Rewilding: A Climate Change and Conservation Solution
By: Daniel Whitlock
Tags: Global Warming, Climate Change, Conservation, Sustainability, Environment

One of my favourite lockdown reads so far has been Wilding by Isabella Tree. It truly opened my eyes to the process of conservation and rewilding and the extremely positive effects it can have.

When we talk about reducing climate change or protecting species from extinction we often talk about using less paper, switching to renewable energy, driving less, using less plastic etc etc etc.

This however, isn’t enough. Simply slowing down our destruction of the planet and it’s ecosystems isn’t enough.

Millions of years of evolution and trial and error have created forests and jungles bursting with life and biodiversity. They provide home to millions of creatures and plants, have some of the healthiest soil in the world and store billions of tonnes of carbon.

The book follows a family who left an old abandoned farm in Sussex to do it’s thing. They made minimal input such as a few seeds and some grazing animals but nature did the majority of the work. The results were astounding.

Here are some key takeaways.

Let nature take the driver’s seat, humans aren’t very good at recreating biodiversity.

Often tree planting organisations set off with good intentions yet rarely come close to what a natural forest would be like. Monocultures, or large areas full of one species in rows may absorb some carbon but they do not have any kind of biodiversity.

Wild animals need a large variety of plants and trees to provide shelter and food. A single species of tree might be suitable for a bird to make a nest, but it won’t house the insects it needs to eat.

This is the importance of biodiversity. Many species rely on each other for survival in what’s known as a symbiotic relationship. A good example of this would be flowers and bees: bees pollinate the flowers, flowers give the bees nectar to make honey. Without one, the other will not survive.

Oak trees and squirrels. Oak trees drop their seeds (acorns) and squirrels collect them to store up for winter; they take them far away and bury them ready for the colder months when oak trees no longer drop acorns. However, often the squirrel forgets where it has buried the acorn and so the buried acorn can germinate and grow into an oak tree. Oak trees depend on the squirrel to spread its seeds, squirrels depend on the oak tree for food.

This goes even further though. Squirrels often bury acorns near or under bushes and shrubs in order to remember where they buried it. As the acorn grows into an oak sapling, the thorny shrub protects the young sapling from being eaten by grazers such as cows or horses.

Hopefully this explains the needs for an environment rich in biodiversity, different animals and plants, in order to provide a healthy ecosystem.

Even simpler than this, all animals need to eat and therefore must rely on other smaller animals or plants for it’s survival.

More plants/weeds means more insects, more insects means more birds and bats, meaning more mammals allowing more dispersal of tree seeds meaning more life etc etc etc.

Nature is very, very good at remaining in equilibrium and controlling species while boosting biodiversity constantly.

Humans plant a few different trees and expect it to solve all our problems; these trees often don’t last more than 5 years due to this lack of any symbiotic relationships. For context, ancient forests contain trees up to 400 years old.

The bit of land the book is based on, Knepp, was left to do it’s own thing for around 20 years and is now one of the most biodiverse areas in the UK.

Bring back rare species

One of the many successes of the Knepp rewilding project is the fact that it’s biodiverse landscape providing food and shelter for just about any native species means that endangered species are returning to the UK.

Purple Emperors, a beautiful species of butterfly and birds such as Nightingales and Turtle Doves which are all struggling to survive in the increasingly urban landscapes of the UK are on the rise at Knepp. They have made their homes here and have been successfully breeding.

Climate change is accelerating thousands of species towards extinction which wouldn’t have happened unless humans came and messed up the atmosphere. Hunting also has a massive effect. Slowing that down isn’t enough.

We need to actively create habitats, or rather allow nature to create habitats, for them to increase their numbers and have a safe space to hunt and reproduce.

The importance of this is that symbiotic relationship; I keep mentioning it for a reason, it’s very important. When one species goes extinct, this often leads to multiple other species going extinct that might have relied on it for food or seed dispersal.

An example of this is wolves going from Yellowstone National Park. Hunting the wolves to extinction led to a boom in numbers of deer (their prey). Deer, being grazers, over grazed the landscape allowing no new tree saplings to grow and eliminating forest in the area, slowly turning it all into grassland. Therefore, the extinction of this species of wolf meant less trees, meaning less insects and birds, lower soil quality meaning less worms and bacteria and so on.

Do you see where I’m getting at here? All species have a place in nature and getting rid of one can often have a large knock on effect. This is why protecting rare species is so important.

Regenerating poisoned soil

Years of regular monocultural agriculture strips soil of all life.

Following years of doing it sustainably with grazing animals, healthy soil worms and bacteria or crop rotations, farmers learnt that they can get higher yields by using artificial chemical fertilisers.

Healthy soil contains about 8 billion microbes per handful, that’s more than there are humans on Earth. These microbes break down organic matter and create nutrients.

Modern agriculture decided they don’t need this life because it’s quicker to provide the required nutrients themselves using chemicals. On top of this they out more chemicals in the form of pesticides to kill all the insects too. Then they spray the food with chemicals again to make sure the food is ready to eat by the time they fly it half way across the world to your supermarket.

Once the land is well and truly dead, farmers move on to a new patch of land to destroy.

Knepp was farming land, the soil had little life in it initially.

By allowing plants and trees to grow, animals returned, life returned to the soils and the engineers and construction workers of nature got to work.

Within a few years the soil became healthy again, full of nutrients and life ready to provide nutrients to new plants and animals, increasing biodiversity.

Carbon Capture

Irresponsible land management releases soil carbon into the atmosphere. Healthy soil with plants and grazing animals allows to soil to absorb carbon instead.

When we think of planting trees to capture carbon we imagine it all in the trunk. They take carbon dioxide from the air, release the oxygen and store the carbon.

However, the dark brown colour of healthy soil is actually carbon, which is naturally black. Adding plants, trees and grazing animals increases the soil’s health and allows it to store more carbon.

Restoring soil is an incredible way of storing carbon. The 4 per 1000 initiative suggests that increasing the carbon capture in the Earth’s soil by just 0.4% every year would completely offset the Earth’s carbon footprint.

Flood mitigation

Forests are some of the best flood barriers in the world. The healthy, well draining soil is designed to hold water to prepare for droughts. Farmland and urban concrete jungles cause water to run straight over the surface which has lead to a massive increase in flooding in the UK and all over the world.

Restoring forests, wetlands and biodiverse ecosystems will capture rain as it falls and feed the plants instead of allowing it to run off into towns and cities, flooding them.

Governments often tend to spend billions building flood walls and dams to help prevent flooding. Nature’s flood protection has been proven to be more effective, significantly cheaper plus you get all the added bonuses discussed in this article.

Healthier meat

Some of the main arguments for eating less meat are that the animals are kept in bad conditions, they release a lot of methane which is bad for the planet, they eat a lot of grain which requires lots of land, fertiliser and water and it’s not even that good for you.

Knepp uses longhorn cows to graze the landscape. Large mammals like this are important for maintaining a balanced ecosystem; they maintain over-growing plants, aerate the soil and fertilise it with their faeces.

Occasionally however, with no large predators on the land (for obvious reasons) to control their numbers they do have to cull some for the benefit of the entire ecosystem.

However, it has been proven that grazing cows which eat a large variety of highly nutritious food all day every day are the most nutritious and best tasting meats on the planet.

They live a great life, they produce significantly less methane, they are much more nutritious and are significantly cheaper; you don’t even need to feed them, nature takes control of that one.

So it’s win, win. This can provide some kind of financial incentive to rewilding as the cows benefit the biodiversity of the ecosystem while providing a healthy guilt-free meat meal.

Mental health

Many studies have proven that nature is very beneficial for our mental health.

The sound of the birds and insects buzzing, trees rusting in the wind, clear air and bright colours calms the mind and distracts from the chaotic urban life.

A study I read was based in a hospital. They had 2 wards, one with windows facing backstreets, concrete, no greenery at all and one with windows facing trees, lakes and green landscapes.

The results showed that the patients facing the trees and nature required less painkillers, recovered faster and less of them died from their illnesses. Isn’t that incredible?

This can suggest that even if you are well, being around nature more often can help prevent illness and boost overall wellbeing, mentally and physically.

Providing more of these green spaces (no, a green space isn’t a golf course or a lawn, they are monocultures and are awful for the environment, an argument for another day) would allow more people access to the incredible health benefits of spending time in nature.