Rewilding (1 Viewer)

Sangahyando said:

By the way, did you guys ever have Black Storks, or is that a continental thing?

Click to expand...

Good question and I my answer is, I don't think so.

Some reviews of Monbiot's Feral can be seen here :- http://www.monbiot.com/2013/05/24/feral-searching-for-enchantment-on-the-frontiers-of-rewilding/

Some will also tell you that Lynx are already roaming in the UK http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9056049/Big-cat-Britain-the-sightings.html

Sangahyando said:

Of these, at least the Beaver, Boar, and White Stork should be possible to re-introduce without much further ado.

Click to expand...

Beaver already undergoing trial reintroductions so only a matter of time
Wild boar have reintroduced themselves by escaping from farms
White stork I don't think its clear why they died out or even if they nested regularly. I imagine they may recolonise/colonise naturally if the habitat is there.

King Edward said:

Actually, you're wrong here in your criticism of Monbiot (as would be evident if you'd read the book). The point is that the UK flora & fauna evolved over a long period (millions of years), through successive ice ages, in association with elephants and other large mammals which became extinct (in Europe generally) due to hunting, and hence failed to recolonise Britain (and the rest of Europe) after the last ice age. The species we have now haven't evolved that much since, so are still going to retain features associated with the megafauna (e.g. the strong wood of box, holly and yew are suggested as adaptations to elephant damage in the woodland understorey, and the strong coppice regrowth of most broadleaves likewise).

Click to expand...

I haven't read the book, although I have read the reviews, and am familiar with the basic arguments, which centre on rewilding. But it's fairly irrelevent if Holly ever met elephants, just as it is irrelevent if crocodiles met dinosaurs. Whatever got here after the last ice age in the Holocene can be considered 'natural' and formed a new co-adapted ecosystem. Whatever ecosystem they used to be in another time and place is neither here nor there. Essentially all of our climax woodland vegetation evolved to adapt to large herbivores. The absence of pachyderms and bison that may or may not have existed elsewhere just means that the British island climax vegetation became fairly unique (in terms of species mix and structure) just as for other offshore islands.

Robin Edwards said:

of the more recent extirpations from Britain quoting Monbiot :-

Lynx - last known fossil remains from sixth century AD
Beaver - mid-eighteenth century
Wolf - last clear record is 1621
Bear - considered 2000 years ago
Wild Boar - last ones killed on the orders of Henry 111 in 1260 AD
Elk/Moose - youngest bones 3900 years old
White Stork - nesting in Edinburgh in 1416 AD
Dalmation Peilican - A single medieval bone found in Somerset levels

From what I've read so far - I would definitely recommend it to others

Click to expand...

I'm suspicious that the storks were ever really here as regulars. Lots of species nest sporadically, such as Rosefinch and Bee-eater, and even storks in recent years. I'd have expected much more evidence of storks from historical records if they were a part of the avifauna, so I'm doubtful that they're a candidate for reintroduction.

King Edward said:

The major flaw in the current model is that it seriously undervalues (the species of) late successional habitats, and prioritises the early successional species which were best able to survive under traditional management.

Click to expand...

But the only climax habitats are forest and saltmarsh/estuarine. There are plenty of coastal reserves protecting saltmarsh that have little or no management, and plenty of forest/woodland reserves that have 'minimal intervention'. In fact, the complaint is that woodland hasn't been managed enough (which, like you, I have problems with). So if we want to address declines in biodiversity then we need to manage the early successional habitats in order to maintain the species that depend upon them. If we don't manage these habitats (chalk downland, heath, scrub, wet grassland, shallow lacustrine) then we will simply lose the species and biodiversity will decline. Surely that can't be a good thing?

King Edward said:

All habitats on earth are somewhat affected by humans now, even very remote ones. So 100% natural isn’t possible, anywhere. That still leaves a world of difference between somewhere dominated by natural processes, albeit with some human influence, and one in which the whole structure of the ecosystem is predetermined by management.

Click to expand...

So again, please tell me why rewilding is different to the minimal intervention that is already on the spectrum of the current model? Why does it deserve its own name, and why is it 'a thing'? If it stands for nothing different than can already happen, then why is it a genre? It only means something if it represents the purist attitude. If rewilding is happy with some management and accepts that things will never be totally self-sustaining, then we alreayd have that, so can dispense with the silly name and the fantastical connotations and fringe idealists.

King Edward said:

The upland areas which are the most suitable for rewilding are actually quite poor in species, with large areas covered by pretty similar, low diversity habitat.

Click to expand...

I think you run into a serious problem here in that the few species of 'species poor' uplands tend to be habitat-specific and valuable. Whereas most of the species of the species-rich woodland you would replace them with tend to be abundant generalists. So if you rewilded moorland you would be replacing Merlin, Red Grouse, Ring Ouzel, Golden Plover, Curlew with Blue Tit, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Tawny Owl etc. So, yes, you ould get a much more species-rich habitat, but you would end up reducing local/regional biodiversity.

The same argument goes for reedbeds, which are an early successional species-poor habitat. We prevent it turning to woodland because we don't want to replace the handful of reedbed species (Bittern, Marsh Harrier, Bearded Tit, Spotted Crake) with a job lot of other species that are already abundant (Great Tit, Nuthatch, Sparrowhawk).

It could be argued that our natural climax woodland is quite uninteresting in European terms, being naturally reduced in the number of species due to the island effects, whereas our wetlands and open habitats are more interesting and biologically diverse.

We also run into problems where our open-habitat species become internationally important, such as breeding gulls and waders on uplands. Target that habitat for rewilding and all we'll end up with is 'natural' woodland that is still very second-rate when compared to the sort of woodland that is very common in Germany and France. And meanwhile we've lost something special.

Ian Woosey said:

Is this man Monbiot living on the same (God-forsaken) Planet as I am ??

The population of England alone (NOT GB) is 53 million. The land area of England is 130,000 km2.

The population of Australia (for eg) is 23 million. The land area of Australia is 7,692,000 km2.

Shocking ! Back to the drawing board Mr Monbiot.....

Click to expand...

Maybe so, but given the estimate that Australia has water reserves sufficient to sustain 16 million (top estimate) in the medium term and still keep a functioning artesian system, given that 82-91% of Australians live within 50km of the coast (Oz government figures 2001), and given that the climate trend in Oz is of increasing mean temperatures, increasing rain at the Top End and increasing aridity elsewhere, it's fair to say that their problems are of a very different kind...
MJB

AlfArbuthnot said:

Are these the idyllic days of DDT/Dieldrin and almost total loss of raptors and otters? When most people had to go on holiday to see Buzzards? When Otters, Deer and Foxes were still being legally chased around on horses? The glory days before the Wildlife & Countryside Act, before SSSI's,

Click to expand...

They were Iolo's idyllic days, I am somewhat older than him my "idyllic" days strted in the mid 1950. But then at that time I came to know people who could remember their "Idyllic" childhood days of the 1880s and 1890s.

Wildmoreway said:

They were Iolo's idyllic days, I am somewhat older than him my "idyllic" days strted in the mid 1950. But then at that time I came to know people who could remember their "Idyllic" childhood days of the 1880s and 1890s.

Click to expand...

I think I share the same period of idyllic days as Iolo to be honest but I know that in those days I had little comprehension of the damage done to species I just wasn't seeing. I wonder if the idyllic 1880's where bird watching was about shooting small passerines with sand cartridges and collecting eggs is really a period in time anyone would want to return to? The fact that there was plenty of nature to shoot, stuff and mount might be seen as idyllic though.

On the subject of the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction, it should be noted that AFAIK the culling is not an intentional feature of the program, except maybe for "problem" animals (though for livestock predation there is a reimbursement program). The "pressure to remain in the park" is because the *state* governments wish the wolves weren't there at all, but lack the authority to exterminate them within the park. The bison suffer from a similar situation, though recently there has been some progress in negotiating ways for them to move between habitat inside and outside the park without hazing or culling.

I have a dream ......

On balance, what's needed is .......... balance !

Ecosystems that can be self-managed by the biota within, and with enough connectivity to respond to evolutionary pressures - basically I think I've just described Earth ....... with one little difference .......

It's time to put the Nutters back in the Asylum ! :brains:

The only thing that belongs in fragmented pockets are ...... us. Humans.

Chuck most of us in the minimum number of Crystal Cities literally miles high - fully self-sufficient in power (sustainable, solar, wind, geothermal, wave power a' la Carnegie, trigeneration biogas, etc) /water (well from the sky silly) /and some food (productive cool walls, etc). Sited for minimal impact on the land, and connected by the absolute minimum of (critter friendly) efficient transport infrastructure.

Vast swathes of urban decay (such as like Detroit and such, such for example like) could be transformed as models of sustainability.

Most of the areas taken up by human sprawl are the riparian areas, and associated wetlands, floodplains, lowlands, valleys, woodlands, etc. Most of this could be returned to nature. The land necessary for agriculture would need to be inclusive of core conservation and connectivity methodolgy, and be managed holistically for true sustainability. If this means humans will have to stop breeding like flies, then hey - we'll just have to stop breeding like flies ......

Specific conservation areas would remain managed to maintain biodiversity during the transition. Other areas would be returned to "Old-Growth" status on an accelerated program, yielding some sustainable resources in the process.

There's nothing wrong with the Capitalist Free-Market Economy ...... it's just missing one little thing. The value of the Environment. The Environment needs to be number #1. Laws and Financial Accounting need to be re-written to reflect that. Exploitation of a Global Inheritence by a corrupt few needs to be resigned to just an embarrassing chapter of history.

The critters (whether megafauna - or - predator; hunter - or - prey) will then be free to interact with the plant kingdom to achieve balance (in whatever dynamic form that takes going forward), and the periphery of the 'Human Islands' carefully managed to mimimise conflicts.

Please wake me up when the Golden Age dawns .......... :cat:


Chosun :gh:

Good stuff, Chosun Juan. Maybe check the next vernal equinox point and see if it's in Aquarius yet?

Seems to me that the only people who have a vision of a better future are environmentalists and sci-fi authors, maybe it's time we revolt against the current regime and let them run the planet.