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Rewilding
With Brexit looming, the Environment Bill advancing and Climate Change moving up the ladder, the future use of our countryside is being discussed in many quarters. The concept of Rewilding is now becoming better understood and a serious option.
July 2020: Mainstreaming rewilding in government policy
A keynote speech given by Lord Goldsmith entitled “A green recovery”, summarised the need for UK leadership on nature and climate as we set out our priorities for restoring the natural world in post-Covid economic recovery.
In that important speech, we were delighted to hear that the government intends to mainstream rewilding, and even more so with a direct acknowledgement to Rewilding Britain for our ‘fantastic influence on the national debate around rewilding’ adding that we can ‘personally take credit for rewilding having become slightly more mainstream than it was’.
Very significantly, Lord Goldsmith went on to confirm that (ï) he expects the Nature for Climate fund “to place a lot of importance on rewilding” (ii) that he expects there to be “a recognition of the value of rewilding in ELM” and (iii) that the government is now “looking very closely at delivering a riparian programme – i.e. rewilding and planting etc either side of waterways, to help create an informal nature network across the country”.
Lord Goldsmith finished by saying that Rewilding Britain will be “very much involved in those discussions” and will be coming to us for more information. He said, “I’m absolutely convinced that we need to get the incentives right to reward, and incentivise a much greater uptake of rewilding.”
For much more on this read: Rewilding Britain 2020.
