Steve carver

School of GeographyFACULTY OF ENVIRONMENT

Rewilding

Steve CarverDirector, Wildland Research Institute


Outline:

•Nature and society

•Reconnecting people and nature

•(re)wilding

•Landscapes of resilience

•Reintroductions


“In wildness is the preservation of the world”Henry Thoreau (1862)


http://blogs.uww.edu/introtolatinamerica/2011/10/03/deforestation-in-latin-america/


http://www.taos-telecommunity.org/epow/EPOW-Archive/archive_2010/EPOW-100125.htm


http://www.kristin-reinig.de/blickdichtes/wordpress/en/photo-shoot/opencast-shoot/


http://biodilloversity.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/overfishing-101/


Nature and society

First Nature

Second Nature

Third nature"We sow corn, we plant trees, we

fertilize the soil by irrigation, we dam the rivers and direct them where we want. In short, by means of our hands we try to

create as it were a second nature within the natural world.“

Cicero 45BC

…gardens make a “third nature, which I would not know how to name.”

Bonfadio (1541)

Frontispiece to l'Abbé de Vallemont's Curiositez de la nature et de l'art (1705)


After: Carver (2012) (Re)creating Wilderness: Rewilding and habitat restoration. In Howard, Thompson & Waterton (eds) The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies


“The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to keep all the parts.”

Aldo Leopold (1949)


Tier 1 (strongest protection for wildlife): Sites of Special Scientific Interest, Special Areas of Conservation, Special Protection Areas, Ramsar sites, national and local nature reserves, etcTier 2: local wildlife sites and ancient woodlandTier 3 (weakest protection for wildlife): national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty


http://www.esri.com/mapmuseum/mapbook_gallery/volume26/conservation/conservation-2.html


Re-wilding

• Emerging wild land policy in the UK

• background of historical, environmental, social, political and economic drivers

• Benchmark projects

• The Carrifran Wildwood Project

• Wild Ennerdale

• Wicken Fen

• Multiple benefits and environmental resilience

http://www.wildland-network.org/projects/wn_rewild_database.htm


Copyright: SteveMG


Strawberry

SycamoreValerianVioletWater avens

Welsh poppy

Willows x 3

Wood anemone

Wood cranesbill

Wood sage

Wood sorrel

YarrowYew

Angelica

Ash

Baneberry

Bilberry

Birch

Bird cherry

Birds eye primrose

Birds foot trefoil

Bitter vetch

Blackthorn

Bloody cranesbill

Bluebell

Bracken

Brittle bladder fern

Bugle

Butterwort

Cinquefoil

Cowberry

Creeping corydalis

Daffodil

Devil’s bit scabious

Dog rose

Dog’s mercury

Early pruple orchid

Elder

Field scabious

Figwort

Globe flower

Greater burnet

Green spleenwort

Guelder rose

Hard head

Hawthorn

Hazel

Heart’s tongue fern

Heather

Honeysuckle

Ivy

Juniper

Lesser meadow rue

Lily of the valley

Limestone oak fern

Meadow sweet

Melancholy thistle

Milkwort

Orpine

Primrose

Raspberry

Red currant

Rigid buckler fern

Rock rose

Rowan

Solomon’s seal

St John’s wort

Stone bramble

AshBaneberryBlackthornDog’s mercuryFigwortFragrant orchidGooseberryHawthornHazelHeart’s tongue fernIvyLimestone oak fernRaspberryRigid buckler fernRowanSycamoreThalictrumVioletWelsh poppyWood anemoneWood sageWood sorrel

Biodiversity:

Southerscales

versus

Scar Close

School of GeographyFACULTY OF ENVIRONMENTThe culprit….?


Work by Claire MacAlister-Hall, BSc 2011-12


• Multiple viewpoints as to what is ‘wild’ or ‘natural’

• History of attrition of wild spaces• from prehistory to present

• recent revival in interest in ‘wild nature’

• Emerging policy• Scotland (SNH, NTS, JMT)

• England (Natural England, Wildlife Trusts)

• Wales (Coed Eryri, CCW)

• Opportunities for (re)wilding• economic climate

• policy climate

• public interest


Two basic approaches:

• "letting go“• if a landscape is left unmanaged for a long enough

period, nature will take over and produce its own entirely natural landscape

• may not necessarily be the same landscape that existed before human settlement, but it will be natural

• "wild by design“• we may need to actively 'design' wild landscapes by

assisting the regeneration of native species to recreate a more natural looking landscape

• limited economic activity in the form of low intensity grazing and recreation is still possible and indeed desirable

After Council for National Parks (1998) Wild by Design


• Developing new wild lands where opportunities arise

• Edwards Review (1991)

• CNP “Wild By Design” (1998)

• Natural England’s “Vital Uplands” (2009)

• Lawton Report (2010) and DEFRA White Paper (2011)

• Aspects of re-wilding

• promotion of wilderness qualities

• enhancing and recreating semi-natural habitats

• promotion of ecological process in near-natural areas

• securing ecosystem services


Edwards Review (1991)

“a number of experimental schemes on a limited scale should be set up in National Parks where farming is withdrawn entirely and the natural succession of vegetation is allowed to take its course” (Recommendation 6.3, Edwards, 1991)


After Council for National Parks (1998) Wild by Design


Environmental resilience

• How does (re)wilding fit with this approach/view?

• Drivers for change

• social, environmental, economic, political

• Factors influencing environmental degradation and landscape response

• robust nature vs delicate balance

• landscape and public perceptions


Environmental drivers

• Climate change and ecological response

• shifting patterns of migration and range

• N-S movements and altitudinal shifts

• different responses by different species

• Changing geographies of nature

• Humanistic barriers to adaptability

• lack of space/continuity between wild areas

• pollution (critical loads) and environmental stress


Policy drivers

• CAP reform and changes in agricultural subsidies

• over-production/over-grazing

• environmental stewardship

• agri-environment schemes (fitting in)

• EU Directives

• Habitats Directive and Natura 2000

• Water Framework Directive

• Biodiversity Action Plans (BAPs)

• Management for “Favourable status”


Economic drivers

• CAP reform and the single farm payment

• agricultural ‘disasters’

• FMD

• BSE

• falling prices and the power of the big supermarkets

• increasing proportion of rural economy based on tourism


Social drivers

• rise in outdoor recreation and leisure time

• greater mobility and disposable income

• rural migration:

• in migration of retirees and commuters

• out migration of farm workers, etc.


Re-introductions of native species

• Nature management in UK?

• maintaining habitats and species

• remnants of former farming/forestry systems

• management using past practice

• i.e. “nature gardening”

• Alternative systems?

• holistic and ecosystems-based approaches

• less human intervention... i.e. “letting go”

• emphasis on role of large herbivores and predators?


Herbivores we have lost…

Back! Back!

Extinct!Three

One herd


• Management with introduced grazers?


What about the carnivores?

The BIG three

European brown bearEurasian lynx

Grey wolf


The next steps?• “Wild by Design” highlights the challenge…

“the commitment to leave minimal intervention areas on a much larger scale (landscapes of thousands of hectares) and over much longer periods (hundreds of years)” (CNP, 1998)

• integrating re-wilding with farming...

“Wilderness and Plenty” Fraser Darling

• packaging and marketing

• selling idea to the public and politicians… and more importantly (perhaps) local land owners and farmers

• developing a workable and realistic strategy

• Education!

Steve carver

Technology

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