Rewilding: is it the conservation silver bullet we
need?
In mid-July, four bison were released into Kent as part of a rewilding
effort to revert our land to its historical state. But is this the best way to
boost biodiversity?
Rewilding is hard to avoid. Almost everyone, it seems, is rewilding
something, somewhere. Landowners are exhorted to rewild farmland, moorland and
mountains, while governments are being asked to commit to rewilding policies.
During No-Mow May (a wonderful initiative) people talked of roadside verges
being rewilded.
There’s even a thriving ecosystem of books, blogs and websites urging
and supporting homeowners to rewild their gardens, which seems uncannily
similar to ‘gardening for wildlife’. In fact, if you break it down, much of
what is called rewilding is a rebrand of something we already had. When the
Aspinall Foundation hit the headlines with a plan to move elephants from a zoo
in Kent to Kenya, the venture wasn’t called translocation, or captive-release
or reintroduction. No, these elephants were to be ‘rewilded’.
Rewilding makes intuitive sense if we take a big picture view of it. The
basic idea is that humans have converted land that was once “wilderness” into
some other form of land-use. Rewilding aims to revert land to the way it would
be if we weren’t about. This wild state, it is presumed, supported a more
diverse and functionally complex ecosystem.
We have converted, de-wilded if you like, great swathes of land across
the planet to serve us in various uses. You live in one such land use –
residential. Perhaps you visited the shops earlier (commercial land), via a
road (transportation) to buy bread (agricultural). Maybe you’re reading this on
your phone that requires power (energy generation), materials (mining) and
manufacturing (industrial). All of these types of land could be rewilded.
Regardless of what land you rewild there are many fundamental questions
to ask. Perhaps most importantly, when are you rewilding to – pre-Industrial
Revolution, pre-agricultural, pre-human? If you rewild your patch to emulate
this ‘lost’ ecosystem, how will it fit within the broader landscape with all
its other land-uses? Are you sure your rewilded patch will actually support
more biodiversity? How much management are you willing to do to convert the
land to this new state, and maintain it? Will you reintroduce species that have
been lost?
It is this last question that tends to attract the most headlines. This
is especially the case when the reintroduced species are predators, like wolves
or lynx, both of which have been suggested to be reintroduced to the UK.
Recently, another species came into the rewilding spotlight, with headlines
proclaiming that “Bison are back in the UK”. European bison, nearly went
extinct, but thanks to some serious conservation efforts they are recovering
well and a small herd has been released in Kent.
“Rewilding bison” conjures up images of huge herbivores roaming across
the landscape, but the reality is somewhat different. A handful of animals will
be living behind a fence in a woodland where visitors will be able to go to see
them. Another fact that detracts somewhat from the rewilding conceit is the
fact that the European bison species in Kent never lived in the UK. They aren’t
back, and haven’t been rewilded, because they were never here. The species in
the UK were the extinct Pleistocene woodland bison and steppe bison.
Rewilding is undeniably exciting. It taps into the thought that we are a
scourge on the planet and that the best way to change that is to remove us, and
let nature take its course. Rewilding projects seem grand, and attract
headlines, celebrity endorsement and funding. Surely, then, rewilding is good
conservation? Well, maybe it is sometimes, but there are more than a few
problems. First, most conservation isn’t glamorous, exciting or especially
attractive to celebrities, journalists or funders. Rewilding tends to hog the
limelight, and that can leave many other ventures, with proven success,
woefully overlooked.
A second problem with rewilding is more fundamental. In the developed
world, rewilding tends to focus on agricultural or other non-residential land.
It is natural for us to look further afield, and to view the wider world in the
same way. EO Wilson, for example, suggested putting aside half the world for
wildlife, and it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking this would be easy.
I can see plenty of land that could be rewilded from the window of my
home, as I eat food produced through intensive agriculture I bought at a
supermarket. But in many parts of the world people live very differently. They
rely on a closer connection to the land, and sometimes that connection goes
back for thousands of years. Land we see as potential rewilded wilderness, they
call home.
Rewilding certainly can work, and it is likely to an important part of
our planetary recovery toolkit. But we need to make sure rewilding doesn’t
become a hammer that makes every conservation problem a nail. If conservation
is to work well, then we need more than one tool. That means we need to think
much harder about how we can share the land we use to live with the biodiversity
we need to survive.
By Adam Hart
Published: 01st August, 2022
Sources/ other Links:
https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/rewilding-is-it-the-conservation-silver-bullet-we-need/
https://rewildingeurope.com/rewilding-in-action/wildlife-comeback/tauros/
https://wilderness-society.org/what-is-the-bisons-future-in-europe/
Update:
Portugal Welcomes First Wild Bison in 10,000 Years–the Keystone Species for Rewilding a Quarter-Million Acres
Rewilding Europe is thrilled to announce the arrival of a small herd of bison in a large valley in Portugal.
Believed to be the key to preventing catastrophic wildfires, invasive species spread, and promoting endemic biodiversity, it’s the first time bison have been present in Portugal since the last Glacial Maximum.
From Poland to Romania to the UK, European wood bison are now firmly recognized as one of the best tools for returning what little wilderness Europe has left to as wild a state as possible.
By Andy Corbley - Jun 6, 2024
Fontes/Links:
Update:
El bisonte conquista el Alto Tajo restaurando su entorno e impulsando el turismo
El Recuenco (Guadalajara),- Nueve ejemplares de bisonte europeo pastan desde hace cuatro meses en el municipio de El Recuenco, en el Alto Tajo de Guadalajara, tras reintroducir esta especie por primera vez en monte público en España, donde ya son un atractivo para este municipio, que está viendo sus efectos, desde el impulso del turismo al mantenimiento del monte.
Cinco hembras y cuatro machos, que proceden de una finca privada en El Espinar (Segovia), recorren el monte de esta localidad desde finales de enero en un proyecto impulsado por su alcalde, Enrique Collada, quien conocía las iniciativas de renaturalización de la fundación Rewilding Spain.
“Desde El Recuenco hemos puesto en marcha diversas iniciativas de gestión forestal, como el aprovechamiento de madera, y nos gustó el planteamiento con este animal, que es muy singular por su capacidad para comer una gran cantidad de biomasa”, ha explicado a EFE Collada, quien destaca las más de 20.000 hectáreas de las que disponen estos bisontes para realizar un pastoreo natural.
Su llegada al municipio ha levantado gran expectación en la zona, atrayendo a turistas enamorados de la naturaleza y los animales, sobre todo porque estos bisontes son los primeros que se encuentran en monte público en España y pueden verse si se visita el pueblo, manteniendo la debida distancia de seguridad pero sin ningún riesgo para quienes topen con ellos recogiendo setas o dando un paseo, ha señalado el alcalde.
“Son compatibles con la caza, la recogida de setas o el ganado en la zona. Ellos se suman a nuestro ecosistema, si bien están perimetrados con una valla de seguridad porque están monitorizados”, ha manifestado el primer edil, quien ha apuntado que hace décadas los vecinos mantenían el monte, algo que ahora se ha perdido, y su estado es clave para la prevención de incendios en verano.
A la cuadrilla de personas contratadas para la monitorización y atención de los animales en el proyecto, alguno de los cuales son del pueblo, se suman otros impactos positivos: “Una de las razones que convencieron al promotor del proyecto de hotel paisajístico y resort ecológico para venir aquí fue el hecho de un proyecto con bisonte europeo, por la singularidad que tiene y por lo que significa”, ha afirmado.
(...)
Por: Beatriz Retuerta - 16-05-2026
Fontes/Links:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/26782785521386646
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