Rewilding, taking the traditional view, conjures up certain images. A caramel flash of a Lynx to a
backdrop of Scots Pine. Herds of Tauros, rumbling across Portugal. Maybe even elephants, reintroduced into Europe, as some suggest is needed. 1 Sit 100 people in a room and ask them to define Rewilding. You’ll hear some overlap, some of these common themes, but you’ll most likely have 100 different answers recited back at you. It is widely accepted that in the UK, our landscapes are denuded. Our hairy, tusked, and hooved stewards are largely extinct, as are the shifting worlds they created. An absence of life hangs heavy on our country, the silence deafening. We have, for all intents and purposes, domesticated our lands, cheating them of their essential wildness. And in the tandem with this, is something little talked about. A domestication of ourselves. Like our landscapes, perhaps our minds, bodies, and even cities are denuded? Cheated of an essential wildness. Technology moves faster than biology, and despite feeling detached (or even worse superior) to nature, the modern-day human has been around for an eye-blink in deep time. In 2016, a study at Nagoya University took images of several animals and blurred each into a grey smear. Stage by stage, they then unblurred each, and asked a group of pupils when they could identify each creature. Remarkably, snakes were identified first across the board. 2 An evolutionary hack, programmed for when we had to forage on the ground? In Britain we also have an infatuation with the big, black, cat. Theories that Puma and Pantha are roaming wild in our countryside. However, decades of military searches on, it’s clear these are false. 3 So, why are some people still so insistent that they’re there? That they’re being stalked by an invisible predator. Well, perhaps they are. Perhaps there is a big black cat, but in their minds. Stalking the shadows of a predator, an evolutionary paranoia. As Author George Monbiot says: “maybe, we are ecologically bored”. Our own brains are calling out to be rewilded, but so is our land. And by that, I don’t mean fortress conservation, the notion of “humans here, and nature over there somewhere”. Like Beavers and Boars, we are ecosystem engineers, an integral part of the modern-day ecosystem. If anything, we’re too good at it! Even in the 21 st Century, people unintentionally steward the land for good. Urban gardens have been shown to be more biodiverse than surrounding landscapes. 4 In some seabird colonies, locals provide an anti-predator service, deterring certain predators; affording others respite. 5 In the Bronze Age, when farming was prevalent, pollen cores reveal it was in fact the most biodiverse period in recent history, due to the ways humans and livestock managed the land. 6 So, when we talk about rewilding, we should refer not only to the glens and scrublands, the bleak tundras, and bustling wood pastures. Our gardens, cities and farms can also be rewilded, with us as the ecosystem engineers, to get things started at least. Such that a mycelial body nurtures the subterranean world of a woodland, which in turn provides it with a suitable habitat, we as human beings must nurture our anthropogenic world back to health, so that it can provide us with the habitat we need. To rewild our surroundings, we must first allow our surroundings to rewild ourselves. The ultimate Symbiosis. If this topic interests you and you’d like to get involved, you can find out more/get in touch with the Symbiosis project here: (watch this space) References: 1. Wells, H., Ward, N. and D. Crego. (2023) Rewilding: Conservationists want to let elephants loose in Europe – here’s what could happen, theconservation.com. Available at: https://theconversation.com/rewilding-conservationists-want-to-let-elephants-loose-in-europe-heres- what-could-happen-168212 (Accessed: 03 March 2024). 2. Neuroscience News. (2016, November 8). Humans recognize partially obscured snakes more easily than other animals. https://neurosciencenews.com/snake-recognition-vision-5460/ 3. Monbiot, G. (2014). The never-spotted leopard. In Feral (p. pg. 49-61). essay, Penguin. 4. World Economic Forum. (2021, February 21). Why urban gardens are a lifeline for the world’s pollinators. www.weforum.org. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/urban-gardens-pollinators- biodiversity-nectar- study/#:~:text=Our%20findings%20suggest%20that%20urban%20landscapes%20are%20hotspots,th e%20farmland%20and%20nature%20reserve%20sites%20we%20measured. 5. Unknown. (2022, July 17th). Word of mouth from ornithological conservationist. Thetford; The Global Birdfair 2022. 6. Woodbridge , D. J. (2023). Biodiversity and land-use change in the British Isles. University of Plymouth. https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/centre-for-research-in-environment-and-society- ceres/biodiversity-and-human-land-use-change-in-the-british-isles
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Rain shapeshifts the trees and their unseen communities through glass. Photo by me (Ginny Battson) I've come to realise, friends, that even some of the most influential speakers and writers of words on climate do not understand even the basics of Earth as an entire dynamic system of systems.
I go further and say that a repetitive use of the word climate as the dominant meme is now serving LIFE poorly. LIFE is mutualism en masse, symbiosis as a continued wave down deep in the rock to surprisingly high in the atmosphere. This is why I have coined the word symbioethics. Please, think about how you use the word climate, despite the big crowds in high politics going on and on because of pressure to “do” something as opposed to “nothing”. They aren’t system thinkers. Their goals are linear and flat. In terms of Earth Crisis/es, they are the Flat Earthers. Neoliberalism is particularly exploiting the situation; it’s raw like drawing blood. To these people, carbon and carbon dioxide are exchangeable units to trade, and mass electrification means Business-As-Usual in all other aspects of LIFE. There’s blood all over the place, and more to spill. All aspects of modern life, I’m almost afraid to say it, are what led to the invention of fossil fuel exploitation in the first place, and hence the unfurling, energized, continuing nightmare that is Earth Crisis. Climate change is a symptom, not the disease. You have to recognise this, surely, because those politicians and capitalists may have less of a clue than you. Earth is different as a planet because of LIFE. I’m animating LIFE in capitals, so as to know and perhaps feel your way into how things really are. I don’t care much about these competitive and anxiolytic obsessions with targets and meeting them, just please stop for a moment and take this in. LIFE came about because of LIFE. Sure, it took long-gone, variable qualities of non-organic systems, the chance events of matter, including water, reacting and compounding billions of years ago until an opportunity existed for the emergence of early RNA-like substances, DNA, viruses, and bacteria and cells. In certain conditions again, perhaps under a newly generated organic methane shroud, like smog to deter ultra-violet violence, these basic cells merged again, forming metabolizing and photosynthesizing cells, and in more than one place in similar timescales (symbiogenesis). LIFE then really took off in this swirling flow of abundance, and when these earliest colonies of dazzling (Lynn Margulis) living matter grew into and around others, more cells found novel roles and began to coalesce in the form of more complex organisms. You only need to understand lichen to realise how it is LIFE that changes the conditions for LIFE. Lichen turns rock into soils; soils are hotbeds for LIFE. And that’s just one example we can all see with our own eyes. Since those magnificent Earthly points in time and space, LIFE has gained strength by manipulating those very same inorganic and organic systems that produced them, changing them to suit more LIFE (Gaia Theory, even if weak). LIFE has evolved for billions of years subjecting, and being subjected by, the conditions of Earth as a system (Lovelock). Fast forward three billion years—and five previous extinction events—and here we are, and every living being is still a colony among colonies. Climate is just one of many interconnected systems that sustain LIFE, though inescapably critical. Its power under change is rage, but the rage should be ours because members of our own species created the volatility, and a minority still pursue it ~ for cash. Climate, on the other hand, simply describes the weather conditions that prevail in general or over a long period. Climate does have the power to let LIFE thrive or die out. But even the atmosphere is largely a product of everything else going on in the world, chiefly… LIFE. Climate is a symptom. As such, it isn’t just physics. The neoliberals, the corporate capitalists, deny it. They may have begun to engage under pressure, at last, but it is only on their terms ~ cash. Let’s look at LIFE instead. What are the LIFE supporting systems? LIFE on Earth is symbiotically related to several Earth and cosmological systems, which are mainly energized by the Sun, our aspect towards the Sun, but sometimes by sources from within the Earth itself. These are all intimately related in flows. We can try to separate them for the sake of study, but the reality is a giant existential, moving system, full of subsystems, cycles, and processes. All is relatedness, flow. On Earth, the main sub-systems are as follows. Hydrosphere Geosphere Biosphere Atmosphere Each one is interconnected to the other by processes and cycles, transforming and exchanging matter and energy over time from the nano-second into deep time. Evaporation, erosion, convection currents, transpiration, photosynthesis, weathering, erosion, rock formation, ocean currents, climate…no beginning nor end. Carbon, sulphur, salt, food, nitrogen, water, energy, cycled on into LIFE and back again, including human LIFE, which can’t exist without them all. There are even more systems and processes, macro and micro, even sub micro and meta macro, many of which we have no understanding nor measure. But we know the consequences of them – LIFE on Earth. Sometimes, we have to imagine. Or simply trust in them. But this means leaving soft imprints everywhere we go, or none at all. SIXTH Extinction Event – Humans. Scientists relay via peer review evidence that we are into Earth’s sixth extinction event. This includes leviathan climate change. The five previous extinction events we know about because of the rock record, have been initially caused by activity outside of the organic experience. We know there are historic “orbital” rhythms to climate, which we call the Milankovic Cycles, named after the scientist who mooted the theory, and we know that vulcanicity, tectonic drift, and even giant comet strikes have all altered the stasis of Earth’s spectacularly unified systems that sustain a gradual flow of LIFE. The problem is that we humans have so manipulated all four of Earth’s main systems that we are changing global stasis and therefore climate (for the sake of argument, the conditions of life as we understand them) earlier and faster than it would otherwise do so. And it is happening so quickly, driven by a power-crazed minority that wrongly perceives accumulation of wealth as the aim. Climate is the global feedback as are ocean currents slowing due to melting ice, displacement of bacterial and photosynthetic drivers of certain cycles, including changing salinity. Yes. Climate change IS heating and weirding and will create more torment and suffering to LIFE, because of the feedback loops in linked systems, like the hydrosphere (flooding, drought, etc). Existential LIFE on Earth is inherently magnificent. It is so even without humans considering it merely here to serve our needs. But that magnificence is being killed off by humans through overreach in all aspects. All kinds of human development block the flows of LIFE, the processes, and relationships that sustain communities. Climate change so far (no nuclear winters just yet) is a result of the destruction of living and geological systems that trap carbon in long cycles. Significant anthropogenic (human-caused) changes have happened since the emergence of human agriculture and cities, but sky-rocketing because of the industrial revolution, wide-scale fossil fuel emissions, and a rapid greenhouse effect. Smothering soils with tarmac and concrete, burning peat, harvesting woodland, churning out pollution and waste, fragmenting all kinds of ecosystems with hard infrastructure and agriculture, killing sea LIFE ~ all effects the carbon cycle. Space Capitalism is exacerbating all. This is not just about climate! Kill off LIFE, and we kill off ourselves. Remember, we are all communities within communities. Nothing is separate. There are signs and signals everywhere that something is seriously wrong with the systems that sustain LIFE as we understand them, the global COVID19 pandemic in humans being simply the latest. Many more exist beyond the human realm if only more of us understood. Words matter. Human words are critical in how we relate experience to one another, but are also significantly powerful over all other LIFE forms because that’s the state of play right now ~ human dominion over all LIFE. I’m sick of people suggesting to me that words do not matter, despite them using words to try to communicate that fact. Your words, my words, act as communication capsules fronting deep memory, transformation, emotions, belonging and doing. They can be used as weapons, salves, or instruments of new ways of thinking. Words do matter, especially those repeated and repeated in the public sphere. We should be way more aware of their power. I’d like to hear the word LIFE just as much, if not more, than the word CLIMATE. It is LIFE that is ultimately of profound worth, even though a clement climate is ideal for life in different regions as we understand it now. To avoid LIFE and its diversity in our language allows human power structures to focus only on CO2 in the atmosphere like a currency and climate as if it were still dissociated with all those systems that sustain LIFE. Climate this and climate that. Even critical areas such as justice and equity aren’t adequately served well by its narrow framing. Just look at water and food supply, and the terrible inequities of pollution streams. Some solutions to fit the climate narrative even go so far as to kill more LIFE when LIFE is the evolutionary response to climate warming. Curtail LIFE and you are doubling, tripling the problem. Systems thinking, please, and in the use of language. To continue isolating the language of climate is a folly. It is a kind of othering, something difficult to handle for almost everyone else. Too big, too ethereal. Something only for learned and passionate experts, or politicians. The way we live our lives in community, as community among many communities (human and teresapien), is the change. This will help steady the symptom of climate change, though we know the genie has already let rip. It will critically help LIFE in mutualisms and flows. Teachers can be a huge part of facilitating that community change by example. As can any local government, library or hospital officer with responsibility for public buildings and grounds. I’ve little faith in private, competitive interests (at the heart of Capitalism), but maybe there is some hope here. I will wait to see if the practice of locaceding is accepted. Meanwhile, Governments can help or hinder, but the change must be a groundswell. At the moment, voting records still show contempt and apathy from the ground. They will take heart from this, and carry on ignoring LIFE. It is my greatest hope that Fluminism, on the other hand, is a positive word from the get-go. As a symbioethic, it relates easily to all flowing mutualisms, processes, cycles, and systems that sustain and proliferate LIFE in diversity and abundance. As a word with meaning, I use it as a resistance to those Earth scarring ways of perceiving, being, and doing in this world. It’s a treatment of the disease and the symptom. Perhaps you might use it too. Once understood, it is do-able by everyone equally and daily, and a perception of the world that is then very difficult to un-know. ~~~~ Originally posted at: https://seasonalight.com/2021/05/10/on-climate-as-the-dominant-meme/ On a rainy Sunday afternoon at the end of February, 200 people packed into Ashburton Arts Centre to come together and discuss what they could do for nature on Dartmoor. People were waiting out in the rain until start time to see if they could squeeze in. It was incredible to see that so many people wanted to come along and give their time for nature, and to see a way forward together.
We were joined by wonderful speakers; Naomi Oakley of Challacombe Farm, Guy Shrubsole, campaigner for temperate rainforests, Morag Angus, head of the Southwest Peatland Partnership, Tony Whitehead, a local environmental campaigner, Sue Everett, an ecologist with decades of experience and on the board of the Fursdon review, and Nick Bruce-White, CEO of Devon Wildlife Trust. Chaired wonderfully by Miles King of People Need Nature, the different points of view of nature on Dartmoor, and the buzz of conversation when questions were posed to the audience were inspiring. We had questions about swaling, hedges, buying commons, putting a warden in public car parks to engage people in nature, dog disturbance, corvid predation, land ownership and many more ideas swirling around. There was a real feeling in the air that people were ready for things to change. Many things came out of the talk - a need for legislative change, for robust funding and regulations. A heartfelt request from Guy Shrubsole to have nature at the forefront as we talk to doorstepping candidates, attend hustings and place our votes. But the main thing seemed to be people - people have the power, if they are empowered. It’s easy to get lost in culture war, and ‘other’ people, as Naomi Oakley so succinctly put. We live in a world now that wants us to believe you’re either for or against, and if someone doesn’t agree with you, then they’re your enemy. It’s only by listening to each other that we can begin to take steps forward into a future that looks good for nature and for people. It was an overwhelmingly positive afternoon, leaving us all with a sense of great hope. But this is just the first step on the road, and the conversation - and action - must continue. The points, questions and ideas will be gathered and circulated, and our first local group, Wild Card Dartmoor, has formed. There is an opportunity here to make a real difference, and the local community clearly has an appetite for that. The year of change is upon us, and we have the power to shape 2024 into a year that sees great strides for nature - as long as we work together. Image from National Anti Snaring Campaign Snares have been in the news recently, with a successful campaign by the League Against Cruel Sports in banning them in Wales, after a 6 year long campaign. This is now being taken to Scottish parliament for consideration too, though as yet it shows no signs of consideration in England. But what are the actual effects on wildlife? And is there a place for snares in a rewilded world?
The negative impact of snares has been well-documented. Despite the arguments made for snares, they cannot be set only for ‘target’ species. The target species are generally foxes and rabbits, often victims of being in the wrong place at the wrong time - according to us. Although they may seem common, the fact is that foxes and rabbits have undergone population declines since the late 90s, 44% since 96 for foxes, and 64% for rabbits. So do we really need to be ‘controlling’ their populations this way? How will the decline, particularly in rabbits, be affecting predators that use them as a food source? Aside from the foxes and rabbits, many other species get caught. In fact, a 2012 government study showed that up to three quarters of animals caught in snares were not the target species. Animals such as mountain hares, badgers, deer and otters have all fallen victim to snares. Dogs and cats can even become caught by snares, causing serious injuries and prolonged, painful deaths. Five in 17 snare users admit to finding cats caught in their snares, even though this is illegal. Even humans have been hurt by snares, caught unaware while out running or walking. Who are these snare users? And why do they use them? According to Protect the Wild; “Snares are largely used by gamekeepers on shooting estates. Government after government has decided that shooting live animals for ‘sport’ is a legitimate practice. Shoots want to eradicate predators, so snaring has been permitted to continue when common sense and any understanding at all of wild animal sentience would tell you it should be banned.” Again, we find shooting ‘sport’, the suffering of wildlife and a negative impact on nature closely linked. Setting snares to catch mid-size predators to protect chicks destined only to be shot later, piles up bodies of collateral damage. This has a cascade effect on the ecosystem of which they are a part, unravelling natural balances. With all this in mind, the vast decline in ‘target’ species populations, the indiscriminate way all animals and even humans and pets are caught by snares, as well as the fact that 77% of the British population think that they should be banned, it’s clear that they have no place in rewilding areas and society generally. We should be protecting our native species, not killing them by setting traps that cause immense suffering and death. Grouse moors cover 852,000 acres of our national parks, an area over twice the size of Greater London. Great, sweeping moors that are suffering the consequences of human exploitation. In our national parks, where nature ought to be thriving, the practices around grouse moors are contributing towards the sixth extinction event and reducing the land’s resilience in the face of the climate crisis. Wild Moors has been working tirelessly for years to raise the profile of grouse moors and their ecological state in the public consciousness, and to help a shift towards rewilding, and League Against Cruel Sports is campaigning National Parks to think about what is it they are for - hunting or nature? On a finite island, where we need land to build our houses on, grow our food, provide clean water, clean air and capture carbon, can we spare the room? First off, and one of the most important points, grouse moors do not contribute towards the food security of the UK. They are purely for bloodsports. Arguments surrounding land use are many and complex, but often one of the biggest issues surrounding rewilding is taking land out of food production. Grouse moors are not land for food production, purely for sport. 1.4% of the entire land of Britain is given over to ecologically damaging practices such as burning peat and ‘predator control’. Burning, also known as ‘swaling’, is done to burn off vegetation, allowing fresh shoots of heather to grow, which are a food source for the young grouse. However, burning dries out the peat, releases huge amounts of carbon into the air, and reduces the land’s ability to absorb water, leading to catastrophic floods and droughts. Burning also reduces plant diversity in species and in age, which is critical for providing food sources for a variety of different birds, mammals and invertebrates, and for a fully-functioning ecosystem. Alongside this, grouse moors are closely linked with raptor persecution and wildlife crimes. Intolerant of anything that may kill the grouse before humans can, our birds of prey such as hawks, kites and eagles have been poisoned and shot, and snares set which capture badgers, foxes, otters, as well as any dogs, cats and even humans that find themselves in the wrong area. We can see what a terrible effect it has on our wildlife, the climate and anyone unlucky enough to live downstream and at risk of flooding and drought. But do they bring in money to the local economy? What benefits do they bring? Unfortunately, none there either. Grouse moors are unprofitable, providing little in the way of money through tourism or regular employment, and it has been shown that turning grouse moors, our degraded uplands, over to rewilding would benefit the local economy and the public purse. There is a growing trend for grouse moor owners to either sell to rewilders or turn to rewilding themselves in an effort to recoup their losses. We can only hope that this trend continues. In our country there is a huge amount of land that could easily be rewilded, that loses nothing by returning it to nature, except depriving a few individuals their chance at ‘sport’, and provide so much more instead. It’s a clear opportunity to create a more resilient Britain as the climate crisis deepens, provide green jobs and allow nature to flourish, for all of us to enjoy. Deer-stalking and rewilding are more closely intertwined than many may think, with arguable positives and negatives. Deer-stalking, more than any other kind of hunting, highlights some of the key issues that rewilding faces.
The number of 2 million deer is often thrown around while discussing deer population in the UK, but the truth is that no one really knows the true number. However, it is clear that deer can have a devastating effect on growing vegetation, browsing saplings and scrub down to the earth, and stags rubbing their antlers on trees can kill the tree. While trees have co-evolved with deer and can even benefit from browsing pressure, due to the high level of deer, or the lack of predators to keep them moving, the pressure is too great. This is leading to ageing forests with no new trees to replace the mature trees as they age and die, as well as denuded landscapes (compounded by sheep grazing). Apex predators such as wolves create what is known as a ‘landscape of fear’. The numbers of deer directly affected by predation are relatively low, but the presence of an apex predator will keep the deer moving, they won’t stay to browse until they’ve eaten all the vegetation. Less fawns would be born and the deer population has a lower population balance with the predators. What we are seeing in the UK is what happens when there are no wolves or bears to keep the numbers in check. A great example of this is when wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, and had an incredibly positive effect on the ecosystem. Some rewilding and nature restoration projects use deer fencing to ring off areas of vegetation and woodland, allowing it to ‘pulse’ and grow until it reaches a point where it can handle browsing. However, deer are amazing at leaping fences, so deer fencing is very high and very expensive, creating visible barriers on the land, can cause problems for other animals and requires a serious financial investment. The results are incredible, but sometimes this option is out of reach for small projects. Another option is deer-stalking. The benefits to this is that it allows some browsing in an area to allow natural processes to continue, and without the capital investment in fencing. It’s a difficult thing to get your head around. Deer are among the last truly wild large mammals we have in the wild in Britain, and moments of encountering them that can be charged with wonder. However the damage they’re doing is undeniable, and those that do this work can see themselves as replacing the apex predator function in the ecosystem. I spoke to Bernard Davies, who works for a rewilding project, and culls deer through deer-stalking as a part of his job; “I got into deer stalking because the previous estate had a lot of muntjac, which are an invasive and non-native deer, and so in order to be able to start restoring the ecosystem there I had to control the muntjac, which I shot and ensured that nothing went to waste by sharing among friends and family and eating the venison myself. Having always worked with [...] animals, I empathise with animals and I would never want to inflict any kind of suffering upon any animal. I think that by stalking them, they never really know what happens. [...] whilst I don’t particularly like killing, I view it as a necessary evil, [...] because the deer populations are not under control and they do put the rest of the ecosystem out of balance, which is entirely due to the absence of apex predators… I do view my role as a stand-in apex predator with regards to deer stalking… I just don’t see (apex predator reintroduction) happening in the near future. So I think deer stalking is going to be an ongoing requirement.’ There is another side to this though, away from the rewilding and nature restoration work, and the need to allow space for woodland and scrub to renew. The other side to this is the huge amount of deer-stalking estates in the UK. These are privately owned estates, heavily managed to provide the ‘perfect’ environment to keep and hunt deer. They are often on uplands prime for rewilding, often in a degraded condition due to the management and over-browsing, feeding deer overwinter to keep their numbers high just to be shot. These estates are owned by the wealthy and are maintained for the wealthy to shoot at. They add nothing to the local economy either in money or jobs, especially compared to what rewilding does. The actual amount of land given over to this bloodsport is unknown, land ownership and management deliberately hidden, however there is a clearly a huge amount of land given to this ecologically-degrading and economically unviable bloodsport, where instead we could see land returned to nature, such as this Scottish estate, while still acknowledging the need to balance the deer population. And all the while, we need to be looking at restoring functioning natural processes, by reintroducing apex predators like wolves, which would then keep the deer population low and mobile, allowing our forests to regenerate and boost biodiversity. Hunting is a contentious subject and can raise a lot of emotions on both sides. But moving aside from the morality of hunting, what is the effect on the environment of releasing captive-bred gamebirds like pheasants and red-legged partridges?
Our friends over at Wild Justice have been working for years for tighter controls on gamebird releases close to protected sites, because of the hugely detrimental effect that a large amount of non-native gamebirds can have on our ecosystems. They have been looking at why licences are being granted for release, against the recommendations of environmental experts. Native or not, dumping a lot of birds all at once in an area can overwhelm ecosystems. Estimates range up to about 60 million birds just for shooting a year. For reference, we’ve lost 73 million wild birds since 1970. If our countryside can sustain so many, then why is it that we have 60 million pheasants and grouse instead of beloved native species like the turtle dove and the hen harrier? This amount of birds can overwhelm native wild populations by taking food that other birds or mammals would have eaten, and also by eating frogs and lizards, which are in decline across the UK, and specifically linked to pheasants. Our small mammal, reptile and amphibian populations are being decimated. Along with taking food that could be feeding our British wildlife, pheasants and grouse are themselves food for mid-range carnivores such as foxes. The abundant numbers mean that the numbers of these midsize predators has sky-rocketed, artificially inflated by the captive-bred birds. The large amount of predators are then able to predate on other species, such as curlew. Lead ammunition used in shooting contaminates and pollutes the soil and water, as well as the droppings. With avian flu around, having such a vast amount of free-ranging birds, especially near Special Protected Areas, means that diseases are more likely to be spread. All of these things make it clear that the way and the scale at which pheasant and grouse shooting is done at the moment is incompatible with rewilding. If we want healthy habitats capable of sustaining native species, with balanced levels all along the predator / prey range, then this can’t continue. If we want to rewild, that means putting natural processes in place that will benefit many species. Releasing 60 million non-native birds into that doesn’t work. There have been arguments that habitats maintained for gamebirds can have positive ecological effects by maintaining woodlands and hedgerows. However, if we as a country delivered on our commitment to rewild 30% of the country, then woodlands and hedgerows would be abundant without the necessity of releasing invasive species just to be shot. There needs to be a serious review of what is happening with these licences and what our priority as a country is. Is it rewilding our habitats and restoring native wildlife? Or hunting? DARTMOOR IS DYING, ITS WILDLIFE IS DECLINING AND DISAPPEARING, AND THE TIME TO DO SOMETHING IS NOW. WILL YOU BE A VOICE FOR NATURE?
Let's march for a wild Dartmoor on SATURDAY 30th SEPTEMBER! Most of the land on Dartmoor is owned by Prince William. We need the Prince to publicly commit to restore nature on his land. So, on Saturday 30th September you are invited to gather together with thousands of local people to lay down the gauntlet to REWILD YOUR LAND, OR RELEASE IT TO PUBLIC OWNERSHIP! And guess what... our efforts are starting to make a difference already! This July, a petition with over 71,000 signatures (and counting), triggered a response. The Prince agreed to double the size of Wistman’s Wood! But... ...Wistman’s Wood accounts for just 0.01% of the Dartmoor land under Prince William’s control. In a climate and nature emergency, 0.01% isn't leadership, it's just small potatoes. With your help, we can encourage the Prince to show true leadership and commit to restoring nature on all his land. LET'S CELEBRATE NATURE WITH A DAY OF... ~Music & dance ~Storytelling & performances ~Face painting & family fun ~Local mythology & folklore ~Talks from the scientists & local experts ~And much more! PLANS FOR THE DAY We want the day to be inclusive, rewarding and enjoyable for everyone. We’ll add more information here for where and when to meet, what to bring and crucially… what costume to plan! WHAT DO WE WANT? We're calling on the Prince to publicly commit to:
Without a public commitment to take these steps to restore nature on his land, we ask that it be released into public ownership. Click here to attend the Facebook event. Following our 100,000 signature petition, the Crown Estate has made its first tentative steps towards rewilding! But, as the nature crisis worsens, there is still a long, long way to go… Whilst the role of Big Energy is now well understood in the climate and nature crisis, the role of Big Landowners still is not - but their role in averting a planetary catastrophe is just as crucial. One of the most important of the UK’s top 10 biggest landowners is an ancient and extraordinarily wealthy institution called The Crown Estate. The Crown Estate is legally speaking owned by the reigning monarch, but is ultimately a public body making it, at least in principle, answerable to the public. The Estate includes half the UK coastline, 200,000 acres of land (which is half the size of Greater London in Wales and England), and is worth £14 billion. Profits from the estate are split between the Royal Family in an annual payment known as The Sovereign Grant and the Treasury where the value is fed back into general public expenditure. In 2022/23, the Sovereign Grant, was a whopping £83.6 million, but with the other costs of the Queen’s passing, the coronation and works on Buckingham Palace, spending went up to £107.5 million, and is due to rise to £125 million in 2025! Since 2021 we at Wild Card have been campaigning to “Rewild the Royals”, previously presenting a 100k+ petition with Chris Packham to the Queen at Buckingham Palace in October 2021. Following this, Wild Card and Chris Packham had a very positive meeting with The Crown Estate followed by a number of genuinely exciting meetings with members of the Estate’s sustainability team in which the Estates agreed to meet with the rewilding and climate experts we suggested to them. Unfortunately since then our attempts to meet with them again, as was agreed, have been unsuccessful. We did however receive an email from them, detailing everything they’ve been up to in their annual report. We decided to wade through this rather large document and double-check that they’re doing what they claim to be doing! And… in short: there are small reasons for Wild Card to celebrate! But there is also a massively long way to go. Here’s our analysis of the main points: Where The Crown Estate is Showing ProgressReintroductions In a very exciting win for rewilding, The Crown Estate have announced that they will be releasing beavers in the Nene Wetlands in the winter of 2024/25. Wild Card’s Take: This is a clear win for the Rewild the Royals campaign and the 100,000 people who supported it. Beavers are vital keystone species. Now the Estate needs to completely turbocharge this and work on getting hundreds of beavers releases and doing more ambitious species reintroductions such as pine marten, lynx, bison, cranes and eagles. We propose that the Crown Estate created a new post for an Executive Director of Rewilding and Species Reintroductions. Energy The Crown Estate set a target to reduce emissions, and have decreased across all their holdings by 2.5%, obtaining 98% of their energy (where they had control over the source) from renewables. They also have moved into the operational phase of their offshore windfarm, generating 11.8 GW in 2021/22. Wild Card’s take: The Crown Estate are genuinely doing really great things for clean energy - particularly wind power - and as owners of much of the UK’s seabed, are making ever increasing profits from the green revolution. But their progress here throws into sharp relief their seeming blindness on the importance of land, the role of natural climate solutions like rewilding and the seriousness of the ecological crisis. By almost exclusively focusing their environmental efforts on energy and carbon emissions, they ignore the joined up nature of the climate and ecological crisis: something that can only be solved with large scale rewilding. Net Zero With the current trajectory of emissions, we are likely to hit the 1.5 degree barrier in 2034, with a 66% chance of hitting it in 2027. The Crown Estate is aiming for net zero across the business by 2050. Wild Card’s Take: Net Zero by 2050 simply is not good enough, or fast enough. If we are going to reach Net Zero across the economy, landowners need to be carbon sinks not just carbon neutral. The Crown Estate should be working towards being a carbon sink by 2030 and aiming for much more than just balancing emissions. Marine The Crown Estate have purchased 21 eco-moorings to restore and protect Studland Bay’s seagrass and seahorse population (and enhance carbon sequestration). Wild Card’s take: This is laudable, but, excuse the pun, a drop in the ocean. The Estate urgently needs to commit to an area based target Marine restoration ideally aiming for at least 50% of its seabed to be protected for nature and free from commercial fishing. Rural - Natural Regeneration At Windsor, The Crown Estate have a favourable status for all their SSSIs, and have committed to a ten year restoration plan, including planting shrubs and trees, creating new ponds and wetlands, managing invasive species and dead wood habitats, along with sustainable soil management. Wild Card’s take: Nowhere in their annual report is natural regeneration mentioned, it is all tree-planting and creating wetlands (presumably with a digger). In the 156 page report the word “tree” in fact is mentioned only 4 times. By relying only on human intervention, it perpetuates the notion that nature needs our help to recover. Tree and hedgerow planting are great to get things moving, but The Crown Estate also needs to be able to step back, fence off areas and allow nature to do its thing. Rural - Farming The Crown Estate is establishing an environmental ‘Farm Business Tenancy’, to pivot nearly one third of land to regenerative farming techniques in next 5 years, and deliver ‘at scale habitat enhancement and restoration’. Wild Card’s take: This is fantastic, but it’s not clear where the funding, support and advice is coming from. Moreover, “Regenerative farming” is notoriously undefined and as such has no necessary correlation with improved results for nature. What is urgently needed for nature is a land sparing approach in which large areas of land are fully relinquished from all extractive industry including farmings. Rewilding - Area Based Targets There is no mention of an area based target for rewilding and nature restoration as a percentage of the Crown Estate’s holdings. Wild Card’s take: The UK has committed to protecting 30% of its land and sea by 2030 but according to figures by the House of Lords, is currently only protecting 6.5%! To meet this huge and ambitious target, large landowners like The Crown Estate must pledge at least 30% and ideally 50% of their land and seabed to rewilding. In there own words;“Tackling the nature and climate crises goes hand in hand and demands joined-up, rapid action to protect our natural environment and deliver long-term benefits. [...] Leading in stewarding the UK’s natural environment and nature is at the heart of our purpose and strategy. Our distinct portfolio – covering the seabed, urban and rural assets – provides a unique opportunity to promote nature recovery.” SummaryThe contrast between The Crown Estate and The Duchies is stark - where the land is being managed at least nominally for public good, we see real desire to implement policies and practices for change. Though these may fall short, these far outweigh what we see elsewhere in the royal landholdings. There’s poisoning and shooting of rare birds of prey at Sandringham, silence from the Duchy of Lancaster and insultingly small potatoes from the Duchy of Cornwall.
We applaud and support The Crown Estate for their efforts so far, but the behemoth of The Crown Estate still needs to be far more ambitious in its targets to be able to respond to the growing climate and biodiversity crisis, and stop ecocide. As an archaic institution with many layers of bureaucracy, the systems that are in place are not fit for purpose and clearly need to be completely overhauled to be able to respond efficiently to the biodiversity and climate crises. Wild Card staged a protest at Kensington Palace this morning in response to the Duchy of Cornwall’s announcement earlier this month regarding the expansion of Wistman’s Wood on Dartmoor. The announcement from the Duchy to double the 3 hectares Wistman’s Wood by 2040 came after a petition launched by Wild Card and hosted by 38 Degrees reached over 70,000 signatures. The petition called on Prince William to ‘bring back Britain’s rainforests’ in His Royal Highness’s newly inherited estate, but the campaigners argue the recent announcement was underwhelming in the context of the climate and nature crisis. According to our calculations, the 3 expanded hectares of Wistman’s Wood would therefore account for just 0.01% of this land - an area equivalent to less than 5 football pitches. Duchy of Cornwall land has some of the lowest tree coverage of any major UK landowner, with just 6% tree coverage compared to the national figure of 13%. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, one of the celebrity backers of the Wild Card campaign, said: “In inheriting the Duchy of Cornwall, Prince William has an enormous opportunity to resurrect one of the world’s rarest habitats and to walk the walk on his long standing environmental advocacy. Decisive action by the Prince to expand the rainforest fragments still remaining on Dartmoor would be an act of boldest optimism in the face of the ever worsening nature crisis. I really think he could inspire a wave of rainforest restoration in Britain and beyond. By protecting and expanding these areas, the Prince could become a world-leading example of rainforest restoration.” Megan Bentall, Head of Campaigns at 38 Degrees, said: “Prince William has the opportunity to do something incredible with the land that has been left to him. But taking seven years to restore just three of his 27,300 hectares is hardly the urgent action our environment needs. At 38 Degrees, we campaign for a country that is more sustainable for everyone, for people and wildlife. Unlike Prince William, most of us don’t have the opportunity to rewild thousands of acres of land, but the 71,566 people who signed this petition are doing what they can to fight for a Britain where nature can thrive - and they won’t be fobbed off with a token gesture. It’s time for Prince William and the Royal family to do their part too.” Ecologist and spokesperson for Wild Card, Emma Smart, said: “We’ve taken action today to highlight the disconnection between Prince William’s words and his cowardly actions. As the founder of the Earthshot prize he has shown he understands the urgent need to act on the nature and climate emergencies. Prince William has said that ‘now is the time for each of us to show leadership’ and he was right. But addressing just 0.01% of his vast estate on Dartmoor, with a timeline of 2040, is not leadership, it’s just small potatoes. The British people deserve better from the royal family, who earn a substantial private income from their land every year, farmers deserve real consultation and future-proof planning, and local communities - thousands of whom signed our petition - deserve to be taken seriously.” This Autumn hundreds of local people will march on the Duchy of Cornwall offices with Wild Card, to demand urgent action to rewild Dartmoor. This comes after Chris Packham and hundreds of school children marched on Buckingham Palace in 2021 delivering a 100,000 petition calling on the Royal Family to rewild their estates.
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AuthorOur blog posts are written by our core team and guest bloggers. If you have an idea for a blog post please pitch it to info@wildcard.land Archives
March 2024
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