Topic: Rewilding (Read 37636 times)

Fergal · « **Reply #30 on:** June 29, 2013 »

Quote from: sjh1 on June 28, 2013

Interesting website here... http://www.rewildingeurope.com/

It would be great to see a Rewilding UK organisation set up.

All it takes is if some action and leadership. To develop a site from scratch without government help would be a formidable challenge but if the scale is right I' m sure its possible. The Wild Nephin project sets a impressive and rather large precedent. The idea is very new in Ireland and will need time to develop but I feel although the Nephin site is currently just a vast abandoned pine plantation the organisers seem committed to a very purist notion of rewilding. I don't see why a more modest sized are could be done in NI through the state or through volunteer groups like in Ennerdale. The upper Lough Erne or the Mournes would be fabulous locations for it. At the same time a EU wide reform of farming in marginal areas would make a huge difference.

Wolf_Larson · « **Reply #31 on:** June 29, 2013 »

That sounds amazing !!!

Hope they make a real good go of it, is there any way to get involed and help

sjh1 · « **Reply #32 on:** June 29, 2013 »

Quote from: Fergal on June 29, 2013

I don't see why a more modest sized are could be done in NI through the state or through volunteer groups like in Ennerdale. The upper Lough Erne or the Mournes would be fabulous locations for it. At the same time a EU wide reform of farming in marginal areas would make a huge difference.

Absolutely agree! Even on a very small scale a reform of farming subsidies could make all the difference ... And we could have one bigger signature project in NI.

@Wolf_Larson I don't really know how to get involved or support these sort of projects but there may be something on the various websites. If I find any info I'll post it here.

Wolf_Larson · « **Reply #33 on:** July 01, 2013 »

Cheers sjh1

Fergal · « **Reply #34 on:** July 04, 2013 »

I have been intouch with the organiser of Wild Nephin so here are a few nuggets.
Ecological speaking the wilderness creation has three parts; restore some of the damaged bog and riparian areas, plant strategic stands of willow, birch and rowan and re-engineer the present pine stands.

Sheep grazing was mentioned earlier and according to the organiser sheep could be an issue as they do have graving right nearby but they are trying to reduce their numbers and they certainly recognise shouldn’t really be there.

There has been some volunteer work there already with Mountain Meitheal building a lean-to. They wish to establish their own volunteer programme on various of the ecological projects like tree planting but it is early days so they are not set up yet.

Wolf_Larson · « **Reply #35 on:** July 04, 2013 »

Thanks for the info Fegal

zeaphod · « **Reply #36 on:** July 04, 2013 »

I you want to see what grows when we leave it alone, try the loop walk on Horn Head (NW Donegal). The first part is through a nature reserve - it's a carpet of wild flowers this time of year, and there are lots of meadow pipits and skylarks nesting. At the end, you cross onto grazing land, which is stripped bare by the wooly lawnmowers.
Glenveagh nearby is home to one of the last wild forests in Ireland. They are managing it, by cutting back the rhodedendron, but it's still pretty good. The surrounding hills aren't grazed much, and the heather is much healthier for it. Great place to walk too, as long as you can read a map - no paths!

sjh1 · « **Reply #37 on:** July 04, 2013 »

Quote from: Fergal on July 04, 2013

I have been intouch with the organiser of Wild Nephin so here are a few nuggets.
Ecological speaking the wilderness creation has three parts; restore some of the damaged bog and riparian areas, plant strategic stands of willow, birch and rowan and re-engineer the present pine stands.

Sheep grazing was mentioned earlier and according to the organiser sheep could be an issue as they do have graving right nearby but they are trying to reduce their numbers and they certainly recognise shouldn’t really be there.

There has been some volunteer work there already with Mountain Meitheal building a lean-to. They wish to establish their own volunteer programme on various of the ecological projects like tree planting but it is early days so they are not set up yet.

Actually sounds very promising!

Hope they can reduce the sheep numbers. Will have to get down there at some stage.

sjh1 · « **Reply #38 on:** August 18, 2013 »

Another great article from George Monbiot. Good to see the RSPB allowing a dissenting voice.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/ourwork/b/martinharper/archive/2013/07/15/going-wild-a-guest-blog-from-george-monbiot.aspx

"In my view most of our conservation areas aren’t nature reserves at all. They are museums of former farming practices, weeded and tended to prevent the wilds from encroaching."

Rich.H · « **Reply #39 on:** August 18, 2013 »

Excellent link there and so many paragraphs of simple pure truth in all of his words. Part of it that stuck out for me was the reference to ancient UK wildlands, how it all used to be a soggy rainforest environment etc. I wonder if part of the daft cut and burn methods are done to deliberately stop this due to the average attitudes towards weather. All too often you see or hear someone being downright pathetic as it's chilly or wet, they only want to walk on nice dry forest tracks surrounded by nice dry trees. Thus a true natural area for our climate would result in reduced tourism ergo less money, a bit tragic that a conservation group should actually put profit before ecology though if it is the case.

Of course I could argue this is also partly an issue about the overuse of anti cold/wet kit but thats a totally different thing.

Slightly off topic but I wonder if anyone else has noticed something that was pointed out to me a few weeks back. This would be the constant obsessive cutting of all green spots within towns & cities. Councils it seems have become completely ocd regarding stuff like grass, once look you notice they are always cutting it soon as the grass gets beyond a couple of inches. This seems to happen most frequently in parks, this seems completely daft as it opposes everything about nature.

I recently took a few pictures on a morning dog walk at my local park where the mowers were out, the entire area had nothing more than 3-4 inches of grass and the odd bit of clover and daisy dotted about. Yet they were cutting away, the very next day was a fair/festival in the park and I have to wonder just how bad it is when someone behind a desk doesn't think folk could possibly get a few dirt and grass stains. In a year when bee numbers are thrown about the news too it seems counter productive to remove anything that doesn't conform to a suburban lawn wiping out all bugs and thus removing all food for birds etc. My own local park has only grey squirrels & pigeons as far as any living thing above mouse size.

sjh1 · « **Reply #40 on:** August 18, 2013 »

Rich H., yea councils relentlessly mowing grassy areas is a symptom of the wider problem. Think some people like things to be neat and tidy and see grass growth as abandonment.

A few parks around NI do have wildflower meadows now though which is a step forward. Wildlife-wise large areas of mown amenity grassland are useless.

twentyclicks · « **Reply #41 on:** August 19, 2013 »

Yup, Ormeau Park, and some of the grass areas at the bottom of my street (near the Lagan Meadows) have areas where the grass is allowed to grow. I saw a post from someone on twitter that somewhere in holywood was the same they had planted lots of wildflowers.
Part of the A55 outer ring near Belvoir also has wildflowers planted in the divide, they are smashing in early summer.

Good to see. My landlord wouldn't like me to let the driveway re-wild, but I do leave the pretty weeds when I'm tidying up

Wolf_Larson · « **Reply #42 on:** August 19, 2013 »

sjh1 · « **Reply #43 on:** October 23, 2013 »

More from Monbiot...

Full article ... http://www.monbiot.com/2013/10/18/thinking-like-a-forest/

Extracts below...

"... But wildlife in the uplands, amazingly, is faring worse than it is in the crowded, intensively farmed lowlands. The State of Nature report, published in May, revealed that while 60% of wildlife species in Britain as a whole are in decline, in the uplands the rate is 65%(18).

The primary reason is that almost all the trees and scrub – on which the majority of species depend – have been removed, mostly by sheep farming. On the Continent, the uplands are now largely forested, while the lowlands are largely bare. That is what you would expect. Upland soils tend to be much poorer than lowland soils, so farming is less productive there: generally many times less productive. But in Britain, while the lowlands are largely bare, the uplands are even barer. The places that should be our wildlife reservoirs are wildlife deserts.

... There would be no hill farming in Britain or anywhere in Europe were it not for subsidies.

... The policies you would expect conservation groups to prioritise would be those that optimised the protection of wildlife. Instead, they have more or less optimised its destruction.

I cannot emphasise this strongly enough: the entire basis of upland conservation, as pursued on most of the upland reserves owned or managed by the Wildlife Trusts, the RSPB, the National Trust, Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, Scottish Natural Heritage and other bodies is based on a misconception: that in keeping them open and largely devoid of trees, they are best protecting wildlife. This belief, which is largely unexamined by the groups that propound it, is diametrically wrong. It explains why many upland reserves are about as biodiverse and ecologically inspiring as the average car park."

In an NI context it's the subsidied sheep-farming and the policies of NIEA and conservation NGOs which keep our uplands bare. For example the Mournes Management Plan that I've mentioned before (available online) supports non-natural grazing, scrub clearance and cutting and burning of vegetation as ways to maintain wildlife habitats. Large areas of the Mournes could be natural woodland and scrub full of wildlife, instead they are barren and deserted. Even the fenced area of Annalong Wood which I hoped might be able to regenerate naturally is now to be cleared and grazed to maintain heathland vegetation. A look at NIEA's website on ASSIs shows how strongly they advocate managing sites by grazing and clearing vegetation. It's madness.

Sadly if conservation in GB is 60 years behind Europe, in NI we're probably 60 years behind GB. We can't get a National Park for the Mournes even when in a global context British national parks are classed as Category V: ranchlands and similarly altered eco-systems.

Rich.H · « **Reply #44 on:** October 23, 2013 »

To throw extra into all this I noticed today on the BBC website an article about emerald beetles from Russia that are a new threat to trees in the UK, this hot on the heels of the ash die back fiasco. Something that did occur to me was that while yes these are non native creatures that will always prove troublesome to an ecosystem. Part of the issue is also our lack of any real quantity of wildlife anymore, if our lands were better homes for wildlife then issues like invading bugs would be slowed up by the natural large numbers of birds etc that will happily predate the new comers.

So not only are we wantonly vandalising the habitat and driving all our natives out of homes, we then open the boarders for any manner of invasive species to come and finish off whatever is left with no defences in place.

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Author Topic: Rewilding (Read 37636 times)

Fergal

Re: Rewilding

Wolf_Larson

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sjh1

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Wolf_Larson

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Fergal

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Wolf_Larson

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zeaphod

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sjh1

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sjh1

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Rich.H

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sjh1

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twentyclicks

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Wolf_Larson

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sjh1

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Rich.H

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