Rewilding sounds like a good idea if you live in a town, if the countryside is a place you visit when the sun is shining. It is not the same for people who live there, work there, know it, like it. What is rewilding? The Wiki explains. Who wants it? That is an important question. What are their motives? Does our wellbeing enter into their thinking? These are serious issues.
Some decades ago Sir James Goldsmith, a rich businessman and Jew had views about the "urban biomass". We were the peasants, expendable, failures to be used or discarded according to whim. He was a gambler associated with Lord Lucan, the well known murderer and John Aspinall, another conservationist. They regarded the world population as grossly excessive. Were they wrong about that? Their answers tended toward the drastic. The Great Replacement is an obvious candidate.
Another lot of enthusiasts are with The Guardian, "the foul prostitute and dirty parasite of the worst portion of the mill-owners". Surprising? No, not to me, not even slightly. If you do a search for "United Nations have listed rewilding as one of several methods needed to achieve massive scale restoration of natural ecosystems" the result will be something like the list below at World must rewild on massive scale to heal nature and climate. The Lunatic Fringe is alive and well, in fact it is thriving. One voice argues contra.
Tim Bonner of the Countryside Alliance actually understands the English countryside as it is. That means knowing its people, animals, flora and fauna. He cares. Do rich crazies like Gates? Go to The Politics Of Rewilding. Is Tim a reasonable man? Is he right? Read for yourself. Think for yourself. Decide for yourself.
Rewilding ex Wiki
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Rewilding, or re-wilding, activities are conservation efforts aimed at restoring and protecting natural processes and wilderness areas. This may include providing connectivity between such areas, and protecting or reintroducing apex predators and keystone species.Rewilding is a form of ecological restoration with an emphasis on humans stepping back and leaving an area to nature, as opposed to more active forms of natural resource management. Rewilding efforts can aim to create ecosystems requiring passive management. Successful long term rewilding projects can need little ongoing human attention, as successful reintroduction of keystone species creates a self-regulatory and self-sustaining stable ecosystem, possibly with near pre-human levels of biodiversity.
While re-wilding initiatives can be controversial, the United Nations have listed re-wilding as one of several methods needed to achieve massive scale restoration of natural ecosystems, which they say must [ sic ] be accomplished by 2030.
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The Wiki puts one side of this story.
The Politics Of Rewilding
by
Tim Bonner
I have written before about how ‘rewilding’ has become a toxic brand in much of the countryside and the fault for much of that increasingly lies at the door of the group ‘Rewilding Britain’. The aggressive language and arrogance of an organisation funded by the international ultra-rich has already alienated many rural communities who fear that the ‘vision’ of rewilding does not include a future for them. The most obvious example was the spectacular collapse of Rewilding Britain's flagship ‘Summit to Sea’ project in West Wales, but the distrust goes much, much deeper.Rather than considering why its approach has been rejected across so much of rural Britain, Rewilding Britain seems to have decided that a more, not less, aggressive approach is the way to bring the wrong-thinking people who currently farm and manage the countryside into line. It has hired a well-known political campaigner and launched into campaigns for a ‘right to roam’ across the whole countryside, and to ban grouse shooting in National Parks in cahoots with Chris Packham and Mark Avery’s anti-shooting campaign Wild Justice. You might ask what these issues have to do with Rewilding Britain’s stated aim of ‘catalysing rewilding’ and you might conclude, as I do, that they will actually have the exact opposite effect and further alienate farmers and land managers from its aims.
Unfortunately, the trajectory of Rewilding Britain looks set. It was founded by the journalist George Monbiot who campaigns on an overtly political platform which includes everything from radical land reform to compulsory veganism, and is run by his partner. By hiring Guy Shrubsole, who co-authored a report on land reform with Monbiot for Jeremy Corbyn it has shed any pretence to be solely concerned with ecological restoration. Politics is the game these people play, and they are desperate to play it in the countryside. Bizarrely this politics of the far left is funded from the legacy of some of the richest people ever to walk the planet. Most of Rewilding Britain’s funding comes from trust funds set up by bankers, industrialists, hedge funders, art dealers and retail magnates. With no membership accountability and ample supplies of trust fund cash neither Rewilding Britain’s governance nor its funding streams are likely to be any check on its political activism.
This is a serious problem, because not only is Rewilding Britain damaging its own brand it is also creating concerns about the wider drive to restore nature and increase biodiversity, which is so urgent and important.
Summit2Sea
Is a very nicely done website with some good pictures but what is it trying to do? And to whom? Sounding friendly is the first phase of their approach. Does it mention banning shooting, being associated with the RSPB? No. It is directed at townies.
World Must Rewild On Massive Scale To Heal Nature And Climate, Says UN Environment The Guardian
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The world must rewild and restore an area the size of China to meet commitments on nature and the climate, says the UN, and the revival of ecosystems must be met with all the ambition of the space race.Existing conservation efforts are insufficient to prevent widespread biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, the global body has warned at the launch of the decade on ecosystem restoration, an urgent call for the large-scale revival of nature in farmlands, forests and other ecosystems.
Governments must deliver on a commitment to restore at least 1bn hectares (2.47bn acres) of land by 2030 and make a similar pledge for the oceans, according to the report by the UN Environment Programme (Unep) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to launch the decade.
Humans are using about 1.6 times the resources that nature can sustainably renew every year and the UN said short-term economic gains are being prioritised over the health of the planet. The rallying cry calls on all parts of society to take action, including governments, businesses and citizens, to restore and rewild urban areas, grasslands, savannahs and marine areas.
“Restoration needs to be seen as an infrastructure investment in a country’s wellbeing. We need imagination,” said Tim Christophersen, coordinator of the decade on ecosystem restoration. “For many people, I think restoring a billion hectares is a bit abstract. We have decades of experience of how this could work but never on the scale we’re talking about. We have space programmes and nuclear weapons – it is possible.”
Half the world’s GDP is dependent on nature and the degradation of ecosystems is affecting about 40% of the world’s population already, threatening human health, livelihoods and food security, according to the foreword written by the Unep executive director, Inger Andersen, and the FAO director-general, Qu Dongyu.
The report notes that while restoration science is in its infancy, agroforestry and other sustainable farming practices are already well understood and can be scaled up. The UN has said it will work with governments to highlight flagship restoration projects to inspire the ambition required.
“This kind of large-scale restoration has not been done very often. There are a few examples in China and with the Atlantic rainforest in Brazil, but at the scale that we now need it, very few examples exist,” said Christophersen. “They are investments that sometimes have a similar complexity to large infrastructure projects.”
Countries have already committed to restoring 1bn hectares of degraded land – roughly the area of China – according to a study by the Dutch environmental assessment agency. Many of these pledges have been made by countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, China and south Asia, with relatively few made by western nations, Russia and those in the Middle East.
Christophersen said more were expected in the next few years to complement initiatives such as the Great Green Wall in Africa, which aims to restore 100m hectares of degraded land by 2030 to combat desertification.
The report’s authors said lessons must be learned from previous mistakes – such as planting monoculture trees and exotic species – and countries need help finding solutions that fit their geography and climate.
“Even if we feel the science is not mature enough, it should not really stop us from taking action. What you have as a model approach in one ecosystem might not apply in others. So there are many different sorts of ways about it,” said Corli Pretorius, deputy director of the Unep World Conservation Monitoring Centre. “It depends so much on the local context. This is not only about the environment: it is for people as well, through safeguarding livelihoods, giving people access to nature in urban areas or improving health.”
In February, a review commissioned by the British government on the effect of human economic activity on life-sustaining ecosystems found development had come at a “devastating cost” to the natural world. Led by Prof Sir Partha Dasgupta, a Cambridge University economist, it concluded that radical change to production, consumption, finance and education was needed.
Last week, the UN’s State of Finance for Nature report found the world needs to quadruple its annual investment in nature if the climate, biodiversity and land degradation crises are to be tackled by the middle of the century. It highlighted a finance gap of $4.1tn (£2.9tn) that needed to be closed to avoided the breakdown of natural ecosystem “services” such as clean water, food and flood protection.
Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on Twitter for all the latest news and features
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Some times the Guardian gets it right. This not one of them
World must rewild on massive scale to heal nature and climate, says ...
3 Jun 2021 ... We need imagination,” said Tim Christophersen, coordinator of the decade on ecosystem restoration. “For many people, I think restoring a billion ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rewilding_(conservation_biology) Rewilding (conservation biology) - Wikipedia... be controversial, the United Nations have listed re-wilding as one of several methods needed to achieve massive scale restoration of natural ecosystems, ...
https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/benefits-and-risks-rewilding The benefits and risks of rewilding | IUCNWell-applied rewilding can restore ecosystems at a landscape scale, help mitigate ... has gained much attention as an optimistic approach to conservation.
https://www.genevaenvironmentnetwork.org/resources/updates/un-decade-on-ecosystem-restoration-2021-2030/ UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) – Geneva ...15 Jun 2021 ... It aims to halt the degradation of ecosystems, and restore them to achieve global goals. Only with healthy ecosystems can we enhance people's ...
https://www.surgeactivism.org/articles/the-world-must-rewild-an-area-the-size-of-china-says-the-un-and-we-know-where-to-find-the-land The world must rewild an area the size of China, says the UN, and ...3 Jun 2021 ... We need imagination,” Tim Christophersen, coordinator of the decade on ecosystem restoration told the Guardian. “For many people, I think ...
https://rewildingeurope.com/blog/the-un-decade-why-we-need-rewilding/ The UN Decade: why we need rewilding | Rewilding Europe4 Jun 2021 ... The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration kicks off on June 5, World Environment Day. Rewilding has a hugely important role to play in the ...
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.13730 Guiding principles for rewilding - The Society for Conservation Biology16 Mar 2021 ... Abstract There has been much recent interest in the concept of rewilding ... including those of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and ...
https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/31813/ERDStrat.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration - UNEP ...There are many other secondary barriers to achieving the vision of the UN Decade which will need to be addressed by the global movement of stakeholders ranging ...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8279355/ Rewilding and restoring nature in a changing world - NCBI - NIH14 Jul 2021 ... Ecological restoration has emerged as a powerful approach to combat ... the United Nations (UN) is launching the Decade on Ecosystem ...
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/biodiversity/ Forests, desertification and biodiversity – United Nations ...Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss · Nature is critical to our survival: nature ...
https://www.decadeonrestoration.org/stories/1st-world-rewilding-day-20th-march-2021-sun-equinox-0 1st World Rewilding Day on the 20th of March 2021 – the sun ...20 Mar 2021 ... The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is the right global initiative at ... the need for “rewilding” the Earth for restoring biodiversity.
https://rewildingglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Guiding-principles-for-rewilding.pdf Guiding principles for rewilding - Rewilding Global26 Feb 2021 ... global conservation targets, including those of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
https://unemg.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Ecosystem-Restoration-Playbook.pdf Ecosystem Restoration Playbook - UN Environment Management ...The climate emergency, the loss of nature and deadly pollution threaten to destroy our home and eliminate many of the millions of species that share this ...
https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/364/6438/eaav5570?rss=1 Rewilding complex ecosystems | Science26 Apr 2019 ... Rewilding is one such approach that has been both promoted and ... “decade of ecosystem restoration” by the United Nations General Assembly, ...
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/962785/The_Economics_of_Biodiversity_The_Dasgupta_Review_Full_Report.pdf The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review - GOV.UK1 Feb 2021 ... 9.7 Unmet Need, Desired Family Size, and the UN's Sustainable ... 19.1 The Role of Ecosystem Restoration to Improve and Increase Our Stocks.
https://ecohustler.com/nature/ecological-restoration-now Ecological restoration now | Ecohustler Magazine8 Jul 2020 ... The vital need for ecological restoration on a global scale ... achieved in several ways, varying with the habitat or ecosystem in question.
https://www.wwf.org.uk/sites/default/files/2020-11/WWF_blue_carbon020.pdf blue carbon ecosystems - WWF-UKThe need to increase the scope and scale of action across UN Conventions to ... This can make the protection/restoration of blue carbon ecosystems.
https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-great-rewilding/ The Great Rewilding - Orion MagazineI see the mass restoration of ecosystems, meaning taking down the fences, ... species that need rewilding, I think human beings come at the top of the list.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2530064417300858 Rewilding South America: Ten key questions - ScienceDirectThere are various approaches to rewilding, corresponding to different socio-ecological and policy contexts. Most South American ecosystems have experienced ...
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332669996_Rewilding_complex_ecosystems (PDF) Rewilding complex ecosystems - ResearchGate26 Apr 2019 ... protection of biodiversity requires inclusion. of flexible restoration along with protection. Rewilding is one such approach that has been.