World Rewilding Day

Very few, if any, places on earth are free from human influence and an increasing number of existential and imminent threats are faced by the fragile habitats and the species within them. With the UK recently being ranked as one of the world’s most biodiversity depleted countries, solutions are clearly required on a major scale. World Rewilding Day on March 20th is the first ever global celebration of rewilding, whereby habitats are restored through stepping back and recreating natural processes, aiming to raise awareness and prompt more immediate action to halt the decline in biodiversity.??

The definition of rewilding in the UK and the associations with the term are often debatable and have changed over time. To some it means reforesting uplands and reintroducing a suite of herbivores and predators to bring the habitat back to something close to the days before humans cleared forests and pushed predator populations to extinction. To others, it means a gentle stepping back from human management, replacing heavily stocked grazing land with a range of domestic herbivores in small numbers, bringing elements of constant change back into ecosystems, whilst still producing food and supporting farming livelihoods. In an urban environment, it can mean creating wildflower meadows, ponds, and even environmental education, opening minds to the natural world that have become increasingly disconnected.???

Recreating natural processes and restoring natural habitats works best across large tracts of land. One example is the Cairngorms Connect project, where 600 square kilometres of land have been dedicated to restoration of Caledonian pine forest, reduced to a fraction of its former range fragmented across northern Scotland. Another is the Knepp Estate in Sussex, a former 14 square kilometre farmland estate, transformed using a variety of old breed livestock and a stepping back from traditional management, resulting in dramatic increases in rare butterflies and breeding birds, such as turtle doves and nightingales.

‘Longhorn Cattle free ranging at Knepp WildLand’? by Peter Eastern available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Longhorn_cattle_freeranging_at_Knepp_Wildland.jpg under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Full terms at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en??

Some of the most treasured landscapes in the country have been created through hundreds of years of human induced management and now hold significant cultural value and can have ecological value for specific species, meaning it would be challenging to completely transform them, particularly if this adversely affected the people living and working in these landscapes. Projects such as the Ullswater Catchment Management CIC can address this through reducing density and increasing the diversity of the grazing animals used on farms, planting woodlands and through undertaking river and hedgerow restoration programmes. This kind of ‘halfway house’ of conventional farming practices and nature restoration with elements of rewilding could be crucial in getting a wide range of people on side and increasing wildlife populations across a National Park network that is currently underachieving from an ecological perspective. Whilst being fantastic places to visit, an independent review in 2019 found that almost 75% of Sites of Special Scientific Interest within National Park boundaries in England are in unfavourable condition.??

Certain habitats created by humans provide ideal conditions for a unique mix of species that rewilding couldn’t replicate. Chalk grassland is a habitat of international importance, the 1900 hectares in the UK is 5% of the global coverage. Low impact grazing practiced in traditional farming ensured high densities of wildflowers which benefits a myriad of invertebrates, reptiles and provides ground nesting bird habitat. Heathlands were formed through clearance of forests in areas of infertile soils, the clearing sometimes being undertaken using fire and their maintenance is dependent upon grazing regimes and the harvesting of bedding and fodder. The conditions created allowed new communities of plants and animals to form. Lowland heath supports rare and threatened species such as nightjar and smooth snake. The charity Rewilding Britain have a major project at Purbeck Heaths National Nature Reserve in Dorset, which aims to restore heathland across the wider landscape, perhaps showing that in some cases we must compromise to increase biodiversity by restoring landscapes to the most viable baseline possible.??

When looking at rewilding in purely urban landscapes, the issues become more complex, as any habitats and species need to fit in alongside large centres of human population. Recently, Derby City Council gave the green light to proposals to rewild Allestree Park, the largest greenspace in Derby at 320 acres. The park will be subject to a habitat creation scheme to increase biodiversity and carbon capture, with realistic options for reintroductions such as harvest mouse and water vole. This demonstrates a fundamental change in local authority thinking, with the potential to create a domino effect across the country to produce meaningful action on a wider scale.??

Species reintroductions of larger species can also occur in urban areas, as demonstrated by a current proposal for an enclosed trial release of beavers in Tottenham. Wild boar and beaver, live in urban environments across Europe, but not without issues. They are keystone species, meaning they have a significant impact on the environment, driving wider natural processes. With wild populations of both species scattered across the UK, lessons will have to be learnt in how best deal with any issues as the populations here spread into new areas.??

Rewilding undoubtedly presents exciting opportunities to restore habitat and see some species return to reclaim former ranges, as well as creating large, joined up areas of habitat currently missing in many areas, providing refuge to wildlife in the face of a changing climate. This should sit alongside initiatives such as growing wildflower verges on roadsides and traditional habitat management on sites where this approach is most appropriate. Ecological consultants can have an important role to play, perhaps through Biodiversity Net Gain and the benefits delivered through on and off-site mitigation contributing to landscape scale initiatives.???