Derek Gow the Radical?

By happenstance I stumbled upon the Radio 4 program ‘Radical’ this week. It is not a show that I have been aware of in the past, but this week’s subject piqued my interest. ‘Radical’ is a twice weekly BBC radio (Sounds) podcast which highlights "pioneering thinkers, bold innovators and influential voices". The episode that caught my attention was an interview with Derek Gow. Many in the nature conservation world will know of this pioneer of rewilding but for those that don't here is a quick recap. Derek Gow is a UK farmer currently living in Devon, where he has diversified from traditional farming to become a reintroduction expert. He has been a significant player in the reintroduction of Beaver, Water Vole and White Stork back to the UK. He has written several books and is currently rewilding his 300-acre farm.

What makes Gow’s argument so compelling is not simply that rewilding works, but that it exposes a national contradiction, Britain loves the idea of nature while often resisting the practical disruption needed to restore it. That tension sits at the heart of the debate around beavers, reintroductions and landscape-scale recovery.

I first came across Derek when I was researching Water Voles and trying to establish possible habitat suitability values in the local area, but he is perhaps best known for his work on the reintroduction of Beavers. His appearance on ‘Radical’ was a thoughtful interview of Derek's goals, successes and failures. Most interesting was his critique of the bureaucracy inherent to the politics of modern nature conservation. His frustration at the roadblocks that are put in his way are palpable and I have some sympathy with him. I have a dream of rewilding part of my tiny patch or at least do same habitat creation, but the number of permits and permissions needed not to say anything of the money required can be disheartening. Derek however has been very successful and has some very clear goals and ideas in mind.

The discussion in the podcast was wide ranging, and I encourage anyone interested to take a listen. The interviewer, obviously a non-specialist asked pertinent question and had done their homework. Derek quite succinctly describes the nature depleted landscape in which we inhabit today and explained some of the reasons. In essence it all boils down to two seismic shifts in human evolution, the agrarian revolution 10000 BCE and the Industrial revolution of the 18th and 19ᵗʰ Centuries. Both events substantially changed the way in which humans lived, affording them greater survivability and secondly the ability to enjoy down time to follow pursuits outside of just survival, the side effect of this was an immense impact on the flora and fauna of the planet.

When looking at such epic scales, it is worth remembering that we are still so close to the Industrial Revolution that we cannot yet see the wood for the trees, pardon the pun. Ecosystems are still responding to changes that took place very recently in evolutionary terms, and in many places, they are being denied the space and time needed to settle into any new dynamic equilibrium. Perhaps it is our short life spans that make the current situation feel uniquely terminal. Or perhaps the real problem is not that nature cannot recover, but that the scale and speed of the changes we have imposed have made recovery far harder than it needs to be.

It is interesting to note that on a global history scale nature will be okay, it will be different but barring the total annihilation of the planet life will find a way. Do not forget we are part of nature and it us, 55% of our bodies cellular mass is composed of bacterial cells, many living in symbiosis with us. We can trace our lineage back to the same cells or protocells that created every organism on the planet. However, trusting to the norms of galactic time in our short lives is not very human. So, I will move away from the grand philosophy to the examine the smaller scale of nature conservation.

The first point to explore is the contradiction in Britain today. Britain is unusual in the strength of its public affection for the outdoors, national parks, Sunday walks, public footpaths and large conservation memberships are all part of the national self-image. The RSPB alone has around 1.2 million members and the Wildlife Trusts around 940,000. With so much public interest, why are we still so nature depleted? The 2023 State of Nature report states that monitored wildlife has declined by 19% since 1970, and that the UK now sits in the bottom 10% globally for remaining biodiversity.

We will raise money for an animal hospital in Africa or criticise poorer countries for failing to protect their environments, while doing too little on our own doorstep. Take deforestation, for example. I remember growing up being told that an area the size of Wales was cut down every year in the Amazon, and that this was a crime against the planet. Yet we too exploited our own resources long ago, and in the UK, we have lost large areas of woodland and ancient habitat. We should be saying, learn from us, look at the problems deforestation and agricultural intensification caused here, and do not repeat our mistakes. Instead, too often, we lecture and berate. The rapid climate change we are facing is inseparable from the Industrial Revolution, in which Britain was a prime mover. This is still broader and more grandiose than Derek Gow’s point, but I think it adds context to the difficulties he and other conservationists face. For a nation of animal lovers, we can be strangely reluctant to love our own wildlife with the same intensity that we reserve for nature in more exotic places.

The second area to explore is the controversy in Gow’s work, not the ambition itself, but the method and the precedent it can set. His work is backed by strong evidence-based science, but do his successes encourage less well-thought-out ideas to take root? Some wild beaver populations began through illegal or accidental releases. Natural England monitors reintroduction and rewilding projects for good reason, but is the regulatory noose too tight, stifling people like Gow who have the science, money and willingness to make meaningful change?

This is the necessary point that the bureaucracy steps in, who decides which species are reintroduced and which are removed, what are the criteria? This is a prudent, safe approach, we do not want another disaster like the release of North American Mink into the countryside by ill-informed well-wishers. Britain is already awash with invaders mostly invited in with open arms. I don’t mean the Grey Squirrels, Deer or Gamebirds released but I refer to gardens. There are an estimated 2.8 million gardens in the UK and they account for 4.8% of the land cover and the majority are full of non-native species. So, in what way can we say that one species belongs and another doesn't, the answer is balance, does a species fit into an ecosystem, does it fill a niche without removing another species. I think this is a pretty good standard.

Rewilding needs to happen at scale, and that is difficult to achieve. Gow’s land is 300 acres, while Knepp covers a staggering 3,500 acres, yet even these places are small when set against the scale of Britain’s depleted landscapes. To be truly effective, rewilding has to move beyond isolated reserves and private estates into connected habitats, river catchments and whole landscapes. Otherwise, we risk creating impressive pockets of recovery that remain ecologically fragile because they are surrounded by the same pressures that caused the damage in the first place.

That old reserve-design debate, single large or several small, still matters. In the UK we have often relied on the second model: a patchwork of small reserves managed by organisations such as the Wildlife Trusts, the RSPB and the National Trust. Those places are invaluable, but they cannot carry the entire burden of nature recovery on their own. If rewilding is to move from inspiring example to national strategy, it needs cooperation across farms, estates, councils, conservation bodies and communities. The question is not just whether Britain cares about nature. The question is whether we care enough to make room for it.

Perhaps that is where the Radical interview left me, impressed by Gow’s impatience, drive and diligence, sympathetic to the need for safeguards, and convinced that the larger question is not whether rewilding is possible but whether we are prepared to tolerate the messiness of it. Nature recovery will not always look tidy, convenient or bureaucratically comfortable. If we want beavers, storks, water voles and richer landscapes back, we need more than admiration for pioneers. We need the courage to let some of their ideas shape the mainstream. Is Derek Gow a radical, maybe but he is the kind of radical we need now to move nature conservation forward and challenge modern conventions.