Reintroduction & Rewilding

[Sanju]

REVIVING THE NATURAL WORLD: The re-wilding vision

*This image is copyright of its original author

I found myself in Cornwall, on a drab and overcast, typically British day, not without the wispy-grey sky lingering above.

The area was very classic England, the rolling hills of arable, the freckling of Friesian cows and the golden glisten of sprinkled wheat fields. Above, on the nearby crest of a hill, stood a proud yet modern turbine, rotating in the chilly breeze, however, below the podium of the future, gave way to a serenely sloping valley. Within the epicentre of the river drawn valley was something not-so typical to the British landscape; an ecological experiment changing the way in which we value nature and our place in it.

To our fortune, we were led by a fascinatingly knowledgeable cap, Chris Jones, the proud owner and farmer of the land within the vicinity. As we walked, we passed into the reserve, bordered by electric fences daggered into the ground and marked ‘DANGER’, in exhilarating Jurassic Park style. The fences were holding back a literal jungle, a remnant of our distant past, the ancient temperate or atlantic rainforest that was present in this valley.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Unfortunately, the nearby town downstream, Ladock, has been cloaked with bad floods over the past few decades, leaving residents disgruntled and local ecologists scratching their heads. Just how can we stop this plague of floods? Chris has a solution, although unusual – beavers.

By introducing a wonderful pair of beavers into the fenced area of forest, the beavers can freely build their iconic dams, which drastically decrease the speed of water. Chris accounted; ‘we tried measuring the speed of the water by putting dye into the water in the morning, however we gave up when it went dark’.

*This image is copyright of its original author

The ecological impacts have gone much further. Firstly, in the area they are situated, the pond and stream has doubled in its size, which has created a very rare habitat known as wet woodland. Not only this, but the beavers completely change the landscape around them for the benefit of other species too. The pools and swells of the stream have now allowed the local trout to double in size and have a place suitable to lay their precious eggs; both trout and eggs provide food for otters and herons.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Now otters are present, this reduces the population of invasive American mink, which is famous for killing endangered species such as water vole, wetland birds and fish. Also, the beavers action of felling trees causes them to ‘bounce’ back in vengeance, providing plentiful food for deer, whose dung furthermore fertilises the ground in addition to creating areas for song birds to nest, which attracts hawks, stoats and weasels. The slower water flow has also allowed for a greater number of frogs because the frogspawn they lay can only develop in slow water.

But, amazingly, the beavers have improved human life too. The town below, has virtually no flooding events, because the beavers, although not thoroughly proven, will mitigate almost all water surges. Simply amazing.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Discovering the wonderful woodland valley in Cornwall has only reinforced a very primal, raw and visceral urge that I’ve been needing to express, a memory from our past; the ability to go wild. It may appear mad and fringe, but I believe that every one of us on earth has an innate and sometimes undiscovered craving for nature that many of us in the developed world cannot explore.

Quote:Enter the concept of Rewilding: returning some of the land to mother nature’s ancient and ubiquitously ageless processes. Systems such as life and death, decomposition, vegetative succession, (and my personal favourite) ecosystem and trophic engineers; like the beaver for example.

At present our ecosystems are, to many peoples ignorance, a few rusty red leaves belonging to a once great tree with an apple green upper story. The notion that the earth is still an unspoilt wilderness is not true. It’s simply not. Push aside your preconceived notions, your ideas of unspoilt Africa, untouched tropics. Our world is dying. We are in free fall: species falling from the very branches of that former tree. Dead. Buried. Forgotten.

*This image is copyright of its original author

But, even more, is the explanation of the cause. It is us, humans. Ever since we left Africa, we have not stopped. We hurled through the great lands of the world killing mainly, and ironically, the most important species.

Keystone species, animals generally large and therefore full of meat. In doing so, we broke the branches of the tree - links in the web of life. In addition, and, even more potent is the fact that people have forgotten. We have forgotten the damage done.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Quote:The species exterminated. The landscapes destroyed. All because it happened a long time ago? We have what I call ecosystem dementia. Take for instance the UK. We love our man-made deserts. Enter moorland: spoilt, burned, grazed and slashed landscape. A shadow of its former life. Its former woodland pasture. Woodland of boar and beast, packs of wolves, lone bears and herds of governing, grazing animals.

Modern conservation is great however, it takes species, spaces and landscapes at face value in a distinctively human manner. It does not endeavour to look to the past or the future for that matter. Its stationary. Like a pedicured, Victorian garden. No species leaving or coming. Growing nostalgia not nature.

Yet it is us, humans who feel the brunt and the pain of the whims our of culturing nature. We are the organisms that feel the impact of floods from upland deforestation. We are the ones failing to feed the world’s population because of the wipe out of bees. We are the ones to lose that value of nature.

Quote:However, out of the dyeing flame, we have a spark of hope in the concept of rewilding.

A bewildering word and maybe even worrisome to a few, yet an even more optimistic concept, mass ecosystem restoration. The idea that our damage can be reversed. This is where beavers come into play. The humble experiment in the middle of Cornwall, mentioned previously, reinforces my previous thoughts - we need rewilding. To stand a chance of what the world may throw at us, we need resistant, resilient natural systems: Flood defence, extinction mitigation, water filtration, carbon sinks, green space; the list goes on.

With all of the above the points I have made an argument begins to proliferate. An argument for the sake of the natural world and ourselves. Let’s introduce the beaver.

Why not the wild boar?
The wolf?
The bear?
The bison?

Maybe even one day the elephants and rhinos of the last interglacial? The world is our oyster. Our home, our dinner table, our park, ourselves. We admit that we are in the world but maybe also we need to come to terms with the fact that the world is inherently in us; it is part of our nature.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Source: Britannica
I want you to picture this, Death Valley in California. A harsh, brutal, thought-lifeless landscape. A husk of the earth. Yet in 2005, tremendous rains scattered over the desert sands watering the landscape. Amazingly, the ground began to move, wriggle with the sign of life. Bursting from the parched grounds were the emerging heads of flowers, blooming in the scorching sun.
A bomb of colour on a discarded and regretting land.

That under the right conditions, when the earth and its inhabitants allow it our landscapes, maybe thought to be derelict and destroyed by us, will bloom and explode in a spiral of true wilderness, the manifestation of hope.

https://www.endangeredapparel.co.uk/enda...ing-vision Reply