[Closed] The re-wilding of Britain

boxelder - Member

Hardly recreating wilderness. They've put some nice new gates in, and fencing.

which is exactly the point i was trying to make in the first place: no-one (never mind a community) has been forced out for re-wilding.

(i was aware that the NT had bought a farm/farmland, had mentioned planting some trees, and some peoples' heads had exploded)

If anyone wants to really wind themselves up, pick up any random copy of 'Scottish [s]Tory[/s] Field' Magazine.

There was a charming story in the last one I flicked through about an industrious young man who saved up two or three months wages working as a gillie or stalker on an estate in order to have his own duck hunting pond built.

In one paragraph he tries to pretend that by putting a pond in for the sole purpose of shooting ducks he was - "supporting the economy" (by buying shells I assume?) "helping manage watefowl populations" and most laughably "recreating valuable wetland habitat" (with the sole intent of blasting the inhabitants of said habitat back out of the sky?).

Throughout the magazine they love to present the image of hunting estate owners being 'guardians' of the landscape, which I suppose is true if you consider scorched grouse moors and barren, boggy deer slopes to the be the landscape's ideal form... 🙄

I am not against so called "Re-Wilding" in principle. Deer are a pest where I live and the current landowners make no attempt to manage the deer population.
If "Re-Wilding" is to be worth while it must have people at heart. Particularly country communities. If it's going to be just another source of cash to support large landowners be they private estates or NGO's like National Trust Scotland, then I'm against it.

We have a lot of problems here in Norfolk with lazy gamekeepers placing pheasant feeders next to the roads so it is easier for them to access, meaning that many rural roads are covered in the stupid buggers, on the flip side, we do eat a lot of pheasant and duck!

As opposed to re-wilding, i think what is needed is a change often in farming practises, although with such a large population i can see why this would be difficult, but it is clear to see here where i am in Breckland with small field sizes, lots of trees and hedgerows and rotating of arable crops with pigs that we have so much more visible wildlife than the farms 20 miles down the road in the Fens which are table top flat and the field sizes are huge. Due to the loss of bee populations, many of the fields here are now edged the first 10m with wild flowers and again you can visibly see the increase in bees/ butterflies and the like.

When? All indications are that humans moved in as the ice retreated.

Seriously please go and read about the natural history of Scotland. It's very interesting if that helps.

If anyone wants the book, I'll post it for a Treesforlife donation.

I might take you up on that!

Trying to create an environment that never was.

In Scotland those hills used to be hooching with people and their cattle. The Highlands were not a wilderness.

Here's a simple starter for you

http://treesforlife.org.uk/forest/human-impacts/deforestation/

[i]...the vast, primeval wilderness that spread across about 1.5 million hectares of the Highlands..[/i].

bigjim - Member
Here's a simple starter for you

http://treesforlife.org.uk/forest/human-impacts/deforestation/

And here's the relevant section out of that.

[i]...No one knows for sure what this wilderness was like..[/i]

In other words they are guessing.

There is however plenty of evidence of extensive human habitation in Scotland going back several thousand years, and evidence of large organised communities which means agriculture and pastoral activities and predator control.

And it's highly likely that there is plenty more evidence buried under several feet of peat in the so called wild places.

Then there's the effect of the various climate changes.

Any wilderness in Scotland predates human habitation, and that is a very narrow envelope after the melting of the ice. It is also quite possible that there was human habitation when there was ice, but the evidence of that would be long gone.

But you are arguing there was never a wilderness, and suggesting it went from ice to magically hooching with cattle farms, which is nonsense, there was a massive area of wilderness for many thousands of years, the human populations were nothing like that of today and would have incrementally crept up. I admire your persistence in the face of scientific evidence though - a job with the Trump administration awaits you.

I'd love to see some boar in the FoD. They might eat some of the sodding tourist and a few boar as well. Or is it the other way round?

Any wilderness in Scotland predates human habitation

No, it predates *agriculture*.

Ice age lasted until around 12,000 years ago, seems like agriculture was only brought into Britain something like 5-6,000 years ago.

But you are arguing there was never a wilderness, and suggesting it went from ice to magically hooching with cattle farms, which is nonsense, there was a massive area of wilderness for many thousands of years, the human populations were nothing like that of today and would have incrementally crept up. I admire your persistence in the face of scientific evidence though - a job with the Trump administration awaits you.

After the last ice-age, c.110,000 - c.11,700 years ago, the oldest evidence of human habitation in Scotland, near Biggar in Lanarkshire dates to c. 14,000 years ago, so within the last period of glaciation, and probably nomadic groups of hunters following migrating herds of horses or reindeer.
First permanent settlements seem to be around 3200-2800BC, the maximum extent of the ancient Caledonian forest came around came around 5000BC, arriving around 7000BC, the forest was greatly reduced in extent by 2000BC due to the climate becoming wetter and windier, from then human actions, including grazing of deer and sheep have reduced it to what it is now.
So there you go, climate change was largely responsible for the greatest reduction in the ancient Caledonian forests, humans just carried on what was already happening.
So if you want to re-wild Scotland you'll have to try to extrapolate what it was like around 150,000 years ago, which I'd suggest is pretty much impossible.
Get rid of the commercial crop forests, encourage the spread of Scots Pine and whatever broadleaf trees will grow in the local terrain, probably scrub oak, birch, hazel and the like, and you'll have something like what was there 5-7000 years ago.

bigjim - Member
But you are arguing there was never a wilderness, and suggesting it went from ice to magically hooching with cattle farms, which is nonsense, there was a massive area of wilderness for many thousands of years, the human populations were nothing like that of today and would have incrementally crept up. I admire your persistence in the face of scientific evidence though - a job with the Trump administration awaits you.

You're using scientific evidence which is actually guesswork.

Farming would not have been huge cattle farms but more small community and family groups, but plenty of them.

My opinion is based on the remains of large numbers of settlements in the hills and mountains of the Highlands. Plenty more would have disappeared under the sea as the levels rose.

My opinion is not guesswork based on what I read in a book, it is based on the number of sites I have visited over the years and looking at how the terrain was used. Grab an OS map of the Highlands, pick what looks like a reasonable spot, and you will almost inevitably find traces of ancient human habitation.

There were substantial stone built settlements in places like Orkney and South Uist 8,000 years ago and artefacts have been dated back 10,000 years in other areas.

I am arguing that there were people around from the start, and just like your evidence, it is definitely guesswork.

However the opinion is based on the existence of groups of people today who still live in Arctic conditions, so why not our ancestors? We have evolutionary adaptations which are an advantage in Arctic conditions.

The point is there would have been very little time in which there would have been wilderness untouched by human intervention.

BTW I would not be surprised if the population of the Highlands was bigger than it is now, but that would just be guessing.

Thanks for the job offer with the Donald. He's a cousin a few times removed*, but I would hate to take advantage of nepotism.

* not enough. 🙂

The beaver experiment worked though

We can always do with more beaver.

This. I chucked the Cornish beaver project £10 as part of their crowdfunding. Can't see the issue with further releases, though I imagine some farmers might disagree.

While we're on the subject banning (or at least removing subsidies from) grouse moors would be a good idea on many levels.

I still think people on this thread do not understand what rewilding means or may mean in a practical sense. This lot have a good stab at it

https://www.rewildingeurope.com/about/what-is-rewilding/

But still you are all having a good argument so crack on!!

@ratherbeintobago If you really want more beaver you'll surely have to part with more than a tenner

a_a - the definition (working definition) of re-wilding there is helpful. The goal isn't 'wilderness', but redressing the balance between what was, and the current environment.
Nobeer.... - you need to look up while out. We have red squirrels in the garden, red deer causing problems, hen harriers, otter cubs in the beck, quasi-relict arctic fish in the lake, alongside returned osprey. No bears or wolves though.

The goal isn't 'wilderness', but redressing the balance between what was, and the current environment.

Exactly

boxelder - Member
a_a - the definition (working definition) of re-wilding there is helpful. The goal isn't 'wilderness', but redressing the balance between what was, and the current environment...

Ah, Newspeak. They have changed the meaning of the world wild. No wonder some of us are confused.

Fair enough, but then really what they are proposing is simply an alternative method of cultivation and pastoral activity rather than wildness, or maybe simply an ersatz zoo.

I have no problem with that so long as there's no fences and our countryside doesn't get predators introduced after all the effort our ancestors went to to remove them, and above all the Highlands are not turned into a national park.

Caledonian forest came around came around 5000BC, arriving around 7000BC, the forest was greatly reduced in extent by 2000BC due to the climate becoming wetter and windier, from then human actions, including grazing of deer and sheep have reduced it to what it is now.

So there you go, climate change was largely responsible for the greatest reduction in the ancient Caledonian forests, humans just carried on what was already happening.

There's more to Scottish natural landscapes, ecosystems and wilderness than Caledonian forest - that's just one type of woodland, though to be fair at one time it did cover a decent chunk of the country, but certainly nowhere near all of it.