Ed Sheeran has no rewilding wand for likes of BBC Autumnwatch's Wild Ken Hill, Snettisham
For anyone interested in the countryside and the environment, rewilding is a hot topic right now.
Here in Norfolk many of the local farmers and landowners are seriously engaged in schemes that could come under the rewilding umbrella.
Wild Ken Hill at Snettisham is probably the best known of these, with its phased introduction of species such as turtle doves and beavers – the former being rescued from near extinction and the latter being reintroduced after they were hunted to extinction.
Over on the Holkham Estate it is a more managed approach. Cattle are used to graze the salt marshes and careful management of the grassland and wooded areas – including a ban on dogs off the lead during the breeding months – has successfully attracted a wider range of birds, animals and insects.
Organic, nature friendly farming has been taking place at Courtyard Farm in Ringstead for many years and walkers in the area will take great delight in the wildflower meadows and the fields and verges that are alive with wildlife.
And on other farms and estates, landowners and tenant farmers are engaged in activities that are somewhere on the spectrum between nature friendly and rewilding. Leaving verges, field corners and unproductive land uncultivated allows nature to do its thing, and is a sympathetic way of continuing with food production while allowing greater biodiversity.
Which is why the news that Ed Sheeran is pledging to buy up, in his words, ‘as much land as I can’, in order to plant trees, should be treated with some caution. The danger with the concept of rewilding is that it becomes hugely misunderstood and misappropriated by people seeking to redress their own impact on the environment.
It doesn’t matter how many trees Sheeran plants. He still travels round the world by plane to take his music to the masses. Likewise, when companies or individuals who have large carbon footprints buy carbon credit from farmers, or give money to wildflower meadow schemes, or plant trees, it doesn’t make their impact on the environment any less. And, without careful thought it could be detrimental to us all and make our fragile food system even weaker.
We can never be self-sufficient in food production, there are simply too many of us living in the UK. But equally, we cannot simply become a large nature reserve. There is a reason why there are no wolves, beavers and lynx roaming naturally in the UK. There is simply not the space or the ecosystem to support them in this day and age.
What we need is a balanced approach which recognises that there are areas of the country where a return to nature is possible but, where the soil is fertile and crops can be grown, then food production should be a priority. Celebrities and companies easing their own climate guilt by randomly buying land to plant trees is ill-thought out and masks the real issue.
Sarah Juggins
