The helping hand of man

We mustn’t disregard the human role in rural places — species thrive due to our activities in the working countryside, says Jack Bell

- Jack Bell

Rewilding by definition is “the restoration of an area of land to its uncultivated state”. It is commonly used in reference to the reintroduction of wild animals that have been driven from their previously occupied habitat ranges. It is unsurprising that the topic has sparked debate and in turn created divisions between those living in the remote landscapes and the groups of pro-rewild environmentalists pushing for mass ecological landscape change.

Trying to tackle the whole rewilding topic in one article is unrealistic, as it is a wide-ranging subject that covers ecology, land use, local community development, business, tourism and much more. In essence, I completely agree that we need to work hard to improve our natural environment. Our native broadleaf woodlands are disappearing at an accelerated rate, Scottish peatlands, which store 1.7billion tonnes of carbon, are degraded and some of our wildlife is facing localised extinction.

The friction between the two sides of the rewilding debate is mostly due to a complete disregard of the human role in a functioning rural landscape and associated heritage, tradition and local economy. The whitewashing of rural areas with the sole purpose of reverting large swathes of land to an uncultivated ‘natural’ state has been likened to a second attempt at the Highland Clearances, when wealthy landowners, often with little intrinsic connection to the local area, forced local communities from the landscape to make way for more profitable and fashionable commercial trends.