Rewilding: The Radical New Science of Ecological Recovery: 14 (Hot Science)

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In fact, we’ll be beginning to realise we may no longer need these expensive, intensively maintained oases, these Noah’s arks.

Nature conservation will have risen to the top of the political agenda thanks to a deeper understanding of how our health, our prosperity, agriculture, our very survival into the future, depend upon it.Even though as a child I often complained about being dragged away from my books to see a meadow of orchids. Defining ‘wildness’ is fraught with difficulty, as is deciding which species have lived here long enough to be considered ‘native’. Fences were taken up and they selected some hardy breeds of pigs, Exmoor ponies and cattle to wander freely around the 3500 acres site. Together with red deer and fallow deer they drive the system here, creating vegetation complexity through their different grazing preferences and their natural disturbance of soil, and by moving seeds and nutrients around the landscape.

along with big flushes of weedy flowers and new recruitment of woody shrub species, and consequently settlement by birds and other animals that require those kinds of habitats. The solution to many of the major environmental issues of our time might literally be the ground beneath our feet. So the building blocks for a wilder Britain will be in place and enthusiasm for it will have been secured because within a very short space of time people will have seen the successes for themselves, both in terms of wildlife and ‘ecosystem services’ like soil restoration, air purification and flood mitigation. Bloomsbury)I thought I had a firm grasp of the subject, but I quickly discovered that rewilding means different things to different people. But it's also heartening to have seen the proof that it can work with my own eyes, and to know that at least some are willing to take this leap of faith.It takes time (something we are notably not prepared to give much of in our modern world), but it turns out that nature is remarkable. Despite possessing deeply held convictions on matters like animal welfare, Bekoff doesn’t preach to readers. In an enclosed 7 acre site run by the Devon Wildlife Trust, a small family of beavers have totally transformed a 200m canalised stream into a braided system of channels, willow coppice and ponds with 1,000 square metres of open water, in just a few years. This book and the 20 years the Knepp estate has been allowed to find its own way shows there is no need to do anything other than have the guts to let nature take over and change our business practices accordingly. We still have time to change the world: that’s the message from Greta Thunberg’s new collaborative book.