A question of balance

In the age of industrialised agriculture, can our intervention ever truly nurture ecological harmony? We cannot better Nature, but we can enhance it

- John Lewis-Stempel

THE wolf is outside, huffing and puffing. Threatening to blow my sheep- shed down. In France, where I am writing this, the reintroduced Canis lupus presently kills 15,000 sheep, cows, goats and horses annually. It’s a tragedy for French agriculture. Curiously, also a tragedy for Nature.

It was not meant to be like this. The grey wolf was commended for its potential ability to restore the ecosystem by preying on France’s wild boar. Keeping the swine in check, so to speak. Bringing natural balance to the countryside. Allowing Nature to manage Nature.

Alas, the return of the wolf to France illustrates the multiple problems with ‘rewilding’ as a conservation strategy—with fangs on. France has grassland habitats of outstanding biodiversity, but they only look wild. They were created by Bronze Age farmers and have been maintained ever since by sheep and shepherds. (The Causses in the Massif Central have UNESCO heritage status precisely because of pastoralist sheep-farming.) If the sheep go to the wild dogs, so does grassland habitat rich in fauna and flora. It will revert to wood- land. Is such wolfy woodland better for Nature than biodiverse grassland? No. Just different.