Talk of reintroducing lynx

[Disco1]

I think it could be the thin edge of the wedge, once a species that has long since died off from our shores is reintroduced i.e. the lynx how much longer before someone wants to reintroduce a larger more dangerous predator say wolves, bears etc.

 

[Adze]

I'm only surprised nobody has suggested genetically resurrecting Homo neandethalensis (we have the complete genome now and the technology won't be far away if we don't already have it) so that everybody in Northern Europe can go back to the Rift Valley where they came from and the land can be given back to its truly indigenous population.

 

[BigX]

I went to a talk by George Monbiot a few weeks ago (he's one of the most vocal advocates of Rewilding). He offered a very compelling argument for the theory of 'Trophic Cascade', where you change the ecology from the top down (predators) instead of the other way.

But what was interesting during the post-talk Q&A, he admitted he didn't expect to get wolves, lynx etc reintroduced. He gave a wry smile and said 'Actually, I wish I'd thought of asking for elephants', the idea being that if you ask for wolves, you might get beavers, you ask for beavers, you might get pine martins.

I thought the most intriguing point was that the rewilding lobby aren't necessarily interested in the lynx/wolves per se, they're actually looking for ways to introduce 'wildness' to any part of the British Isles, which I'd assume most people on BCUK would approve of.

Forget re-introducing the lynx, wouldn't it be nice to reintroduce some TREES on the uplands of our nation?

 

[Toddy]

We are, indeed there are several enormous re-foresting projects on the go.
From Kielder to the forest for a thousand years, from Re-foresting Scotland to Woodland Heritage.

Loads of people working quietly away doing good things

I sometimes think Mr Monbiot's trying too hard to be seen as a mover and shaker when other folks have already gotten on with the job.

M

Links;
http://www.reforestingscotland.org/what-we-do/the-reforesting-scotland-vision/
http://www.woodland-heritage.org.uk/reforestation.html
http://www.cashel.org.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielder_Forest
http://www.communityforest.org.uk/yourlocalforest.htm
http://www.fsc-uk.org/find-your-fsc-forest.36.htm

 

[Adze]

I sometimes think Mr Monbiot's trying too hard to be seen as a mover and shaker when other folks have already gotten on with the job.

I like to think of him as the man who put the word mentalist into environmentalist.

From his website:

There was only one job I wanted, and it did not yet exist: to make investigative environmental programmes for the BBC.

In order to work in television you have to be a 'celebrity' apparently. Ergo, self aggrandisement, punchy headlines, pithy epithets and quotable sound bites. Sadly, planting mosses and re-establishing woodland doesn't do that very well as it takes tens or even hundreds of years to achieve...

"What we need is something sexier, something now, something happening! What about tigers? Yes! TIGERS in Surrey or Kent... oh wait, that won't work they're non native. I'm sure if we look far enough back there's something we can use to spice this up a bit, make it cute and furry, hey we can even pretend they're endangered if you like. Spin the public some guff about poor fluffy kittens or puppies and they're gullible enough to fund anything, even if it is completely mental".

Meanwhile, as you so rightly say Toddy, the real work (as opposed to fairy story TV work) of building the solid foundation on which everything else rests goes on by people and organisations, quietly, without fanfare or celebrity. Top down ecology indeed... my Annus horribilis.

 

[vestlenning]

Forget re-introducing the lynx, wouldn't it be nice to reintroduce some TREES on the uplands of our nation?

Now that is a good idea. To much chopping, to little planting...

 

[vestlenning]

I sometimes think Mr Monbiot's trying too hard to be seen as a mover and shaker when other folks have already gotten on with the job.

Not very well informed either, imo. I choose to spend as little time as possible on egos like him with their mouth full of big words.

 

[BigX]

I stand corrected on the trees. And I can certainly see how people might be irritated by the likes of George Monbiot.

BUT I went along to that talk with an open mind - didn't really have much idea what rewilding was and I was fearful it was going to be an hour of dreary statistics, but I came away quite energised about it. And because of him I've entered the debate and found out about the various reforesting projects I hadn't the vaguest idea about.

So I do think there is a place for people who do grab the headlines, however self-interested and ego-driven they may be, in fact there's even a place for the 'fairy stories' they tell, because it's sensational tales like 'Tigers in Surrey' which suck disinterested civilians like me in and get us thinking - never a bad thing, surely?

 

[vestlenning]

So I do think there is a place for people who do grab the headlines, however self-interested and ego-driven they may be, in fact there's even a place for the 'fairy stories' they tell, because it's sensational tales like 'Tigers in Surrey' which suck disinterested civilians like me in and get us thinking - never a bad thing, surely?

Problem is that many might get the wrong impressions... let's hope they don't!

 

[Adze]

never a bad thing, surely?

Only a Sith deals in absolutes!

If, I used the word advisedly, funding for or interest in genuine conservation efforts is detrimentally affected by the sudden interest in celebrity egotist's project du jour, then that's a very bad thing indeed.

If, again advisedly, said fairy stories are used as allegory and to make people aware of real conservation (example: If you enjoyed our fairy story, here's an example of how you can do some real good for conservation projects near you...) then that's a good thing.

 

[Robson Valley]

Do you not have an absolute legal requirement for replanting following forest harvesting (aka logging) in the UK?
Relatively stupid not to sustain forest ecologies, what ever they may be.

In the formal sense, "conservation" is a myth in the face of human encroachment on the environment.
The very best we can do is sustained management. Desipite the simple fact that we have a far larger land base for management
here, than you will ever have, it still gets phuqued up some of the time, even in our showcase national parks like Banff and Jasper (2 hrs east of me).

We do. Some 12,000,000,000 new trees in British Columbia, alone. You will be left standing in your underwear
if you are not in compliance. The "twig-pigs" are the forestry inspectors and they LOVE to slam the shysters.
Yup. every last thing you own can and will be confiscated if you are not found to be in compliance.

Don't forget, you can fly over my place any time you like with Google Earth = I can even see my garden shed!
McBride is in the upper part Fraser river valley, salmon runs and all. Mt Robson is about an hour east, just shy of 13,000'\
Nothing at all around my house more than 9,000'.

 

[Quixoticgeek]

Do you not have an absolute legal requirement for replanting following forest harvesting (aka logging) in the UK?
Relatively stupid not to sustain forest ecologies, what ever they may be.

In short: No.

In the UK a lot of hardwood forestry is done on a coppicing basis, meaning that you don't need to replant anything after harvesting. The trees regrow of their own free will.

In softwood woodland where it doesn't respond to coppicing, it's a different story.

In the wake of the 1st world war, the UK realised that if things went bad again, we'd have serious problems providing wood for things like pit props in mines, as well as all the other essential items wood provides in the UK. So the Forestry commission set about planting lots of trees. As it was a case of "what's the quickest return we can get on planting something now?" they planted a lot of softwood plantations. Thing is, these were not generally the native wild habitat of where they were planted. This left us with large quantities of monoculture woodland that are of little use to the British Native wildlife. As a result, in recent years the policy, esp in the south of the UK (I'm not so sure what's happening in Scotland where the scots pine is more of a native), that when a pine plantation is felled, it IS NOT replanted with another pine plantation. Alas, an area that has stood pine for a long time tends not to be immediately suitable for planting of deciduous trees, the soil tends to be too acid for starters. So, in many places the policy has been to leave the felled area to recover naturally. Give it long enough and it'll return to a Native British woodland. Sure it'll look scrubby for a while, until the pioneer species like Silver Birch can get a hold, and it'll take decades before you start to see Oaks, Beech, and Chestnut of any size or substance. But in that time it will provide an amazing habitat for a whole host of wildlife.

In the formal sense, "conservation" is a myth in the face of human encroachment on the environment.
The very best we can do is sustained management. Desipite the simple fact that we have a far larger land base for management
here, than you will ever have, it still gets phuqued up some of the time, even in our showcase national parks like Banff and Jasper (2 hrs east of me).

Conservation is a myth, a lot of it feels like trying to pin nature to an arbitrary point in time. We are part of the environment, and we have an impact that we need to manage. Part of that impact is that we have removed all the apex predators in large areas.

The best we can hope for is that we learn from our mistakes, and don't continue to make things even worse. We've got 6" of topsoil between us and starvation, and a lot less between us and dehydration. We've one planet, lets look after it?

Julia

 

[nic a char]

"I'm only surprised nobody has suggested genetically resurrecting Homo neandethalensis (we have the complete genome now and the technology won't be far away if we don't already have it) so that everybody in Northern Europe can go back to the Rift Valley where they came from and the land can be given back to its truly indigenous population
Haha VG!
We are already ruthlessly exploiting the few indigenous peoples left, and their heritage/land, for commercial gain...
Mebbe someone could make money out of a Homo Neandethalensis zoo?