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Author Topic: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why  (Read 5968 times)

Me

  • Joined Feb 2014
  • Wild West
Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« on: May 11, 2019, 07:56:09 pm »
Simple rewilding shifts the burden of food production and the associated environmental problems abroad, doing nothing to protect the global environment but tightening world food supplies and disproportionately affecting the worlds poor. We are a rich nation with relatively good soils, we have a responsibility to demonstrate how to feed our population from our own soils without destroying the planet. Rewilding focuses only on land abandonment as an ideal, the elephant in the room is the population still needs feeding the two issues cannot be divorced. Rewilding Britain without agricultural self sufficiency = Intensification of agriculture abroad = No nett gain

arobwk

  • Joined Nov 2015
  • Kernow: where 2nd-home owners rule !
Re: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« Reply #1 on: May 11, 2019, 10:12:13 pm »
What, please [member=35918]Me[/member] , was the genesis of your post ?

Womble

  • Joined Mar 2009
  • Stirlingshire, Central Scotland
Re: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« Reply #2 on: May 11, 2019, 10:40:48 pm »
Me, you're right of course, but it's not as digital as you make out. If the rewilded land was previously being used to grow food. The question is, how much food was it producing per acre, and is the loss of that food 'worth it' for whatever benefits rewilding gives us?
"All fungi are edible. Some fungi are only edible once." -Terry Pratchett

Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« Reply #3 on: May 12, 2019, 12:34:51 am »
I think we have more than < a responsibility to demonstrate how to feed our population from our own soils without destroying the planet>....we need to actually do it. Perhaps that's what you mean.  Certainly there seems to be a view that just because WW2 is in the past, the need to feed ourselves from home grown produce has also passed.  History shows us that it repeats itself, and famine will come to us too - we are an island, with a sea to cross, or air to fly through, in order to bring in food from abroad.  Not to be able to do that could come from war or climate change, or some other disaster. 

The rewilding  fashion is not to blame for our reliance on imports. Cast your mind back a few years to 'set aside' when land owners were paid to leave their fields uncultivated, a sort of disorganised rewilding.  The politics of trade agreements are way beyond my ken, but we do seem to be trapped in long term agreements to buy from other countries, for example Tesco is locked into a deal to buy a large amount of lamb from NZ, while we then have to find a destination abroad to which we can sell our home produced lamb.  This has never made any sense to me.

I don't think there is any intention to rewild a large proportion of the country but it would make sense if what is rewilded was not previously good agricultural land - we are already growing crops for biofuels there.  How would you justify that, any more than rewilding?  Biofuels are a mockery, using as much energy to produce as they give out, and destroying vast tracts of virgin forests throughout the world so the rich can drive their gas guzzling cars, and warm their homes with their wood pellet boilers, and governments can feel smug and self satisfied.

There is so much wrong with the way we run our world, and until Climate Change is sorted, rewilding Britain is the least of our worries.  At least rewilding allows more trees to grow to swallow up pollution, gives a home to our flora and fauna to maintain some of our biodiversity, and still produces plenty of food from the land

There are two sides to the view that by importing food we are taking that food out of the mouths of 'the world's poor'. The only way some countries can pay off their vast overseas debts, or earn money to import what they cannot grow or produce in their own countries, is to sell overseas ie to 'rich countries', including Britain. As long as the proceeds of selling overseas go to the population, not into the pockets of a few, of course.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2019, 12:39:20 am by Fleecewife »
"Let's not talk about what we can do, but do what we can"

There is NO planet B - what are YOU doing to save our home?

Do something today that your future self will thank you for - plant a tree

 Love your soil - it's the lifeblood of your land.

Terry T

  • Joined Sep 2014
  • Norfolk
Re: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2019, 01:27:25 am »
Maybe rewilding is more important than feeding people. Controversial I’m sure but the more people survive the more people we make and when does that stop?

pgkevet

  • Joined Jul 2011
Re: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2019, 09:47:53 am »
This is going to sound harsh and brutal but reality is that there will never be a global consensus will to sort matters of population or even climate because too many countries and big business remain only concerned with themselves and indeed stamping down any upstarts or using them.


If one (sadly) accepts that premis then the main point is to look after oneself - albeit with as many environmental concerns to at least show the rest of the world what can be done. You can't fix everything.

There are many absurdities as I hinted in another thread and importing anything we can grow or make here is simply stupid - it adds to our huge national debt, causes unemployment or worse employment in underpaid work - (my usual soap box against takeaway coffee, takeaway food deliveries and a lot of the gig economy) and worse we lose the skills and plant to make the stuff should everything go tits-up.


One of the paradoxes of low wages is social welfare is needed to allow folk to live - effectively subsidising those wages through the back door instead of those businesses having to increase wages and costs and price themselves out of the market of selling rubbish and release workers or productive stuff - except we're now too lazy to want to do it.

When it comes to rewilding then I always argue as to at what point in history do you want to go; prewar, saxon, cretaceous? Nature has a way of balancing itself when it can and suddenly mucking about with it again doesn't help. It's more use  stopping knocking stuff down than in building ye olde back up - give it a chance to establish it's current balance.


sheeponthebrain

  • Joined Feb 2016
  • Turriff
Re: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« Reply #6 on: May 13, 2019, 09:26:12 am »
Rewilding does good for one person.  for example the foreign investor who is rewilding thousands of acres in Caithness.  he can feel really good about himself when he flys into Scotland for a holiday and knows that the carbon emmisions from his flight is being offset by the loss of jobs (keepers and shepherds)loss of production.

 I wonder if anyone has done the calculations for oxygen production and carbon capture? 1 blackface ewe per 5 acre of well managed heather vs 5 acre of scrub heather and rashes.   I've seen first hand which option is better for wildlife

Buttermilk

  • Joined Jul 2014
Re: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« Reply #7 on: May 13, 2019, 12:37:29 pm »
SotB there is an area near here that the RSPB dictated the management of when they brought in SSSI's.  It went from being decent pasture land with clumps of rushes and other wild goodies to three quarters rushes within 8 years.  The farmer was grudgingly let back onto the fields with severe restrictions which stopped the rushes getting worse but did not solve the lack of habitat problem.  Then he was told to weed wipe the lot,  He told them to stuff it as there was no way he was going to turn the area back round, at his expense only for some city do gooders telling him how to farm it.  The fence line between what he kept farming his way and the "managed" land really tells a story.  All the wildlife moved over into his farmed fields from the managed ones as they had the open areas for them.

On various areas of land all around the country management cannot be done by set dates on the calendar.  Please tell nature that it has to conform to what some university trained boffin says must happen when, no budding up or dropping leaves 4 days early as that is not the done thing.

oor wullie

  • Joined Jun 2012
  • Strathnairn
Re: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« Reply #8 on: May 13, 2019, 06:20:24 pm »
I'm not sure that re-wilding is necessarily in conflict with food production and jobs.

There are 1000s of km2 in the Highlands that don't currently produce any food (unless you count a few kg if grouse per km2).  Cattle were largely taken off the hills a century ago and (in many areas) sheep were taken off 20 years ago, you would be amazed how far you can go without seeing any livestock.

This land only supports a few gamekeepers jobs and there have been plenty studies showing that other land uses are much more economically viable.   Re-wilding (in Scotland anyway) is likely to be driven by billionaire landowners who subsidise it in much the same way that they might subsidise shooting estates.

Removing some of the 1000s of km of roads that have been built in the hills recently and planting native trees would be a massive start to re-wilding which wouldn't affect food production and is likely to be neutral in its impact on jobs.

Rosemary

  • Joined Oct 2007
  • Barry, Angus, Scotland
    • The Accidental Smallholder
Re: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« Reply #9 on: May 14, 2019, 11:25:18 am »
Removing some of the 1000s of km of roads that have been built in the hills recently and planting native trees would be a massive start to re-wilding which wouldn't affect food production and is likely to be neutral in its impact on jobs.
And might stop good agricultural land being covered in trees.

Rosemary

  • Joined Oct 2007
  • Barry, Angus, Scotland
    • The Accidental Smallholder
Re: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« Reply #10 on: May 14, 2019, 11:27:11 am »
I think there are degrees of rewilding - and the word can be used to mean different things. If it's farming more supportively of nature, some treeplanting, protecting soils etc, then I'm all for it.
Reintroducing lynx, wolves, elephants - not so much.

oor wullie

  • Joined Jun 2012
  • Strathnairn
Re: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« Reply #11 on: May 14, 2019, 01:26:56 pm »
Aww, come on Rosemary.  Huge herds of elephants would be fun.
 :innocent: :innocent: :innocent: :innocent: :innocent: :innocent:


Main point agreed though, when we have 1000s of km2 of unused (or only used for shooting) uplands then that's where re-wilding and tree planting should be done to leave productive farmland for producing food.

pgkevet

  • Joined Jul 2011
Re: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« Reply #12 on: May 14, 2019, 05:09:11 pm »
Aww, come on Rosemary.  Huge herds of elephants would be fun....
.. a mammoth task..

Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« Reply #13 on: May 14, 2019, 05:35:38 pm »
Aww, come on Rosemary.  Huge herds of elephants would be fun....
.. a mammoth task..


It won't be long til the Koreans clone a mammoth or two, and the Americans genetically engineer some. We would need some Tundra though......
"Let's not talk about what we can do, but do what we can"

There is NO planet B - what are YOU doing to save our home?

Do something today that your future self will thank you for - plant a tree

 Love your soil - it's the lifeblood of your land.

Buttermilk

  • Joined Jul 2014
Re: Rewilding - am I wrong? If so explain why
« Reply #14 on: May 15, 2019, 07:22:53 am »
We are heading towards the next ice age.

 

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