Five years ago today, a small group of individuals met for the first time. They shared a passion for nature and a rich understanding of the environmental and conservation movement. They were deeply concerned about the staggering loss of wildlife in Britain and challenged the impact of existing conservation practices. They wanted a new, ambitious model that works to reverse the decline of British wildlife.
As an employee of Tyne Rivers Trust and Hexham resident, I'm very fortunate to work on and live beside the 'best salmon river in England'. I regularly wander down to the bridge to see salmon leaping (beyond a man-made obstruction; the irony is not lost!) and it is incredibly rewarding to know that work we do directly benefits this iconic species. Therefore, the opportunity to work with the WWF through their Dam Removal Europe Crowding Campaign is one we couldn't pass up.
Rewilding is held back by quibbles over its precise definition and scope - we need simply to embrace it.
Rewilding is a simple concept: giving land back to wildlife and wildlife back to the land.
To rewild is to restore natural processes, revive degraded habitats, reintroduce species either missing or depleted, and then step back and watch as the ecosystem becomes self-willed and self-regulating once again in an alchemy of flux, dynamism and unpredictability.
Better planning and implementation of ‘rewilding’ projects would benefit ecosystems and humans, scientists have said.
Researchers from several European institutions, including the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, have drawn up a blueprint suggesting how to plan and carry out rewilding, a concept that describes the attempt to restore large areas of land to become as natural as possible.
London is the most vulnerable city in western Europe to climate-related impacts including floods and drought, according to a recent report from the Green Party on the London Assembly. Hundreds of schools, hospitals and tube stations in London are at risk of flooding, according to the report.
Rewildling vs Climate Breakdown
Rewildling Britain have joined with a chorus of voices to demand support for rewildling in response to the breakdown of our climate.
To avoid a climate emergency we need to act fast. Rewilding and other natural climate solutions can draw millions of tonnes of CO2 out of the air through restoring and protecting our living systems. We call on the UK government to make a bold financial and political commitment to nature's recovery.
We need to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C to avoid the catastrophic effects of climate breakdown. To do this we need both to reduce carbon emissions and to remove carbon from the atmosphere. By drawing down carbon, nature's recovery can help us reach net carbon zero.
Rewilding is vital for our wildlife and good for farmers says Alastair Driver of Rewilding Britain, who makes an impassioned argument in support of rewilding in our latest podcast episode.
Our natural world is in trouble and Rewilding Britain’s Alastair Driver of Rewilding Britain argues that we must recreate wildlife-rich habitats on a huge scale and reintroduce lost species – and that this will be good for landowners and local people, too. Hear his impassioned argument here.
The director of Rewilding Britain, Alistair Driver, has made a plea to the natural flood management sector to work more closely together with his organisation on projects in England and Wales' national parks that bring benefits to both biodiversity and flood risk management.
