Rewilding

[Kevtherev]

A subject that has been discussed regularly on here with the wildlife trusts and Gov buying up farms and parcels of land.
My take on it is this.

If they want to rewild a farm or some land then the only way to do it would be to remove every trace of mankind’s activity over hundreds of years.

Remove every man made object be it a Fence
Stone wall
House
Bridge
Road
Foot path
The list is endless and I bet they wouldn’t like that version which in my mind is the only genuine rewilding you could get.

Im all for nature and habitat but we need a steady balance of local food production fair prices for produce, Protect local communities and smaller family farms.
Very short sighted of our Gov to neglect the very basics of life and that’s home grown British Food by British farmers.

what greater landscape than that of the British countryside mostly shaped by the hand of man and those men were FARMERS.

(And remember you can’t eat trees)

 

[Wombat]

You forgot the velociraptors

 

[Ffermer Bach]

no wild areas in the UK, all land here has and is managed

 

[Huno]

Nuclear wasteland re wilds really well

 

[Wisconsonian]

It worked here, vast areas of the American west were grazed, and had predators controlled one hundred years ago. Roads and cabins were removed, and it's now called wilderness. No problem there. Where we get problems is where people build houses, but don't graze it and the underbrush grows up like it hasn't for ten thousand years, then the area burns and they call it climate change instead of poor management.

 

[Danllan]

A subject that has been discussed regularly on here with the wildlife trusts and Gov buying up farms and parcels of land.
My take on it is this.

If they want to rewild a farm or some land then the only way to do it would be to remove every trace of mankind’s activity over hundreds of years.

Remove every man made object be it a Fence
Stone wall
House
Bridge
Road
Foot path
The list is endless and I bet they wouldn’t like that version which in my mind is the only genuine rewilding you could get.

Im all for nature and habitat but we need a steady balance of local food production fair prices for produce, Protect local communities and smaller family farms.
Very short sighted of our Gov to neglect the very basics of life and that’s home grown British Food by British farmers.

what greater landscape than that of the British countryside mostly shaped by the hand of man and those men were FARMERS.

(And remember you can’t eat trees)

I think that it would be cheaper just to leave a place; it doesn't take long for nature to take over and I can think of a few places where human settlement is hard to discern after even a few decades of abandonment, and after centuries it would be nigh on impossible. In natural, let alone geological terms, we're just passing through...

Trees supplied our earliest known regular land-based food source in this country, hazelnuts. Here on my place, we have huge numbers of hazels, as well as some chestnuts, walnuts, crabs, apples, pears, plums, cherries, elders, blackthorns, hawthorns and rowans. All have fruits and nuts which we harvest some of. I'm still not saying that the more extreme rewilders aren't barking, but it doesn't mean they are because they like trees.

There is a very strong argument for both increased / more efficient levels of farming (bring on gene editing), and for more space for nature. For myself, I think one of the few things the old War' Ag' Committees did well was to ensure that decent land wasn't wasted by wasters. If I were on the militant side of the rewilders, I'd be starting collections to buy-out farmers in National Parks - and I think it would be interesting for the rest of us to see how that went, either 'farming' it in pre-modern ways, or letting it go entirely to itself.

I do find it an odd contradiction that so many, perhaps most rewilders / eco-types are 'globalists' who dislike global trade, and profess to be keen on self-sufficiency and localism, but not on genuine food security via increasing UK ag' production. Funny old world...

 

[Tarw Coch]

I’ve always thought that rewilding shouldn’t need any human intervention, for it truly to be as described nature should be left to its own devices.
But you are right Kev, it should start with human intervention, removing all trace of human existence, probably even including things like hedges before letting nature take its own course.

Then again, I also think this whole rewilding malarkey is a load of Bollox.

 

[Huno]

I’ve always thought that rewilding shouldn’t need any human intervention, for it truly to be as described nature should be left to its own devices.
But you are right Kev, it should start with human intervention, removing all trace of human existence, probably even including things like hedges before letting nature take its own course.

Then again, I also think this whole rewilding malarkey is a load of Bollox.

So self induced Nuclear intervention by humanity might not be far off the mark??

 

[Kevtherev]

I’ve always thought that rewilding shouldn’t need any human intervention, for it truly to be as described nature should be left to its own devices.
But you are right Kev, it should start with human intervention, removing all trace of human existence, probably even including things like hedges before letting nature take its own course.

Then again, I also think this whole rewilding malarkey is a load of Bollox.

I think me and J R have done our share of hedge removal….

 

[Tarw Coch]

Nuclear wasteland re wilds really well

Indeed, there was a program on TV a few months back, 40 years on from Chernobyl.
A city that had been built to accommodate the workers from the plant along with all the rest of the services those people needed for every day life had been abandoned. It is slowly disappearing into a forest, including trees/bushes growing out of the roofs of buildings, it is amazing how fast nature takes things back without human intervention

 

[Huno]

Indeed, there was a program on TV a few months back, 40 years on from Chernobyl.
A city that had been built to accommodate the workers from the plant along with all the rest of the services those people needed for every day life had been abandoned. It is slowly disappearing into a forest, including trees/bushes growing out of the roofs of buildings, it is amazing how fast nature takes things back without human intervention

Putin took it back with a bit of armour!!

 

[Huno]

Putin took it back with a bit of armour!!

Not alot of food there sadly..even today

 

[Tarw Coch]

I think me and J R have done our share of hedge removal….

JR would have been a relatively young man when it was all going on back in the day.
I can remember dad telling stories about how he’d upset all the neighbours blowing tree stumps back in the day, think they’d used a bit too much on one just in front of the cottages.
Also talked of the hard work cutting back yards of overgrowth down the side of the river and the land he’d reclaimed. In more recent years it had been left to grow back quite a bit but I understand DG went in and sorted it out pretty quick and easy a few years back.

 

[Dry Rot]

I think that it would be cheaper just to leave a place; it doesn't take long for nature to take over and I can think of a few places where human settlement is hard to discern after even a few decades of abandonment, and after centuries it would be nigh on impossible. In natural, let alone geological terms, we're just passing through...

Trees supplied our earliest known regular land-based food source in this country, hazelnuts. Here on my place, we have huge numbers of hazels, as well as some chestnuts, walnuts, crabs, apples, pears, plums, cherries, elders, blackthorns, hawthorns and rowans. All have fruits and nuts which we harvest some of. I'm still not saying that the more extreme rewilders aren't barking, but it doesn't mean they are because they like trees.

There is a very strong argument for both increased / more efficient levels of farming (bring on gene editing), and for more space for nature. For myself, I think one of the few things the old War' Ag' Committees did well was to ensure that decent land wasn't wasted by wasters. If I were on the militant side of the rewilders, I'd be starting collections to buy-out farmers in National Parks - and I think it would be interesting for the rest of us to see how that went, either 'farming' it in pre-modern ways, or letting it go entirely to itself.

I do find it an odd contradiction that so many, perhaps most rewilders / eco-types are 'globalists' who dislike global trade, and profess to be keen on self-sufficiency and localism, but not on genuine food security via increasing UK ag' production. Funny old world...

There are some pretty barren wastelands up the north west of Scotland where rowans might grow but not much else on your list, and even those wouldn't grow on some of the islands.

 

[Danllan]

There are some pretty barren wastelands up the north west of Scotland where rowans might grow but not much else on your list, and even those wouldn't grow on some of the islands.

By an odd coincidence, the first thing that came into my head when I read the OP was a massive amount of hazelnut shells found in a midden during an archaeological excavation in the Hebrides, I think on Lewis, but it may have been Harris.

Of course that was from the Iron Age and times and climates change; as I wrote earlier, we are just passing through, and there will be hazels and others back there sooner or later - with or without us...

Nevertheless, anything that can grow in Finland, Norway, Iceland or Newfoundland can certainly survive anywhere in Scotland, and there is no lack of trees in much of them - there is good evidence of large forests in Icelend too.

 

[Bury the Trash]

old Bob likes a bit of wildlife watching in the wild

 

[Dry Rot]

By an odd coincidence, the first thing that came into my head when I read the OP was a massive amount of hazelnut shells found in a midden during an archaeological excavation in the Hebrides, I think on Lewis, but it may have been Harris.

Of course that was from the Iron Age and times and climates change; as I wrote earlier, we are just passing through, and there will be hazels and others back there sooner or later - with or without us...

Nevertheless, anything that can grow in Finland, Norway, Iceland or Newfoundland can certainly survive anywhere in Scotland, and there is no lack of trees in much of them - there is good evidence of large forests in Icelend too.

We had the Forestry Commission out on the islands one year who explained it is the salt off the sea that destroys the trees. To make the point, he suggested I lick the needles of some of the small trees that had been planted as an experiment. They certainly did taste of salt! Apparently, another time the foresters were on Orkney and saw a splendid fir tree in a private garden, so tapped on the door of the owners to ask them about it. They agreed, yes, it was indeed a fine tree. Then added, "Unfortunately, it's getting a bit big to bring in over winter any more".

 

[yoki]

When I was reading up prior to deciding what I would plant, I remember seeing some trees that are known to be "salt hardy".

I don't remember which ones specifically as it didn't apply to me, however not long after I was talking to a man who had trees planted on family land about a mile in from the coast and all of several species had died in it, which was subsequently attributed to the salty air.

 

[Danllan]

We had the Forestry Commission out on the islands one year who explained it is the salt off the sea that destroys the trees. To make the point, he suggested I lick the needles of some of the small trees that had been planted as an experiment. They certainly did taste of salt!...

Two things occur on reading that, firstly that sea levels change; and secondly that if it were the case that salt prevented growth, there wouldn't be forests along the coasts mentioned, and others such as in Western Canada and the tip of South America, being at similar or more extreme latitudes.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

I would have thought, it's more wind than salt that stops trees growing. I have noticed on the farm here, that the higher up the farm I get
there are no really old trees, as they end up blowing over at a certain point. There are mature quickthorn, but these are not a big tree even when fully grown.