This discussion is based on this week’s interview with Lee Schofield, the site manager at RSPB Haweswater. Paying subscribers can access the complete transcript.
Here at Geltsdale Farm [not managed by the RSPB] we have 6000 acres of no sheep thanks to Natural England paying the farmer to have 125 Luing cattle on the farm. The maximum number of sheep was as high as 2500 + lambs. The effect on wildlife was devastating. The number of birds declining were from Red and Black Grouse and Grey Partridge. Changes included loss of heather and increase in bracken.
What is amazing with the cattle after 10 years into the programme is the quality of the grass. This has helped to increase the wildlife especially birds of prey. One reason is that with good grass the vole population expands feeding a wider variety of species. 2020 saw the highest count of Red Grouse in the area which was higher than the neighbouring commercial Red Grouse moors!
This made a mockery of the 10 year 'Langholm project' [Finished 2017] which stated the opposite that an increase in voles lead to an increase in predators which meant a decline in Red Grouse! The reason at Geltsdale is explained by the shear number of voles allows predators to prey on them not Red Grouse. Even the breeding success of waders was much higher than the previous years and the movement of non breeding Buzzards to the area was something not recorded at all by the Langholm Project or elsewhere in Britain only at Geltsdale and Langholm in 2020.
Why this is important for the Lake District is that sheep have dominated for far too long and it is time for cattle to take over!
It's difficult to de-toxify a term which as yet has no universally accepted definition. What constitutes rewilding is still a matter of debate amongst ecological scientists and environmentalists. Rewilding means different things to different people. At the one end of the scale, some say any human intervention is not really rewilding. Others focus more on grazing animal communities, but not on predator restoration - is this rewilding? There is a ton of debate on what rewilding ought to mean.
I would agree with one or two other commenters here that in my experience, the term is only 'toxic' to a minority of people who see it as a threat to their way of life or traditions. In the science community and wider community views on rewilding seem much more diverse and nuanced. Landscape-scale management of our semi-natural spaces will be compelled to adapt to changing environmental pressures, of that we can be in little doubt.
There is a good cultural argument for the preservation of traditional rural ways of life - but not at the expense of the bigger environmental picture. Farming landscapes can be much more diverse and nature-friendly and should be encouraged in this, but they are still industrial landscapes and dominate our land-use to the extent that about 75% of our land is agricultural. The establishment of 'wilderness' areas on a proportion of existing upland farmscapes really doesn't have to be an existential threat to many in hill farming, however it does seem likely that hill farming will diminish to a degree, rewilding or no rewilding. The reduction in hill farming will be mainly due to developments in the food industr and changes in human dietary preferences.
Have to agree the term 're-wilding' has not been a great choice of phrase. I think Lee pretty much said it in the full transcript - perhaps 'nature-friendly farming' would be a better term. It's certainly incredibly controversial over here in Wales, and really hasn't done the conservation movement any favours. But, like in Lee's area, there *are* landowners and farmers who are starting to do things differently, and I am completely convinced that it is those guys who get on board with it who are going to start the slow process of persuading others to follow suit - not folk swinging in from elsewhere and telling the locals how it should be done. That is a perfect way to get backs up, and exactly what has happened in parts of Wales (and no doubt elsewhere). I applaud Lee's work and love his focus on trying things out and demonstrating to others how it could be done, rather than forcing a view or an approach onto a community. I find it staggering that - for example - some of the recent discussions and consultations around changes to farming subsidies are so complex, so lengthy, and so not likely to be engaged with by your average farmer, who works extremely long hours with little in the way of time off and probably doesn't enjoy reading reams of text from a computer screen. This essentially means that large parts of the farming community are not reached, and therefore their views are not taken into account. To engage, you need to be in the milking shed in wellies at 5am, or drinking coffee at a kitchen table at noon, or chugging a beer at the local pub of an evening. You need to be part of the community. And that really does seem to be what Lee and his colleagues are aiming for, so hats off to you - and the best of luck :-)
Interesting points raised below! I was struck again when reading the article about the statement about sheeps wool. I find it sad that we have got to a state that a sheep-derived product from which England derived much of its prosperity in the medieval and early modern period is now apparently worthless becuase of current market forces. Now I know I sound like some crazed advocate harking back to a mythical pastoral idyll when I say that; I take the points others have made that what we know as heritage, tradition, and rural livelihoods evolve over time, and rightly so. I am also not against globalisation of trade and food/animal produce. It's just that personally, I would happily buy clothing made from English sheeps wool to stop it going to waste, but the mechanisms to do that don't seem to be straightforward/in place at the moment. I've seen the Dalesfoot compost mentioned in the article but haven't had a chance to use it myself. Sheeps wool could also be used for insulation to help houses become more energy efficent, and help the country reach Net Zero...
What a great interview. Thank you so much for making the fuller version available: I'm more than happy to urge people to subscribe to get the benefit.
I guess in many ways the interview confirmed much for me, but there were some great insights. Just for example the questioning of what 'heritage' means in a natural environment. All of us recognise the value in, say, designating a Greek temple, but it gets fuzzier with landscape. I partly live in the Cevennes National Park in France and it may remain the only large area with both nature and heritage designations. It's a conflicted place, inevitably, but I am prompted to think more carefully about the connection between the two. As it happens, sheep are at the centre of it there too, but at one level it is more to do with their absence than presence.
It is sad that the concept of rewilding has become so toxic. Conservationists have to take some of the blame because of the antagonism that has been allowed to grow, like in some schismatic religion. The word can't be uninvented but at least we could all work to say that it has an enormously broad reach, and try then to focus on what we mean in a particular context. Or just not use it in those contexts. It's our choice: fight for a specific narrow meaning or say that there is no such thing.
I don't think there can be a single vision for all the UK's national parks. I do think that they should all have more powers and at least some more money.
One problem with discussions on 'contested landscapes' such as the Lake District is the lack of priority given to keeping people on the ground. The central part played by rural livelihoods in the debate is often overlooked. The Lakes are a great example of a landscape fashioned by man as much as by ice. Herdwick sheep. stone walls and farms are all part of this ecosystem. The total re-wilding option would remove people, jobs and rural infrastructure. Is this what we want? The is a public policy debate which will continue as the farm subsidy arrangements move on to a new phase. This is a question of values, jobs, nature, rewilding, and how we see the land of Britain, not only the Lakes. Read more in , 'How to Vaue a Skylark: the Countryside in a Time of Change'. Brian Kerr
I'm not sure that you should even be trying to 'detoxify' the concept of rewilding. It's a well known phenomena that people who receive public subsidies often end up resenting their dependency on those subsidies, and that resentment only grows when they are asked to do things in order to continue receiving those subsidies, whether it's signing on every week or filling in forms etc. If some people in places like the Lake District view rewilding as 'toxic' maybe that's because they think it's a threat to their existing lifestyles; and they are defensive about their existing lifestyles because they know they are entirely dependent on taxpayer subsidies. If they are not happy then maybe the answer is to set them free to do what they would like, by removing the subsidies. Turn the debate on its head and you could more easily argue that what's toxic in this situation is that urban taxpayers are being forced to pay for a small group of people to enjoy a bucolic lifestyle. The onus should be on them to justify the status quo: why are they more deserving than coalminers were deemed in the 1980s? Why are they more deserving than kids who need free school meals? If the 'creative destruction' of the market is good enough for me because I live in town why isn't it good enough for my brother because he lives in the Lake District? There will be winners and losers, the transition process will be tough, but in the long run new jobs will be created and new opportunities will arise. Cultures change and adapt, if you try to preserve them in aspic you're creating a museum. So don't spend money propping up the past, spend it on creating a sustainable future by supporting people through the transition.
I think that the concept of 're-wilding' can be as challenging to nature conservationists as it is to those wishing to preserve/conserve culture / history. There is naturally great difficulty in accepting that change - in both the method of conserving existing habitats and species, as well as culture, landscape, and land-use is necessary to meet the challenges faced by the twin climate and ecological emergencies. The solution is to invest as much resource as humanly possible into enabling a transition to take place. Those living and working within these areas will continue to be vital to their continued maintenance - but there will be necessary shift in the way the land is managed to that which derives maximum public good / public benefit - and so adequate and appropriate reward is provided through the public purse. Investment in adaptation of businesses is also required, to better understand how other future income streams/opportunities can be maximised. There is no doubt in my mind that we need to move rapidly from the current status quo to restoring natural ecosystem function at scale - and where better than our national parks - but it can not be done 'on the cheap' . It will require serious long term investment and commitment from government to enable both cultural and physical changes to be effectively delivered.
Here at Geltsdale Farm [not managed by the RSPB] we have 6000 acres of no sheep thanks to Natural England paying the farmer to have 125 Luing cattle on the farm. The maximum number of sheep was as high as 2500 + lambs. The effect on wildlife was devastating. The number of birds declining were from Red and Black Grouse and Grey Partridge. Changes included loss of heather and increase in bracken.
What is amazing with the cattle after 10 years into the programme is the quality of the grass. This has helped to increase the wildlife especially birds of prey. One reason is that with good grass the vole population expands feeding a wider variety of species. 2020 saw the highest count of Red Grouse in the area which was higher than the neighbouring commercial Red Grouse moors!
This made a mockery of the 10 year 'Langholm project' [Finished 2017] which stated the opposite that an increase in voles lead to an increase in predators which meant a decline in Red Grouse! The reason at Geltsdale is explained by the shear number of voles allows predators to prey on them not Red Grouse. Even the breeding success of waders was much higher than the previous years and the movement of non breeding Buzzards to the area was something not recorded at all by the Langholm Project or elsewhere in Britain only at Geltsdale and Langholm in 2020.
Why this is important for the Lake District is that sheep have dominated for far too long and it is time for cattle to take over!
It's difficult to de-toxify a term which as yet has no universally accepted definition. What constitutes rewilding is still a matter of debate amongst ecological scientists and environmentalists. Rewilding means different things to different people. At the one end of the scale, some say any human intervention is not really rewilding. Others focus more on grazing animal communities, but not on predator restoration - is this rewilding? There is a ton of debate on what rewilding ought to mean.
I would agree with one or two other commenters here that in my experience, the term is only 'toxic' to a minority of people who see it as a threat to their way of life or traditions. In the science community and wider community views on rewilding seem much more diverse and nuanced. Landscape-scale management of our semi-natural spaces will be compelled to adapt to changing environmental pressures, of that we can be in little doubt.
There is a good cultural argument for the preservation of traditional rural ways of life - but not at the expense of the bigger environmental picture. Farming landscapes can be much more diverse and nature-friendly and should be encouraged in this, but they are still industrial landscapes and dominate our land-use to the extent that about 75% of our land is agricultural. The establishment of 'wilderness' areas on a proportion of existing upland farmscapes really doesn't have to be an existential threat to many in hill farming, however it does seem likely that hill farming will diminish to a degree, rewilding or no rewilding. The reduction in hill farming will be mainly due to developments in the food industr and changes in human dietary preferences.
Have to agree the term 're-wilding' has not been a great choice of phrase. I think Lee pretty much said it in the full transcript - perhaps 'nature-friendly farming' would be a better term. It's certainly incredibly controversial over here in Wales, and really hasn't done the conservation movement any favours. But, like in Lee's area, there *are* landowners and farmers who are starting to do things differently, and I am completely convinced that it is those guys who get on board with it who are going to start the slow process of persuading others to follow suit - not folk swinging in from elsewhere and telling the locals how it should be done. That is a perfect way to get backs up, and exactly what has happened in parts of Wales (and no doubt elsewhere). I applaud Lee's work and love his focus on trying things out and demonstrating to others how it could be done, rather than forcing a view or an approach onto a community. I find it staggering that - for example - some of the recent discussions and consultations around changes to farming subsidies are so complex, so lengthy, and so not likely to be engaged with by your average farmer, who works extremely long hours with little in the way of time off and probably doesn't enjoy reading reams of text from a computer screen. This essentially means that large parts of the farming community are not reached, and therefore their views are not taken into account. To engage, you need to be in the milking shed in wellies at 5am, or drinking coffee at a kitchen table at noon, or chugging a beer at the local pub of an evening. You need to be part of the community. And that really does seem to be what Lee and his colleagues are aiming for, so hats off to you - and the best of luck :-)
Interesting points raised below! I was struck again when reading the article about the statement about sheeps wool. I find it sad that we have got to a state that a sheep-derived product from which England derived much of its prosperity in the medieval and early modern period is now apparently worthless becuase of current market forces. Now I know I sound like some crazed advocate harking back to a mythical pastoral idyll when I say that; I take the points others have made that what we know as heritage, tradition, and rural livelihoods evolve over time, and rightly so. I am also not against globalisation of trade and food/animal produce. It's just that personally, I would happily buy clothing made from English sheeps wool to stop it going to waste, but the mechanisms to do that don't seem to be straightforward/in place at the moment. I've seen the Dalesfoot compost mentioned in the article but haven't had a chance to use it myself. Sheeps wool could also be used for insulation to help houses become more energy efficent, and help the country reach Net Zero...
What a great interview. Thank you so much for making the fuller version available: I'm more than happy to urge people to subscribe to get the benefit.
I guess in many ways the interview confirmed much for me, but there were some great insights. Just for example the questioning of what 'heritage' means in a natural environment. All of us recognise the value in, say, designating a Greek temple, but it gets fuzzier with landscape. I partly live in the Cevennes National Park in France and it may remain the only large area with both nature and heritage designations. It's a conflicted place, inevitably, but I am prompted to think more carefully about the connection between the two. As it happens, sheep are at the centre of it there too, but at one level it is more to do with their absence than presence.
It is sad that the concept of rewilding has become so toxic. Conservationists have to take some of the blame because of the antagonism that has been allowed to grow, like in some schismatic religion. The word can't be uninvented but at least we could all work to say that it has an enormously broad reach, and try then to focus on what we mean in a particular context. Or just not use it in those contexts. It's our choice: fight for a specific narrow meaning or say that there is no such thing.
I don't think there can be a single vision for all the UK's national parks. I do think that they should all have more powers and at least some more money.
One problem with discussions on 'contested landscapes' such as the Lake District is the lack of priority given to keeping people on the ground. The central part played by rural livelihoods in the debate is often overlooked. The Lakes are a great example of a landscape fashioned by man as much as by ice. Herdwick sheep. stone walls and farms are all part of this ecosystem. The total re-wilding option would remove people, jobs and rural infrastructure. Is this what we want? The is a public policy debate which will continue as the farm subsidy arrangements move on to a new phase. This is a question of values, jobs, nature, rewilding, and how we see the land of Britain, not only the Lakes. Read more in , 'How to Vaue a Skylark: the Countryside in a Time of Change'. Brian Kerr
I'm not sure that you should even be trying to 'detoxify' the concept of rewilding. It's a well known phenomena that people who receive public subsidies often end up resenting their dependency on those subsidies, and that resentment only grows when they are asked to do things in order to continue receiving those subsidies, whether it's signing on every week or filling in forms etc. If some people in places like the Lake District view rewilding as 'toxic' maybe that's because they think it's a threat to their existing lifestyles; and they are defensive about their existing lifestyles because they know they are entirely dependent on taxpayer subsidies. If they are not happy then maybe the answer is to set them free to do what they would like, by removing the subsidies. Turn the debate on its head and you could more easily argue that what's toxic in this situation is that urban taxpayers are being forced to pay for a small group of people to enjoy a bucolic lifestyle. The onus should be on them to justify the status quo: why are they more deserving than coalminers were deemed in the 1980s? Why are they more deserving than kids who need free school meals? If the 'creative destruction' of the market is good enough for me because I live in town why isn't it good enough for my brother because he lives in the Lake District? There will be winners and losers, the transition process will be tough, but in the long run new jobs will be created and new opportunities will arise. Cultures change and adapt, if you try to preserve them in aspic you're creating a museum. So don't spend money propping up the past, spend it on creating a sustainable future by supporting people through the transition.
I think that the concept of 're-wilding' can be as challenging to nature conservationists as it is to those wishing to preserve/conserve culture / history. There is naturally great difficulty in accepting that change - in both the method of conserving existing habitats and species, as well as culture, landscape, and land-use is necessary to meet the challenges faced by the twin climate and ecological emergencies. The solution is to invest as much resource as humanly possible into enabling a transition to take place. Those living and working within these areas will continue to be vital to their continued maintenance - but there will be necessary shift in the way the land is managed to that which derives maximum public good / public benefit - and so adequate and appropriate reward is provided through the public purse. Investment in adaptation of businesses is also required, to better understand how other future income streams/opportunities can be maximised. There is no doubt in my mind that we need to move rapidly from the current status quo to restoring natural ecosystem function at scale - and where better than our national parks - but it can not be done 'on the cheap' . It will require serious long term investment and commitment from government to enable both cultural and physical changes to be effectively delivered.