humans are a magnificently successful apex predator but we’re not very good at sharing our lump of space rock with other species unless we temporarily (in the big scheme of things) deem them dinner. Just look at how many chickens there now are and then consider the fate of the Spix’s Macaw, as just one example amongst plenty.
A lack of biodiversity is a danger to us all. Damaged, collapsing ecosystems pose a threat to our food supply chains. Loss of habitat for insects and bees might not be as arresting as the demise of big cats and other photogenic mammals but without them we’re in real trouble. However, decreasing numbers of animal species isn’t just a danger to our plates, it damages the world we live in. Loss of beaver populations results in increased flooding putting homes and lives at risk. More than that, loss of diverse ecosystems denies us the chance to witness and understand the complex web of interactions that make up the fullness of the world around us. A silent, muted countryside is a pale of imitation of the buzzing, bustling, busy landscapes our grandparents grew up with.
Rewilding is one solution to such problems and it is an idea that is increasingly catching on in the United Kingdom. Saturday is the first World Rewilding Day, a moment that marks a bit of a coming of age for an idea that many within the environmental management mainstream considered an unworkable, and possibly dangerous, idea as little as twenty years ago. It offers a way to recover some of what has been eradicated as a result of hunting, farming and habitat damage.
The UK charity, Rewilding Britain paints of picture of what we have lost:
For thousands of years, Britain’s flora adapted in tandem with our, since lost, saiga antelope, brown bear, reindeer, wolf, lynx, European bison (wisent), musk ox, Eurasian elk, Irish elk, tarpan (wild horse), woolly rhino and the aurochs (from which modern-day domestic cattle derived). The latter four ancient species are now globally extinct.
We then lost two dramatic ecosystem engineers in the beaver and wild boar. The boar roamed widely throughout woodlands and forest swamps until around 700 years ago. It is a resilient churner of the Earth, breaker of bracken and habitat regenerator. Likewise the mighty beaver, nature’s busy aquatic architect, was a formidable tree feller, river changer and wetland creator until it was lost to human slaughter 500 years ago.
These natural grazing populations were managed and kept on the move by the many predators that were present, until hunting wiped them out too. Among these were the Arctic fox, which vanished 10,000 years ago and the wolverine which was lost 8,000 years ago. Lynx were wiped out by Britons 1,600 years ago and the wolf was hunted to national extinction around 250 years ago. The wildcat went extinct in England 170 years ago and has recently become functionally extinct in the wild in Scotland, although captive breeding efforts continue.
It’s a long and sobering tale of Mankind’s inability to live in balance with his (and her) surroundings.
Pause, rethink, Rewild.
The first major rewilding project in the UK was at Knapp in Sussex. Owners Charlie and Isabella had an epiphany of sorts, realising that the fight to keep their estate (passed down for generations on Charlie’s side of the family) as a working, modern farm was a battle they could never win. Instead, they could return the estate to something else, something that existed before large scale, commercial farming. They could Rewild it, taking it back, not to a specific point in time, but to an idea. A functioning ecosystem that produced small scale harvests and high quality meat whilst also creating a sense of balance. They could relinquish their control.
To do this they faced a major issue. Humans have successfully removed all the apex predators from our landscape. This is great from a personal safety point of view, no one gets mauled by a bear on the high street or chased by a lynx when going for a walk. Rarely does a wild boar cross the road as you’re driving. But it’s terrible for our countryside. There is no balance, culls are needed of animal populations which get out of control in the absence of the next rung on the food chain. Whole species die out as interdependent and symbiotic relationships wither. Land becomes sterile and monolithic.
Knapp faced a huge battle to begin with, the idea of Rewilding goes against the grain of much conservation. They are not seeking to conserve a single species, instead they are letting nature take its course. This was a challenge for some, allowing herds of cattle to roam across a few thousand acres of Sussex countryside was a mental leap for many. But, by removing the human hand from the steering wheel they are allowing magical things to happen. Recently after nearly twenty years of this ground breaking project, one researcher found a single cowpat contained twenty six different species of beetle.
Try and keep your excitement under control. Use that buzz to go and have a look at the story of Knapp.
But the story of British rewilding now runs much wider than just those pioneers in Sussex. Beavers have been reintroduced in Devon and Scotland. The Somerlyton estate in East Anglia have introduced free roaming Exmoor ponies, cattle and black pigs. Projects are under way in Cumbria, Wales and Berkshire too. Rewilding Britain has set the ambitious target of rewilding 300,000 acres of the UK by 2030. Hitting those numbers could see revivals for many domestic insect and bird species currently depleted or confined to small populations in isolated pockets of habitat.
Rewild the Soul
But it’s not just our countryside that needs rewilding. We do. Too many of us have forgotten what it means to be genuinely connected to the landscapes we live in. Modern life is fast paced, relentless and demanding. Work, school and family all take up large chunks of our time leaving us little room to engage with what is around us. Life in the 21st century might be better in many ways, our ancestors would feel we’ve never had it so good, but there is also plenty we’ve forgotten, knowledge about the world around us that our forebears would have taken for granted.
To tackle this problem the writer Simon Barnes came up with the idea of Rewilding Ourselves. His 2018 book, Rewild Yourself is a guide to reconnecting to the small things we have lost sight of. He offers up 23 ways of getting in touch with nature again and making it something that is present in our lives, instead of being merely the faded background we take for granted. It offers up the the wonders of the coral reef as a visual demonstration of the bountiful nature of Mother Earth. He speaks of the need to spot the paths and tracks our native species take across a landscape we think of as our own and even preaches the love for the Buddleia, a species easily dismissed as invasive but is actually a magic “ambitious bush” which is heaven for butterflies.
The aim is nothing less that to reignite something dormant inside most of us. A need to connect with the world with live in. The idea of Rewilding Ourselves can be seen as a first step in the long road to rewilding huge swathes of our countryside. One is the awakening we need to summon the passion to make the other a reality.
You can now take Rewilding Safari’s around Knapp estate. It gives a chance to marvel at what nature can do when we change our mindset. An opportunity to see what wild boar in their natural habitat actually look like and a window on what cattle can be when released from the ties to the milking shed. Mostly, such a tour can show the natural world not as something we need to tame or dominate, but something we need to see as our ally. We need a functioning, biodiverse planet in order to survive. It is no use being the last species standing if you starve yourself physically and emotionally in the process. Rewilding is a part of the solution, a way to bring back some of what we’ve lost. Not only in our fields, forest and hedgerows, but in ourselves.