The 2023 State of Nature Report states that ‘the UK is now one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth’ and facing a ‘biodiversity crisis’. It is not surprising then that interest in ecosystem restoration and the concept of rewilding is growing.
Back in March, I went to a free screening of a documentary film called Why Not Scotland? at a local cinema. The film follows Flo, a young woman living Glasgow, as she travels to countries around Europe where rewilding projects are restoring nature: deeply forested mountains; tranquil waterscapes teeming with life; brown bears returning to their old habitat right on the doorstep of a town; and people passionate about restoring and living with nature. As she sees what is possible, Flo asks: why not Scotland? We also get a tantalising glimpse of what is being done in Scotland to bring back some of the native wildlife that had disappeared.
Produced by SCOTLAND: The Big Picture, a nature restoration charity and founding member of the Scottish Rewilding Alliance, the film is a centrepiece of the Alliance’s campaign calling for Scotland to declare itself the world’s first Rewilding Nation, and the audience attending the screening were invited to sign the Rewilding Nation Charter. The film is available, free of charge, for independent screenings in communities and at events.
Rewilding is a controversial subject. Some species that became extinct such as white-tailed eagles and Eurasian beavers have been successfully reintroduced in Scotland, but some farmers are hostile to their presence. Not all farmers are against rewilding though — there are also those who embrace the idea, seeing positives in restoring natural ecosystems. Another film I saw recently shows one such example.
Wilding is a documentary film based on Isabella Tree’s award-winning book by the same title and tells the story of the Knepp Estate in West Sussex, which her husband Charlie inherited. After years of trying and failing to turn a profit from the over-farmed land, Charlie makes a decision to sell off all the farm machineries and take down fences, returning the fields to wild. Inspired by the work of Dutch ecologist Dr Frans Vera and the Oostvaardersplassen nature reserve in the Netherlands, he introduces older breeds of cattle, ponies and pigs to roam freely around the estate while allowing native flora and fauna to populate the land, undaunted by the hostile reactions from other farmers in the area. After 20 years, the estate is home to turtle doves, storks and beavers, and surveying the thriving wildland, Charlie talks about his vision of one day seeing a continuous rewilded corridor stretching across the South Downs all the way to the coast.
In December 2022, 196 countries around the world, the UK among them, adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, dubbed the ‘Paris Agreement for Nature’. The Framework includes the so-called ’30 by 30′ target, which calls for governments to designate 30% of Earth’s terrestrial and aquatic area as protected areas by 2030. For the nature-depleted UK, this will take huge multi-stakeholder efforts. And quickly, as 2030 is not far away and restoring nature takes time. Rewilding substantial areas of the land and the sea across the country must be the answer.