After a week’s pleasant reading I have now finished reading
George Monbiot’s book ‘Feral’. I mentioned I had started this book in one of my
previous last blog posts (22nd July), I also commented that in the
past I have found George’s approach to environmentalism idealistic and unrealistic.
When I was younger I found this vexing but now as I get older and start to feel
that yearning for how things used to be, and have watched the travesty of
decision making coming from government I am beginning to find my views more in
line with his.
The central thesis of ‘Feral’ was that nature conservation
should be taking a more hands off approach to conserving wildlife. That nature
should be able to reclaim its own balance encouraged by the reintroduction of
what many call ecosystem engineers – key species that enable a cascade of
effects down through the system. One of the key examples of such an engineer is
the European Beaver. Such reintroduction projects using this species have been
trialed in Knapdale in Scotland with some success although escaped Beavers in
Devon are facing capture and possible execution.
George uses the example of Wolves in the Yellowstone to
illustrate the idea of rewilding quite eloquently. He can be seen in this clip
explaining what happened.
The book carefully explores the types of animals that could
be introduced into the UK and he lists a range of species from Wolves and Lynx
to Wild Horse and Grey Whales! He has arbitrarily graded each of the species
suitability and I agree with his estimations. He ranks Lynx as more suitable
than Wolves. He also highlights the hypocrisy inherent in Britain today. We pay
thousands of pounds to Africa to protect big cats some of which threaten
villagers whilst living comfortably in a land with no dangerous predators to
contend with. We lambast Brazil and Indonesia for its logging of rainforest,
whilst we deforested much of the country centuries ago. As in charity I do
think conservation should start at home and with less condescension to local
people. For people who watched Charlie Hamilton James’ excellent ‘I bought a Rainforest’ series he showed beautifully that world conservation is a much more
complex affair than just fencing off an area. In fact such fencing can
adversely affect people and in the long term wildlife.
In the UK pretty much all wildlife sites are heavily managed
to maintain them in ecological terms they are kept at plagioclimax, an arrested
state of development. Naturally the ecosystem wants to develop into in most
cases in the UK woodland. Woodland supports the greatest number of species than
any other terrestrial habitat, but is nature conservation just a numbers game?
Every year we read of declines in Farmland Birds for
example. These values are admirably quantified by the British Trust forOrnithology. But given years of agri-environmental schemes both domestic and
European, why is this decline continuing? Again it is a complex answer but at
its heart lies the basic premise that wildlife is separate from farming. That
the bottom line is the cost of the land and the produce on it, the emphasis is always
on the productivity and not the conservation. A key marker for this is that
protection of the Environment is paired with Food and Rural Affairs in DEFRA.
The government agency contains two areas that are antagonistic to one another.
Yes we want a balance between the two. I m not in favour of hounding landowners
out in favour of wildflowers... not entirely, but the Environment deserves a
government department of its own, one that enables it to carry the same weight as
others. In recent years the language of conservation is continually one of
compromise.
This brings me to what I am beginning to view as one of the
death knells of conservation – sustainability. It rose to prominence whilst I
was still at university in 2000 despite being coined much earlier. It has led
to, in my mind, the constant flood of green wash. Tiny amounts of offsetting
and other techniques to enable construction or development. Builders and planners
use sustainability as a byword for getting more. Its okay this housing estate
is sustainable – we have planted 30 trees and dug a pond
.
Having rambled off from the point I now return to George’s
book. His vision for a rewilding of the UK is very exciting and something I see
real potential in. Work is already going on in Glen Fleshie, Scotland and I
hope that this will serve as a flagship for more work. ‘Feral’ is a well
written work, both at turns humorous and engaging. It is well researched and
does try to balance the disparate views. I would suggest that every ecology
student read it as part of a reading list.
For those who want to know more and do not wish to read the
whole book, this month’s BBC Wildlife magazine has an excellent article in which
I read with interest Georges ambition to launch a rewilding charity later in
the year. I will keep you posted on this.
Feral is available from all good bookshops.
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