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Could big beasts return to new wild woods?
NESTLED on a hillside outside Grassington with the flat cap of Ingleborough in the distance, Grass Wood looks literally as pretty as a picture.
This limestone wood, deep in the heart of North Yorkshire, is home to an array of fauna such as roe deer, rabbits and foxes. Along with neighbouring Bastow Wood, it's also home to a brilliant collection of wildflowers, including lily of the valley, herb Paris, orchids and angular Solomon's seal.
I've come to this rugged woodland to meet Dr Steve Carver and his colleague Mark Fisher who, along with fellow researchers and academics at Leeds University, have this week launched the Wildland Research Institute.
"There's a lot of interest in wild land from conservation organisations, academics and the public. But what's lacking is a strong science base," explains Dr Carver. "So the Institute has been set up to try and provide this and show how wilder areas (of wild land) can be of benefit to humans and nature."
This so-called "re-wilding" could involve the re-introduction of animals such as wolves and lynx that once roamed our countryside, although this would undoubtedly meet strong opposition from farmers and landowners. Proponents say, however that statistics show that we lag behind our continental neighbours when it comes to wildland areas.
"England has a woodland cover of eight per cent, while the average in Europe as a whole is over 38 per cent. England, along with Ireland and Holland, has the lowest woodland cover in the whole of Europe," says Mr Fisher.
But what difference does more wild land make? Quite a lot, says Dr Carver. He believes wilder areas can help to improve water quality, flood protection defences and carbon storage as well as wildlife habitat. "The issue of clean water is a bit of a no- brainer– you get cleaner water from land that doesn't have any agriculture or industry going on."
He argues that increasing the amount of wild, as opposed to managed, land also helps to combat the effects of climate change. "The more modified a landscape is, the less resilient it is to climate change. So a woodland landscape has more resilience than, say, an open field. We see the same amount of rainfall these days as we used to, but we tend to get it in heavier bursts, and carefully placed natural native woodland can chop the tops off flood peaks and slow them down, so you wouldn't get the big floods in places like York."
The wilderness also has strong cultural connections, from the poetry of William Wordsworth and Ted Hughes to the paintings of Turner and Ashley Jackson. "Places like this have inspired artists and writers for centuries, and the art works then inspire people to become more appreciative about nature," says Dr Carver.
This affinity with nature is something that has seeped away over the centuries.
"Most European countries have a strong connection with woodland foraging which we don't have. We've lost that connection with wild land. The Forestry Commission has started running foraging classes, but we've got a long way to go."
Unlike Bastow Wood, which is now wild, Grass Wood is an example of managed woodland. During our trek we see a number of beech trees that were first introduced hundreds of years ago for economic reasons.
"If you plant a beech tree you get very little growing underneath because of the shade, and our natural limestone woodland plants have not evolved with this amount of shade, so if you put a beech
in you start to lose the wildflowers. This shows how we're changing the landscape," says Mr Fisher.
"There are whole woodlands in the Bradford district that were solely planted to support the local mills. But that use is no longer there and all we're saying is maybe there's a better way of using this land now."
The John Muir Trust, Scottish Natural Heritage, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), and the World Universities Network are all funding different projects at the institute, which Dr Carver hopes will encourage a more open debate about how to make the best use of our landscape.
"It's not so much about what it used to be, but what it can be. At the moment we don't look at the bigger picture. We have this mindset that if we have a wildflower or a butterfly that's rare we think it has to be managed, but what is rare here may be globally common. So if we lose a particular species locally then does it really matter, because something else will come in its place."
Mr Fisher says one of the problems is that the Government has identified areas of biological interest, such as Grass Wood, putting land owners under a legal obligation to ensure species are maintained, and risking being fined if they fail.
"At what point do you draw the line? If an area was designated 30 years ago for wood geranium and that has markedly dropped away, should that be a crime?"
Another contentious issue is the possible re-introduction of "big beasts" such as wolves and lynx back into the countryside. Wild animals have traditionally been seen as a threat to agriculture, but Dr Carver believes this was when farming was more precarious and famine was a real fear.
"There are a lot of people who would love to see some of the big, charismatic animals like wolves and lynx back in the landscape, but others would loathe it, particularly landowning farmers. They would say we've spent hundreds of years getting rid of these animals to allow sheep and cattle to graze on the land, so why do we want to bring them back?"
However, he believes that not only could lynx be re-introduced in Yorkshire, they could even help farmers. "There's been a lot of research done which shows that lynx like to ambush their prey, they dislike open land so they wouldn't go for sheep. In our countryside the lynx would go for the deer, so in terms of farming they would probably help by keeping deer and foxes off farmers land."
He says there's a similar argument in Scotland surrounding the re-introduction of wolves. "The deer populations are probably six times higher than they should be and they do a lot of damage to grassland. But if you put a wolf pack among them and they will scatter, so you reduce their numbers which in turn helps tree regeneration – something that's already been shown to work in America's Yellowstone National Park."
Dr Carver knows there is opposition to the idea of creating a wilder landscape in Britain, but he believes the benefitsare greater than many people realise.
"We're happy to support the World Wildlife Fund and call for India to protect its tigers, but we aren't leading by example. I think it's time we started to promote the idea of wilderness on our own doorstep."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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