Beyond Conservation : a Wildland Strategy 9781849770538, 1849770530, 1844071979

Table of contents :
Content: Beyond Conservation A wildland strategy
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Introduction
Chapter 1 The wild side of natural
Nature as mother
Chapter 2 Coed Eryri
Lety'r Fwyalchen --
abode of the blackbird
The ancient forest, cattle and the Celtic heritage
A mythic heart
Integrative regeneration
Re-evaluation and vision
Cultural shifts: from grass pasture to wood pasture
Cae Mabon and rites of passage
New green shoots of change
Chapter 3 Caledon
The Trees for Life vision
The Millennium Forest for Scotland. Land and ownership: iniquity and opportunityScottish Natural Heritage: a policy on wildland
Scottish Wild Rivers
Restoration ecology and appropriate economic development
Pioneering re-introduction of predators
The wild heart of the Highlands
Practical regeneration: the Glen Affric project
The problem of red deer
Deer control
Re-introduction of other herbivores
The question of carnivores
Other species issues
Other initiatives in the core area
Economic exploitation: hydro-electric dams, roads and reservoirs
Inspiration
Chapter 4 Dartmoor
Moor Trees: a local re-wilding initiative. Military training groundsA potential core area
Non-intervention
Managed re-wilding
Chapter 5 The Potential for networks and corridors
The Land Use Policy Group and new wildwoods
Ennerdale in the Lake District National Park
Land ownership and management
The Carrifan wildwood project
Glen Finglas: a Woodland Trust site in the Trossachs
Cashel
The National Trust fenland project in Cambridgeshire
The North Pennines and Sussex wildwoods
Wild rivers
Coastal retreat: Abbott's Hall Farm, Essex
Concluding on networks. Chapter 6 Restoring ecological processes: regeneration of the core vegetationWoodland, grazing and pre-history
The indigenous British temperate forest
Beneath the trees
Montane willow and juniper scrub
Pine woodland
Oak-Birch woodlands
Ash woodland
Restoration and creating anew
Dynamics of regeneration
Chapter 7 Restoring ecological processes: the herbivore guild
Rebuilding the herbivore guild
The herbivore species
Forest elephant and rhino
The European wisent or wood bison
Forest cattle: the aurochsen
Wild forest horses or tarpan
The elk
Reindeer
Wild boar. Feral goats and sheepThe beaver
Red, roe, fallow and other deer
The small herbivores: squirrels, rats, rabbits and hares
Chapter 8 Restoring ecological processes: bringing back the carnivores
The guild of carnivores
Lynx
Big cats in Britain
The European leopard
Wolf
Bear
Other predators: the wildcat, polecat and marten
Concluding on predators
Chapter 9 The healing forest
A healing peace
Healing the wounds of industrialization
Towards a science that looks within
Shadows in the psyche
Steps towards a sacred ecology
Complementary maps of reality
The unifying dream. Chapter 10 The land in-between: wilding agriculture.

Citation preview

PETER TAYLOR

BEYOND CONSERVATION

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Beyond Conservation

Beyond Conservation A w ildland strategy

Peter Taylor

SQISDEISlBIi] E arthscan Publications Lim ited L ondon • Sterling, VA

F irst p u b lis h e d by E a r th s c a n in the UK a n d USA in 2 0 0 5 C o p y r ig h t © P eter T a y lo r , 2 0 0 5 T h e rese arc h fo r this b o o k w a s c o m m is s io n e d by the British A sso c ia tio n o f N a t u r e C o n s e r v a t io n i s ts , a ‘th in k t a n k ’ o f p r a c t it io n e r s a n d p u b lish e rs o f the j o u r n a l ECO S> w h e re m a n y o f these id eas have d e v e lo p e d . C o n t a c t e c o s ^ j e a s y n e t . c o .u k a n d w w w . b a n c . o r g . u k All rights reserved ISBN: 1 - 8 4 4 0 7 - 1 9 8 - 7 p a p e r b a c k 1-84407-197-9 h ardback T y p e s e t by T W T y p e s e ttin g , P ly m o u th , D ev o n P rin te d a n d b o u n d in th e UK by C r o m w e l l Press, T r o w b r i d g e , W iltsh ire C o v e r d esign by S u sa n n e H a rri s F o r a full list o f p u b lic a tio n s please c o n ta c t: E a rth s c a n 8 —12 C a m d e n H ig h Street L o n d o n , N W 1 OJH, UK Tel: + 4 4 (0)2 0 7 3 8 7 8 5 5 8 Fax: + 4 4 (0)2 0 7 3 8 7 8 9 9 8 E m ail: e a r t h i n f o @ e a r t h s c a n .c o . u k W eb: w w w .earth scan .co .u k 2 2 8 8 3 Q u ic k silv e r D rive , Sterling, VA 2 0 1 6 6 - 2 0 1 2 , USA E a r th s c a n is an im p r i n t o f J a m e s 6c J a m e s (Science P u b lish e rs ) Ltd a n d p u b lish es in a ss o c ia tio n w ith th e In t e r n a t io n a l In s titu te fo r E n v i r o n m e n t a n d D e v e lo p m e n t A c a ta lo g u e re c o rd fo r th is b o o k is a v a ila b le fro m th e British L ibra ry L ib ra r y o f C o n g re s s C a ta lo g in g - i n - P u b l ic a t io n D a ta T a y l o r , Peter. B ey on d c o n s e r v a ti o n : a w ild la n d s trateg y /P ete r T a y lo r p. cm . In clud es b ib l io g r a p h ic a l references ISBN 1 - 8 4 4 0 7 - 1 9 8 - 7 - ISBN 1 - 8 4 4 0 7 - 1 9 7 - 9 1. W ild e rn e s s a re a s - G r e a t B ritain . 2. N a t u r e c o n s e r v a ti o n - G r e a t B ritain. I. Title. Q H 7 7 .G 7 T 3 9 5 2005 3 3 3 . 9 5 ' 1 6 ' 0 9 4 1- d c 2 2 2005011044 P rin te d on e le m e n ta l c h lo rin e -fre e p a p e r

Contents

L ist o f figures F orew ord A ckn o w led g em en ts G lossary Intro du ction

ix xi xv x v ii 1

C h ap ter 1

T h e wild side of natu ral N a tu re as m o ther

8 12

C h ap ter 2

C oed Eryri I.lety’r Fwyalchen - abode of the blackbird The ancie nt forest, cattle and the Celtic heritage A mythic heart Integrative regeneration Re-evaluation and vision Cultural shifts: from grass pasture to w o od pasture Cae M a b o n and rites of passage N e w green shoots of change

15 18 20 21 23 25 26 27 30

C h ap ter 3

C aledon The Trees for Life vision The M illennium Forest for Scotland Land and ownership: iniquity and o p p ortun ity Scottish N a tu ral Heritage: a policy on wildland Scottish Wild Rivers R estoration ecology and app ro priate economic developm ent Pioneering re-introduction of predato rs The wild heart o f the H ig hlands Practical regeneration: the Glen Affric project

32 33 33 35 35 36 37 38 38 39

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The problem of red deer Deer control Re-introduction of other herbivores T he question of carnivores O th e r species issues O th er initiatives in the core area Economic exploitation: hydro-electric dams, roads and reservoirs Inspiration

47 48

C ha pter 4

D a rtm o o r M o o r Trees: a local re-wilding initiative Military training grou nd s A potential core area N on-intervention M an age d re-wilding

49 50 52 52 52 54

C h ap ter 5

T h e potential for netw ork s and corridors T he Land Use Policy G ro u p and new w ild w o od s Ennerdale in the Lake District N atio n al Park Land ow nership and m anag e m en t T he C arrifran w ildw o od project Glen Finglas: a W o o d lan d T ru st site in the Trossachs Cashel T he N a tio n al T rust fenland project in C ambridgeshire T he N o rth Pennines and Sussex w ildw oods Wild rivers Coastal retreat: A b b o tt’s Hall Farm , Essex C oncluding on netw o rks

56 57 58 59 60 64 65

C h ap ter 6

Restoring ecological processes: regeneration of the core vegetation W o o d la n d , grazing and pre-history T he indigenous British tem perate forest Beneath the trees M o n ta n e willow and juniper scrub Pine w oo dlan d O a k-B irc h w o o d lan d s Ash w o o d lan d R estoration and creating anew Dynamics of regeneration

40 41 43 44 45 46

66 67 67 71 72

74 75 75 81 82 83 84 87 88 89

CONTENTS

C hapter 7

C hapter 8

C hapter 9

C hapter 10

Restoring ecological processes: the herbivore guild Rebuilding the herbivore guild The herbivore species Forest elephant and rhino The European wisent or wood bison Forest cattle: the aurochsen Wild forest horses or tarpan The elk Reindeer Wild boar Feral goats and sheep The beaver Red, roe, fallow and other deer The small herbivores: squirrels, rats, rabbits and hares

vii

95 99 102 102 103 105 110 114 116 117 119 119 121 124

Restoring ecological processes: bringing back the carnivores The guild of carnivores Lynx Big cats in Britain The European leopard W olf Bear Other predators: the wildcat, polecat and marten Concluding on predators

127 128 132 137 140 141 151 157 159

T he healing forest A healing peace Healing the w ounds of industrialization T ow ards a science th at looks within Shadows in the psyche Steps towards a sacred ecology Com plementary maps of reality The unifying dream

160 162 166 168 171 173 175 177

T he land in-between: wilding agriculture Landscape-scale intervention Infrastructural inheritance The problem of intensive agriculture Animal and human diseases: consumer response to BSE and FMD The Curry Report: A Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food

183 184 184 186 190 193

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Tir Gofal: an integrated agricultural su pp ort system The limitations of agricultural su p p o rt systems O rganic farming and sustainability A dual strategy: ecological farming practices and targeted h abitat creation The separation of farming and wildlife C h ap ter 11

197 199 201 204 204

T arg eted h ab ita t creation W hole-farm and w hole-catchm ent a pproaches in the uplands Climate change, carb on dioxide emissions and renewable energy C arb o n sequestration and wildland W ildland and the integration of future land-use issues River restoration and Forest H a b ita t N e tw o rk s Ecological N etw o rk s in the N eth erland s

216 216 2 17

C h ap ter 12

Stepping stones to a wilder policy The UK Biodiversity Action Plan BAP and the candidate core areas Essential elements of a wilding strategy Obstacles to progress on w ildland Areas of special interest to conservationists Areas o f n atural sanctuary Wilding agriculture and the u rb an fringe G ov ern m en t agency Education

219 221 223 226 226 22 7 228 232 233 234

C h apter 13

Straight to the heart: a wildland strategy The T hree N a tio n s Proposal Land purchase Buffer zones Forest netw o rks and riparian corridors Species re-introductions The heart of nature: wild to the core

236 236 238 241 243 244 245

E ndnotes References Scientific nam es o f species In d ex

206 208 210 213

247 258 264 268

List of Figures

3.1 3.2 4.1 5.1

5.2 5.3 5.4 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5

Alan W atso n Featherstone and the Trees for LifeVision: regenerating willow in Glen Affric Trees for Life nursery at Plodda Tree nursery on D a rtm o o r Ennerdale in the Lake District N atio n a l Park: acooperative project of the N ation al Trust, w ater companies and Forestry Commission The C arrifran W ildw oo d planting pro gram m e River Twill, tributary to the Tweed in the Scottish uplands: before and after rewilding by the Tweed Rivers project A b b o t’s Hall Farm: a coastal retreat project T he herbivore guild and its ghost species European w o o d bison or wisent Lascaux’s ‘w h ite’ cattle Heck bull: reconstituted aurochs Aurochsen at O ostvaardersplassen L ascaux’s ‘E x m o o r’ pony E x m o o r ponies Konik horses D istribution of the w o lf and bear in E urope The European forms of the lynx Large p antherine cat seen on E x m o o r W olf Bear

Colour Plates (between page s 142 and 143) 1 2 3 4

Snow donia N atio na l Park Rhinogydd core area proposal T he Glen Affric core area T h e D a rtm o o r N ational Park and T h e ‘Wild E nnerdale’ project

39 40 51

59 61 70 72 100 104 107 109 110 112 113 114 128 132 139 142 152

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5

The N atio n al T ru st fenland project area and The Tweed catc hm ent project Distribution of the Lynx in Europe Ecological N etw o rk s in the N etherlands Cores and connectivity in Britain

6 7 8

Foreword

This boo k has been long in the prod uctio n and I ow e a great d ebt to the British Association of N a tu re Conservationists (BANC), w ho commissioned it, for their perseverance since its inception in 1999. The original aim was to follow the initiatives of BANC and the N a tion al T ru st th at started with the conference Wilderness Britain at the O p en University in 1995. BANC intended this w o rk to continue on the path of Bill A d a m s’ seminal Future N a tu re, which was sponsored by BANC and published in 1996. T h a t book set the c ontext for new thinking on wild nature, whilst celebrating and critiquing, where app rop riate, the past history of n ature conservation. One elem ent emerging in the new conservation strategy w as the prospective creation of larger and wilder areas where the processes of nature w ou ld be able to operate relatively free from managerial interference. H owever, schemes on the grou nd were few at the time, th ough several visions for wild areas were being pursued. W h a t was needed w as to collate and ne tw o rk the various pilot projects th a t came un der the rubric of re-wilding. At th a t time, the pioneering Trees for Life project in Glen Affric had stim ulated similar visions of wild forest regeneration in Snow donia, with which I was involved, and A dam Griffin had begun w ork on a vision for a wilder D a rtm o o r. T here was also a fever of activity leading up to the M illennium , with Scotland embracing a M illennium Forest for Scotland. A plethora of projects spread across the country, some of which had a wildland ethos. The following years saw a heightened activity in the purchase of land especially strategic farm land - by a variety of organizations w ith an interest in wildlife. The Borders Forest T ru st b ou gh t C arrifran and an no un ced a pure w ildland ideal for its regeneration; the W o o d la n d T ru st b o ug ht Glen Finglas and set a b o u t finding a balance between regenerating a forest (over 3000 ha) and m aintaining grazing o f domestic and wild herbivores; and the Royal Forestry Society of Scotland b ou gh t Cashel Farm as a strategic site for new w o o d la n d in the new Loch Lom ond and T rossachs N atio nal Park; the N atio nal T ru st for Scotland purchased the West Affric estate next to the Trees for Life project and M a r Lodge in the C airngorm s, with the

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intention of minimizing interference in natural processes in the former, and reducing the level of invasive impacts in the latter. In the last few years, the N ation al T ru st has bou ght land on Snow don and an no un ced projects in Ennerdale and the C am bridge Fens that have significant elements of wildland with m inim al intervention. H itherto, wildland values had been secondary to those of amenity and biodiversity. At the N a tu re in T ransition conference, organized by BANC and the N ational T ru st at Lancaster University in 1999, a discernable shift in values to w a rd s natural processes became app aren t. There has been much questioning o f conservation p ro gram m es th a t m aintain the status qu o with m an agem en t policies that w o rk against n atu ral processes and focus upon species that may be threatened by those processes, such as those of heath and reedbed. W e are, however, at the very beginning of a m ajo r shift in emphasis, and m uch conservation effort is still focused upo n the m ain ten ­ ance or creation of h a b itat that depends up o n h u m a n intervention. In this bo ok I have outlined the m ajo r practical initiatives and addressed some of the dynamic of policy and science that w ould underlie a m ajo r expansion of wildland in Britain. In these years, there w as a great deal of netw orkin g and discussion of practical initiatives. The pioneering Trees for Life project west of the Great Glen in Scotland had already m app ed o u t a 20 0 0 k m 2 candidate area for large-scale ecological restoration, and had begun a ten-year p ro gram m e of planting, fencing, collecting local seed, educational outreach, and cooperative projects with landow ners and the Forestry Comm ission. This project sparked ideas for D a rtm o o r. In my h om eland of Snow donia, I helped to set up the Coed Eryri project aiming to develop the concept as it might apply to a largely cultural landscape of commercial forestry and hill farming. W h a t was needed was a b oo k th a t presented these projects in some detail - the differing visions and the different lessons learned, set in the con text of recent conservation science and shifts in agricultural policy. At the outset I had hoped to m ake some prolonged site visits and a th o ro u g h review of these key projects, as well as researching other potential areas for re-wilding. There w as also m uch relevant experience in the US and Europe, particularly w ith regard to large m a m m a l re-introductions. H ow ever, I have not had the opportunities I w ould have wished for detailed assessments on the g rou nd , or for investigating E uropean and American experience beyond collating anecdotes in journals, magazines and a few scientific papers, and the invaluable use of websites. And fu rtherm ore, the scientific and policy w orlds of biodiversity and ecology, which have grow n so influential in the last decade in the US ‘wilderness’ movem ent, have begun to take second place in my o w n mind to a set o f values derived m ore from the rich cultural relationship to the land th at is characteristic of Britain. Some of w h a t I w a n t to say is particular to these islands. We are a land of myth and deep poetry. We have given birth to much of the w o rld ’s

FOREWORD

xiii

thinking on n ature and wilderness, from Charles D arw in to Jo h n M uir, w'ho was, after all, a Scotsman. These islands also gave birth to the great engine of industrialization and m a rk et economics th at has w ro u g h t such eno rm o us global change and currently threatens to eradicate all wilderness in its drive for renewable sources of energy. We in Britain, as much as any culture, are the source of m odern rationalist and scientific society - where N a tu re is perceived as mechanistic and a resource to be exploited in the su p p o rt of essentially h um a n endeavours. O u r scientific rationality has thus far n o t m ade head w ay against an industrial mentality th at threatens no t only o ur ow n countryside but the stability of planetary ecosystems of which we are all part. W hate ver changes in values we may now manage to achieve here in Britain, we have the potential to influence w h a t happens elsewhere, and this is the ultim ate purpo se of this book. H ow ever, the ultim ate process of re-wilding will be in o ur ow n hearts. W h a t we create, or co-create, ‘o utside’ will be a reflection of o u r ow n wildness. In the chapter on Coed Eryri I have given an account of my personal experience of transfo rm a tion through my contact w ith wild land, and I have included, in am on gst the more o rth o d o x territory of conserva­ tion concerns, a c hap te r on the ‘healing’ dimension of the forest. These are no more than signposts to w h a t I believe to be the ultim ate w o rk of ‘nature co nservation’, where ou r con tact with nature n ot only inspires and educates, but heals the w o u n d s of a psyche d am aged by industrial living and industrial mentality. O f the m any w h o have helped with the drafts of this b o o k , there is a division betw een those w h o have been delighted by the shifts in style and tone from ‘th ird ’ person to personal, and those w h o have been discon­ certed. From the experience of the latter, I offer apologies in advance for the u n o rth o d o x mixing of poetic and scientific, subjective and objective. M y reasoning has been th at rather tha n write tw o books, I would try to build a bridge between tw o aspects of the psyche. M o s t of this boo k would sit happily within the realm of practical conservation biology, and it is from here th a t I have tried to extend the bridge, believing th at it is conservation­ ists w h o need to broad en their reach and their influence. Biologists and ecologists have good standing in the m odern w orld. They, above all, have the open minds to embrace the connectedness of environm ent and psyche, inner and ou ter w orlds, and concepts of healing th a t extend beyond the purely physical. And it is they w h o, surely, k now ho w desperately im p o rtan t it is to bring the w orld into some kind of balance. Peter T aylor February 2005

Acknowledgements

I particularly wish to acknowledge the persistence and faith of Rick M in ter at BANC. Funding of the research and writing time was m ade possible by a private bequest from the estate of Frederick Eastw ood to BANC. A review comm ittee from BANC, consisting at various times of Rick M inter, Kate Rawles, James R obertson and Alison Parfitt has helped considerably in focusing the material. In addition, Jackson Davis, Professor of Biology at Santa Cruz, University of California; the environm ental co nsultant Roger Kayes; Stanley O w en at Coed Cymru; Adam Griffin of M o o r Trees and Alan W atso n Featherstone at F in d h o rn ’s Trees for Life have all helped with readings, clarifications and encouragements. Derek Ratcliffe reviewed the first drafts and suggested a need for more detail on vegetation changes (not all of which could be included and this can be accessed at the wildlands c o m p o n en t of the Ethos-UK website). H owever, this w ork represents my ow n views and n o t necessarily those of BANC, and I greatly appreciate this freedom. I am indebted to the inspiring scholarship in the recent w ork s of Derek Yalden, Tim Flannery, Joh n Rodwell and Alan T u rn er, and the depths of natural w isdom revealed in M a r tin Prechtel’s ‘Secrets of the Talking J a g u a r’. M y friends in N o rth Wales - the d ram atist Iwan Brioc, the sculptor Meic W atts, and the educationalist Eric M a d d e r n helped with the restoration of a truer ecological self in the wilds of th a t land. V arious initiatives were spaw ned by the original B ANC conference - the Council for N atio n al P a rk ’s ‘Design for the W ild ’ culm inated in a conference at N ewcastle University in 1999 and the w o rk of Emm a Loat has been central to carrying the message to N atio na l Park officers. In that year I w o rk ed closely with R ob Ja r m a n and David Russell at the N atio nal T r u s t’s head office, on Call fo r the W ild, which sought to present the ecological and spiritual value o f wild land and to stem the tide of intrusive development. Recently a small g roup of practitioners, academics and consultants has formed The W ildland N etw o rk - details are available on the Ethos-UK website - and through discussions and in form ation exchange.

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this bo ok has been able to keep up to date with w h at is now a rapidly developing and evolving project th r o u g h o u t Britain. And special appreciation in the final throes of p roduction to the meticulous team at Earthscan.

Glossary

AONB BANC BAP BSE CAP CCW CEGB CJD CSS DEFRA DNP DTI EA ERDP ECOS ESA EU FACE FC FE FHN FM D GATT GDP GIS GMO HLF IPCC IUCN JM T

Area of O u tsta n d in g N a tu ral Beauty British Association of N a tu re Conservationists Biodiversity Action Plan Bovine spongiform encephalopathy C o m m o n Agricultural Policy C ountryside Council for Wales Central Electricity Generating Board C reutzfeld t-Jako b Disease Countryside Stewardship Scheme D ep artm en t of Environm ent, Food and Rural Affairs D a rtm o o r N ational Park D ep artm en t of T rad e and Industry Environm ental Agency England Rural Developm ent Plan Jou rnal of British Association of N atu re Conservationists Environm entally Sensitive Area E u rop ean Union Forests A bsorbing C a rb o n Emissions Forestry Commission Forest Enterprise Forest H a b ita t N etw o rk Foot and M o u th Disease General A greement on Tariffs and T rade Gross domestic pro du ct Geographical inform ation systems Genetically Modified Organism H eritage Lottery Fund Intergovernm ental Panel on Climate Change International Union for the C onservation o f N a tu re and N atu ral Resources Joh n M u ir T ru st

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JN CC KORA LCIE LEAP LIFEEU LNV LUPG MA FF NHLF NFU NGO NNR NTS NVC PCB PERG RRC RSPB SNH SAC SPA SSSI TfL UKBAP vCJD WTO WWF

Joint N a tu re C onservation Comm ittee Swiss Carnivore Project Large C arnivore Initiative for Europe Local E nvironm ent Action Plan Financial Instrum ent for the E n viron m en t (European Union) M inistry for L and bo uw , N a tu u rb e h e er en Visserij (Netherlands) Land Use Policy G rou p M inistry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food N a tu ra l Heritage Lottery Fund N atio n al F arm ers’ Union N o n-go vernm enta l O rganization N atio n a l N a tu re Reserve N atio n a l T rust for Scotland N atio n a l Vegetation Classification polychlorinated biphenyls Political Ecology Research G roup River R estoration Centre Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scottish N atu ral Heritage Special Area of Conservation Special Protection Area Site of Special Scientific Interest Trees for Life UK Biodiversity Action Plan V arian t C reu tzfeld t-Jak ob Disease W o rld T rad e O rganization W o rld Wide Fund for N a tu re

Introduction

T here is a quiet revolution un derw ay in nature conservation. After decades of operating off the back foot, protecting an d conserving a ‘n a tu r e ’ perceived as under th reat, conservationists are becoming proactive and creative. It is no t th a t the threats have become less - indeed, losses have been continuous, particularly of once-com m on species in the b roader countryside. The shift has arisen in part because of these losses and the realization that the current n etw ork of small isolated reserves will n o t cope with a greater acceleration of intensive agriculture aro u n d them , especially in the face of im pending climate change, and in part because conservation organizations have grow n sufficiently powerful in their ow n finances and political impact to be able to act creatively. T here has been a significant m ovem ent to w ard s land acquisition to enlarge reserves, and the p rom otion of strategies for linking reserves with wildland corridors. In this endeavour, new h abitat is being created, for example in native broadleaf w o o d la n d and reedbeds, or d am aged hab itat restored, such as natural river systems, heathland an d wet pasture. T hu s far this trend has been little docum ented and there is no overall national strategy. F u rth er­ more, though there has been much debate, conservation thinking is still caught in the middle of a paradigm shift in values, with scientific thinking, hitherto focused largely upo n species and diversity, no w encompassing the im portance of n atu ral processes of landscape change. A willingness to allow n atu ral processes a free rein appears to be evolving, with a desire to re-wild landscapes, including some of ou r tam er ‘n a tu r e ’ reserves th at are subject to the m anag em en t ethos. In this there is a discernable emergence of spiritual values in a debate still dom inated by concepts of environmental utility and economic services. The paradigm s of defensive ‘co nserv ation ’ and the marketing of n a tu re ’s benefits to the econom y have served well over the past half-century, when so much pressure has been exerted up on the rem nants of near-natural land. At the very least, there is still a great diversity of species in Britain, if no t a great abundance. H ow ever, this millennium presents new threats as well as new opportunities, an d I believe these d em a nd new thinking.

2

BEYOND CONSERVATION

Nature in reservations W hate ver the new -found strength of the conservation organizations, ‘n a tu r e ’ as such is still marginalized. It exists as much in ‘reservations’ of the mind as in physical reservations in the countryside. It is still a minority interest, a hobb y even, rather than an appreciation of the underlying reality of o ur existence - indeed, th a t which has given birth to all existence! In some sense, I believe, the w hole nature conservation endeavour has been a category mistake, bo rn o f a false separation between w h at it is to be h u m an and w h a t it is to be natural. H aving thus separated ourselves, we have lost touch with n a tu r e ’s processes bo th outside of ourselves and, more crucially, within ourselves. W e think we k now w h at n ature is, and hence how we might conserve it - but afflicted by o ur separation, we see th ro ug h the distortions of denial, and only now are we realizing ho w much has been delusion. Virtually all of ou r nature reserves are unnaturally denuded of large herbivores, n atural grazing regimes and big predators. They are too small to ac com m od ate natural processes of fire, storm damage and climate shifts. M a n y are grazed by domestic stock and therefore m anaged according to h um a n agendas of preference and interference w ith n atural processes of succession. Furtherm ore, much of the food chain is underpinned by ‘alien’ introductions, such as muntjac, rabbit, hare, brow n rat, pheasan t and red-legged partridge. These reserves are themselves su rro u nd ed by everintensifying agriculture. W here 50 years ago there might have been a gradient o f naturalness, with the reserves providing a nucleus, the b o u n d ­ aries have become steadily sharper, even in the relatively wild uplands where intensive grazing regimes have drastically altered vegetation patterns. As a consequence, the land in-between n atu re reserves has become sterile, with huge sw athes of species-poor acid grassland do m in ating the uplands; m on ocu ltural rye-grass replacing the ancie nt flower-rich hay meadow s, even w ithin national parks; and arable eastern England witnessing massive declines in once-com m on farm land species of birds, butterflies, m oths, small m am m als and amphibians. Ponds, hedges, river margins and w o o d ­ land have been reduced, ‘w eeds’ eradicated, and a great divide created between an eastern arable and a western pastoral Britain. In response, conservationists have evolved a dual strategy of attempting to modify mainstream agriculture and make it less intensive on one hand, and creating new h abitat such as reedbed, coastal marsh and heathland on the other. In my view, there is little chance th a t agriculture will be open to sufficient reform to do more th a n stem the tide of cu rrent losses, whilst the current strategy of h ab ita t creation suffers from a lack of overall strategy, agreed goals or un de rstanding of w h a t is at stake. The key conservation organizations are open to co op eration bu t still pursue their ow n visions and values, many of which are rooted in the past paradigm of protectionism and

INTRODUCTION

3

m aintenance of the status quo. M u c h of w h a t conservation strives to protect or to restore is already the p ro d u c t of h u m a n m an age m en t rather than n atural processes. In this case, ‘target’ species and h abitats are the main focus of action, w ith some species, such as domestic herbivores and even beavers, being broug ht in as ‘m anag em ent tools’.1 A great deal more could be achieved by a coo rdin ated strategy, but more im portantly, as Britain and Europe face unprecedented changes in the new millennium, I believe a great deal will be lost w ith o u t one. Huge new pressures arc beginning to m ount. Perhaps the greatest and least appreci­ ated is the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, m ost of which are located in wild places (if we consider sources such as w ind, hydro, tidal barrages and wave power) or derived from new crops such as coppice willow and oil-bearing seeds. The scale of developm ent required to meet a projected 50 per cent replacement of fossil fuels by 20 5 0 is seldom discussed. In addition to renewable energy issues, global trends in agricul­ ture are set to intensify prod uctio n on good land even further, whilst potentially causing the a b a n d o n m e n t of marginal prod uctio n, especially of hill livestock. Climate change is not preventable, despite much p ro pag an da to the contrary a m o n g environm ental groups backing renewable energy, often at the expense of landscape beauty and wildness. Periodic climate change is a feature of n orthern tem perate ecosystems and there are m ajor regional shifts even within the glacial and inter-glacial cycles. These climate processes have been a m ajor force in shaping the floral and faunal comm unities over the last 2 million years of evolution. The relatively m inor changes seen so far (0.5°C on a global average of 15°C) m ay n o t be du e to carbon d io xid e em issions. The scientific committees of the Intergovernm ental Panel on Climate C hange (IPCC) give a 10 per cent chance for there being no real change (the cu rrent 0.5°C change would thus be an artefact of m easurem ent protocols) and a 1 in 3 chance that, if real, the change is n a tu ra l} If it is carb o n dioxide causing this observed rise, then the inertia effects of the global ecosystem mean m ore change is inevitable. Thus, w hatever happens with emission controls, we have to develop policy relating to the vulnerability of isolated reserves, as well as to w ater dem and, forestry policy, flood control on rivers and protection (or m anaged retreat) of coastlines.

Crisis and opportunity We are at a m ost crucial time for nature in Britain. T here is a discernable public desire to eschew the road of ever-intensifying agriculture, as evinced by the opposition to G M crops. At the same time, marginal agriculture, particularly in the uplands, faces huge economic problems at a time when

4

BEYOND CONSERVATION

carb on sequestration and new forests on such marginal land can go some way tow ard s com pensating for Britain’s emissions of carb o n dioxide. Additional problems of flood control and w ater supply, worsened by climate change, also offer opportunities for landscape-scale change to natural systems of forest and w etland. M u ch of the new thinking in conservation recognizes the opportunities for natural processes, wildland and ‘n ature co nserv atio n’ to co ntribute solutions to these problem s.3 C onservation is thus emerging from its protective phase into a w ide­ spread but piecemeal op eration of h abitat creation and the wilding of forests, heaths, upland grassland and coastal marshes. H ow ever, this creative phase presents even further o pportunities for restoring larger-scale natural processes an d even for the re-introduction of lost species of large m am m al such as the elk, wild cattle, primitive forest ponies, wild boar, beaver, lynx, w olf and even bear. For this to h app en, there will need to be much greater levels of coo peration and strategic thinking a m o ng organiz­ ations and the w hole-hearted sup po rt of both governm ent and con sum er.4 This boo k is an atte m p t to do cum en t the slow but steady restoration of the n atural processes of wild nature, and it is also an appeal for us to restore som ething of the wild within o u r ow n hearts, for ou r spiritual well-being as well as for the sake of the planetary ecosystem up o n w hich we depend. The task before us goes further than ecological restoration in Britain, for if o u r w o rk c an n o t influence the cu rren t developm ent paths of other nations, then we m ay enter a d ark age more subject to n atu ral law, but a lot less conducive to the h u m an spirit. It is a p a ra d o x , th at in o ur striving to sustain ourselves by co-opting the natural fruitfulness of the earth, we bring on its darker side of dro ug ht, flood, disease and famine. Hopefully, there is a middle way born of a greater humility and respect for these natural processes, rather than denial and control which has been ou r habit. I would go further and argue th at we need to break o u t of the category ghetto th a t sees nature as separate from ourselves, and hence something that needs to be conserved, protected or even enhanced. I say this because ou r current philosophy has condem ned us, the conservationists, to the same ‘reserves’ as the conceptualized nature we seek to protect. We are not relevant to the mainstream of food pro du ction , w ater, timber, building materials, energy supplies and, above all, ‘the eco n o m y ’. We are still an afterthought, a concession hard fought w hen w o n from the dep artm en ts of agriculture, trade and industry. It is as if nature is not necessary in modernity, other than in the services and jobs it provides. In this bo o k I can only leave signposts (in C hap ter 9, The Healing Forest) to where th at future thinking might lead in the themes of hu m anity and naturalness, denial and its consequences - as I wish to remain firmly rooted in the practicalities and limitations of n ature conservation as it exists now, however m uch of a category mistake th a t may have been! T he revolution

INTRODUCTION

5

that is unfolding has begun on the g rou nd , in practical endeavour, but w ithin the context of a larger dream. Perhaps the w ay forw ard lies n o t so much in the a b a n d o n m e n t of old concepts, but in the em bracing of a new paradigm th a t builds upon the experience and understanding of n atural processes gained from conserva­ tion biology. The challenge for conservationists will be to eschew m an age ­ m ent o f these processes and allow nature to lead the w ay in some areas at least. These issues arise in each o f the projects described and with different levels of intervention. H ow ever, this paradigm goes beyond th a t of the conservation biologist as landscape manager. T here is som ething to be gained from allowing and respecting n atu ral processes th at is beyond utility, w heth er in pollution control, flood m an age m en t or meeting biodiversity targets. In the wilding of o ur land, we are also reaching into the realm of the heart and the province of the poet. All conservationists m ust ultimately act ou t of a love for nature, w hether they operate scientifically or poetically, but the latter has som ehow become lost in the ascendance of scientific reasoning. W ithin the three initiatives th at I will describe in some detail Coed Eryri (in C hap ter 2), C aledon (in C h apte r 3) and D a rtm o o r (in C ha pter 4) - there exists a core belief in the spiritual value of wild nature and the necessity for recreating a connection th a t has been lost. These projects are at the wildest end of a spectrum: a potential for core areas that represent core values in the h on ou rin g of natural processes on a large scale. In addition to these core-area projects and proposals, there are several smaller-scale core-area initiatives, such as C arrifran in the Southern Uplands, Ennerdale in the Lake District and at Wicken Sedge in the C am bridge Fens, as well as river and w oo dlan d ‘c o rrid o r’ schemes and landscape-scale strategies for wilder land, all of which are gathering pace. Some of these schemes - such as the C am bridge Fens - th o ug h initiated, will require long program m es of land purchase and conversion. O thers such as Ennerdale and C arrifran - are already under sympathetic ow nership and are evolving long-term strategies. In the case of C arrifran, this is tow ard s wildland with no exploitation, and in the case of Ennerdale, it is to w ard s a spectrum of wildness where certain h u m a n use of the land could be regarded as ‘n a tu r a l’, in as m uch as h u m an s w hen no t dom inating natural processes can be described as natural. Some of o u r largest conservation land-holdings, such as the M a r Lodge estate (nearly 30,0 00 ha) in the C airngorm s, which was purchased as a sporting estate by the N atio nal T ru st for Scotland, arc currently debating m anag em en t policies in the light of re-wilding issues such as the removal of bulldozed tracks, deer culling, removal of alien conifers, sustainable forest use and the degree of m an ag e m e nt for traditional sports. These schemes, described in C h ap ter 5, presage a m ajo r shift in conservation thinking th a t will also require new science and more than a

6

BEYOND CONSERVATION

little risk-taking with pilot projects and experimental schemes. T o this end, I have outlined the cu rrent science base for the restoration of n atu ral vegetation types (see C h apte r 6) - much of which has greatly benefited from the recent completion of extensive reviews - and attem pted to explore the m ost relevant elements in relation to the dynamics of the changes we wish to see; I have also attem pted to bring together the disparate data on experience with large herbivores (see C h apte r 7) and carnivores (see C h apter 8), largely draw n from projects in the rest of Europe. Finally, I have outlined a strategy for large-area initiatives th a t is based upo n the present u ndercurrents of change w ithin agriculture (see C h ap ter 10, The Land In-between), forestry (see C ha pter 11, Targeted H a b ita t Creation), and globalized markets (see C hapters 10 and 12, Stepping Stones to a Wilder Policy). I believe th a t w h at we do in o u r o w n small landscape has the p ow e r to affect the greater debate on the future of the planetary ecosystem. We in Britain have a relatively stable p op ulation and a strong economy. Else­ where, particularly in some of the m ost crucial ecological zones for the health of the planetary ecosystem, other nations are facing burgeoning po pulation gro w th and dwindling financial resources. The forests of the A mazon, the C ongo and South East Asia, and perhaps even the boreal fastness of C an ad a and Russia, are subject to increasing den ud atio n, partly to acco m m od ate people and partly to raise finance. The consequences to the planetary ecosystem of losing 50 per cent o f th at forest cover could be as extreme as the com ing o f an ice age. But having reduced o ur o w n forest cover to less than 10 per cent, and eradicated competing large herbivores or troublesom e predators, w ith w h a t auth ority can we speak and try to influence others? O u r ow n house is n o t in order. We have continued the destruction of the unenlightened past, w hen we ex term inated several keystone species - the bear, lynx, elk and aurochs - as a consequence of deforestation, with the wolf, as it hung on and adapted to open country, being eradicated in the 17th or 18th century only by a determined e f f o r t . T h e 19th century saw a veritable holocaust of a cam paign against any predatory anim al - hawks, falcons, kites, osprey, harriers, eagles and owls, as well as wildcats, martens, stoats, weasels and otters - all for the sake of an aristocracy that enjoyed the shooting of game, such th at the balance of the countryside was radically altered. In the devastation of the last three centuries, deer disappeared outside of royal parks, the humble squirrel faced extinction in Scotland and had to be re-introduced, as did the roe deer to southern Britain. In the past five years I have come to the view th at if we are to influence policy on a global level, we have to do something very significant in our own backyard. If we were to restore some of o ur degraded forest ecosystems, bring back ex term inated species and re-wild several large areas of land, we might have the p ow e r to change not only o ur ow n conscious

INTRODUCTION

?

relationship to nature, but also to influence others. In the final chapter I argue that a wildland strategy is also a strategy for the restoration of the hu m a n heart. There are other nations at w ork on wilder-land program m es, particularly in N o rth America and H o llan d,6 but in Britain we have a n o th er c o n trib u ­ tion to make. We have a mythic heart. O u r language is ro oted in a literature of past relationship to the land - in A rthurian legend, in the rom antic poets and in the Druid past of the Celts. I can n o t b u t think th a t for us to have come so far d o w n an irrational road of self-destruction, a road with so little heart, so little mystery, we m ust have laboured un der some very great delusion of the psyche. It m u st lie in o ur separation n o t just from nature, but from the wild side of o u r o w n heart. M y th o u g h t is th at we are afraid afraid of the wild heart th at we will no t look into the fire directly. We live o u r job-protected lives behind the ram p arts of a life insured and keep the w ild w oo d at bay. C urious ho w ou r devil sports horns, g o a t’s feet and d ra g o n ’s tail red his favourite colour, whilst o ur hero is St George. M y th o u g h t is h e’s science, scepticism his sw ord, hypothesis the lance th at pins the d ra g o n ’s head. Legend has it, w hen she of the three-fold w ay w as lost to us, the Merlin held the magic, but then was lost to lechery, therein losing himself. N o form n o w breaks the surface of the lake w here N im u e sleeps. W o uld th a t we could th ro w her not just sw ord, b u t lance and a rm o u r too, and walk this magic land, naked to the wild wild wood. A u th o r's in trodu ctio n to the B A N C C onference, Wilderness Britain, O p en U niversity, 1995

1 The Wild Side of Natural

Wild areas in which n atu ral processes are left to reign supreme are com m on ly called ‘wilderness’, an d in the US there exist designated ‘wilderness are as’ under the Wilderness Act, where no economic ex ploita­ tion is allowed. T he term is often used loosely in Britain, in which very few such areas are devoid of the present impact of agriculture and forestry, let alone past impacts. T here has been much debate over definitions of wilderness and w h at is natural, and no conference on the subject of wilderness m an age m ent has been complete w ith o u t some academ ic dis­ course on its p aram eters and m ean in g.1 H ow ever, ‘w ilderness’ as a term, whilst useful to many, especially in America, is fraught w ith m isun d erstand ­ ing for the situation in Britain. This is perhaps because wilderness has both an ecological and spiritual dimension. For some, wildernesses are desolate places outside of the hum anized realm, either to be avoided or bro ug ht under some kind of hu m an d om in io n, and for others, they are places to practice humility, experience a certain vulnerability and acknow ledge the creative and even destructive pow ers of the natural world. I can see tw o dimensions of o ur being th a t are reflected in this polarity of meaning. As anim als we are subject to n a tu r e ’s laws and natural processes, but as h u m an s we have striven with a p p a ren t success to cheat those laws. T h ro u g h technology, the h u m an side of us has achieved control (perhaps only temporarily) of the n atu ral cycles of ab un dan ce in food, the seasonal stresses of tem perature and w ater supply, and, crucially, the exigencies of disease and childhood mortality. N a tu re seems to threaten these achievements, and m uch of the language of farming and resource use is couched in terms of a battle for dominance. I will no t here a ttem p t to chart a course th rou gh these polarities, but will instead interject a hitherto oft-omitted ecological fact, lest we be tem pted to build a practical philosophy of ecological restoration up on concepts of a pristine past. Historically, all the present wilderness areas outside Antarctica held pop ulatio ns of h u nter-g ath erers, hitherto assumed to have had minim al im pact upo n natural processes. Recent w o rk has show n, however, th at during the last glacial period (6 0 ,0 0 0 - 1 0 ,0 0 0 BP) huge

THE WILD SIDE OF NATURAL

9

changes were w ro u g h t th r o u g h o u t the Americas, Eurasia, Australasia and O ceania by the h unting to extinction of the mega-fauna (m astodons, m am m oth s, g rou nd sloth, giant m arsupials and large predators).2 Once these anim als were removed, further h u m a n hunting of medium-sized game and the use of fire continued to transform landscapes, particularly in the creation of open park-like forests and grasslands.3 Even the apparently pristine Antarctic ecosystem is today affected by chemical pollutants, which in the Arctic have already proven capable of altering the fertility o f its m ajor anim al com ponents, and in the recent past, w haling bro u g h t large-scale changes to the marine ecosystems upo n which the lan d w ard ecology in polar regions is based. Com m ercial whaling removed over 90 per cent of the ‘g reat’ whales an d with them virtually a whole trophic layer. There is so little data from th a t period th a t it would be difficult to say how much of any species’ present abu nd an ce on that continent was n o t the result of the demise of those great com petitors for the ‘krill’ and huge shoals of fish th at underpin the ecosystem. Studies of the apparently pristine N o r th Pacific coastal ecosystems of the Aleutians and Alaska have sh ow n th a t the more recent w haling operation of 1 9 4 9 -1 9 6 9 , w hen half-a-million great whales, mostly sperm, were removed, caused m ajor dom ino effects as orcas, the main p red ato r of the whales, shifted predation to seals, sea lions and otters, causing rapid declines.4 In Britain and Europe, there are few areas to match N o rth American wilderness. M o s t national parks su p p o rt some present-day economic activity, such as farming and forestry, especially in Britain, and all receive large num bers of visitors and sustain significant tou rist industries. A few have ‘core areas’ th a t w ou ld co rrespond to American ‘wilderness areas’, th ou gh there are none in Britain, and they also share a co m m o n prehistory of mega-faunal extinction.5 This ‘han d of m a n ’ factor (noting the generally articulated gender bias) plays an im p o rta n t role in conservation m an age m en t and the debates over m inim al intervention. T here has arisen a philosophy of ‘n a tu r a l’ versus ‘artificial’ in which being h u m a n has been relegated to the latter. Thus, some have placed special value on the ‘purely n a tu r a l’, w hereas others value the artifices of h u m a n intervention in landscapes, such as open m o o rlan d , heaths, reed marshes and estuaries. James Fenton has argued th a t even these landscapes, though consequent up o n deforestation and grazing, still present an array of perfectly natural processes, and th at even domestic stock are adequate replacements for former herbivores th at w ould have kept the land open.6 Until recently, the deep time perspective of palaeo-ecology has been missing from much of the debate. At w h a t point do we decide th a t hum ans ceased to be ‘n a tu r a l’? We could choose the invention of stone tools, or the spear and bow , or fire, or place the point much later with the domestication of anim als and the clearance of forest. We could categorize the mega-faunal

10

BEYOND CONSERVATION

extinctions as natu ral and similar to other m ajor prehistoric shifts in the balance of species. But I am n o t sure that m uch is to be gained by the separation of artificial and natural. If we add ou r m od ern know ledge of the im pact of h u m a n activity on inter-linked elements of the global ecosystem - such as the im pact of carbo n dioxide on the global climate; of the global distribution of toxins on im m uno-com petence, gender and reproduction of m am m als, am p hibians and birds; of the flux of basic chemicals such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen and ozone upo n vegetation on land and also upon marine life; as well as the m ore recent removal of mega-fauna from the oceans in the industrial w haling decades of 1 9 4 9 -1 9 6 9 - then we must conclude, as did Bill M cK ibben in T he E n d o f N a tu re, th at there are no purely ‘n a tu r a l’ environm ents left. Yet, if we a b a n d o n the concept of ‘n a tu r e ’, so the argu m en t goes, w hat then is the p o in t of ‘n ature co nserv atio n’? N atu raln ess has been our yardstick and the m ain defensive w e apo n against competing dem an ds on land use. Only since the m id-1990s have we really begun to take these factors on board and begun a necessary paradigm shift in values and perceptions. Firstly, it should no w be clear that we can n o t recreate the past, an oft-articulated aim of restoration ecology. For example, the Caledonian Forest of 600 0 years ago w as n o t just a matter of trees and N ation al Vegetation Classification eco-type mosaics of h a b itat - it w as a dynamic interactive process involving m any species in a large herbivore guild with carnivores feeding upon them ; as well as the hunting grou nd of extremely efficient h u m an omnivores. The ‘forest’ w as this entity and had evolved over millions of years of con tin uo us interaction, bu t even this Mesolithic forest with its herds of wild cattle, forest pony, elk, wolf, bear, bo ar and lynx had already lost its mega-herbivores, the E uro pean tem perate-forest elephants and rhinos as well as the very large carnivores, the sabre-toothed cats, th at fed upo n them. It follows, therefore, th a t if we no w seek to recreate or restore anything in nature, we do so as an act of co-creation, as an active agent in the future process of the forest. In a sense, we shall be restoring a relationship that has existed for tens of thou sand s of years, in w hich h u m a ns have altered habitats to suit both themselves and certain of their fellow creatures. Some would dress this up in the clothes of science - to set aside areas for the study of natural processes - or of politics, w hereby we seek to influence the developm ent agenda of a planet heading for ecological destruction, with h um an s included; others might argue th a t all species have a right to exist, and th a t we should set land aside for their needs. W h a t I see under the surface of reasons is an act of love, or gratitude - in essence, a making sacred - som ething th a t shines out from all the initiatives th a t arc reported in this book. It is a love th at generally dares no t speak its name, yet in acting o u t of love, at some risk to ou r ow n short-term interests, we can set the strongest example to others in a w orld th a t needs such leadership.

THE WILD SIDE OF NATURAL

11

W e are, after all, w orld citizens in a global process of developm ent and loss of wildland, particularly forests, that n o w threatens the stability of ou r sup porting ecosystems. It has so far no t been enough to argue a case for wildland based up o n this ecological or economic self-interest. After all, respected groups of U N scientists have been doing that for decades to minimal effect. We have to affect the developm ent ethos itself, and to do that, I believe we have to reclaim the deeper spiritual sense th at once connected us to the land, to nature and to a wilder heart. The wild heart places death and c om fo rt in a different perspective to th at of the civil heart. Death is n o t som ething feared and avoided at all costs; rather, the heart is ro oted in a spiritual sense of belonging th at engenders an honouring. Only a wild heart is capable of living with the dangers of nature, of accepting the risks, and taking death or loss in its stride. The wild heart thus ho n o u rs the wolf, the bear and the panther. It does n o t seek to eradicate, because in acceptance there is no revenge. In this, we need no t look to Americans for guidance. They are essentially escaped Europeans, and they escaped from an overcrowded garden into w h a t at first appeared to them a wilderness of plenty. N o rth America, after a little m ore than 300 years of mass im migration, still has large areas of land with little or no economic exploitation, landscapes still essentially do m in ated by natural processes, even if so m ew h at depleted of their original m am m alian inhabitants, h um ans included. We could add th at even after the national parks were set up, an irrational p red ato r ‘c o n tro l’ policy all-but eradicated wolf, b ro w n bear, lynx and pu m a from vast areas of wild country - there were limits to h o w wild wilderness could be. W hen Joh n M u ir effectively gave birth to the m odern ‘national p a r k ’ ethos, he was still a E uropean aw ed by the beauty and majesty of wild nature, and disturbed at the prospect of its ultim ate despoliation. Back hom e in Britain, the Victorians had just finished their massive onslaught on anything with claws or talons - from the dim inutive polecat and weasel, to the buzzard, kite and eagle. England was finally a tam e landscape, with n othing to challenge the supremacy of m an as the main killer in the land. W hereas the founding fathers of N ew England sought refuge for their Puritan faith, old England set ab o u t turning the w orld into a m a rk et of commodities. The bucolic landscapes th at inspired the R om antic poets were soon to be possessed by the dem ons of p roduction - a process n o t yet ended. Wilderness became th at which w as non-p roductive and useless, the abode of biblical isolation and disturbance of the spirit. W here John M uir found spiritual solace, others were still infected by a spiritual dread of where the ‘w astelan d ’ begins. There were other, dark e r elements at play in th a t early creation of wilderness sanctuary. The ‘national p a r k ’ m ovem ent has created wilderness by evicting o r excluding people m ore often th a n it has preserved wilderness th a t was unused. The m ovem ent is essentially a p ro d u ct of civil society and

12

BEYOND CONSERVATION

of the expressed need for jaded industrialized souls to find solace in the purity of nature. W e no w have categories of wildness essentially defined by the degree of h u m an absence. At its outset the concept w as fallacious and imperial. Almost all wild areas, certainly in N o rth America, supported nom adic hunters and gatherers, or in some cases were reserved by them as a sacred place for cerem ony and vision. The earliest European settlers appreciated this. A mixed-blood Native American storyteller 1 k no w has a repertoire n o t only of C hippew a myths, b u t also of Gaelic and Breton myths from the earliest nom adic tr appers w h o interm arried with the indigenous peoples. H ow ever, European ideologies of d om in io n, custodianship, com m odity, exploitation, markets and wealth rapidly followed upon the heels of the awe-inspired adventurer. As did that myopic superiority th at saw no tribal culture w orthy of the name h um a n, and thus the slaughter and slavery began. Introduced diseases outstripped the guns and chains. By the time of the national parks m ovem ent m any wild places were empty, and for the first time in 30 ,000 years.8 O u r immediate forebears in the wilderness m ovem ent th a t birthed the national p arks looked th ro ug h eyes of ignorance at these empty or alm ost empty lands. They were no t aw are of the long histories of ecological change b rou gh t a b o u t by the thinly distributed hunters and gatherers. It w as easy for them to mistake the depleted p opulations of Indians or Aborigines as peripheral in their im pact, and perhaps as recent and marginal additions to the landscape. W hen E uropeans arrived to define them , the teeming middle-fauna and park-like forests appeared as an a pparition of Arcadia, or Paradise, a mythical past or a heavenly promise. Considering the overcrowded cities of H o llan d, Britain, France, Portugal and Spain, from which they had set sail, with their diseases, stench of excrement, and confined and enclosed lands, all o w ned, the people enslaved and c aught in rigid hierarchies, small w o n d er the new lands seemed paradisiacal. But paradise had to be empty - as if A dam and Eve m ust find the mythic garden as they had left it. All over the w orld, indigenous peoples, settled and otherwise, have been moved out, tr aditional practices curtailed, and pristine people-free zones created for recreation or in the case of total exclusion zones, scientific study (noting th a t scientists can usually get access!).

Nature as Mother Just as m odern day N ative Americans hold no concept of wilderness, it is unlikely th at o ur ancestral Celts felt anything other than the presence of the great nu rtu ring pow er th at so m an y tribal peoples call M o th er, th at which has given them birth an d sustenance. It is a curious and perhaps u nfo rtu nate evolution of language th at English has chosen the Latin N atura to represent the concept of ‘n a tu r e ’ - th at which we came to see as separate

THE WILD SIDE OF NATURAL

13

from ourselves; n atural in opposition to artificial or m an-m ade. For the Latin simply means ‘to give b ir th ’. The w ord birth comes from o ur Angle or Scandinavian roots. H o w different things might have been had we called the na tural w orld a b o u t us, Birtherl Wild ‘n a tu r e ’ might then have felt less ‘o th e r’ and o u r connection to its processes m ore fundam ental and reverent. We are a long way dow n the road th at has led to the curren t despoliation and exploitation of o ur ‘m o th e r’ earth. The poster w ith the w o lf’s eyes reads, ‘in wilderness is the salvation of the w o r ld ’. It is a plea for the survival o f the greater ecosystem up on which we all depend and the plea is then defended by ecological truths. But in tru th is this n o t a plea to the unfeeling and mindlessly destructive w ould-be controllers of the world? M o s t scientific ecologists think th at the h u m a n species w ould survive w ith o u t wilderness, b u t do n o t believe th at an insensitive hu m an ity would respond to their pleas to p rotect w h at they also love, unless h u m a n ity ’s ow n survival was at stake. The poster would be truer if it read ‘in wilderness is the salvation of the h e a rt’, but the d o m in a n t ideology has yet to realize that there is a problem in the heart. It should be obvious n o w that the pleas of ecological science to conserve biodiversity and wild places are failing to get th ro ug h at the global level. They have become based upon a ‘self-interest’ argum ent: th at if we lose some species from a com plex structure of which ou r general understanding is limited, then the w hole edifice th at supports h um an life could crumble. O r we make claims for the future discovery of drugs th a t could save hum anity from debilitating and potentially catastrophic diseases. I d o u b t these claims are treated with credence by the business-oriented m inds that p u rp o r t to run the global economy. If the new drugs can turn a profit, then tropical forests have a future; the same is true for elephant and ivory, and lions and eco-tourist potential. W e might have expected to get further with argum ents relating to process, of the functionality of forests for carb on sequestration and climate control, and of the potential disasters for the global economy if the planetary ecosystem is destabilized. T here is a mentality in the industrial­ ized w orld that w ould see each and every co m p o n en t of o ur supporting ecosystems m anaged and engineered for o ur global benefit as expressed in a m ark et of comm odities and services. For those w ith this mentality, the Amazon constitutes a planetary climate control service. Imagine we were to celebrate the fact th at ‘every c o m p o n en t of o ur birth -m oth er is n o w managed and engineered’. Some eco-technicians have emerged with plans for global forest cover to be m anaged for op tim um carb on efficiency - first, cut do w n inefficient old grow th, store the carbon, and plant new and better forest genetically engineered for the task. In the face of climate change, agriculture could be made more ro bu st and sustainable, but w ith modified genes, and housing and tr a n sp o rt m ade less energy dem an d ing with new technology. And there w ould be wind turbines,

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tidal barrages, hydro-schemes, and vast biomass fuel plantations. Deserts could be plastered w ith photovoltaic solar collectors to p ow er the emerging hydrogen economy. And the wild? Little pockets of eco-tourism - service providers for the rem n a n t sensitives. If we are to avoid this soul-less future, I believe we have to move no w and go beyond the utilitarian arg um ents of ecosystem dynamics. Few of the nature reserves of today, even the larger national parks of Africa and America, will provide robustness against climate change, let alone genetic drift for the isolated pop ulation s they hold. If we are to conserve the beautiful diversity of life, we will have to redress the balance in those areas outside the reserves - the vast areas of agriculture and industrial forestry, and even the cities themselves. And, m ost crucially, o u r energy, w ater and materials dem and s in the urb an environm ent will determine the extent to which we can allow the wildlands to coexist. This balance is ultimately related to risk, loss, co m fo rt and security rather than survival. These are issues of the heart. Perhaps th a t is the ultim ate po w er of the wild: it forces a discourse. It will force us to m arry the em otional with the scientific, the spiritual with the rational. In Britain an ethos of ‘w ild la n d ’ is emerging in w hich h u m a n intervention is minim al and natural processes are respected. At times, as if caught between paradigm s, these natural processes and even some re-introduced species (such as the beavers penned in a Kent nature reserve) are still viewed as ‘m an age m en t tools’ in relation to some set of desired targets. Above all, any governm ent-m ediated change m ust meet socio-economic goals in the definition of sustainability. Any landscape-scale evolution of wilder land will set challenges with respect to economic losses and gains. But with the growing consciousness of respect for natu re as teacher and healer, there is every prospect th a t such evolution will generate as much economic gain as loss, and perhaps more so where lands marginal to agriculture and forestry are concerned. O n a w orld scale, the rich nations will have to develop more effective ways of funding protection and ecological restoration in nations th at would otherwise face economic penalties in the non-exploitation of w ildland. In this e ndeavour the w orld desperately needs a change of heart, and we in Britain have an o p p ortu nity to develop a w o rk ing model.

2 Coed Eryri

T h e e m b le m o f th e S n o w d o n ia N a t i o n a l P a rk is th e a rc tic -a lp in e S n o w d o n lily L lo y d ia se ro tin a , a n d th is refugee fro m th e arctic is f o u n d n o w h e r e else in B ritain. B ut th e W e ls h n a m e for these hills is E ryri, th e place o f eagles. T o the m o d e r n m in d , a n eagle, h o w e v e r s p e c ta c u la r , is ju s t a n o t h e r species, b u t to th e o ld e r c u ltu re o f th ese hills, it held a special m e a n in g : it re p r e se n te d v is io n a ry p o w e r . Eagles w e re e ra d ic a te d in N o r t h W a le s in th e 1 6 th ce n tu ry . In F e b r u a r y 1 9 9 2 , I w r o t e a p a m p h l e t for a sm all g r o u p w o r k i n g o n a vision fo r a F o re s t o f S n o w d o n , C o e d Eryri, insp ired by A lan F e a t h e r s t o n e ’s w o r k in S co tla n d a n d by the success o f C o m m u n i t y F orests in E n g l a n d . 1 W e a im e d to d r a w to g e t h e r a n u m b e r o f d is p a r a te initiatives fo r re-w ildin g S n o w d o n i a , b u t w e h a d to w o r k a g a in s t a n e n tr e n c h e d a n t i p a t h y to n a tu r a l p rocesses. T h e N a t i o n a l P ark (see C o l o u r Plate 1) held n o c o re a re a o f w ild l a n d a n d v irtu ally n o n a tu r a ll y r e g e n e r a tin g fo rest d u e to th e presen ce o f sh eep , a n d in deed , despite 30 p e r c e n t fo re st c o v e r (m o stly p l a n t a ti o n ) , o n ly 1 p e r c e n t r e m a in e d o f th e a n c e stra l in d ig e n o u s o a k . 2 A fter th ree years o f d iscu ssion s, I c o n c lu d e d t h a t w e w e re d ealin g n o t ju st w ith the e c o n o m ic interests o f fa r m e rs a n d foresters, b u t w ith a d e e p e r p sy c h o lo g y re la tin g to th e ne ed to d o m i n a t e n a t u r e a n d to b rin g w ild la n d in to p ro d u c t iv e use: . . . the primary thing, the fear of listening, is a fear of Nature herself. In the Forest there are no voices but hers. This is not the Chapel to the Son, who will be our salvation, to a Father who will guide the righteous and judge the wicked, or to a Holy Ghost that forever sustains and promises a personal immortality. It is not a Cathedral of solid immovable stone set by architect and mason. Here there is darkness and constant motion. Here wc may be reminded of our physical frailty, our death and decay. Here is the dark mother, not Mary the sustaincr, but Ccridwen or Hecate, the destroyer. Here is where the male mind must surrender and meet its greatest fear. Here is the rebirth of consciousness.3 W h a t beg an th en w a s very m u c h a p e r s o n a l r e b i rth , a p e rs o n a l jo u r n e y of r e c o n n e c tio n for each o f o u r g r o u p , b u t p a r t ic u l a r ly fo r m e, b lin k e re d by

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years o f scientific training and policy analysis. In our sm all group w e began to uncover ancient practices of listening, of storytelling, o f drum and dance and vision quest, and in so doing, sought our teachers am ong the N ative Am ericans, the yogis, and those few w om en w h o had kept alive the ancient spiritual traditions associated with a deeper healing connection to nature: . . . from other cultures we have long sought to suppress and exterminate, we are n ow learning that this great mystery of nature cares for us, th at her voices speak w isdom , th a t her servants, the animals and trees, have spirit voices that speak of love, with love. All along it was so, but we could not see through the mist of fear. The wolf and bear have medicine as deep as any herb. Raven and beaver will speak if we cup hand to inner ear. In dreams or quiet wakefulness they will come. They know our journey, they know love. O f course, h ow could it be otherwise? H o w could the divine not be everywhere, not be with them and with us unbo un ded by concept, by language, by time or space? This is n ot ‘mysticism’. It is honouring the great mystery and is a deeper reality, a deeper ecology.4

And of course, that m ade it difficult for m ainstream conservation, N ational Park com m ittees or farm ing com m unities to em brace our vision! M y friend Eric M addern, how ever, developed ‘Cae M a b o n ’, near Llanberis, to becom e a centre for education and the spiritual connection to the w ildland o f S now don .5 The vision o f a w ild forest is held firm in m any hearts and w e must trust that w hat w e have shared will influence those w ith responsibilities for land m anagem ent in Snow donia. C oed Eryri’s activities have been primarily a ‘vision in g’ process involving the core group, educational outreach and discussions with various ‘stakeholders’ in the N ational Park; this has been on going in relation to a core area in the Rhinogydd (see C olour Plate 2). H ow ever, in the slow m etam orphosis from ecological vision tow ards cultural change, I have also undergone a personal transform ation in understanding and values, and in this account of Coed Eryri I will depart from the norm al accepted form of conservation discourse and objectivity, as I believe w e, as conservationists, have to m ake such a transition on a broader political level - w e have to becom e central to hum an values in areas in w hich w e are now m arginal. I do not believe that w e can do it by em bracing econom ic ‘services’ or through som e quasi-scientific conserva­ tion ethic. I have com e to believe that through our w ork w ith w ild nature, w e must restore som ething central to the human soul, som ething that has the pow er to over-ride selfish and short-term m otivation , as well as to over-ride the great fear o f nature still rooted in the psyche. W hen I m oved to Snow donia in February 1 9 8 9 , I w as struggling to live w ith a severely split personal w orld. I had a scientific training in biological sciences and had w orked as a professional consultant in ecological policy for over ten years, w ork that covered the fields o f radioecology, chem ical

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pollution, climate change, renewable energy impacts and various industrial policy issues. I also had further degrees and academic training in social a n th ro po log y th at had given me a perspective on m a n ’s relationship to spiritual and natural worlds. But I had become mired in these systems of thinking and was already engaged in the process of redeeming another, more intuitive p art of my self. This other self trained in yogic ‘sciences’ with a H im alayan master, w ork ed with Native American teachers, and ran groups developing techniques of spiritual purification and vision quest. My spirituality had begun as an essentially Eastern quest for the purity of heart and absence of mind, and m uch later I had confronted the reality of living in the West, the place of creativity and d ream ing.6 I w as to spend seven years slowly reconciling my tw o w orlds and w orking w ith some rem arkable people. T h e Coed Eryri g roup consisted of local artists, sculptors, storytellers, sham anic healers, co m m unity w orkers, foresters and w o od w o rk ers, a b o u t half of w h o m were native Welsh speakers. O n previous encounters w ith the bleak m o un ta in o u s terrain - in the 1970s I took my students for hikes above C w m Idwal - I had looked upon the land w ith the m anipulative eye of a zealous ecologist: ‘if only we could get the sheep off, rejuvenate the flower m eadow s, reforest the slopes. This place should by rights be forest. After all, it is a N ation al Park where nature should be p a r a m o u n t.’ Instead, it is a national sheep reserve, overgrazed and ecologically impoverished. The answ er was to recreate the forest with its ecological web intact. 1 set a b o u t making plans and finding allies. There were already many small independent initiatives, and if we com bined, we could argue for m ajor policy changes and the funds for ecological restoration. W h a t Alan Featherstone was doing for the C aledonian pine, we could do for the Welsh oak! Only a b o u t 1 per cent of Snow donia N atio n al Park is rem n an t semi-natural w o o d lan d , yet there is 30 per cent ‘forest’ cover consisting of plantations, largely of alien Sitka spruce, Japanese larch or Scots pine. O utside these plantations, alm ost every n o o k and cranny is grazed by sheep or cattle, and very little of the re m n an t ancient broadleaf w o o d la n d is regenerating. Wild herbivores are few: there are some ancient feral goats in the rockier parts of the hills and fallow deer (not indigenous to Britain) in the Forestry C om m issio n’s Coed y Brenin in the south of the Park. The red deer and roe deer are extinct in the region. The grazing pressure from domestic stock prevents re-colonization of the bare hillsides by natural regeneration, and large areas have been invaded by alien rh o d od en dron scrub. The first response of conservationists in protecting existing w o o d lan d or planting new trees is to aggressively fence o u t domestic stock. I had an oppo rtu nity to com pare open and fenced w o o d la n d along the ancient

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w oodland ridge of H arlech near my hom e. A lm ost a third o f the w ood w as fenced, another third or m ore heavily grazed, but the im m ediate area of about 20 ha around the house w as lightly grazed by sheep and a sm all suckler herd of eight or so W elsh Black cattle. The third that had been fenced o ff from all stock had a thick shrub and herb layer o f bramble and ivy, with few flow ering plants and little regeneration; the heavily grazed section held little other than grasses and m osses, w ith no young trees; w hereas the lightly grazed area w as alive with flow ering plants, regenerat­ ing young trees and a large variety o f shrubs and ferns.

L le t y ’r F w y a lc h e n -

a bo d e o f t h e blackbird

That area o f active regeneration surrounded my hom e, Llety’r Fw yalchen, the abode of the blackbird. W hilst I set about my plans and alliances, largely around the traditional m odel o f conservation - how to get the stock off, erect fences, com bine planting and natural regeneration, and take care over provenance - I w ould w alk daily around the m ead ow s and w o o d s. I kept a diary not of the tim es o f flow ering or numbers o f species, but o f the m oons and the inner dreams that cam e. I w ould w alk ou t on a circuit from the house and visit first the old crab apple, casting her dense shade, the space b elow barely high enough to crouch, surrounded by the bracken and bright sunlight, to quietly feel the day’s concerns drain aw ay in the cleansing darkness: These w oods are special in ways that can no t be measured. The scientist w ould find nothing unusual here, for here is a poetry of the comm onplace. Yet a poetic masterpiece, a sym phony of the most divine. We begin with C rab, the Old Lady, Hecate, alone in the witchy dark, to crawl beneath her black wings on the d am p moss, she is the purifier and the entrance and here we ask the shadow s to cleanse us of the dross we bring. O n then to G ran dfather O ak, its youth saw G ly nd w r’s rebellion, the securing of the Bardic land, if momentarily. Fissured bark. Huge girth, giant arms, broken and horned. H eart of Herne. Old Druid. Lend us strength for the journey. O n to Holly. Boughs pink flushed grey tickling the sensual centre with erotic curve, a thigh to touch, delicate arm , rounded breast, or muscle bulging with pow er, flexed and waiting, man or w o m an? Here is mysterious coupling, knowledge beyond the veil. To the Alder grove. G ro u n d sodden first flush of golden saxifrage. H er place. Red bleeds her w o un d. Kingcup in pools where the m oon strikes through. Iris bed. Yellow her favourite. The owls nest here, bird of the coven. W e come with no requests. This is n o t the place for asking, but of gratitudes, the return of love. Bathe deep in cold waters. O pen to m o o n ’s silver, alders’ shadows. Come when Luna is full and dances on the

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ERYRI

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surface of her pools. Slip softly under, let the water embrace. Here there is no asking. Kiss the moss between her thighs. She loves you, you are wclcomc, always. Then listen. She tells you how long she has waited, knowing your wild heart. It is a bluebell spring. The foragers are late and the blue comes to full bloom. Beltaine brings a carpet of wonder, whites of anemone and woodsorrel, stitchwort and pignut, tiny stars of sanicle, woodruff and a foam of ramsons heavy with scent, and everywhere yellows of celandine, pimpernel, spearwort, buttercup and marigold, blue violets, pink herb robert and campion. So quick now. Each week brings someone to seed. Meadows of dandelion heads, daffodils long gone, snowdrops bent back to the earth, burying their green swelling womb. Soon will come foxglove, meadowsweet, woodsage and valerian, tall to outpace the vigorous summer grass, the spreading ferns. And honeysuckle, queen of the w oodland night high above her carpet, the enchanter’s nightshade. She is bright now with song. Mwyalchcn opens the gap between the worlds. Winter loyal thrush, dunnock, robin and wren, joined now by throaty blackcaps, flutc-warblers, flycatchcrs and jewelled redstart. You have come a long way for this. Pan’s garden. Wild heart. Every species w a s r e g e n e r a tin g - ash , o a k , w illo w , b irch , a ld e r, r o w a n , holly, h a w t h o r n , c r a b a p p le, sp ind le, b l a c k t h o r n a n d g e a n - a n d all h o ld in g th eir o w n a g a in s t the prolific sy c a m o re ; yet the m e a d o w s w e re g ra zed a n d th ere w e re n o b a rr ie rs to e n te r in g th e w o o d l a n d . T h e sm all slo p in g fields a m o n g th e w o o d s w e re alive w ith m u s k m a l lo w , m a r s h o rc h i d , cranesbill a n d b e to n y , a n d in th e w e t w o o d s , in o n e sm all p a t c h in M a y , I c o u n te d 13 species o f w o o d l a n d flow ers a lo n g w ith m a n y m e d ic in a l h e rb s such as v a le ria n , w o o d sage a n d l a d y ’s m a n tle . Y o u c a n w a lk fo r h o u r s elsew h ere in th e N a t i o n a l P a rk a n d n o t see a significant flower. In th e lon g-fen ce d section o f the a n c ie n t w o o d l a n d , y o u w e re also h a rd - p re s s e d to find a n y flow ers - th e w h o le pla ce w a s a tan g le o f b ra m b le s a n d ivy; h o w e v e r, it t o o k several years fo r the significance o f all this to sink in. M e a n w h il e th e p la n u n fo ld e d : d r a w m a p s o f land use c a te g o ries - the p l a n n i n g a u t h o r i t y h a d m a p s o f p r e s u m p ti o n s o f c o n s e n t fo r fo restry (assu m ed to be c o m m e rc ia l); d ev elo p strategies to get rid o f th e s to c k over large a reas . T h e s o lu tio n w a s clear: b uy key bits o f land (by a p p r o a c h i n g the J o h n M u i r Society, N a t i o n a l T r u s t a n d W o o d l a n d T r u s t for help, a n d even by raising m o n e y locally), th en fence a n d p la n t, o r reg e n e ra te w h e re sufficient seed s o u rces ex isted . It m ig h t also be p ossible to get a g re e m e n ts from la n d o w n e r s (the N a t i o n a l T r u s t o w n s significant acreage) to fence a n d re g e n e ra te sm all a re a s o n th e h ig h e r g r o u n d , especially beside stre a m s . It w o u l d ta k e a lo ng tim e , b u t if all p a rtie s c o o p e r a t e d to a g r a n d d esign, in 50 years w e c o u ld see a n e w fo rest o n th e b a r r e n slopes.

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N o t m uch happened. The N atio n al T rust did great w o rk on the upper reaches of streams by fencing and planting, but balked at purchasing re d u n d a n t Forestry plantations w ith the aim of reconversion. The agencies of the N ation al Park and C ountryside Council for Wales th o u g h t o ur long-term plan ‘unrealistic’. A nd of course, they were right. The difference between Caledon and Eryri, is that Eryri has hundreds of small-scale sheep farmers, myriads of stone walls and several centuries of hu m an do m ination of the landscape. The traditional Welsh-speaking comm unities are also insular, rather cool to w ard s incomers with ideas, deeply religious and totally dep end ent up o n agricultural subsidies. M a n y of to d a y ’s farming families were quarry w ork ers in the Victorian heyday of slate mining, and for some, attitudes to the land had n o t evolved greatly. In m od ern times a ‘trad itio n a l’ Welsh upland farm has no trees outside of the odd single-aged copse with no regeneration, billiard-table green sw ards of im proved m ead ow s of in-bye land and access to the m oo rs where heather has largely been replaced with acid grassland. The farm ers’ kitchens are bare of dried herbs or bottled anything: no jams, honey, fruit or cobs the culinary forest is smaller than the re m n a n t ancient oaks. W orld-w eary N ation al Park ecologists and other assorted nature conservationists long settled for protecting w h a t is left - the bats, and the twayblades hidden in the heather. O tter were getting scarcer, pine marten h a d n ’t been seen for years and black grouse were on the verge of extinction. T h ou gh there w as then no detailed species list and limited m onitoring d ata for the N ational Park,7 it was obvious th at the old concepts were not holding g ro un d and th at the agricultural econom y w as both the historical villain and the main obstacle to change.

The ancient forest, cattle and the Celtic heritage If we were to tr ansform Snow donia, however, we had to have the farmers on board. This would mean a fundam ental social and cultural shift. In realizing the need to integrate current farming comm unities in the vision, the ‘forest’ came to mean much more th a n my earlier scientific ecological training had provided for. Earlier concepts of primeval w o od lan d replete with re-introduced herbivores - boar, roe deer, red deer and beaver - a n d maybe the odd lynx (Scotland was the only place big enough for bear and wolf), no w gave w ay to the ‘cu ltu ral’ forest as a place where people dwelt and intimately used the forest whilst respecting its natural sanctuaries and wildlife. This was the forest of the original Celts. They were a cattle people and a forest people and respected the w o lf and the bear as much as any tribal people in oth er parts of the globe respected the big cats and other dangerous species in the forest aro u n d them. Theirs was also a sham anic culture; the relationship between the hum an psyche and the creatures and

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plants of the forest was a tw o-w ay co m m u n icatio n in the furtherance of healing and spiritual grow th. The tribal healers entered into c om m un ion and alliance w ith the healing spirits of the trees, herbs, birds and other animals. It is at this point th at the ‘su perio r’ Western scientific mind starts to include tribal peoples in the same category as the tw ayblades and red grouse: objects for study. Social anthropologists make w onderful patterns with q uain t c om parative tribal data. Following the w o rk of the a n th r o p o l­ ogist and p o pu lar w riter Carlos C astenad a, there have been a few dissenters, bu t generally, the w orld o f the sham an is relegated to the realms of personal experience and cultural delusion.8 M od ern ity kno w s where reality begins and ends. Yet, truly m od ern and open science know s th a t it co-creates the reality it p u rp o rts to study objectively. Physicists tell us quite clearly th a t there are no boundaries to physical reality - th a t underlying everything is electromagnetic w aveform and a gravity field - and the occasional psychologist has even p u t the scientific mind under scrutiny! The scientific w orlds of m easurem ent and m eta ph or, w ith their glorious technological spin-offs, have gained n o t just primacy as knowledge, but primacy of culture: the objective and consensual over the personal and the rational above the intuitive. And although everything we ever conceive and make m ust first be dream ed, the dream is relegated. O u r schools do n o t encourage dream ers no r teach intuition. N o one is taug ht to ex p a n d their consciousness beyond the boundaries of their o w n personal mind. O d d really, considering that Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Mendeleyev, N e w to n , Einstein and Tesla were all dreamers, gaining their b reakth ro ug hs by deep intuition; most of them were ostracized for it at some time by the narrow er-m ind ed scientific or political fraternity. In my m o un tain retreat, I began to relate to the underlying reality rather than to the surface form. The forest began to take on a no the r light. Slowly we became conscious of w h a t the forest had m ean t to the mythical ancestors of S now donia. It was a place of healing and spiritual retreat. In m editation, a co m m u n io n was reached with anim als and trees. They talked by reflection, but th a t reflection always held a greater w isdom . And in return came gratitude, respect and ceremony.

A mythic heart At the mythic heart of Britain lies A rth ur the King. He sleeps, sometime to aw ake. He is the keeper of the dream , the essential soul m atter of this land. N oble yet flawed, ever in service to the Grail Goddess, his sw ord of truth is n o w long lost beneath the w aters of hu m a n consciousness. Something we k no w and treasure has retreated from this land.

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‘A a r t’ is bear in Celtic languages. N ative American teachers call bear ‘the keeper of the d re a m ’. The mythic b ea r-kin g thus keeps the d ream of Albion alive for a time w hen there will be a true relationship to the land, one of honouring, respect, reverence and celebration. The Grail is the deep feminine mystery, which the masculine m ust touch and be touched by in order for the land to be fertile (and the h on ou rab le man to be healed of his aggressive masculinity). As I w o rk on this bo o k by the banks o f the A rtro (the bear) th at runs from the heart o f the Rhinog m ountains, where R o bert Graves w ent to prim ary school and later first d re am t of the White G oddess,9 there is no w a yellow digger grinding o u t new drains. All over the N atio n al Park, furiously religious men dig and scrape, hurtle ab o u t in four-wheel-drive jeeps o r q ua d bikes, p a rt of an ‘in dustry ’ o f producers, businesses and service providers. N ew conservation subsidies rebuild the walls th a t the Goddess has weathered and erect barbed wire as if at war. W e are so very far from the balance of masculine and feminine. But the blackbird still sings at Llety’r Fwyalchen. In the Druid oracle, the blackb ird ’s song heralds the gatew ay between the worlds. M an y people arrived there for th at journey into the O th erw o rld of dream . For four days and four nights in the w oo ds, with no food, some w ould refuse bedding and just sit, still, quiet, until the forest revealed itself in the quest for personal vision. The ancient Celts and N ative Americans knew th a t in meditation, in active lucid dream ing, w ith nature all aro u n d , a unity of consciousness can be reached in which the presence of anim als and plants influences the dream. The ancients w ould ascribe to each p articip ant in the dream a spirit reality, an essence of their medicine and healing influence d ra w n from direct dream experience. Ten years ago, the scientific mind scoffed m ore than it does now . The arro g a n t edifice has crum bled a little - the ozone hole, global warm ing, acid rain, dying seals and forests, gender-bending chemicals, BSE, HIV and the funeral pyres of foo t-an d-m o uth disease. The techno-w orld is vulnerable to natu re as well as to its o w n follies. But there has to be something m ore perhaps a realization that science has elevated itself too far above the personal and subjective, wherein dwells the soul and throu gh w hich m an reaches to the soul in all a b o u t him. Yogis, Native American medicine teachers and Sham ans of all cultures have no problem with this. N o t because of some theory, but because it is their practical experience - they can dwell in the unified field of consciousness. In th a t field, the voices of oak and ash, raven and eagle, are no t separate from ou r voice and each has its ow n particular character - they do n o t simply reflect, they heal - they hold ‘medicine’.10 We return to this theme in C h ap ter 9, The Healing Forest. A nd in th a t realm of healing, G od is no t a postulate, a belief or a hypothesis, but the direct experience of presence - a feeling, a seeing of

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connectedness and of beauty, and above all, of love. There are no cultures that have nu rtu red this expanded consciousness and have n o t felt and nam ed this presence, be it Great Mystery, G reat M o th e r, W a k a n T a n k a or Pancha M am a. This, of course, takes us even further from the problem of the cultural tradition that is Welsh sheep farming - and which in its current form of smallholdings and enclosed land is only a few h u nd red years old. Here, God is definitely a m an, and a very orderly one: a shepherd, a h u sb an d m a n , a gu ardian or a steward. N a tu re conservationists settled on the latter and tended to disappear w hen talk came ro u n d to recreating wilderness - to have done otherwise w ould have been political, and perhaps even social, suicide. Nevertheless, in this unprom ising environm ent, the small group called Coed Eryri was formed with the intention of holding the vision and p ro m o ting discussion. O u r time would come w hen the C o m m o n Agricul­ tural Policy (CAP) dissolved and the uneconomic farms w ent to the wall. Only in times of decline and distress are comm unities open to new ways. M eanw hile, we needed to develop the vision to address the political realities of ou r comm unity.

Integrative regeneration In this respect, an o p p o rtu nity arose in the form of a derelict b u t very fine building in the heart of Snow donia. The former slate mining to w n of Blaenau Ffestiniog, an enclave of industrial dereliction (and a m ajor tourist attraction with the former deep mines and caverns), had grow ing social problem s of u n em p loy m en t and disaffected youth. The building in question was an old m a rk et hall. It was stone built with a huge vaulted roof, housing w h a t had been at various times a ballroom , a cinema and a w ar-tim e prod uction unit for uniform s. The old m arke t was on the g ro un d floor and the upper storey, supported by pillars, held a magnificent sprung w ooden floor. The ro o f and walls were still sound, but all the w indow s were gone and boarded up and significant repairs were needed. The council could no t bear the costs and had decided to knock it d o w n unless a buyer or custodian could be found. W e had already witnessed the parents of the Snow donia Steiner School design and build a ‘science un it’ for the school - a large and w onderful building on w oo den piles w ith a shingle ro o f in which all the tim ber had been cut from local larch forests and shipped in using the ‘to u rist’ railway (formerly built for tr an sp o rting the slate). We a p proa che d the C ounty Council with ideas of restoring the building using local materials (slate and timber) and local skills in carpentry. The eventual use for the building w ould be as a co m m u nity and educational centre, perhaps w ith its ow n theatre group. It w ould provide a m o st excellent perform ance space. The

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youth theatre project could focus up o n issues of regeneration and the relationship to n ature as well as issues of dereliction and social dysfunction (use of drugs am o ng young people w as fast becoming a problem in rural Wales). W e began researching the feasibility of an idea th a t had great potential for regenerating links between the urban areas of Snow donia and the natural resources as well as the natural beauty of the Park. 1 visited a pioneering project in mid-Wales, where the N atio nal T ru st was restoring a large co untry house and estate th a t had been bequeathed to it. There, the local director of the T ru st had eschewed immediate large inputs of money to renovate the derelict buildings in favour of smaller, timed allotm ents to finance a com m unity-based p rog ra m m e of restoration. Tim ber from the estate was to be harvested and milled to provide for a team of locally recruited craft carpenters w ho would replace the fittings. Such old skills were in short-supply and m an y retired people were enlisted to train m o dern apprentices. W hen I visited the site at Llanerchaeron it was a hive of activity, a ready exam ple of integrative regeneration of skills, meaningful w o rk , cooperative en deavour and connection to the land. Sadly, w h a t w as an innovative o p p o rtu nity for one N a tion al T rust director was a potential headache for another; the N o rth Wales regional director, after much consideration and several site visits by some of the T r u s t’s m ore forw ard-thinking officers, w ould n o t take on the M a r k e t Hall, th ou gh it was offered by the Council for a nominal £ l and there were obvious sources of funding for its renovation and managem ent. The interest in the H all sparked alternative schemes by local interests centred on a ‘heritage’ experience - effectively a p ay-at-the-door tourist attraction. At least ou r involvement was in strum ental in generating this interest, and the building was eventually preserved and renovated by the Council and serves n o w as a c om m unity arts centre, but the oppo rtun ity for a truly ‘integrative regeneration’ was n o t taken. This brief attem p t to reconcile urban life with the forest, the past with the future, and to reach a disaffected youth, taugh t us the im p o rtan t role th a t individual personali­ ties and politics plays in any history. In m an y respects, the former industrial history of Snow donia affects current policies - there are large comm unities w ithin or on the edge of the Park th a t look to a future of high-technology companies, energy resources or tourist developments such as n arrow -gauge railways and artificial ski slopes, rather than any kind of relationship to nature itself. Indeed, since its inception, the N ation al Park has been blighted by m ajor installations such as the nuclear pow er station at T raw sfynydd, an above-ground hydro-pipeline on the very slopes of Snow don itself, a massive pum pcdstorage scheme, po w er lines, ‘im prov ed’ roads and a plethora o f new applications for small-scale hydro schemes on the rivers, m any of which were in use in the industrial past. If the future of the N a tion al Park is to

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include a re-wilding, a way ahead must be found w hereby there is an integration of developm ent with local resources and skills.

Re-evaluation and vision The time at Llety’r Fwyalchen thus evolved as a dance between the tw o w orlds of personal initiation and a co m m u n ity ecology. Occasionally, the one w orld w ould inspire change in the other. Values began to change. My ow n political ecology became m ore human-centred. I came to learn th a t the essence of a sham anic relationship is the h um a n journey of love and caring. All ideas o f the expulsion of h u m an s from nature, to leave it pristine, were thus long gone. But w h at then of d om in atio n , of over-use and the acute lack of h o n ou rin g of n a tu r e ’s processes? W e began to formulate a more integrated ap p ro ac h to a wildland ecology, and at the same time, to untangle an ideology of the ‘n a tu r a l’ forest. The forest must be grazed to be natural. A sapling th at has gro w n tall and never in its you th been m unched is as u n n a tu ral as any alien Forestry C omm ission plantling. Its form will never be natural. Use of Tulley tubes may gain a few years gro w th, but the seedling will be weak and untested by wind or nibbling teeth. T h e vital grow th spurts of young trees, shrubs and herbs all evolved in a battle against the forces of innum erable nibblers - aurochs and tarp an , w o o d bison, moose, tw o or three species of deer, bo ar and beaver and as we were later to realize, mega-herbivores such as tem perate forest elephants and rhinoceros. The primeval forest had a plethora o f grazers, browsers, diggers and dam m ers - beaver created w etland; b oa r opened g ro un d for seedling development; roe deer, red deer, forest pony and forest cattle kept the balance between glade and thicket; and the wolf kept them all moving aro u n d such th at no one place was overgrazed. W here then is o ur English N a tu re Reserve? The process has been emasculated, evolution interfered with and alien minds put in charge! Grazing and browsing, crushing and trampling, dam m in g and flooding - they are integral to the beating heart of the forest. So, w hy m ake the farmer re dundant? If Llety’r Fwyalchen had such a rich flora and the p atch w ork maintained itself, it could act as a model for all the valley w oo ds and farms. The open m oo rland would remain fundam entally open and kept under lesser grazing pressure by removing sheep, introducing wild cattle and red deer, and licensing culls for the local organic meat market. Beaver could be introduced to the w etter valley b ottom s, and once again, cattle could be farmed on the meadow s. Ultimately, a grazing system based upon cattle would be rob ust enough to bring back the lynx and the eagle. Initially this could be done in one large area; the Rhinog hills, with no m ajor ro ads running th ro ug h, n or settlements in its heart, looked ideal.

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A vision began to form that sought to m aintain a balance of land use w ithin the N atio n al Park - the n o rthern areas of S n ow don (the peak) and the C arn ed d au w ould remain un der hopefully less-intense grazing regimes as recreational areas for walkers, ramblers and climbers and w ould sup p ort the re m n an t p opulations of m o o rla n d birds; the southern areas of C adair Idris and Coed y Brenin w ould remain as open hill co untry and commercial forestry, but hopefully with a more-enlightened choice of indigenous species. But in the centre, at its heart, there was space for a re-wilding.

Cultural shifts: from grass pasture to wood pasture The vision as articulated may be fanciful on a cultural level, bu t is economically and ecologically feasible. Virtually all Welsh upland farmers are effectively paid by the state. Their inputs cost as much as they earn from their o u tp u t, and any real income is courtesy of the European Union or the UK taxpayer. The average income for UK farms in the 1990s fell from £ 1 0 ,0 0 0 to £ 4 00 0, and in Wales the figure is likely to be significantly lower. In addition to agricultural subsidies, therefore, m ost farmers are on income support. If the average farm size is lOOha and a decent new forest were to cover 2 0 ,0 0 0 h a of w o o d -p a s tu re mosaic, then the cost of m aintaining farmers as managers of such an area w ou ld be £ 8 0 0 ,0 0 0 per a nn um - the a m o u n t th a t they are being paid now by the EU anyway! M o re realistically, double th a t income and a farm of twice the size w ou ld be required, with the farmers encouraged to supplem ent the income as managers with eco-tourism or craftw ork. This sort of money is available and paid today either un der the CAP o r various Welsh stewardship schemes such as Tir Gofal to provide for marginal fo od prod uctio n, land m anagem ent, w o o d ­ land creation an d rural economic and social aid .11 There is no a priori reason w hy the same farmers could n o t be retrained to m anage a regenerating forest, the in tro du ctio n of former species, eco-holidays and conservation w ork camps, as well as shepherding small herds of prime organic beef (the last three activities confined to the buffer zones a ro u n d a core area). There are models of silvo-pastoral systems in Portugal and in the famed debesa of Spain. Shepherding comm unities co-exist with bear, w o lf and lynx in both these countries, as well as in France (lynx in the Vosges), G erm any (lynx in the Bavarian forest), Austria and Slovenia (bears in the alps), Italy (wolves in the Abruzzo N atio nal Park) and the great carnivore stronghold of R om ania. The key to success is adequate wild prey and effective guard dogs. We would not advocate the w olf and bear for Snow donia, b u t there is certainly room for the lynx. H owever, we ca n n o t assume th a t the current level of social subsidy will persist under the free-trade do m in ated international m arke t conditions that are only no w beginning to make their presence felt. Food subsidy has

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so m eho w maintained political favour, as it ap parently led to cheaper food - som ething that the international m ark et n o w pu rp orts to provide. Social subsidy for an uneconom ic industry is less attractive, and there are adequate precedents, even in Wales, of w hole communities, such as the coal miners in the south, having to face redu nd ancy and adapt. W heth er a social subsidy could be sold as maintenance of landscape, recreation, ecosystem restoration and obligations un der the EC H ab itats Directive remains to be seen. C u rre nt Wales-based stewardship schemes exist (Tir Gofal, see C h apter 10 on strategy), b u t have only a limited vision: primarily of m aintenance of the social and environm ental fabric as it currently exists, but with a marginal im provem ent in m eado w s and w oodland. But of course, the real barrier is not ecological or economic - it is cultural. Re-wilding is seen as a step backw ards. Farm ers have seen themselves as pro ducers, an ‘in d ustry ’, and operate as self-employed small businessmen. They are fiercely independent, yet massively dependent! Few k n o w their flowers or birds, th o ugh every field has a n am e and a history. M uch as their heart might belong to a bygone Celtic poetry, their minds are focused by chapel and the p ro testan t w o rk ethic. At Harlech the highlight of the young farm ers’ year w as the banger-racing fest. Chemicals are m acho, organics are for dreamers. O ne successful neighbour of mine w o rked all hours b u t spent tw o weeks in Florida before the lambing. The unsuccessful w ork all hours for little rew ard, and severe stress is co m m o n with broken marriages, disaffected children and a rising suicide rate. If wildland advocates are to orchestrate changes in land use over wide areas such as the Rhinogs, they m ust address the disintegration of the present cultural fram ew ork. The repair w ork began for us at Cae M a b o n , b u t such centres are far rem oved from the inclinations of m ost indigenous w orking people in N o rth Wales.

Cae Mabon and rites of passage W hen I first visited M u ria u G w y nnio n, Eric M a d d e r n ’s hom e and centre for new a pproaches in education located above the lake at Llanberis, it was to participate in a gathering of 14 men intent u p o n recreating something once integral to h u m a n psychology, and like o u r ancestral ecology, long lost in the past. As men, there w as still som ething w ithin us th a t had never become adult, th ou gh we ranged in age from mid-thirties to mid-sixties. We had come to realize its absence w hen confronted with the task of guiding 14 year-olds through powerful initiations of vision quest and the scary ordeals of being alone with the m ou ntain and forest. We all felt at ease with n a tu re ’s wildness, but the initiations we were w o rk in g with involved boys gathering together with men; their trials an d quest were witnessed both by their peers and their mentors. Few of us had had the same o p po rtu nity

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w hen we were young. O r, in my case, that o p p ortun ity had been on a G od-forsaken Scottish m o or, with a Lee-Enfield rifle and a pla too n of rain-soaked w ould-be c o m m an d o s in the A rmy C adet Force. I recall, on the long forced-march into headw ind and sleet, glancing dow n-slope at some h aw th o rn s amid w hich huddled dozens of exotic W axw ings, rare vagrants from the Russian boreal forest, and then cursing o u r intrepid leader; no time to stop. In my misguided youth, I lost all poetry, all sensitivity to love and any hope of a truly open meeting with the opposite sex; the natural landscape becam e simply a b ack d ro p to the endless games of ego. Initiation there had been, but into the blind w orld of men separated from their w om en and from the land. At Cae M a b o n , with my friends Eric M a d d e r n and Iw an Brioc, we came to appreciate th at the real barriers to realizing o u r visions were laid d o w n in o u r uninitiated youth. M eeting Eric and his co-conspirator, Alex W ildw oo d , provided an o p p ortun ity to w o rk w ith tw o great pioneers in the e n o rm ou s task of providing an initiation for young men into the mysteries o f their divinity and their relationship to the land, to each other and to w om en. In th at first gathering in Eryri, we, as grow n men, set ourselves the task of rediscovering ‘initiation’ - firstly, of w h o we truly were, and secondly, of ho w we relate. Each of us recounted o ur life history, its hopes, fears, trials and successes; crucially, we also spoke of w h a t we felt w as missing or unhealed and unattained. T hen each of us in turn left for a tw o -h o u r sojourn in the w oo ds, and whilst away, the grou p devised a ritual, a piece of theatre, a task or p erhaps even an ordeal, th a t w o u ld address o ur need. N o n e of us w ould k n o w w h a t to expect. All were participants in the initiatory process; everyone was a witness. In some sense, we were developing a school of ‘male mysteries’. W e were already well aw are of the pioneering w ork of o u r w o m en friends and teachers in developing their ow n ‘wild w o m e n ’ courses and initiations. The w om en were rediscovering their sisterhood and the deeper feminine pow er so long a b an do ned in the W estern world. We had shared w ith them the sweat lodge, the sham anic journeys and the vision quest process, and for some, even the fire walks and earth burials. Yet, som ething always divided us and eluded us, some level of meeting. It w as as if the mysterious elements of deep feminine p ow er th at were being liberated bred a separation. As men, we had all learned a great deal from female teachers. Some men had suffered an oppressive guilt of maleness in a w o rld devastated by the mentality o f dom ination. We were now involved in an inner process of rebalancing, a p a rt o f which was the discovery and liberation of the feminine within ourselves. At its heart, we had to learn to m o ther ourselves, to liberate ourselves from deeper psychic needs th a t inevitably prevented a truly equal meeting with w o m an . As long as this rem ained unachieved, we were still boys. I

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came to believe that w ith o u t this inner liberation, which embodies a level of acceptance, receptivity and trust in the essential abu nd an ce of life, men will always seek to do m inate N a tu re , to control her and even to take o ut some unconscious revenge upon her. In some sense, it was as if their ow n m o th er had let them dow n; they were still her boys, for she had not taught them to find the m oth er within themselves, and th at had bred a vicious resentm ent no w projected o u t upon the earth itself, and all to o frequently, at deep psychic levels, up on the w o m en in their lives. I k n ow o f no sociology to su p p o rt these suppositions, o the r tha n the obvious correlation o f such deep im balances within ‘W e stern ’ materialist culture and its continual rape of the e a rt h ’s resources. I can n o t prove by scientific means th a t rebalancing such disoriented psyches will lead to stability and satisfaction such th a t the goal of ‘eco no m ic’ g ro w th and ever greater consu m p tio n is replaced with less dam aging values. These things are perhaps beyond science - for h o w would it be possible to conduct ap pro priate surveys, isolate factors and ultimately prove causes and effects? Science has always been limited w hen applied to the h u m a n psyche, and for that m atter, to the complexities of h u m an health and the environment. Eric M a d d e r n ’s centre slowly became Cae M a b o n , a cluster of lowim pact dwellings in the forest clearing above Llyn Pad arn and below Elidir Faw r in the western m ou ntain s of Eryri. An Iron Age ro un d ho use has been built for gatherings, music and storytelling, and over the years, Eric has added a straw-bale hogan and some nom adic tents. It is an ideal setting for gatherings no w devoted to ‘creative expression, healing and spiritual wellbeing, traditional arts and crafts, environm ental awareness, rites of passage and personal tra n sfo r m a tio n ’.12 After 12 years of development, Cae M a b o n produces a rich pro gram m e of events with activities taking place m ost weeks of the year. In 20 0 1, the Joh n M u ir Society held its third cam p there for young people between the ages of 16 and 24, exploring the deeper ‘m agic’ of the wilderness. My friends Iona F redenburgh and Elisabeth Brooke held w o rk sho ps entitled Plant Spirit Medicine, which explored the healing po w er of plants. There are w o rksh op s in five rhythm s - dance, masked d ram a and clowning, Zen, yoga and the perennial rites of passage for men. Cae M a b o n has become a place where East and W est meet and where the ancient Celtic heart of Wales is being recreated. In Eryri the w ild w oo d is still a rem n ant. For it to return amid all the competing needs of a farming com m unity, ‘eco no m ic’ forestry and a tourist culture, the forest m ust first grow in the hearts of the people w h o make their living or find recreation in S now donia. This is the essential w o rk of Cae M a b o n , but as I pu t forw ard at the outset, I believe th at elements of initiation are essential if we are to liberate ourselves from the fear and denial th a t drives o u r cu rren t relationship to nature, o ur culture’s essential disrespect for the wild.

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New green shoots of change T here are some new signs th at o ur vision has no t been entirely dismissed. The Countryside Council for Wales recently put o u t to tender a contract for ways of implementing a doubling of S n o w d o n ia’s natural forest cover. The N ation al T ru st recently boug ht 30 00 acres on Snow don and is com m itted to re-establishing w o o d la n d up to the natural tree line. The T ru st also has an active interest in applying minim al intervention practices in large areas th a t it ow ns elsewhere (for example, in Ennerdale, see C h apter 5) and of large-scale hab itat restoration in the fens of C a m ­ bridgeshire. Coed Eryri lives on as a vision - no w held by a motley assortm ent of educationalists, artists, writers, poets, sculptors and the occasional forest ecologist. It is an open and evolving concept th at must embrace culture, co m m unity and ecology. W e are now m ore acutely aw are th at the tem perate forest ecosystem evolved in the presence of the now extinct ‘m eg a-faun a’ and th a t the forests of Snow don in th at former natural totality c an n o t n o w be restored. In all of my earlier w ork I had failed to appreciate the ex ten t to which the mega-herbivores processed the forest - keeping it open and free of accum ulated vegetation. Parts of Europe m ust have resembled the wooded savannah of Africa and been teeming w ith game. If we now w anted to restore the primeval ecology, we w ould need to genetically m anipulate some safari-park elephants and rhinos, recreate the ta rp a n and aurochs from their descendents, and im po rt a few Asiatic lions! W h a t place now docs the a rg um en t against alien species have when S n ow do nia’s hills are covered in rh o d o d e n d ro n and Sitka spruce, the streams colonized by Japanese k notw eed and H im alayan balsam, large num bers of the planted oaks came from Poland and there have even been sightings of escaped panthers? O u r benchm arks have been blown away. W h a t we n o w create can hardly be justified by the n arro w confines of a rather m utable ecological science. It had been p a rt of the Coed Eryri d ream to bring back lost species. A small g roup of us began to think a b o u t the réintro du ctio n of beaver, and in 1992 in the com pan y of Alan Featherstone and the more adventurous agents of Scottish N a tu ra l Heritage, we visited re-introduced colonies in Brittany. After eight years of contem plation, the Scottish authorities have agreed to a re-introduction p ro gram m e and there is a small scheme in Kent (see the later sections on species in C hap ter 7). Beaver is a builder at the base of the ecosystem. In the anim al medicine of N o rth America, it teaches the value of a strong fou nd ation and industriousness. Ecologically, beaver transform s h a b itat and provides a fo un dation for a web of diversity. If there is success in Scotland, then we can p ro m o te again something similar in Snow donia. T he bear and the w olf may one day return to Scotland, b u t for Wales, the dream is of eagle and lynx. Eagle is associated

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with poetic ‘vision’ and lynx is the ‘keeper of secrets’. Only w hen there is a poetic vision to m atch the divinity of the Welsh language, and w hen the great mystery of n ature is hallowed and no t houn d ed by science, will we have the will to bring them back. In Wales I learned that ou r soul and o ur future are intimately b o un d with the wild. As we rediscover ourselves, we shall safeguard and sanctify the wild places, and no t o u t of some ecological sense of d o o m if we d o n ’t but because of o ur love and exp and ed aw areness. In the ancestral Celtic forest, I learned th a t the anim als, trees and herbs held healing powers, the whole environm ent was alive with spirit and there w as no b o u n d ary between the h u m an mind, the forest and the greater cosmos. I came to see th a t we had lost th at consciousness, and in so doing, we were moving to w ard s the endgam e of a planet-w ide destruction of o u r very life su p po rt systems. Coed Eryri taug ht me th at there is no environm ent to be studied, m anaged, conserved or restored - the environm ent is no t a thing, n o t an object, o ther th an as a h u m a n concept. It has been a category mistake, som ething we have separated from ourselves and set a p a rt from other categorized things, such as ‘the eco n o m y ’, industry or business. As such it will always come second, as som ething we m ust protect while getting on with w h a t really m atters no w th at ‘the e c on om y’ has become God. The m ajor p a rt of Coed Eryri’s w o rk n o w lies in the projects at Cae M ab o n : to ap prehend the truth th at we are a pa rt of nature, to rediscover the rituals of appreciation and the joys of reconnection. But the vision is held and will one day help to integrate all the disparate w orkings of foresters and nature conservationists w h o strive gradually to enhance the w ild w oo d of Eryri. H o w ever, immediately to the south of the Rhinogydd, in the N o rth C am brian s, there are signs th a t ‘w ild w o o d s’ and the concept of core areas (see C hap ter 5 on the w o rk of the Land Use Policy G roup) are gaining local advocates, and this may yet revitalize proposals for the Rhinogydd, which has the advantage of a cluster of ‘public’ lands in the form of Forest Enterprise holdings and N a tio n al T ru st land in the southeast corner, and one or tw o large estates in the centre and north . These m ay yet provide focal points for m anag em ent of wild areas with the in troduction of deer, ponies and wild cattle, the conversion of plantations and the regeneration of up land vegetation.

3 Caledon

Any search for the wildest land in Britain would begin in Scotland. There are several areas of land in excess of 1000 k m 2 in the Western H ighlands and the Flow C ou ntry w ith little obvious im print of m an. The C airngorm M o u n ta in s contain some of the largest near-natural forest rem nan ts and m o n tan e plateau areas, and this area, together with the Western H ighland areas of Ben Eighe and Inverpolly, contain the largest n ature reserves in Britain. H ow ever, even these apparently natural areas share with Snow ­ donia a history of systematic d e n u d a tio n .1 The wildest c ountry is no w virtually treeless, and although deer are a b u n d a n t, several key herbivores are missing, as are all the large carnivores. O utside these nature reserves, the denuded state of the land is maintained by managerial policies aim ed primarily at the economic returns to be made from grouse shooting, deer stalking or marginal sheep farming. The large nature reserves, such as the island of R h u m and Ben Eighe on the mainland, arc only beginning to regenerate their natural tree cover. The absence of pred ators has m ean t th a t deer overgraze the rem n an t forest and there is little natural regeneration unless deer nu m b ers are severely culled or areas fenced off.2 The wildness o f the C airngorm s, th o ug h still rich in biodiversity, is com prom ised by tou rist developments and high num bers of visitors, with winter skiing requiring an infrastructure th at no w penetrates to the core of the m ountains. Conservationists fought long and hard against a funicular railway th at would take skiers and walkers up on to the high plateau with little effort - the latter factor perhaps the only real safeguard for wild areas. A lthough we shall focus up o n the Trees for Life project in the relatively untouched Glen Affric region, there is considerable progress being made w ithin the C airngorm s by both the N atio n a l T ru st for Scotland (who are also active in Glen Affric) at M a r Lodge and the RSPB at Abernethy. These tw o organizations are fostering increased natural regeneration of the pine forests with policies of deer culling and fencing over several th ou sand hectares. The NTS m an age m ent allows for traditional economic ex ploita­ tion from grouse shooting and fishing, whilst the RSPB land represents a core of habitats subject to natural processes.

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The Trees for Life vision Nevertheless, Scotland provides by far the greatest o p po rtu nity in Britain for recreating a functional wild ecosystem and it is here th at the most advanced re-wilding initiative was founded in 1987 by Alan W atson Featherstone and the Trees for Life project at Findhorn. An area of ap pro xim ately 20 0 0 k m 2 was identified west of the G reat Glen and aw ay from the traditional tourist ho t spots in the Spey valley and C airngorm s. Here the Trees for Life group built up on Finlay M a c R a e ’s pioneering w ork with the Forestry Commission in Glen Affric and upo n a long-held vision to regenerate a significant fraction of the former glory th a t was the great Caledonian Pine Forest.3 T he ancie nt pine forests o f Caledon have inspired m any conservationists over the decades to dream of restoration, especially in the face of massive commercial afforestation of the H ighlands with exotic species in p la n ta ­ tions of dreary m o n o to n y and disrespect for landscape form and beauty. Few, however, th o u g h t of the forest in its natural dynamic, with the original fauna of large herbivores and carnivores restored, and those w ho could embrace th a t vision, such as Derek Yalden, were never very optimistic th a t such a project could prevail against the interests of large landow ners. Yalden w as led to suggest a rejuvenated functional ecosystem with all the m am m als returned, but safely q ua ran tine d on the island of Rhum , a national nature reserve, bu t even this exciting proposal found no su p p o rt a m on g gov ernm ent agencies.4 At the outset, the F indhorn group embraced no t only the politically problematic carnivores but also the spiritual dim ension inherent in any such renewal project and were n o t afraid to make this a m ajor tenet of their vision at a time when few people talked of re-introducing extirpated anim als, and even fewer talked of the spiritual values of nature. Alan began with an unab ashed holistic vision of the forest th at included the eventual return of such keystone species as beaver, boar, w olf and bear, and then sought su p p o rt from traditionalist foresters in the Forestry Com m ission and N ation al Trust. T he Trees for Life project would have been easily dismissed as N e w Age dream ing were it n o t for the dedication and hard w o rk of its volunteers in growing trees, raising money, talking good science and getting out in all weathers. The project is n o w a w orld-fam ous, aw ard -w inn in g endeavour, but this has come after m any years of lab ou r on the pa rt of a team w orking with the full know ledge th a t the fruits of their 200-year vision w ould n ot be seen for generations to come.

The Millennium Forest for Scotland In addition to the pioneering w ork of Trees for Life, Scotland has also proven fertile g ro un d for other relevant initiatives unique to Britain and

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perhaps also Europe. In the late 1980s a nationw ide initiative to reforest Scotland w as set up. Reforesting Scotland grew out of the Tree P lanters’ G uide to the G alaxy, a magazine devoted to the m any small tree-planting groups, in particular, small nurseries and schemes such as that of the founders, Bernard and E m m a Planterose, w h o then lived on the alm ost totally denuded W est C oast of the H ighland Region. As the millennium ap p roach ed, the ever-growing organization of small-scale planting groups, combined with the more radical critics of land ownership, began to find a resonance th a t was reflected in a millennium g rant from the lottery as part of a wider ‘Millennium Forest for Scotland’.5 Reforesting Scotland held a b ro ad vision of co m m unity w ood land s, with a focus on regenerating sustainable, economic, but local uses of w o o d la n d and increasing biodiversity. There was room in the vision for wildland initiatives, and indeed, a smaller-scale project of a b o u t 800 ha, C arrifran, was developed in the Borders region of southern Scotland (see C h apter 5). In addition to these new radical developments, the traditional conserva­ tion bodies have also been actively creating larger areas of land reserved for wildlife with policies of m inim um intervention. The N atio n al T ru st for Scotland received governm ent su p p o rt for buying the M a r Lodge Estate in the C airngorm s, thus adding a substantial area with the prospect of linking up with the large holding of the RSPB at Abernethy. O th e r significant developments have been the crofters’ m o vem en t to buy estates com m only ow ned by absentee landlords, the m ost im p o rta n t being K no yd art on the west coast. The Jo h n M u ir T ru st has also purchased significant areas of land on the Isle o f Skye.6 Some o f these broader-based initiatives have mixed implications for the wilding o f these large tracts of land. Different organizations have different visions. The Joh n M u ir Trust, for example, has yet to embrace active regeneration of ecosystems on a large scale; the N atio na l T ru st for Scotland carefully balances wildlife and h ab itat requirem ents with its obligations to the local economy and traditional rural practices, and the RSPB, though co m m end able in its ap p ro a ch to all wildlife on its land, is fundam entally oriented tow a rds bird conservation, access and educational facilities for its members. The voluntary sector no w has a large m em bership and a co m m itm en t to access and interpretation that can com prom ise areas formerly little k n o w n , remote and inaccessible. W hilst a sense of wildness may be lost, species remain, and the visitors are an im p o rta n t element of a local econom y th at needs to see changes in land use th a t safeguard co m m unity life in the Highlands. In general, the last decade and the new millennium has seen a m ajor shift in awareness, new thinking and practical initiatives in Scotland th at are no t seen in Wales and are only just beginning in England.

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Land and ownership: iniquity and opportunity Perhaps the greatest o p p ortun ity in Scotland arises from w h a t many regard as the c o u n try ’s greatest cultural and environm ental problem - the iniquitous pattern of land ow nership.7 Virtually all wildland in Scotland is privately o w ned by large estates in the hands of often-absent landlords. These estates are m anaged essentially for economic uses such as grouse shooting, salmon fishing, deer stalking and, under former more generous tax regimes, p lan tation forestry. H ow ever, such large estates regularly come on the m ark et and represent m ajo r opportunities for large-scale wildland initiatives at a time w hen conservation bodies have only recently found the resources to m atch the several million p ou n d s required for such purchases. These opportunities do n o t exist in the smaller-scale, m ore fragmented ow nership patterns in England and Wales, where land values are also much higher. It is crucial, however, th at conservation interests do n o t focus solely upon an exclusive biodiversity agenda. First, as I shall argue, th at agenda requires some reassessment in the light of future climate change, the fragmentation of habitats and the dysfunctional nature of present ecosystems. Second, there is an im p o rta n t political and cultural issue relating to ‘wildness’ that needs to be addressed. M a n y of these no w wild lands were formerly inhabited and were cleared by the imperial pow ers of England. T here is a rich cultural and linguistic heritage in the ancient Celtic relationship to animals, plants and nature generally, much o f it long do rm an t. In my view, it would be a mistake for the conservation co m m unity to appro ach wildland entirely from a conservation biology standpoint. It w ould be an o p p ortun ity missed for education and for a relevant input to the land ‘in -betw een’ th at we shall argue is of equal im portance to the core areas of wildland. There are many people within the broad church of Reforesting Scotland w orking for a balance th at keeps people on the land, and as in N o rth Wales; I believe th a t this can be fruitfully combined w ith the creation of natural sanctuary areas in which there is essentially no h u m an do m ination or economic exploitation. This is especially the case for co m m unity-ow ned, small-scale forest enterprises meeting local needs with the w o o d pasturing of livestock (see the W o o d la n d T r u s t’s Glen Finglas plans in C hap ter 5), and w hich, along w ith eco-tourism and education, could be the main economic activity in the buffer zones and corridors a ro u n d core areas.

Scottish Natural Heritage: a policy on wildland In 20 02 , Scottish N atu ra l Heritage (SNH) issued a policy statem ent on w ildland, W ildness in S cotland's C ountrysid e (Policy Statement N o. 02/03),

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in response to the g o ve rnm en t’s N ation al Planning Policy Guideline N PPG 14, w hich specifically identified wildland as an aspect of landscape character to be protected through land-use planning. The policy statem ent considered the value of wildness to society and its significance as a distinctive p a rt of S cotland’s natural heritage. It is a most succinct and clearly written a rg um en t for conserving wildness: linking people to the physical realities of the natural w o rld, the im portance o f solitude and sanctuary, closeness to nature and wildlife, lack of disturbance and tranquillity, and wildness valued as a quality in its ow n right. It also distinguishes between ‘wildness’ as a feature th a t can apply to quite small-scale features, even those close to urb an life such as wild areas in cities or on the u rb an fringe, and ‘w ildland ’, a term S N H prefers to ‘wilderness’ with its historical c o n no tatio ns of emptiness. The d o cu m en t then goes on to consider how best to safeguard these areas - looking at the threats of hydro-electric developm ent, afforestation, bulldozed roads, tourism (for example, helicopter tourism in the Cuillins), aqu aculture and renewable energy installations, such as w ind turbines - and enunciates a policy aim, that: There are parts of Scotland where the wild character of the landscape, its related recreational value and potential for nature are such that these areas should be safeguarded against inappropriate development or land-use change. In its policy of safeguarding wildness and w ildland, it will assume a strong presum ption against any developm ent th a t com prom ises the quality of wildness, especially in those areas th a t currently bear no obvious effects of h u m an activities. It also talks of the potential for en h a n cem en t of nature. In its initial assessments, m aps show ing the distances of wildland from public roads and private tracks have been produced. These show clearly the recent impacts of privately bulldozed ro ads in the Hig hlands and ac k n o w l­ edge the efforts of the N atio na l T ru st for Scotland in M a r Lodge, where such intrusions have been removed, as an example for other areas to follow.

Scottish Wild Rivers Scotland also hosts some of the m ajor initiatives for restoring wild rivers the W W F Wild Rivers p rog ra m m e and a m ajor scheme of the River R estoration Centre (RRC), an EU-backed p rog ram m e of effective re­ wilding. M o s t such projects have been on ‘reaches’ (small stretches where meanders can be restored to canalized sections of river) or floodplains that are restored to their original function; on the Tweed, in contrast, a catchm ent-based ap proac h is being pioneered. We shall look in more detail at the w o rk of the R RC in C hapters 5 and 11, as it has the potential to

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form a m ajor elem ent of a m ore general wilding strategy in the provision of wildlife corridors and netw orks.

Restoration ecology and appropriate economic development The political environm ent in Scotland has thus shifted to w a rds a greater embrace of the value of w ildland, but the pressures from other directions arc still severe. Renewable energy development, in the form of wind turbines, are planned for large swathes of the western coastline and hills with a recent application for very large machines having been approved on the Isle o f Skye, despite strong local opposition. The heavy u rb an bias of S cotland’s p op ulation, coupled with desires for m odernity and economic grow th, m ean th at wildland values will struggle against the drive for sustainable livelihoods in rural areas. W ith careful siting, there need n o t be great conflict because m ost of the wind resource is accessible offshore and there is no pressing national need to develop onshore wind; onshore wind po w er, however, appears cheaper, easier and quicker, despite the long history of planning delays seen in England. M oreover, current wildland un doubtedly contributes to Scotland’s economic wellbeing through tourism, and further enhancem ents can be expected to have economic value. Fifteen years ago, the Trees for Life team were truly voices in a wilderness; n o w they are an integral and inspiring p a rt of a m ajor m ovem ent in restoration ecology in a co untry big enough to embrace a whole range of restoration initiatives, from com m un ity forests and sustain­ able use, throu gh publicly accessible large-scale n ature reserves to the ‘core wilderness’ concept, which is the basis of the Trees for Life project. In some ways, the existence of m ulti-purpose regeneration schemes in oth er parts of Scotland aids the creation of m ore rem ote and radical w ildland projects. In areas where wildland is scarce and under pressure from a multitude of uses, such as the English and Welsh N a tion al Parks, com prom ises are m ade to appease the powerful lobbies of economic forestry, bird preservation, hill livestock farming, recreational use and military training. In Scotland there is a potential for diversity of uses. Such a large area as the C airngorm s, th ou gh m anaged as a wild ‘core a re a ’ and surrou nd ed by forestry and shooting estates, already accom m o d ates a range of uses within its b o u n d ­ aries - M a r Lodge has retained some traditional economic activities and there are extensive tourist developments for skiing, w alking and birdwatching. This area may act to siphon off visitor pressure and provide em ploym ent and thus make wilder-land initiatives elsewhere more accept­ able. F urtherm ore, the gradual creation of a wider reforesting mentality th a t em braces co m m un ity use may create m ore a pprop riate buffer zones for core areas th a t might one day re-introduce m am m alian predators such as the bear, lynx or wolf.8

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Pioneering re-introduction of predators Scotland has already hosted a pioneering re-introduction project for a controversial p red ator in the return of the white-tailed eagle to the Western Isles. In the late 19th century, this eagle w as c o m m o n e r in north and west Britain than the golden eagle, w ith over 100 eyries in Scotland and ab o u t 50 in Ireland. It w as persecuted and finally eradicated in 19 1 6 .9 Reintroduction attem pts began in 1959 using birds from N o rw ay , bu t the first successful breeding too k place in 1986. A bou t 11 pairs are n o w breeding regularly along the west coast o f Scotland. T he white-tailed eagle, or sea eagle, had an undeserved rep utation as a lamb-killer, and this p ro g ram m e m anage d to overcome historical preju­ dices. The eagles feed mainly upon hares, rabbits, seabirds and fish. A p ro gram m e for Eryri should be considered as pa rt of the wildlands ethos. Scotland has also made a m ajor con tribu tion to Britain’s fauna by the careful nu rtu ring of returning ospreys in Speyside. This species was also persecuted and eradicated in Britain, and the Scottish success has led to breeding successes in E ngland.10 Scotland has also hosted a re-introduction p ro gram m e for the red kite, parallel to successes in returning this p redator to England.

The wild heart of the Highlands: Trees for Life and the Glen Affric core area The Trees for Life vision embraced the concept of ‘w hole ecosystem regeneration’ from its inception and did n o t shy from the thorny question of re-introduced predators. The forest was m ore tha n the trees - it was a com m unity, an ecosystem, the health of w hich depended up on the interaction of grazers and predators. M oreover, the ‘forest’ w as conceived as a living entity, not just as a collection of ‘species’, but as a co m m unity of beings th at had a dimension in spirit. H ow ever magnificent a regenerated landscape of Caledonian Pine might look, it would be populated by ghosts of a past greater magnificence if the bear, wolf, lynx, moose and beaver were still absent. Thus, Trees for Life com m itted to the regeneration of the wild n o t only as a biodiversity obligation, but as the retrieval of something lost in the hum a n heart, the consequence of which is a particular loneliness of spirit th a t comes from the absence of anim als for which th at heart has always had reverence. Fifteen years ago, there w ould have appeared little hope of early acceptance of such species re-introduction, but today, Scotland is engaged up o n the re-introduction of the beaver - the first re-establishment of an eradicated m am m al since the red squirrel was re-introduced to Scotland in the 19th century. There have been initiatives to canvas the return o f the

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Figure 3.1 A lan W atson F eatberstone a n d the Trees fo r Life Vision: regenerating w illo w bigh in G len A ffric P h o to : Alan W a ts o n /F o re s t L ig h t

w olf and to fund research on the feasibility of its acceptance and survival (see C hap ter 8). Scotland is a country of deep conservatism an d radical ideas th at have a habit of leading the rest of the w orld. It is the birthplace o f Jo h n M u ir and the N ational Park m ovem ent, and thus it is fitting th a t it should inspire a regeneration of the spiritual as well as the practical reconnection to the natural world. In this particularly Scottish tr adition, the Trees for Life project has also w on n um erou s conservation aw a rds and influenced land m anag em en t in adjacent areas as well as abro ad . Alan now travels and lectures extensively on ecological restoration.

Practical regeneration: the Glen Affric project The success of the Trees for Life project owes a great deal to the availability of land on which to begin the project. The Forestry C omm ission ow ned large areas of Glen Affric and in the early 1980s had already decided to reserve this area as the core of its native w o o d la n d regeneration plans (see C o lou r Plate 3, w hich shows land ow nership and planting projects in the Glen Affric core area). The C omm ission began to fell non-native conifers and to exclude deer from areas th at could then regenerate. The scene was set for a cooperative endeavour. Trees for Life began with a native trees nursery th a t included not only Scots pine, b u t also key species for the

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Figure 3.2 Trees fo r L ife nursery a t Plodda P h o to : Alan W a ts o n /F o re s t L ig h t

colonization of open g round - birch, ro w an , willow and aspen. The latter had become rare in the highlands as it suffered from excessive browsing and largely p ropagated itself by suckering. The volunteers set a b o u t finding re m n an t seed trees, collecting seed and establishing nurseries. Glen Affric lies at the heart of a large area of the H ig hlands th at is n ot crossed by roads and where there is little agricultural activity. A nu m b e r of large sporting estates rely upo n deer stalking as the main economic activity. It w as thus an ideal place to centre the vision of a large ecosystem restoration project. A b o ut 1500 k m 2 of relatively wild country is bounded by tw o m ajor roads running from east to west, and in the west, though separated by a main road, lies the large N ation al N atu re Reserve of Ben Eighe, a reserve also subject to native w o o d lan d regeneration.

The problem of red deer The re m n a n t native w o o d la n d of Glen Affric had limited regeneration due to the heavy grazing pressure of excessive deer numbers. The problem of deer has long been recognized but only recently have m ajor efforts been made to address the excess. In a review of the problems, SN H produced w h at I regard as one of the best-designed scientific policy docum ents aimed at com m unicating ecological issues to a wide audience of stakeholders - a d ocu m e nt w o rth pro curing for th at reason alone (R ed D eer a n d the N a tu ra l H eritage, SN H , Policy Paper, June 1994). Red deer n um bers in Scotland have been rising steadily for several decades. Objective counts began in 1953, but records go back to 1900, when open country deer num bered ab o u t 150,000. This figure rem ained the estimate until 1963, after which there was a steady rise until 1989 w hen numbers peaked at 3 0 0,0 00 , including estimates of deer in forestry plantations.

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Red deer now occupy m ore than 40 per cent of the land area of Scotland, or ab o u t 3 million hectares. The main factors affecting their increase appear to be a decline in sheep num bers, under-culling of hinds, and a sequence of mild winters and dry summers. Animal density ranges from 5 to m ore than 30 per square kilometre, w ith winter densities in favoured areas being much higher. Scotland’s red deer po pulation represents an estim ated 28 per cent of the total European po pulation (m ost of which are confined to w oodland). It c a n n o t be em phasized too m uch th a t the cu rrent landscape and ecology of large areas o f Scotland is dysfunctional. The landscape may look wild and the deer m ay look wild - but this is deceptive, a fact readily appreciated by ecologists. Deer are no w so num erou s th a t forest structure has been severely degraded. Large vistas can be seen with one or tw o isolated old pines and some areas of extensive w o od lan d have no young trees at all. It is no t just a m atte r of failure of trees to regenerate; the whole under-storey of shrubs has been degraded. In particular, berry-bearing species have been over-grazed and are n o w either absent or unproductive, and up on these a whole host of other species rely for their well-being, such as capercaillie and black grouse. Above the tree-line, m on ta n e scrub and tall herb comm unities have been severely degraded. Lush riparian vegetation has also disappeared. These formerly diverse plant comm unities are essential for such m am m als as bear, beaver and wild boar, as well as for a host of insect and birds.

D e e r co n tr o l

The culling of red deer for spo rt or for range m anag em ent purposes is regarded as a significant factor in their ecology, with 6 - 1 2 per cent o f hinds and 1 0 -1 7 per cent of stags killed each year. The total annual cull increased from 2 4 ,0 00 anim als in 1973 to 70,0 0 0 in 1992, and the Red Deer C om m ission considered th at the cull of hinds equalled recruitment for the first time in 1990; however, there remains an im balance in the sex ratio. T here is some debate ab o u t carrying capacity - it is generally considered th at deer nu m bers would continue to increase in the absence of culling, but that density-dependent mechanisms operate to limit post-natal g ro w th, the age of first conception and the n um b er of hinds in milk. O n the island of R hu m , fecundity fell from 80 per cent to 30 per cent as hind num bers increased from 900 to 1200. The excessive density of deer is regarded as the main factor accounting for the lack of regeneration of S cotland’s native w o o dlan d s, estim ated at only 2 per cent of land cover. D amage to commercial forestry is substantial - costs are estim ated at £5 million net of revenues from culling in plantations, with half of this figure made up of the cost of rangers and fencing and half being direct damage to trees. This represents 7 per cent of total revenue from forestry in Scotland (1990 figures).

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T hus, any large-scale forest regeneration scheme has to address the deer problem. R em n an t C aledonian pine in the valleys provides over-wintering shelter for open-country herds and densities can be very high. If these w oo ds are to regenerate naturally, then either deer num bers m ust be reduced or fencing must be used to exclude them; both options are expensive. In Glen Affric, Trees for Life gained permission from the Forestry Comm ission to fence off areas for regeneration, and the first exclosures were created in 1989. Deer were driven from the enclosed areas and the sites m on ito red for re-entry (often fairly easy for the deer w hen w inter snows drift to the height of the fence). The effects were ap p a re n t within a very short time - birch, ro w a n and pine seedlings shot up within a few years. The Trees for Life strategy was to fence off areas with good seed sources to allow na tural regeneration and to enclose some areas far from seed sources where planting of reared seedlings could occur. By 1999, volunteers had planted over 2 50 ,0 0 0 seedlings. In the nearby privately ow ned Wester G uisachan Estate, similar num bers were planted by professional planters over a tw o-year period. Trees for Life had also influenced the N ation al T ru st for Scotland’s (NTS) purchase of the W est Affric Estate and had negotiated agreements for exclosures in the open cou ntry west of Loch Affric. Thus far, ab o u t 500 ha of new w o o d la n d regeneration and planting has been added to the Glen Affric rem nants. A further 135 ha are planned for W est Affric, where NTS also instigated rigorous culling to bring deer num bers d o w n to a level at w hich n atu ral regeneration takes place outside the fences. Once this is established, all fences will be removed. In areas where there are still black grouse and capercaillie, culling is preferred to fencing because these birds have a propensity for flying into them, a source of high mortality. Ideally, a regenerating forest will progress m ost naturally under some kind of grazing regime. H ow ever, the relationship between deer num bers and forest regeneration is not k n o w n in any detail. The consensus am ong naturalists and from limited research is that with densities above 5 anim als per square kilometre no regeneration will take place. Almost all open forest areas currently exceed this level, but w here deer culls have been instigated in the C airngorm s (the RSPB and M a r Lodge reserves have begun a radical p rogram m e) there is already extensive regeneration. S N H ’s m anagem ent of deer at the 4 0 0 0 ha Creag Meagaidh N ation al N a tu re Reserve since acquiring the im p o rta n t Site of Special Scientific Interest status in 1986 has mainly relied upo n the culling of hinds to drastically reduce deer numbers and pro du ce significant regeneration. It has also show n th at hefting of hinds to a particular area m e an t th at no significant num b ers were d ra w n in to this vacuum from neighbouring estates. T he W o o d la n d T ru st has instigated similar policies of na tural regeneration in the presence of reduced deer

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num bers (based on five deer per square kilometre) in a plan to afforest over 30 00 ha at Glen Finglas. Any large-scale ecosystem regeneration, for example, over the core area envisaged, will have to reduce deer num bers to less than 5 per square kilometre. This will require coo p eratio n from estates where deer stalking is the main function and an im p o rtan t local source of employment. Currently, estate managers are following policies th a t have allowed overall deer num bers to increase and allowed females to predom inate. SNH have argued, in their review, th a t half current num b ers w ould provide the same level of stalking and potentially bigger stags - stag size reduces as density increases. For the Caledonian Forest to come back, deer num bers in the core area envisaged by Trees for Life would need to be less than 7500, w hereas if the area n o w has an average p o pu latio n density, there will be 15,000 deer present. The resultant ‘forest’ deer w ould, however, be larger and provide better stags, and because stalking success is related to the n u m b e r of beaters and overall effort rather than to absolute deer num bers (in areas where deer num bers have doubled, stalking success has rem ained constant), there should not necessarily be a conflict of interest in the buffer zones th a t other estates currently provide.

Re-introduction of other herbivores There are, how ever, some keystone herbivores th a t have been eradicated. Elk disappeared from Scotland before the R o m an period and b o a r w en t the same way in medieval times. In the past, beaver were p rob ably also present in the Spey valley and perhaps also in the m ore m o u n tain o u s streams of Trees for Life’s core area. Boar have a profoundly beneficial effect upon the natural regeneration of trees, providing scrapes and disturbed gro u n d from their digging where seedlings can get a hold. Trees for Life have recently begun a study project in the glen in which wild b oar have been introduced to enclosures to study these effects. Beaver also modify h abitat in such a way that benefits other species - moose especially benefit from wet pastures and still pools w ith emergent vegetation. T w o m ore herbivores, the wild forest horse, or tarp an , and cattle are now extinct, and if the full grazing and browsing spectrum were to be recreated, then functional replacements might be found in the E x m o o r pony and am o ng the various breeds of semi-wild cattle (the issue of specific status is discussed in greater depth in C hap ter 7). Such additional herbivory, whilst diversifying grazing and forest structure, w o uld raise questions of p o p u la ­ tion control in the absence of predation, particularly for elk, which can increase rapidly - this is also dealt w ith in more detail in C h apte r 7.

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The question of carnivores The excess of deer has been cited as a good reason to bring back the carnivores, although Trees for Life would be happy to see them back because they are of value in their ow n right. This issue of pred ato rs and control of n um bers is no t at all clear and it may well be th a t the presence of small num bers of wolves and even smaller numbers of bear w o uld have little im pact on the pop ulation size of the deer. Red deer num bers are more likely to be limited by the quality o f the range and the severity of winters or dryness of summers. H ow ever, w olf p redation certainly affects the habits of deer herds and may lead to a higher deer density threshold for w oo dlan d regeneration as they keep animals from overstaying in one particular sheltered location. It is certainly true, however, th a t the current num b ers of red deer will su p p o rt a pop ulatio n of wolves (see C h ap te r 8 on the wolf and other predators)! Lynx will also take young red deer and adult roe deer, and there has been much less publicity ab o u t their potential re-introduction. Indeed, there are ru m ou rs th at hunting activists, rath er than conservationists, have already begun a restoration prog ram m e of their ow n. T here are regular sightings of lynx in Scotland, as well as sightings of ‘big cats’ of the pantherine lineage. We shall discuss this at greater length. The re-introduction of lynx to such a wild and semi-forested area should raise few questions of conflicting interests. W here wild prey are ab u n d a n t, lynx seldom predate domestic stock, and given the above-m entioned factors affecting deer stalking, the re-introduction o f lynx w ould n o t be in conflict w ith th a t interest either. It is also clear th a t there is ample room for a small pop ulation of these carnivores, and there are d ata to show th a t lynx can significantly reduce the density of smaller deer, such as the roe. T he brow n bear is m ore problematic. Although it will take young deer, it is an om nivore w ith a substantially vegetarian diet. It requires a rich indigenous flora - nuts, apples, berries, roots and tubers, as well as insect grubs, bees, w asps and honey. H ow ever, it would n o t take m uch effort to review the successful Swedish endeavours to rebuild bear num bers, particularly in the m ore open country of the northern arctic birch forests, and to gain useful insight relevant to Scottish upland habitats. There are relic p opulations of bear in the Pyrenees and northern Spain th a t are confined to smaller areas than the proposed core area. H owever, on the down-side, small pop ulation s are vulnerable to genetic isolation. I w ould like to see SNH at least commission a review - but there was little enthusiasm for the idea w hen last I raised the issue. T he return of predators, however, will be contingent n o t only on local lan do w n er sup po rt (which could be problematic, although again, in theory the quality of deer stalking w ould no t necessarily be im paired and may even improve) but also upon the attitudes of the wider land-owning fraternity.

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Wolf, bear and lynx will naturally w an d e r from the core area and colonize other areas. T o the west lie significant areas of national n ature reserves that might welcome the return of native predators. H ow ever, there are also significant sheep farming areas in the W estern H ighlands - over 2 million sheep are estim ated to share the overall 3 million hectares of land occupied by red deer alone. A future forest of 200 0 k m 2 in the core area might su p p o rt 10,000 red deer (half the current average density), with a potential recruitm ent of 2000 anim als - enough to su p p o rt between 10 and 50 wolves. Theoretically, 100 wolves eating 3 kg per day w o uld require 1000 adult deer at 100 kg each per year and thus the area might su p p o rt up to 20 0 wolves. H ow ever, the wolves will utilize o th er food sources and take a m ixture of adults and calves. In addition, there are other factors limiting w olf num bers such that the m o st likely resident p op ula tion would be between 10 and 50. W olf kills in open c ountry will also benefit carrion eaters, which include golden eagles - a species that would be negatively impacted by reduction in sheep num bers and the extension of forests, th o ugh the C aledon area is n o t an area of particularly high density for this raptor. Lynx will also take red deer, th o ug h its preferred prey is roe deer, hare and large game birds such as grouse. It is likely th at lynx could coexist with wolves quite happily and th a t the area w ould su p p o rt between 2 and 20 territories. Bear, as noted, is an omnivore, chiefly vegetarian, requiring a large hom e range, an d is not depen den t upon deer, th ough it will take young and the occasional adult anim al. The core area w ou ld sup po rt perhaps one territory (see sections on bear and lynx in C h ap ter 8). In the case of these predators, their future genetic health and chances of persistence w ould be enhanced by, and perhaps dependent upon, p o p u la ­ tions in contiguous areas such as K noydart, Ben Eighe and Inverpolly.

Other species issues Scotland possesses ab o u t half of E u ro p e’s golden eagle popu latio n, w ith ca. 40 0 pairs occupying much the same range as the red deer. It is a species th at might suffer reduced territory or breeding success if tree cover were more extensive and deer n um bers reduced. The availability of red deer carrion is a m ajor factor in the occupation of territories, th ou gh the eagles depend on live food, mostly hare and grouse, for the success of the nestlings. The 20 0 0 k m 2 of the core area w ould represent ab o u t 6 per cent of the golden eagle’s breeding area. H ow ever, even if completely reafforested, significant areas of open m o ntan e heath and bog w ould remain above the tree line. Fu rtherm ore, reduced deer num bers m ay p roduce a higher yield of young animals in a less dense deer population.

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In any m ajor h ab itat change there will be ‘w in ners’ and ‘losers’. A regrow th of heather m o o r over grassland and an invasion of drier bog areas by birch w ould favour those species th a t need cover for nesting, such as merlin and hen harrier, over those th at require open short-cropped grassland, such as golden plover and dunlin. Red grouse ap p ear to require shorter heather and n um bers respond to burning but are reduced by over-burning and over-grazing, whereas black grouse num bers could be expected to increase with the return of birch upon whose shoots they feed; the capercaillie could ex pan d as better h ab itat increased. The wider extent of forest and larger num bers of m atu re trees could su p p o rt the return of the red kite (recently re-introduced to Scotland) and the gosh aw k (colonized from falconry releases) and benefit the expanding osprey population. Pine m arten and wildcat n um bers w ou ld benefit from the greater forest cover. The indigenous Scottish crossbill would also benefit as it is limited to native pine forests. O n balance, the small potential reduction in n um bers of golden eagle, golden plover, dunlin and red grouse (and again the core area is largely peripheral to their main areas of habitation in Scotland), could be offset by better prospects for the endangered capercaillie and the currently declining black grouse. If the forest were eventually to come into its near original state over a much wider area, then the (unnaturally) large num bers of eagle and red grouse w ould reduce but be com plem ented by forest predators such as goshaw k, the tw o forest grouse species, the mixed country red kite, and of course, the potential return of forest-dwelling bear, lynx and beaver. There is also some evidence to suggest th at the native flora w ould be richer in such a balanced h a b itat range o f trees and open country, especially as a result of lower grazing pressure from deer (SNH in its study referred to 11 susceptible pla nt comm unities and to the rare H o m o g yn e alp'ma in particular). As the eventual vision includes the return of the full spectrum of large m am m als, including additional browsers and grazers, the eventual gains and losses are probably beyond the predictive po w er of current ecological science, which is limited w hen applied even to well-researched assemblages (see C h ap ter 7). If beaver were re-introduced, there are acknow ledged benefits for floral diversity in riparian habitats. Elk (moose), ‘ta r p a n ’, forest cattle and wild bo ar would modify habitats considerably, contributing to the open structure of the forest and adding to the overall biomass and hence to the availability of carrion and prey for predators.

Other initiatives in the core area In other parts of the core area envisioned by Trees for Life, landow ners have become active in regenerating the forest: the S trathconan and Brahan Estates have projected an increase in native w o o d la n d from 150 to 28 0 0 ha,

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with the possibility of coo peratio n in aspen survey w o rk and use of Trees for Life volunteers with the native w oo dlan d projects. Trees for Life have influenced regeneration and planting projects in the adjacent private estates of Wester G uisachan, M u llard och , H ilton, C eannacroc, and Balnacarn, whilst SN H have a m an ag em ent agreem ent for regeneration in Glen S trathfarrer (see C olo ur Plate 3). In all of Trees for Life’s w o rk , the aim has been to recreate a natural forest structure for the purposes of w ildland conservation, rather than for economic use. In this process, nature is mimicked - there is a focus upon natural patterns of regeneration and pioneer species rather than on m aximizing num bers of trees planted. T o some extent these aims are com prom ised by the deer problem - u n n a tu ral fences are necessary to establish seed trees until deer num bers are reduced. Furtherm ore, as we have noted, oth er grazers and browsers such as moose, beaver, wild forest cattle and horse are absent. H ow ever, establishment of tree cover and the recovery of the shrub layer from over-browsing are the essential first steps in this ecosystem recovery process. There is also an ongoing process of research and m ap ping (now using geographic in form ation systems - GIS - with academic su pp o rt from Scottish Universities). O f particular interest are the m o un tain top c o m m u ­ nities of d w a rf birch, juniper and willow; hazel and aspen in the valleys; and the presence in the lower b roadleaf w o o d s of oak and alder. There is every chance th a t the core area conceptualized by Trees for Life could come ab ou t. It may well be th a t Glen Affric alone w ould represent the unutilized heartland of wild forest, and th at surro un d in g estates would still practice deer stalking, b u t these surro un din g areas could in theory coexist and even flourish with the return of the forest and a decline in deer numbers. It is unlikely th at sheep farming will be a serious barrier to the future vision for the area, and forestry practices have evolved to value native w o o dla nd s and wildlife. The Forestry Comm ission in Scotland has pioneered com m unity involvement in m an age m ent and is com m itted to the regeneration of native w oo dlan d.

Economic exploitation: Hydro-electric dams, roads and reservoirs The Glens of Affric and Strathfarrer were opened up in the last century to hydro-electric developm ent with the dam m in g of the rivers and the construction of tunnels and roads. The resultant electricity production in the core area is small and is insignificant at the national level. Conceivably, following a more general acceptance of the wildlands ideal in the longer term, such items of hydro-electric infrastructure could be decommissioned so th a t the rivers could find their natural flow and the lochs their natural

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level. Such policies may sound fanciful in the current climate of greenhouse gas reduction, but they have been a feature of re-wilding in the US, where even quite large dams have been decommissioned. The access ro ads to these reservoirs could be left open to facilitate walkers and bicycles, bu t w ould ideally be closed to m o to r traffic. W here such access has become a m ajor aspect of local recreation, access to vehicles could be limited by license (with keys for barriers), or electric-vehicular access provided. T he large adjacent sporting estates may come on the m ark et and prove attractive to conservation organizations concerned to further large-scale nature reserves. Alternatively, even within tr aditional land ownership, the potential for wildlife w atching might prove as attractive economically as deer stalking and would be m ore in keeping with the ethos of the core area (there w ould likely rem ain a need for culling of deer numbers). These aspects are addressed in m ore detail w hen we come to consider future strategies in C ha pter 10.

Inspiration The Trees for Life vision has proven inspirational across Britain and doubtless to many people concerned for wild areas in other parts of the w orld. In my ow n experience of w orking in the very different env iro nm ent­ al and political situation in Wales, the steady year-by-year successes of A lan’s project in Scotland did a great deal to counteract the frustrations of so little happening on the g ro un d in Wales. The C aledonian pine forest existed as much in ou r ow n hearts as did the w ildw o od of Eryri, and thus each increment bolstered o u r strength and vision. A dam Griffin has felt similarly encouraged in the setting up of M o o r Trees in D a rtm o o r, where there is a bewildering array of powerful stake-holder interests, each fighting their corner, so th at the status quo tends to prevail. Further afield, at least one foreign initiative w as also inspired by A lan ’s w ork, the safeguarding o f the Yendegaia, 3 8 ,78 0 ha of degraded forest in southern Chile. A crucial elem ent in this inspirational w o rk has been the outreach driven by the superb ph o to g rap h y of trees and wild forest aro u n d the globe, and the effective marketing of professionally produced calendars, diaries and cards th at have carried the message. Justice has been done to the original beauty of the forest, and it is this th at strikes the greatest resonance. As Alan would be the first to acknowledge, w hatever inspiration people find in his w o rk , he owes to the inspiring presence of the Caledonian forest itself! It is in the spirit of the great tree itself - in its arom atic presence the auto m atic response is to breathe it in, as if w elcoming life itself in all its glory, the true healing p ow er and meaning of inspiration!

4 Dartmoor

D a rtm o o r is in m a ny ways a perfect example of an English ‘wilderness’, and the term is frequently used in p rom o tion al literature for visitors to the N a tion al Park. The area of the Park, at 950 k m 2 holds virtually the entire ‘natural a re a ’ of the D a rtm o o r massif, consisting of high m o o r to above 500 m, river valleys and w o o d la n d .1 This ‘wilderness’ has several roads crossing the central parts (see C olo ur Plate 4), and the N atio nal Park as a w hole attracts over 2 million visitors per year. It is an area of upland heath, grass m o o r and blanket bog, drained by steeply inclined river valleys containing some of the m ost extensive ancient oak w oo dla nd in England. This area is less ‘w ild ’ than the Rhinogydd in Wales (which are of co m parable size), and m uch less rem ote than the C aledonian forest in Glen Affric. T h e moors are subject to heavy recreational pressure from visitors holidaying in the m any hotels, centres and camping sites on the periphery. In addition to recreational use, extensive areas of c om m on land su p p o rt high num bers of cattle, sheep and ponies; there are also large areas subject to military training, reservoirs for w ater supply and some small areas of commercial forestry. Even so, there are parts o f D a rtm o o r th at are quiet, little visited, of marginal use to agriculture and unsuitable for forestry. These areas hold large Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), designated either for blanket bog or upland heath communities. T he diversity of the area, with ancient w o o d lan d , to rren t rivers, w et and dry pastures, heath and bog, together w ith the distinctive granite outcrops, m ake it an exceptional candidate for a wildlands project. H ow ever, as with virtually all upland habitat in Britain, a hands-off app ro ach to m anage m ent, relying upon natural processes of regeneration, w ou ld significantly alter the balance of species and com m un ity structure: heathland would be colonized by birch and ro w an, pastures by bracken and eventually both w ould become w o od lan d. This succession w ou ld likely be opposed by interests protecting open sub-climax comm unities either for co m m u nal grazing or bird protection (or other species identified as im p o rtan t for biodiversity such as butterflies, flowering plants, lichens and mosses), as well as by ram blers and

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preservationists concerned w ith elements of an archaeological and cultural landscape. The area is rich in Bronze Age and Iron Age sites and has been farmed since Neolithic times. Any proposal for large-scale wilding will have to take on board these competing interests. In this sense, D a rtm o o r is very different from Glen Affric, and more extreme tha n the much quieter Rhinogs in Snowdonia. At first site, it w ould app ear a less promising prospect than wild areas of the N o rth Pennines, Lake District and the Dales. It has, however, one of the m o st fundam ental requirem ents of a m ajor wildlands project, and that is a local com m unity-based organization - M o o r Trees, w hich has a strong vision and an active m em bership - and despite the competing interests in the area, there is a large sector in the so uthw est of the Park th at could acco m m od ate a significant wilding project involving the regeneration of the native Atlantic oak wood.

Moor Trees: a local re-wilding initiative As will be seen w hen we look at other candidate wild areas, there are quieter places in England - in particular in the Cheviot Hills and N o rth Pennines. H ow ever, D a rtm o o r has spaw ned an active local group that has already begun the uphill task of reconciling the various and conflicting interests. M o o r Trees began w ork in the early 1990s with Adam Griffin gaining inspiration from Trees for Life’s w o rk .2 By 1999 they had instigated a m ajor conference th at w as attended by all concerned parties, ranging from governm ent agencies, the Park au thorities, voluntary bodies and local com m oners, all of w h o m show ed a willingness to enter into constructive dialogue {Tow ard the W ild, N ov em b e r 1999). Thus, the millennium started with encouraging signs th a t re-wilding had become an acceptable pa rt of the conservation agenda in England. M o o r Trees has started w ithou t a specific long-range plan, o ther than to have m ore trees on D a rtm o o r and the restoration of a m ore natural landscape. Its main aim at this early stage is to generate a consensual process w hereby a feasible long-range plan could evolve. Since the 1999 conference, it has begun to d raw together stakeholder interests. O n a practical and educational front, local tree nurseries are being set up and school children are involved in collecting seed. The most immediate aim is to set up a dem o n stratio n project covering 1 0 0 -5 0 0 ha and to commission a professional feasibility study to select the m ost app rop riate area. Given this bo tto m -u p consensual ap proach , there is an o p p o rtun ity to provide an input to developing discussions. We shall return to the issue of ho w change has been furthered a m on g a plethora of com peting interests in a later chapter. For present purposes, I will outline the problem s th a t M o o r

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P h o to : M o o r Trees

Figure 4.1 Tree nursery on D a rtm o o r Trees will face and make som e suggestions on possible sites and the process of consensus. Firstly, in the simpler task of just increasing tree cover on the m oo rs and in the river valleys, a great deal of potential exists w ith o u t conflicting interest. The D a rtm o o r N atio n al Park A uthority already has a goal of an additional 100 ha of new broadleaf w o od land by 2 0 0 5 .3 This m odest target will also be supplemented by m anag e m ent agreements to reduce grazing pressure and this should ensure some additional n atu ral regeneration. There are large areas of p o o r pasture invaded by bracken which could quite happily succeed to w o o d lan d , and will slowly do so under present m anag e m en t and trends. It is when a large-scale scheme is considered, involving the return of native herbivores and perhaps also predators, that difficult policy decisions will have to be made a m o ng com peting interests.

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Military training grounds O n e of the m ost im p o rtan t of competing interests on D a rtm o o r is military training. The largest and ‘quietest’ area in the no rth w est of the Park is used as a firing range for small arm s (the use of heavy artillery recently ceased). Given the scarcity of such areas for military use, it can be assumed th a t the arm y will be present on D a rtm o o r for the foreseeable future. Although the M inistry of Defence has taken on board its responsibilities, particularly un der recent Biodiversity Action Plans, it is unlikely to w a n t large-scale intrusion of w oo dla nd . Its lands, however, consist largely of upland heath and grassland, w ith some blanket bog, with a considerable area designated as an SSSI. W hilst military training grou nd s hardly qualify as a core area th at would uplift the spirit, the open m o o r and quiet on non-firing days is, for m an y people, an effective c ou nterpo int to the over-used tourist zones. T here is some possibility of enhancing the area and it could act as a contiguous zone for p opulations of anim als in the other candidate zone.

A potential core area D a rtm o o r divides into tw o m ajo r upland zones - the no rth w est and southwest, with the smaller w ooded region in the southeast also being im p ortant. The southw est bloc is b ounded by a m ajor road th a t splits D a rtm o o r no rth and south, and a n o th er th a t cuts NW/SE, with the main E x eter-P ly m o uth road effectively forming the southern b o un da ry of the Park. This so uthw est bloc contains a large tract of SSSI designated for its blanket bog, as well as grass m o o r and heath. T here are small tracts of ancient oak w o o d lan d in the valleys. This area has the advanta ge of no military training and the presence of a m ajor conservation-oriented la ndo w n er in the N atio na l Trust. It w ou ld be my suggestion that this bloc be a candidate core area (see C o lou r Plate 4). The question then arises as to the nature of the changes envisaged and other conflicts th at might arise.

Non-intervention If it were feasible to get agreem ent for the whole bloc m arked by the orange line in C olour Plate 4 to be left to itself, one benefit would ensue: we would have an o p p o rtu nity to w atch nature ‘doing its th ing’. There would be natural processes of succession and decay (eventually), fire, d ro ug ht, storm dam age and processes of climate change. O ver a period of a few decades, we w ould see extensive change, and over a century or tw o, some eventual balance (for however long the climate and oth er factors such as disease and invading species rem ained stable). Given th a t domestic stock w o uld be removed, th ough wild ponies w ould remain, grazing pressure w ould be

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reduced such th at natu ral regeneration would allow the w o od lan d cover to extend up the valleys - closed-canopy oak in the b o tto m and birch, willow and ro w a n forming open w o o d la n d on the heaths and grass m oor. There would be a rich shrub layer of heather and bilberry. The blanket bog would remain relatively free of trees, unless it dried ou t as a result of climate change. There is a possibility th at pony num bers would increase and suppress regeneration - it appears an open question, with the m o st likely outcom e being a density-dependent suppression of fecundity. H owever, in the case of red deer, this self-limiting process does no t kick-in at the low densities required to sustain regeneration of w o od land . T here is no curren t p o p u la ­ tion of red deer on the m oo r, but they ought to be a feature of the wild area. The neighbouring E x m o o r ponies are very m uch left to themselves, but any com b in ation of herbivores such as wild cattle, deer and ponies would require some co ntrol of num bers to safeguard n atu ral regeneration. T here is a current discussion concerning w o o dlan d and grazing dynamics, which is outlined in C ha pter 7. If applied generally to D a rtm o o r, this policy would im pact up o n a n u m b e r of oth er conservation goals: • • •

• •

sites of ancie nt settlement, such as h u t circles, burial m ou n ds and field systems species-rich flower meadow s, in particular R hos pasture, with its characteristic floral assemblage and nationally rare insect fauna a n u m b er of open-country birds, such as dunlin, golden plover and ring ouzel, which are p a rt of the D a rtm o o r N ation al Park (DNP) Biodiversity Action Plan ram bling interests concerned with ‘open-views’ and unfettered access c o m m o n e rs’ grazing rights.

H ow ever, perusal of the D N P m aps for the Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) shows th a t considerable potential exists within the so uthw est bloc on land no t crucial to any of D a r tm o o r ’s priority BAP species.4 For example, the majority of dunlin, golden plover and ring ouzel are in the northern zone, and the m ajor areas of Rhos pasture (im p ortant for the m arsh fritillary butterfly and n a rro w bordered bee haw k m o th, as well as rare flowering plants) are in the east and southeast; the bog specialists are largely in the no rth ern areas, and denizens of the special valley mires, such as scarce dragonflies, would no t suffer from expansion of w oo dland near such sites, which w ould rem ain protected. M a n y of these bird and insect species are also at the edge of their range in Britain and Europe, being more num erous in the Pennines and Scotland, and constitute a very small percentage of the British (and European) populations. There remain, however, significant archaeological sites. F urtherm ore, BAP species th at depend upon m atu re Atlantic oak w oo ds w o uld eventually benefit, and these include the blue g ro un d beetle as well

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as mosses, lichens and liverworts and characteristic birds such as the pied flycatcher, redstart and w oo d warbler.

Managed re-wilding In this option, the goal of a more n atu ral climax vegetation is achieved by m anaged regeneration, in which domestic stock are removed and replaced with special breeds, augm ented by re-introduced herbivores, and the overall p attern of grazing is used to reproduce a m ore open w oo dland . In this case, zones o f planting and protective fencing w ou ld also be used, which could speed colonization of treeless m o o r as well as safeguarding natural regeneration in the valleys. M o s t fencing could be rem oved after ab o u t 20 years when natural regeneration would occur, provided th at herbivore n um bers were controlled. In this scenario, several original herbivores, or their equivalent special breeds, could be re-introduced; wild forest cattle (either H echt from G erm any, or if possible, a third Chillingham Park herd), near-natural ponies (the E x m o o r pony is regarded as the closest to wild stock), and red deer would be the main browsers and grazers, w ith wild bo ar and beaver also being present. The degree to which special breeds w ould need to be protected from interbreeding with other ponies and cattle w ould require study. The area may be too small and n o t diverse enough for elk, which w ould tend to w an d er and w o uld represent a m a jor hazard on ro ads and an unw elcome intruder on farmland, although given attitudes in England generally, this also applies to b oar and deer. With the presence of special breeds and the need to control herbivore num bers, there is a role for present farmers to be involved in range m anag e m en t - particularly in the harvesting of venison, organic beef and wild boar. A p pro priate grazing regimes could also be used to keep the m ost im p o rtan t archaeological sites open. Large areas of D a rtm o o r form part of the Duchy estate of Prince Charles, w h o is disposed to w ard s organic p roduction and conservation issues, but tena nt farmers have a great deal of au to n o m y , and c o m m o n e rs’ rights are notoriously difficult to harm onize with large area conservation schemes (a large-area native w o o d lan d regeneration proposal in the Brecon Beacons foundered on this issue). The D a rtm o o r area could in theory su p p o rt a small pack of wolves and this has been proposed by some co m m en tato rs, but the wolves would range outside the core area and predate domestic stock and ponies, and their offspring w ould have no contiguous areas to emigrate to. In my view, the general area is to o small, too intensively used by people and to o isolated from oth er wild areas to be considered for w olf re-introduction. It is too small for bear for the same reason. H ow ever, the area is no t to o small to su p p o rt a viable pop ulatio n of lynx, and there is sufficient w o o d lan d and

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num bers of deer in surro un din g farmla nd for emigration to other suitable areas. Predation of sheep by lynx would doubtless take place, but at a level that could be tolerable and would be in line with European experience in France, especially if buffer zones and forest corridors were established. T here is already evidence of naturalized p u m a on the m o o r (see C ha pter 8). A ppropriately m anaged, the southw est bloc has the potential for greatly extended cover of the im p o rta n t Atlantic oak w o o d s and the regeneration of heath with open w o o dland . There could be ‘con servation ’ gains whilst safeguarding species o f cu rren t concern: in particular the locally extinct black grouse w ould have sufficient h abitat to return, as w ould goshaw k, red kite and possibly also osprey. W ith a b o u t one-third of D a rtm o o r designated as a wild-zone, there could emerge a balance of interests between farming, c o m m o n e rs’ land, military, open country ram bling, and specialist conservation interests. There would exist a further potential for the military land to be subject to a wild-grazing regime involving special breeds of cattle and pony; however, it would probably require the whole of the upland zone to be under this regime, and for a buffer of beef- or dairy-only pasture land in the rest of the N ation al Park, before the return of lynx would be practicable.

5 The Potential for Networks and Corridors

The wilding ethos has gathered such m o m en tu m in the first five years of the 21st century, th a t there are no w m any projects on the g round of varying degrees of wildness, encompassing a variety of visions, ranging from small-scale p rog ram m es on particular reaches of rivers and urban wildlife corridors to h abitat netw o rk initiatives relating to w o o d lan d , reedbeds and coastal marshes. M a n y of the smaller schemes are indicative of a general wave of change in cities, the urb a n fringe, the co m m unity forests, wetland restoration, coastal retreat, the wilding of farming and even wild gardens. In this chapte r, we shall look at those larger schemes of relevance for linking core areas with corridors of land that, although no t necessarily free of h um a n use, w ould be wild enough to allow movem ent of anim als between these core areas and also to provide buffer zones with more app ro priate economic activity. Each of the following schemes, though separately conceived and no t yet p art of an overall strategy, will provide im p o rtan t lessons in im plem entation, particularly for landscape-scale initiatives outside traditional n ature reserves. These netw ork ing initiatives are fostering partnerships betw een la n d ­ ow ners, governm ent agencies, wildlife trusts, local councils and the industrial sector. The different schemes illustrate a variety of cooperative endeavours between voluntary bodies such as the large landow ning N atio n a l Trust, W o o d la n d T ru st and RSPB; the campaigning organizations such as W W F , which have sup ported purchases of land; the W ater Com panies and associated civil engineering companies supporting the re-wilding of rivers and catchments; the C oun ty Wildlife T rusts with targeted land purchase and some landscape-scale plans; specialist trusts such as the Vincent Wildlife T ru st and the O tte r T rust, which have been concerned with species re-introduction and breeding program m es; Local and M unicipal Authorities, and governm ent agencies such as the E nv iro n­ m ent Agency (very active with regard to catchm ent-based local plans); and the Forestry C omm ission, playing a pivotal role w ith its m ajor holding of

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57

public lands and schemes to convert plantations of exotic species into m ulti-purpose wilder forests of native species. In addition, the Heritage Lottery Fund (LILF) has taken an interest in large area schemes and sup ported m any of the above initiatives. O u t of this plethora of wilding schemes of varying scale, there are tw o m ajor initiatives th at have the potential to further the creation of corridors and buffer zones for a broad strategy: the inter-agency W orkin g G ro u p on N ew W ildw oods (Land Use Policy G ro u p - LUPG, consisting of English N atu re, the C ountryside Agency, the E nv iron m en t Agency, the Forestry C omm ission, Countryside Council for Wales, Scottish N a tu ra l Heritage and the Jo in t N a tu re Conservation C omm ittee) and the w o rk of the River R estoration Centre, supported by the agencies and W ate r Com panies, as well as by private-sector engineering companies.

The Land Use Policy Group and new wildwoods The Land Use Policy G ro u p investigated the potential for new w ildw oods in England and Wales largely in response to a failure of governm ent incentives to create significant new native w oo dla nd outside of Scotland. The LUPG reported on its research and seminar series N e w W ild w o o d s in July 2 0 0 2 . 1 The Scottish successes h ad indicated th at there w as a public dem an d for wilder, m ore natural w oods. After considering definitions and principles, the group did a prelim inary survey of key areas in Britain, looking at cu rren t initiatives and the potential for a new policy of wilder w o o d la n d - preferably on a large scale (1000 ha) and w ith the further possibility of incorporation into a Forest H a b ita t N etw o rk on an even larger scale. The definitions o f w ildw o od have been left open - essentially the w o od s m ust be primarily native species, the main purpose being conservation and recreation rather than commercial use, subject to minim al managerial intervention and as large as can be achieved. O ne of the current initiatives earm arked for study was ‘Wild Ennerdale’ in C u m b ria, a joint venture between the landowners: the N atio nal Trust, Forestry C omm ission and United Utilities (a w ater company). A lthough this is not described by the partners as a re-wilding project as it intends continued economic exploitation for timber and livestock farming, there is some separation of wilder land and buffer zones th a t could prove instructive for larger-scale projects. Perhaps because of the n ature of the grouping of agencies, the LUPG gave less attention to C arrifran, which we describe below, which is perhaps the closest to the w ild w oo d ideal. The W o o d la n d T ru st project at Glen Finglas also received little attention, yet at 3000 ha, it is one of the largest w o o d lan d regeneration projects in Britain and one th a t could have much relevance for the study of both domestic and wild herbivore interactions.

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BEYOND CONSERVATION

Ennerdale in the Lake District National Park: a cooperative project of the National Trust, water companies and Forestry Commission This project has been highlighted in the LUPG report as providing a good model for W ildw oods both in terms of the general philosophy of w h at is being proposed and the structures being developed to im plem ent it. A m ajor aim of the Ennerdale project is to increase the sense of wildness in the area, to use this as an asset and to integrate w ildland w ith existing land uses.2 It is an integrated rural m anag e m en t project (or catchm en t m anagem ent), rather th a n being specifically a native w o o d lan d or re-wilding project. Some areas of existing conifer forest are currently being felled as they are seen to detract from the sense of wildness and will be replaced by more open w o o d la n d , established through either natural regeneration or through ‘kick startin g’ by planting in areas where the b roadleaf seed source is lacking. Some areas of conifers will also be retained as public opinion had d em onstrated th a t conifer trees can add value to the experience of the valley as a ‘w ild’ place. In addition, the partners are keen to see cattle (likely to be H ighland cattle) introduced into the valley to facilitate h abitat change throu gh w h a t (at present) is a missing n atu ral process of ‘dynamic distu rb anc e’. Ennerdale is a remote, rugged valley in the W estern Lake District drained by the River Liza and including Ennerdale W ater, a public w ater supply for W est C u m b ria (see C olo ur Plate 4). The up per part of the valley is historically u np opulated. The higher slopes are used for grazing for fell sheep, while the lower slopes and valley bo ttom are do m inated by commercial forestry and farmland. T here is an area of semi-natural ancient oak w o o d lan d s on the north facing side of the lake and an attractive sprinkling of small w o o d lan d s and m ature hedgerows. T he original native w o o d la n d cover w as o a k -b irc h an d alder, im p o rtan t as hunting grou nd s and later for generations of charcoal burners and iron smiths. T h ro u g h the 19th and 20th centuries the valley was an im p o rtan t w ater supply for the grow ing com m unities in West C u m b ria and the level of the lake w as raised. Sheep grazing also supported a n u m b er of farms. Comm ercial forestry began in 1927 and tr ansform ed the n atu re of the valley. Ennerdale is distinctive for its sense of wildness due to the g rand eur of the fells, the remoteness from public roads and habitation, the presence of a forest th at is big enough to get lost in and the wild n ature of the river Liza. H ow ever, there are also features w hich detract from these special characteristics, such as overgrazed fell vegetation, stark forest boundaries, dense plantations and clear-felled areas, fences, signs and occasional m an -m ade features. The valley is also a place of w o rk for people through

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59

P h o to : N a tio n a l T ru st

Figure 5.1 E nnerdale in the L a ke D istrict N a tio n a l Park: a cooperative project o f the N a tio n a l T rust, w a ter com panies, a n d Forestry C o m m ission

farming, forestry, w ater supply, tourism and recreation as well as conser­ vation-focused land managem ent, with the latter three becoming more d o m in a n t over the past 40 years. The project developed from initial discussions between the National T rust and the Forestry Comm ission a b o u t ho w the tw o organizations could w ork together better in the valley, sharing resources and w orking tow ards a co m m o n vision. These discussions developed over a n u m b e r of years and more recently included United Utilities (the w ater authority which ow ns and manages Ennerdale Lake) resulting in the form ation of the Wild Ennerdale partnership in 2002. The vision of the partners is to ‘allow the evolution of Ennerdale as a wild valley for the benefit of people, relying m ore on n atural processes to shape its landscape and ecology’. A m e m o ra n d u m of u nd erstanding was agreed betw een the partners in September 200 2 and forms the basis for the future m an agem en t of E nnerdale.3

La nd o w n e r s h ip an d m a n a g e m e n t

The land ow nership pattern is rem arkably simple in the upp er valley with the N a tion al T ru st and Forestry C omm ission ow ning the fells (National T ru st ow ns a small area of oak w oo dla nd ) and Forest Enterprise owning the lower forest land. This gives a potential for m anaging the valley as a

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single unit, w ith landow ners and others (including local farmers and co m m unity groups) sharing long-term objectives and planning m anag em ent on a whole-landscape basis. M an ag em e n t is aimed at finding ways of enhancing the a re a ’s unique qualities of wildness and remoteness while still creating o pportunities for social and economic activity. T he partnership sees the Wild Ennerdale process as a philosophy of m an age m en t which is still developing, rather than identifying a fixed end po int and trying to achieve th a t in as short a time as possible. It is also a b o u t recognizing th a t ‘w ilding’ is a process of change th a t involves reducing the intensity o f h u m a n intervention and allowing n atural processes greater freedom to operate. Following on from this is the concept that Wild Ennerdale will continue to be a place in which people live, w ork and play but th a t they will do so in a way that is in keeping with the scale and nature of natural processes. It is further argued that an thropogenic processes can then be seen as becoming p art of the range of n atu ral processes that operate. T here is a feeling am o ng st the partners th at Wild Ennerdale has an im p o rtan t message to com m unicate in the re-wilding debate: th at it is no t always necessary to see n atu ral and hu m a n processes as completely different things, and th at it has been the scale and nature of h u m a n processes (particularly the involvement of the internal co m bustion engine) th at m arks hum an processes o u t as being different. Thus, if new principles can be established in the valley by which people operate, then h u m an activity need n o t necessarily be seen as competing with n atu ra l processes, bu t as com plem entary to them. Wild Ennerdale is a unique cooperative vision, and much experience could be gained from the m anag em ent process in different zones of the valley in terms of vegetation changes, the role of herbivores, and species gains and losses. The intended result will be a wilder landscape, a more diverse and rob ust environm ent and a m ajor e nhancem ent of the sense of wildness and remoteness of Ennerdale. It can act as a model for developm ent in other areas where similar land holdings exist, and is certainly relevant for D a rtm o o r and the R hinogydd. Experience gained from the grazing of domestic stock, local marketing of pro ducts and eco-tourism will be of relevance to buffer zones for large core areas where there is no h u m a n influence.

The Carrifran wildwood project The LUPG m ake little mention of the im p o rta n t C arrifran project in the Southern U plands of Scotland, yet this is precisely the kind of project LUPG have in mind, and a th orou gh perusal of its history, m ethods of finance, m an age m en t structure and ecological restoration plan reveal a model for virtually all oth er developments on ecologically degraded pasture lands in

THE POTENTIAL FOR NETW ORKS AND C O R R ID O R S

61

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the uplands. This is a fascinating project, taking account of distant ecological history, advances in vegetation science over the past two decades, making use of all recent opportunities for cooperative endeavour and

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general ecological restoration ethos and strategy. It is a rare com bination of the vision of a small professional g roup of com m itted eco-foresters, the sharing of th at vision and creation of a large sup po rt g roup in comm unities local and regional (from which 80 per cent of the initial land purchase price of £ 4 0 0 ,0 0 0 was raised) and the gaining of su p p o rt from agencies and N G O s for ongoing funding and m an ag em ent.4 This project arose w hen the charitable Borders Forest T ru st set up a w ild w oo d grou p and looked for an o pp o rtu n ity to purchase suitable planting land. This w as in the mid-1990s and in the lead up to the new millennium w hen there was a veritable feeding frenzy o f groups seeking Millennium Funding from the N atio nal Lottery for a wide variety of forest schemes in Scotland. C arrifran could n o t get o n to th a t b an d w ag o n in time and decided to raise the money th ro ug h a fou nd ers’ share scheme - 600 people bou gh t a half-hectare share for £ 2 5 0 or more, and the Carrifran valley site of 650 ha w as purchased in 1998. The valley is in the upper w atershed of the T weed in the Ettrick Forest and ranges from the valley bottom to 800 m, containing the complete upper catchm ent area. It is virtually treeless, with acid grassland and relic m o ntan e heath over a variety o f upland soils, including some base-rich flushes and calcareous outcrops. The valley and heights are a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a candidate Special Area for C onservation, in an area with as little as 0.4 per cent native w o o d la n d and large areas of forestry plantation an d sheep pasture. T he m o ntane heath comm unities are of great conservation interest, containing d w a rf willow, cloudberry and some rare northern plants at their southern limit. There is a population o f feral goats hefted to the valley, blue hare on the tops and a few ring ouzel and black grouse, but otherwise the area is ecologically impoverished. The T weed catchm ent is also the subject of a m ajor wild rivers project (see below). This is precisely the kind of situation found in the N o rth Pennines, the eastern parts of Snow donia, in p art of the R hinogydd and in very much of the Cam brians. In this respect, the C arrifran project is, in my view, of great relevance and deserves m ore detailed m on itoring and review. This is particularly underscored by the detailed m an agem en t plan; the level of professionalism is exemplary and addresses all the critical issues of large-scale w o o d lan d establishment in areas of high conservation value but where th at value has reflected a focus up on degraded secondary habitats m aintained by domestic livestock m an agem en t practices. In Carrifran there are few deer and although there are 180 goats, these, as well as the sheep, will be gradually removed. T he ensuing expected vegetation changes consequent upon planting ab o u t 300 ha of the 650 ha site (there being few seed trees) have been m app ed in detail (see Figure 5.2); the scheme allows for a p atc h w o rk of habitats: the conservation of base-rich flushes (for rare plants), bog and

THE POTENTIAL FOR NETWORKS AND CO R R IDO R S

63

archaeological remains, together with the natu ral regeneration of m on ta n e heath and, eventually, scrub w o o d lan d to 800 m, so that im p o rtan t open eco-types are n o t planted. Tree species for planting are scrupulously related to soil nutrient and soil moisture conditions, N ation al Vegetation Classifi­ cation (NVC) type an d ecological factors, with a self-admitted purist zeal for seed provenance and palaeo-ecological evidence for ap p rop ria te species. Scottish N a tura l Heritage were supportive of the plan to alter the entire ecology of a large section of a Site of Special Scientific Interest (now a candidate Special Area o f C onservation), provided botanically rich flushes and areas w ith rare m o ntan e plants were conserved. This g rou p of experienced foresters and ecologists has openly embraced wildland concepts - the valley is to be returned to as near original state as soil and climate allow and will n o t be furnished with interpretation and visitor facilities, th ou gh access will be open to all. Despite this pu rita n zeal, the Borders Forest T ru st have w o n su p p o rt from Scottish N a tu ra l Heritage (for funding of the project office), the Forest A uthority (with grants for planting), W W F and the Jo h n M u ir Trust, as well as M illennium Forest for Scotland grants. O n top of the £ 4 0 0 ,0 0 0 purchase, planting will cost an estim ated £ 3 0 0 ,0 0 0 and M FST will contribute £ 1 2 5 ,0 0 0 to management. The ongoing m an age m en t cost for ten years is estim ated at £1.1 m, generating five full-time job equivalents over eight years for 300 ha of planting. In addition to these im p o rta n t data on costs, m anage m ent, structure, co operation and com m itted vision, the project will generate valuable scientific m on itoring d ata on conversion of acid grassland and regeneration of m o n ta n e heath and scrub. The N V C w o o d la n d types in the mosaic of plantings are clearly set out, w ith expected transitions from grassland and heathland. Colonization of these w oo dlan ds by w o od lan d flora, birds, insects and m am m als will be of great interest. Eventually, the project might be persuaded to consider beaver, boar, wild cattle, forest pony, elk and perhaps lynx! At this stage, however, the priority is to establish a w oo dland in the face of nibbling voles, hares, roe and sika. The project is ideally sited for linking with a future Forest H a b ita t N e tw o rk in the Southern Uplands, as the commercial enterprises in the border region become m ore wildlife friendly. The land to the east is ow ned by the N atio n a l T ru st for Scotland (NTS), and although m anaged for sheep, it will one day, perhaps, be subject to a wilder m anag e m ent regime. Carrifran also illustrates the im portance of identity. The fund-raising brochures are w onderful examples of the use of evocative p ho to graph y, a concise message and convincing org anization to inspire and galvanize local people n o t only in su p p o rt of the project, b u t in the em brace of a wildland ethos.

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Glen Finglas: a Woodland Trust site in the Trossachs The W o o d la n d T ru st acquired the Glen Finglas site in 1996 prior to the area becoming Scotland’s first N atio nal Park. Ft is a 403 9 ha former hill sheep estate. S u pp ort for the purchase came from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and m an agem en t makes use of w o o d la n d grants from the Forestry C omm ission as well as agricultural subsidies. T he project is described by Angela D ouglas in R eforesting S cotland as having five objectives: to restore native w o o d la n d across its full natural range; to p rom o te the concept of sustainability as it relates to multi-purpose land use; to p ro m o te m any and varied opportunities for access and public enjoyment; to p rom o te participation by the local co m m unity and others, fostering a sense of stewardship; and to de m onstrate and attra ct interna­ tional interest in a range of w o o d lan d establishment techniques as well as forestry, agriculture and tourism integration. At the time of purchase, only 235 ha of neglected ancient semi-natural w o o d la n d remained on the estate. The T ru st aims to re-establish over 30 00 ha of native w o o d la n d (70 per cent of the land cover) over 40 years, creating the largest native broadleaved forest in Scotland. W o o d la n d will range from lowland w o o d pasture, w et w o o ds, Caledonian pine and the full altitudinal range to sub -m o ntan e scrub of willows and juniper. Livestock grazing will continue with both wild and domestic stock in ord er to maintain a mosaic of open g round. The use of livestock will also m aintain em ploym ent and skills locally. Visitor m anag e m ent also offers opportunities for em p lo ym ent and involvement in the project. Access and ‘public enjo ym ent’ facilities are being developed and the glen is within on e-and-a-half h o u r ’s drive of 85 per cent of Scotland’s population. There are three different glens on the p roperty and each is planned to de m onstrate different means of regeneration. Lendrick Hill, 580 ha ranging from 100 to 630 m of broken rock, will be the core area for a new native Caledonian pinew ood. There are rem n ants of birch, ro w a n and h aw th orn , with some holly and aspen with 44 ha of birch. A tr aditional a pp roa ch to deer fencing is being taken until the new w o od land is established. Glen Casaig rises from the Glen Finglas reservoir to the sum m it of Ben Ledi at 850 m. T here is gorge w o o d lan d , but otherwise it consists of treeless grass and heather slopes. The area will continue to be grazed but at a lower level to allow natural regeneration and m aintenance of open spaces (there is an im p o rtan t pop ulation of black grouse). In a n o th er valley, Glen M eann , rising to the sum m it o f Ben V an e’s 811 m, a mosaic of open g ro un d and trees (mainly alder and birch, b u t with some old elm, aspen and guelder rose) will be maintained. Archaeological remains, a public right of way and old drov ers’ routes m ake this a m ajor area for walkers. Sheep and cattle grazing will continue, but with various com binations of exclosures, scarifying and seeding to study different strategies of n atu ral regeneration

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65

and planting under varying conditions, such as distance to seed source, exposure and herbivore pressure. Glen Finglas itself is relatively well w o od ed and extends to 670 m, with mainly birch and alder, hazel and bird cherry. This area has been pasture w o o d la n d for many centuries and this has resulted in a diverse flora and fauna. All the trees are of significant age (with the largest hazel bole in Scotland at 5 m), th o u g h t to be the result of pollarding practices. In this area, sheep grazing and deer numbers will be controlled to allow natural regeneration and the m aintenance of the w o od pasture conditions. Sheep will be removed from the eastern p a rt of the glen and the area stock fenced, with sheep introduced in M a y at a density of 1 per hectare; cattle will also be grazed for sh ort periods. O n the western side of the glen there is a hefted (attached to a particular area) p o pu latio n of hinds and this will be reduced to five deer per k m 2 to allow vegetation to recover; all sheep will be removed. The floor of the glen will be grazed at n orm al levels to maintain open views and to secure the archaeological remains. This project is thus on a scale and variety w o rth y of close study; it should provide much useful com parative data of relevance elsewhere. It may well be th a t in the future, the wilder areas could ac com m od ate the reintroduction of other wild herbivores such as E x m o o r pony and Heck cattle to diversify the grazing. The continued use of domestic stock, whilst detracting from the w ildland potential, will at least provide experience relevant to buffer zones aro u n d core areas. The expected influx of visitors will also offer a model for m an ag em ent of buffer-zone tourism in the N ation al Park areas of Snow donia and D artm o or.

Cashel The Royal Scottish Forestry Society purchased Cashel Farm on the shores of Loch L o m o nd in 1996 with a m a jo r g ran t of £ 8 0 0 ,0 0 0 from the M illennium Forest for Scotland (funds su pported by the N a tio n a l Lottery in the lead up to the millennium). The total cost is estim ated at £2 million and the project is supported by the Forestry A uthority and Scottish N atu ra l Heritage. At a b o u t 1500 ha, the project is smaller than the W o o d la n d Trust project but shares similar aims of m ulti-purpose use, encouraging conser­ vation, amenities and rural recreation whilst establishing new w ood land but with a greater focus upon sustainable timber production. There will be a substantial area of new Scots pine w o o d lan d , mixed broadleaf w o o d s and new su b-m o ntane h abitat with d w a rf species. This project will therefore provide a useful model for the purchase and conversion of farm land in buffer zones where the maintenance of local em ploym ent and tim ber supplies is im p o rta n t - such as adjacent to Coed y Brenin in Snow donia and areas in the east of the Affric core area.

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The National Trust fenland project in Cambridgeshire I have focused upon the w ildw oods project in terms of potential large-scale core areas and corridors, all of which are in the uplands, but there is a n o th er more advanced initiative on low wetland in Cambridgeshire that involves a mix of w et pasture, fen and carr. The vision relates to a nu m ber of fragmented holdings by the N atio n al T ru st in the fens east of C ambridge, centred on the N ation al N a tu re Reserve of Wicken Fen.5 The fens are an artefact of hu m an engineering on a regional scale, having been drained in the 16th and 17th century by D utch engineers, and then heavily utilized as arable land. There are fragmented pockets of old fen, mostly alder carr, sedge and reed-swam p, where the reed and sedge were formerly cut for thatch or peat extracted for fuel, but which no w curiously perch above the w ater table in a land th at has gradually sunk all a ro un d them as peaty soil has dried, oxidized and shrunk. M uch wildlife-rich h abitat in the area relies upo n complex systems of pum ps to drain and reflood, much as the Somerset Levels and O use W ashes, tw o other m ajor artificially m aintained wetlands. The N a tion al T rust has been looking at a large area w ith a view to wilding their agricultural holdings and creating a large bloc of wet w o o d la n d , reed and riparian m ead ow hab itat (see C olou r Plate 5). A feasibility study was completed in 19 99 ,6 and tw o farms totalling 21 5h a have been bo ught at a cost of £1.7 million with substantial help from the Heritage Lottery Fund. It is a m ajor challenge given the com plex hydrology, bu t lessons learned in this project will be of relevance to other wetland areas. Ultimately, how ever artificial the w ater regime, there is an o p p o r t u n ­ ity to bring in large herbivores. The ideas of the O ostvaardersplassen project are being taken up (see C hap ter 7), and a small herd of Konik horses has already been established at Wicken, with Flighland cattle to follow. The site m anager, A drian C olston, thinks it unlikely the project could include beaver and b oar as these would cause economic dam age to dykes and nearby crops, but elk would be a possibility. T he m ajor limitation of the project is th a t the area is cut off from other fenland and forest and it would not be an easy task to link the enlarged reserve to other sites or to the Broads in the east or T hetford forest to the north. In this respect ‘n atu re -m ap p in g ’ exercises, d raw n from D utch experience, which outline potential expansions of wildlife sites, can be used to garner local su p p o rt and strategic funding (Simon Bates, N a tu re m a p p in g in E C O S 25 3/4 2004). Such links w o uld be necessary to su p p o rt truly wild herbivore populations. Nevertheless, an enlarged reserve diversified by grazing and disturbance regimes might allow re-colonization of some key species th a t have been lost in the last 100 years, such as the swallowtail butterfly and M o n t a g u ’s harrier.

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The North Pennines and Sussex wildwoods The n o rthern Pennines contain some of the largest expanses of ‘w ild’ country in England, most of it grassland and m o orlan d m anaged as sporting estates for grouse, and with im p o rta n t conservation interests for species associated w ith these m anaged habitats. There is also a substantial area of commercial forestry, particularly further north along the Scottish borders in the Cheviots. A large area of the Kielderhead forest was no t planted because grow ing conditions were deemed po or, and p a rt of this 3500 ha area has had no domestic stock for 30 years, tho ug h feral goats have maintained a relatively treeless heath. This area is no w a Site of Special Scientific Interest grazed by wild goats and could form the basis for wildland m an age m ent with other wild herbivores if neighbouring farmed areas were incorporated. In neighbouring Geltsdale, the RSPB has a large reserve of m oo rla nd bordered by rem nan ts of ancient w o od lan d in the valleys. T here are already moves to link w o o d lan d s and recreate traditional pasture w o od s, once a feature of Geltsdale Forest, w ith domestic stock 20 0 ha having already been planted. This area of the N o rth Pennines is a p atch w o rk of commercial forestry, re m n an t ancient w ood lan d, grouse m o ors and fell sheep farms with extensive areas of bog and heath un der conservation agreements. It would repay study o f the potential for netw orks and enlargement, for wild herbivores and, given the extensive Kielder Forest, for the role of lynx as top p redator. The Sussex Weald has been studied for the potential of smaller-scale netw orks linking ancient w o o d lan d - and the Sussex Wildlife T ru st has an EU-funded project of land purchase, h ab itat creation and corridors currently at the planting stage, but intends to incorporate hardy breeds of domestic and then wilder cattle once the trees are established.

Wild rivers N e x t to the various initiatives to re-wild forestry and extend w oo dla nd cover, there has been a parallel movem ent am o ng conservation bodies to re-wild rivers. M a n y schemes are small and local ‘reach-based’ projects and costs are high, but some schemes involve long-term planning across whole catc hments and present opportunities for coord inated habitat creation along ideal wildlife corridors th at could link core areas. Rivers and forests are inextricably linked in the planetary w ater cycle. In Britain we have taken o u r rainfall and w ater supplies for granted, but in areas where rainfall is n o t so reliable, intact forests are vital for regulating the cycle. O u r largely urban pop ulation s have long ago become used to denuded uplands as their prim ary source of w ater, and reservoirs, w ater

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supply, quality and dem and have adjusted to the accelerated run-off from the resultant apparently stable grasslands. River systems have then been engineered to ensure this w ater flows to the sea as quickly as possible and with m inim um disturbance to agricultural land or dam age to property. As a result rivers have been d am m ed, canalized, im p ou nd ed and denuded of their natural vegetation. A natural wild river is now a rarity in Britain, and indeed, in southern England some rivers cease to flow at all in dry sum mers as a result of heavy abstraction. This situation w ould have mattered only to nostalgic ecologists were it n o t for significant environm ental changes th a t became serious in the last tw o decades. Firstly, despite no statistical change in rainfall patterns, there have been several years of disastrous flooding causing great personal distress to ho m eow ners as well as very high costs to the insurance industry. In addition, a n u m b e r of other problem s are evident and increasing: •

•

•

Pollutant ru no ff in the form of sulphates and nitrates has seriously affected w ater quality for drinking, fisheries and wildlife, b oth on land and in the near-shore environment; this has resulted from a com bination of atm ospheric deposition from industrial activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuel, fertilizer use in the uplands and intensive farming in the lowlands. Pesticides from sheep-dip and commercial forestry, as well as heavy metals, PCBs and toxic metals in atm ospheric fallout co n tam in ate the watersheds. Intensive livestock rearing in the uplands has increased problem s from disease organisms such as C ry p to sp o rid iu m .

The suspicion exists th a t increased flooding is caused by a co m bin atio n of erosion, field drainage and stream canalization, with restricted floodplains and inappropriately sited developm ent, and the relevant agencies are now looking to traditional c atc hm en t m anag em ent to alleviate the problem and the costs. Given this general shift in socio-economic significance, a hitherto esoteric interest on the p art of river ecologists to re-wild rivers has begun to have wider appeal. The WWF-inspired Wild Rivers Program m e - based largely in Scotland - has n o w found resonance in a UK-wide River Restoration Centre (RRC) at Silsoe College (Cranfield University), w ith the sup po rt of the EU-LIFE program m e , the c o rpo rate engineering sector and governm ent agencies.8 The R R C started in 1998 as a n etw orking operation to share the experience of a series of small pilot projects on the reaches of the Skerne in D u rh a m , the Cole in Wiltshire and the O gw en in S now donia. Four years later it w as netw orking over 500 projects with 2000 professional contacts, following a massive upsurge in appreciation and aw areness. It estimates th at river restoration w ork no w accounts for a b o u t £3 million per year in expenditure.

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A great m any of these schemes are small-scale reach-based restorations of the n atural line and flow of rivers, correcting the heavy engineering bias of the past, and with w ater quality, fisheries, anglers, recreation and flood alleviation in mind - small-scale re-wilding to be sure, but there are also some larger schemes of m ore direct relevance to large-area ecosystem restoration. Chief of these is the catchment-based app ro ach on the River Tweed, where the w hole river system has been walked, surveyed and prioritized in terms of both economic value for game fishing (mainly salmon) and nature conservation generally. The c atch m ent encompasses 50 0 0 k m 2 with 30 00 km of watercourses. T h e co ord inated operation, led by the Tweed F ou nd atio n and funded by EU and local enterprise monies, has focused on opening up spaw ning and feeding areas, removing over 1000 artefacts, creating riffles and meanders, fencing streamsides and restoring riparian vegetation and w o o d la n d .9 The project has £4 million to spend over three years and is addressing a game fishery w o rth £12.5 million annually with 500 local jobs. This initiative has led to a wider operation und er the um brella of Tweed Fo rum called The Tweed Rivers H eritage Project, which no w oversees 50 schemes pro m o ting the natural, built and cultural heritage of the T weed and with a spend of £9 million, half of which comes from the Heritage Lottery Fund. A great deal of the w o rk on the Tweed relates to h abitat enhancem ent of benefit no t only to fish, but to w o o d lan d , birds and insects. W et m eadow s and floodplain w o o d la n d have been surveyed and co op eratio n with the Borders Forest T ru st has led to riparian corridors being planted with a strategic op p o rtu n ity to relate this w ork to Forest H a b ita t N etw o rk s being p ro m o te d for the Southern U pland headw aters (see C olou r Plate 5 and ph oto g rap h s of the river Twill, before and after rewilding, Figure 5.3). A useful survey of other catchm ent schemes could be made: the T a m a r in Devon is subject to a w ide-ranging coo peratio n of stakeholders, particularly the farming com m unity; the rivers Devon and Black Devon in C lack m ann ansh ire have an integrated m an ag e m en t scheme; the tributaries of the Mersey are subject to a 25-year p rog ram m e of enhancements; and there are reach-based schemes where techniques of re-wilding meanders, floodplains and riparian forest are being advanced. The upper W harfedale has attracted £2 0 0 ,0 0 0 of EU-LIFE funding, w ith the Wye, M edw ay , Seaton, Brent (an urb a n scheme near Wembley), Till (tributary of the Tweed) and O gw en a m o n g the m ore notable schemes. The Wildlife Trusts have recently instigated a £ 6 0 0 ,0 0 0 pro g ram m e funded by w ater c o m ­ panies, landfill tax and British W aterw ays on 580 w etland sites. We have n o t the space to explore and analyse this rapidly expanding w o rk , but its strategic im portance is clear - riparian habitats, especially riparian w o o d la n d , have great potential to link wild areas and to provide corridors for wildlife, often well into u rb an areas. We return to this in the

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P h o to : Tw eed F o u n d a tio n

Figure 5.3 R iver T w ill, tributary to the T w e ed in the Scottish uplands: before and after rew ilding b y the T w eed R ivers project

final chapters relating to the land in-between o ur nature reserves and to a strategy for wilding the countryside. 1 believe very strongly th a t this large nu m b er of seemingly small initiatives has as much pow er as a few large and charism atic schemes - they involve millions of people and provide, through

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catchment-based projects, a sense of local identity and focus and the o p p ortun ity to w o rk w ith local businesses as well as schools. They also create a groundswell of conscious awareness of the ethos of restoration and wildness. There is also a meaningful environmental gain - in the 1980s it became evident th at the answ er to w idespread pollution of the marine coastal environm ent lay in a myriad o f small house-keeping operations in the watersheds of rivers. It w as no t very g lam orous w ork , but the U N ’s centre for Clean Pro duction in Paris focused attention on river catc hments, pollution clubs, industrial audits and simple, cheap m anagerial changes, to the effect that by the tu rn of the century, m ajor river systems such as the T ham es and Mersey were once m ore po pulated by salmon and the coastal environm ent began to recover. The same factors of identity, focus, m anage m ent, funding and involve­ m en t th at have m ad e catchment-based audits for pollution control success­ ful are no w benefiting h abitat enhancem ent and wilder river restoration schemes. In catc hment-based pollution control, after decades of being the laggard in Europe, Britain could justifiably claim to have taken the lead, and perhaps the same will apply to the re-wilding of rivers.

Coastal retreat: Abbott’s Hall Farm, Essex C oastal salt marshes and mudflats present large areas of remote and wild country, often w ith im p o rtan t populations of breeding and wintering bird species. With the expected sea level rise due to global w arm ing, wave erosion will reduce these areas substantially. At the same time, there are high costs involved in maintaining sea defences for farm land along these coastal strips, and a considered option is to combine ‘m anaged retreat’ of the sea defences with the creation once again of salt marsh. T here is some considerable potential for re-wilding areas of Britain’s lowland wet pasture and salt m arsh, especially in the W ash, Suffolk, Essex and n o rth Kent. In this regard, a project of the Essex Wildlife T ru st involving over 350 ha of arable and pasture land at A b b o tt’s H all Farm on the Blackwater estuary (representing E u ro p e ’s largest coastal retreat experiment) will prove in­ structive. H ere, sea defences along a 3.5 k m stretch of sea wall have been breached with the aim of creating 84 ha of new salt m arsh (see Figure 5.4). The rest of the farm will be m anaged for low-intensity livestock w ith some arable land (140 ha). The project has been sup po rted by grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the E nvironm ent Agency and the Wildlife Trusts, with the farmla nd attracting grants from DEFRA for low-intensity use as an Environm entally Sensitive Area. This area is typical of Britain’s coastal marshes, which have lost 40 per cent of wilder land either to intensive farming or to erosion. In Essex, a

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P h o to : C hris G o m e rs a ll

Figure 5.4 A b b o t's H all Farm: a coastal retreat p roject reduction from 4800 to 26 00 ha has occurred in the last 25 years alone. There is an obvious potential to recreate larger areas of coastal m arsh, wet m ead ow and carr w o o d la n d that could provide sufficient h abitat for wild herbivores such as aurochsen, ponies and boar, following the Dutch model. In this regard, rather than m aintain domestic grazing and secondary wetland hab itat o f grassland behind the dykes, the coastal marshes could be bordered by m ore open grazed w o o d lan d w ith o u t the sharp dem arcation between coastal m arsh and farmed grassland. Such linked projects occur along the Suffolk coast where the RSPB has been extending its holdings and has also recently brou gh t in Konik horses to help m aintain habitat diversity.

Concluding on networks These initiatives d em onstrate the progress m ade in the last ten years in extending reserves in a more strategic way th at involves corridors and netw orks betw een isolated sites. Strategic farmla nd is being purchased and allowed to go wild. N a tu ra l processes of grazing and disturbance are being enhanced by semi-wild horses and cattle, although usually as ‘m anagem ent tools’ or as a m ore economic means of m aintaining habitat targets. H owever, the idea of large areas with charismatic assemblages of wild herbivores is taking roo t (see T revo r L a w so n ’s ‘Back to the F u ture’ in BBC W ildlife, O c to b er 2004), and it n o w requires just a little persistence and courage to take this vision forward. In Scotland, there are already areas

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sufficiently large and cohesive: Forest Enterprise and NTS land in Affric and the RSPB and NTS land in the C airngorm s; in Wales there are areas that could be linked and m anaged along the Ennerdale model, for exam ple the Welsh Assembly (Forestry Commission) and N atio na l T ru st land in the Rhinogs and a ro u n d S now don. In England, Ennerdale is already und er a form of w ildland m anage m ent that will eventually bring in semi-wild breeds such as H ighland cattle and could include E x m o o r ponies; Forest Enterprise and N o rth u m b e rla n d N atio nal Park at Kielderhead could readily follow suit. N o area yet has the full guild th a t w ould include bo ar (present in Kent), beaver (penned in K napdale and H a m Fen, Kent) and truly wild and risky cattle such as Aurochsen, th o ug h wild Chillingham have been translocated to Savernake Forest (see C ha pter 7). Few managers w a n t to take on the headache of restoring red deer or re-introducing elk. And with regard to carnivores to complete the restoration of n atura l processes - there is finally a som ew h at secretive discussion of lynx as a first app ro priate step in Scotland. There is a grow ing realization, no w pursued in a ‘Wild Britain’ proposal by T ob y Aykroyd, th at charismatic assemblages of large m am m als in large-area schemes could offer m ajor economic advanta ges in tourism and e m ploy m en t.10

Restoring Ecological Processes: Regeneration of the Core Vegetation

The core areas and smaller initiatives th at we have reviewed represent some of the wildest co untry in Scotland, England and Wales, yet the land in each has experienced centuries of progressive degradation of its vegetation. The Glen Affric core area proposed by Trees for Life is one of the least degraded as it has several tho usa nd hectares o f old C aledonian pine, but overall, Caledon has only a small pro po rtio n of original forest cover. Eryri, including m ost of the R hinogydd, is far less natural, with large swathes of plantation forestry (all exotics) and hillsides denuded of trees, with ancient w o o d la n d confined to rem n an t patches on the lower slopes of the valleys. D a rtm o o r has been similarly deforested and grazed by domestic stock to p roduce a species-poor acid grassland on m ost of the high g ro un d, with relic bu t in places extensive patches of ancient w o o d la n d on the hillsides and along the lower reaches of the rivers. Restoration of these core areas m ust therefore begin with the regener­ ation of the vegetation. T h e indigenous p lant comm unities of these areas and indeed of m ost of Britain w ould, in the current climatic period, produce alm ost entirely forest and m on ta n e scrub h abitats with very little land remaining open. Forest or scrub would extend to ab o u t 750 m upslope, with extensive grassland and heath confined to areas of the coast or higher m o untains. As forests became re-established after the last glaciation, pollen studies show th at by 70 0 0 b p there was very little open grassland or w o o d la n d glades (this issue is discussed at length by Yalden in his H istory o f British M am m als). It could be expected th at some riparian m ead ow s and scrub w ou ld have existed as a result of the activity of beaver, moose and forest cattle, but the influence of the mega-herbivores of previous inter­ glacial periods w as absent. Each of ou r core areas thus requires a p rog ram m e of regeneration of the forest cover. H ow ever, simple tree planting, th ou gh necessary in the early stages, w ould no t lead to a n atural forest. A forest is more th a n trees: it is

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a dynamic relationship between vegetation and herbivory, with the latter influenced by predators.

Woodland, grazing and pre-history It has been recently argued by Franz Vera, of the Netherlands Strategic Policy Division in the Departm ent of Agriculture, that assumptions of extensive closed-canopy lowland forest in Europe may be w rong and that large numbers of herbivores would have produced a more open park-like landscape.1 A dynamic may have existed whereby gaps created by dying trees were grazed into glades, with the forest edge retreating as more trees died. Regeneration would have taken place only when sufficient thorny scrub had developed to protect tree seedlings from herbivores. Vera is articulating a more extreme form of something palaeo-ecologists have supposed for some time: that even in the absence of the mega-herbivores, cattle, bison, tarpan, elk and deer would have kept the forest more open than we are used to seeing.2 Dutch nature conservationists are now engaged upon enlarging and linking their bigger reserves to accom modate mixed herds of deer, wild cattle and wild ponies.3 England’s New Forest, which has substantial grazing by horses, cattle and deer, may represent such parkland. In the uplands, the use of fire by human hunters would be expected to have maintained more open montane heath. However, pollen analysis shows little evidence for significant areas of grass prior to the first agricultural clearances, and recent argum ents that the current landscape of the British uplands with its large populations of domestic herbivores is n ot far removed from the ‘n atural’ landscape structure have yet to be substantiated.4

The indigenous British temperate forest The indigenous British temperate forest would have varied in the assem­ blage of tree species and their respective abundance according to soil and climate factors.5 In the north, along the Atlantic seaboard of Scotland, the high rainfall and cooler climate favoured a temperate mixed deciduous forest of sessile oak, birch, hazel and alder; whereas inland in the drier and colder central and eastern Ilighlands, the vegetation was characterized by pine and a flora closer to the boreal conditions of Scandinavia. In the more southern regions of Scotland, north and western Britain, the mixed deciduous w oodland was dominated by sessile oak and birch on the wetter more acid soils, with alder on sw amps and along rivers, and ash w oodland where more base-rich and drier soils prevailed, such as on limestone; in the drier south and east of Britain, the deeper soils produced a high forest of mixed deciduous trees with an original high frequency of tall forest trees

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such as lime and elm in o ak w o o ds on the clays, w ith beech on the chalk. The southeast of Britain has elements of a central E u ro pean vegetation, w hereas the western Atlantic oak was part of a tem perate forest type that extended d o w n through western France to Portugal - where the oaks are steadily replaced by w arm th-loving species. As a result of great efforts by vegetation specialists in the decade 1 9 8 0 -1 9 9 0 , we are now in the fortunate position of having an accurate idea of the floral assemblages th at w ould be fo und in British forests according to these varying factors of climate and soil.6 H ow ever, given the diversity and ab un da nce of the original Atlantic forest fauna, a purely botanical ap pro ach runs the risk of n o t seeing the forest for the trees. This original tem perate forest fauna and flora evolved over a tw omillion-year period of cyclic expansion and con traction in the northern hemisphere, with the last three inter-glacials representing the culm ination of th at process in terms of genera and their ecological relationships. The fauna had a so m ew h a t In do-European flavour with herds of large cattle, horses, deer, beaver, wild b oar and forest bison, with forest elephant and rhino; am on g the pred a to r guild were a European race of lion, leopard, spotted hyena, hunting dog, w olf and bear, as well as the sabre-toothed cat H o m o th eriu m . African elements included the hippo, with populations of d w a rf species on all the M editerranean islands. In the previous inter-glacial, jungle fowl were fo und as far north as Britain, and the climate w as ab o u t tw o degrees w a rm e r than the cu rren t Holocene. Such m odern day ‘aliens’ as hemlock and N o rw a y spruce, as well as rh o d o d en d ro n were also present. T hus, in the ‘deep tim e’ perspective of previous inter-glacials, hippo were c o m m o n on the m ajor rivers of England as far north as the Y orkshire Ouse, and these anim als create extensive riverside grassland th a t w ould have attracted herds of other grazers, such as cattle, horses and deer. The European forest elephant P a laeoloxodon a n tiq u u s and rhino Stephanorhinus hem itoechus w ould have contributed to keeping these m eado w s open as well as to the m aintenance of a more open park-like w oo dla nd . The w arm er m ean sum m er te m perature may have been enough to alter the dynamics of fire sufficiently for this to co ntribute to a m ore open forest where lion and hyena were regular features. In the post-glacial re-emergence of forest in this current inter-glacial (Holocene) it is not a simple m atter to discern a ‘n a tu r a l’ forest structure. In the first millennia after the ice retreated, the tem perature was as w arm as the previous inter-glacial (m arked by the ap pearance of the European po nd tortoise in Britain), and the large expanses of post-glacial typically Boreal birch and willow scrub gave w ay to co ntinuous forest of birch and pine in the no rth w est of Scotland, to Boreal pinew oods in the eastern H ighlands and to oak, alder, lime and elm in the south. Until Flannery’s grou nd -b reak in g w o rk (1995, 2002), m ost naturalists w ould have assumed th at a sn apsh ot of British forests from 700 0 b p , as

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gleaned from pollen studies, would have given us a picture of a preagricultural ‘n a tu r a l’ forest structure. H ow ever, we had reckoned w ithout the w idespread h um an-induced extinction of the elephant and rhino in the contracted glacial refuges of Spain and Southeast Europe. F urtherm ore, the absence of forest bison and the scarcity of horses may also have been a consequence of such h u m an interference. The situation is further complicated by the simultaneous arrival of agriculturalists with domestic stock and a rapid change in the climate. The w arm period im mediately following the disappearance of the ice was followed by a climatic shift to cooler and w etter weather. This climatic change was largely coincidental with accelerating forest clearance by Mesolithic m igrant peoples w h o b rou gh t domestic breeds of cattle and pigs. It is no w tho ug ht th at a co m b ination of climatic and h u m a n factors led to a shrinkage of the n o rth ern forests, particularly in the west, as p eat bog developed and produced a m ore open landscape. In the south, forest structure altered both as the climate became cooler and wetter and as h um ans cleared areas and grazed their stock. Agriculturalists began the clearance of forest a rou nd 45 0 0 b p in southern Britain, with some parts of upland Britain cleared by fire and the developm ent of blanket bog between 55 00 and 50 00 b p . 8 Agriculture reached the western H ighlands by 25 00 b p , too late, it is tho ught, to have had a m ajor influence on the shift to tree-less sph agnum bog th at became extensive in the uplands a rou nd 4500 b p . In this com b ination o f h um an and climatic influences, lime and elm lost o u t as the d o m in a n t canopy tree in the southern areas, with oak becoming c o m m o n er and more continental species such as beech forming w oods, particularly on chalk. The resultant p atch w o rk of w o o d la n d over m o st of England, whilst reflecting its origins, becam e m uch modified by the removal of large trees, the grazing of stock, the opening of the canopy and the practices of coppicing and pollarding. By the time of the R om ans, n ear-natural rem n ants rem ained only in the less accessible W elsh m o un tain s and Scottish Highlands. Thus, the n atural or indigenous forest comm unities were always ch an g ­ ing w ith climatic shifts, and were subject to various herbivore regimes, at first natu ral (but with the incoming herbivore guild possibly already depleted by Neolithic hunters operating in the glacial refuges), and later, very u n natu ral, with fragm entation, exploitation and the eventual reduc­ tion of deer num bers (virtually eliminated th ro u g h o u t England by the 18th century), as well as the early elimination of boar, beaver and wild cattle.9 In the past tw o millennia, intensive grazing and cropping regimes, as well as a long history of economic exploitation of w o o d lan d for timber, charcoal, hurdles and firewood, have left none of the indigenous forest structure - even the remote H ighland glens have been subject to timber extraction and the introduction of exotics. M a n y types of habitat simply no

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longer exist even as rem nants - such as high forest on good soil, typified by the original presence of lime trees, or extensive flood plain forest, do m in ated by alder. O n a large scale, the more mobile m am m al and bird fauna of the predo m inan tly oak w o o d lan d may have used the wet forest habitats as an im p o rta n t source of seasonal food plants. A dded to the problem of such w idespread absence of keystone species and long-term economic uses th a t have tr ansform ed the rem n an t w o od s is the presence of introduced trees such as sycamore th a t n o w feature as a m ajor element o f even old w o od land s, as well as the w idespread planting of trees outside their norm al ranges. In Scotland it is less complex: though much of the original C aledonian Forest was felled, there are sufficiently large rem nan ts th a t are likely to be close to the original plant communities, if so m ew h at modified by over-grazing by deer and the absence of beaver and boar. T hus, British w o od la nd has a long history of evolution since the time of the n atural w ild w oo d, and it is no t an easy task to discern from the rem n a n t structure w h a t the w ildw o od was like. M o d e rn classifications of w oo d lan d types and their relation to conservation practice have tended to accept the current pattern and structure, w ith a grow ing focus upo n history and treatm ents in relation to m aintenance of diversity. O nly very recently has there been coordinated thinking on extension of large areas and rejuven­ ation of natural forest processes. Three m ajor studies of ancient w o o d lan d , those of Oliver R ack ha m (1980), George Peterken (1981), and D .N . M cV ean and Derek Ratcliffe (1962) for the Scottish H ighlands, have taken an essentially historical ap p ro ach and provided invaluable insights into the original w ild w oo d and to the dynamics of forests as affected by h u m a n activity. T he m ost recent and exhaustive classification of w oo dla nd (and other) flora by John Rodwell of Lancaster University (1991), although taking the m odern context for granted and being less concerned either with history or destiny, provides clear insights into the relationship of basic w o od lan d types to soil and climate such th at the diversity of the w ildw ood p atch w o rk can be appreciated. These studies do no t go much further than an account of plant species com position in relation to climatic and edaphic factors and to the effect of h um a n treatm ents, including grazing of stock - there is simply no t enough intact forest with the original fauna present for studies of natural forest dynamics in Britain. Where there are native herbivores, such as red and roe deer, the pred ators arc ab sen t and num bers are excessive; in addition, other brow sers such as moose, forest cattle and forest ponies are absent. The nearest we can get to a picture of the ancient w ild w oo d structure may well have been the Royal Parks or hunting reserves th a t kept grazing ponies, pigs and cattle a m o n g the wild deer, but, of course, large pred ato rs were still absent.

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Rodw ell’s British P lant C o m m u n ities (1991), building upo n the previous w orks, describes 23 basic types of w o o d la n d and scrub co m m u nity in Britain, classifying the associations according to the d o m in a n t trees and typical floral associates and show ing how each type reflected soil and climatic factors. Some of these basic types have sub-types related to the changes w ro u g h t by heavy grazing - usually by domestic stock. In this classification, 16 o f the comm unities are of relevance to the core areas under consideration: 6 basic types of mixed deciduous o a k -b irc h c o m m u ­ nities; 7 w et w oo ds of alder, birch and willow; and 1 of Scots pine, together with 2 high-altitude scrub communities. W o o d la n d types reflecting co n ti­ nental elements located in southern and eastern Britain, such as beech, oak with h orn b ea m , and yew, w ou ld only be relevant for ou r purposes were it possible to develop large core areas in these regions, tho ug h some netw orks, such as the Sussex pasture w oo dland s, will involve these associations. R od w ell’s detailed review provides data on basic types and their variants according to the n ature of the field and shrub layers, and as noted, a practical m an ual has been d raw n from this w o rk by the Forestry C o m m is­ sion, thus aiding planting prog ram m e s in their need to take account of soil and climate factors. R e m n a n t habitats w ithin o ur core areas can readily be identified and can serve as seed sources and centres aro u n d which natural regeneration can occur (some details collated from Rodwell are available on the Ethos-UK website: w w w .e th o s-u k .c o m ). In planting and regener­ ation p rogram m es, it will also be im p o rta n t to glean d ata on the time periods over which growing forests are colonized by w o o d lan d flora and ho w this m ight be encouraged. Different tree species b oth require differing soil chemistry and themselves alter soil chemistry and hence the coloniz­ ation process. Birch, for example, is capable of colonizing acid grassland and heath, and then as the birch w o od land m atures, the acid soil is ameliorated and shade is provided for o ther tree species to colonize. Each climatic and edaphic zone has, over millennia, selected genotypes for its particular set of conditions - and a great deal of genetic variation is hidden under the simple title of an ‘o a k ’ or ‘pine’ species. T here has been great emphasis of late u po n ‘p rov enan ce’ of seedlings for restocking, with preferences for native stock. H ow ever, in past decades large num bers of seedlings have been planted w ith o u t regard to provenance, for example, oak from Poland and Scots pine from Scandinavia. In addition, although native stock may be preferred for core areas, we shall have to consider the un natural extent of future climate change, as well as the semi-natural regimes th a t may exist in co rrido r forests th a t will likely have multiple uses. F urtherm ore, after centuries of deforestation and heavy grazing, soils have been altered, perhaps in some cases irreversibly, and the original species structure w ou ld be difficult to re-establish. In particular, the great rainfall, high g rou nd and siliceous rocks of the western hills, no w for the m ost p a rt completely denuded, have led to shallow, leached and very acidic

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soils. This land, along w ith lakes and rivers, has been further acidified and artificially fertilized by a century or m ore of sulp hu r and nitrate precipita­ tion. O u r three candidate core areas are all in the west, but D a rtm o o r has southern influences and the R hinogydd, th ou gh typically western, has elements of the English w o o dla nds further east; the Caledonian c o m m u n i­ ties are decidedly n orthw estern, showing some Boreal as well as Atlantic influences. D a rtm o o r and the Rhinogs are firmly in the o ak -b irc h p ro v ­ inces, whereas Glen Affric is in the w etter m ore westerly pine province with some Atlantic deciduous w o o d la n d in the m ore westerly areas of the adjacent coastal glens. The higher g rou nd in o u r Caledon area has rem n an t scrub of willow but is generally too wet for juniperous scrub. The Rhinogs have rem n a n t juniper on the higher gro un d, but it is not clear w h at form of su b -m o ntane co m m u nity would have preceded the heath and grassland that exists today. D a r tm o o r ’s grassland and heaths are p robably too low to have su pp orted a sub -m o ntan e com m unity. In the C arrifran project, which has the potential to stim ulate a larger core area or n etw ork , tree and shrub species include do w n y birch, ro w an , sessile oak, holly, ash, wych elm, aspen, alder, Scots pine, bird cherry, hazel, haw th o rn , blackthorn, juniper, guelder rose and m an y species of willows. The lower part of the valley should eventually become upland broadleaved and o a k -b irc h w oo dlan ds with strong representation of hazel (N VC types W 7 , W 9, W11 and W 17), with small areas of birch w o o d la n d (W4) as show n in Figure 5.2. At higher levels there will be juniper w o o d la n d (W19) with birch, ro w a n and some pine; above this there will be scrub of juniper and specialist willows, with m o ntan e heath near the exposed summits. In addition to the basic w o od lan d types of o a k -b irc h , pine and ash, wet w oo dlan ds feature with alder as the d o m in an t tree in riparian w o od lan d and fen, and are of a m ore Atlantic type than wet alder w oods on the continent. T here are a further four basic types lying outside o u r candidate areas: three of beech and one yew w o o d la n d , but these types are n ot relevant to o ur sites. Some consideration should be given to the unique n ature of British yew w o o d la n d - particularly the extensive canopies of 1000 ha at Kingley Vale in H am pshire. A case could be m ade for extending this forest and providing buffer zone protection purely on the grou nd s of its majesty and rarity. W et w o o d lan d of alder, willow and birch will be im p o rtan t in all three core areas, which contain extensive river systems and lakeside vegetation. These are the m ost over-grazed and depleted of habitats, particularly in Snow donia, yet historically they were very rich in their associated flora. T here are several types of w o o d lan d w ith d o m in a n t willow, sedges a nd reed th a t occur as succession stages at the edge of shallow lakes and this would be a feature of C w m Bychan in the Rhinogs. R odw ell’s classic w o rk of typing for British w o o d lan d is illustrative of the limitations of a species-oriented ecology. The m ajor focus is upo n the

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assemblage as it is, rather than on the processes of forest ecology and evolution. W hilst the species assemblages do relate to soil and climate factors, these factors are in a con stant b u t long term cycle of change w hereby forests are continually created and destroyed. Furtherm ore, although Rodwell gives useful indications of the im pact of herbivores, the presence or absence of grazing anim als is not a significant feature of the analysis. Oliver R a c k h a m ’s H isto ry o f the C oun trysid e provides a m ore historical perspective th a t relates to the ‘original’ w ild w oo d of pre-agricultural times and changes w ro u g h t by m a n ’s exploitation. This historical perspective highlights the disappearance of high-forest lime and elm in favour of oak we tend to think of the heartland of old English forest as oak w o od land , w hereas the original English w ild w oo d was characterized by the tall canopies of these other trees. Peterken, also taking an historical ap proach , provides m ore perspective on the dynamic structure. Fie notes, for example, that the original forest was d om inated by shade tolerant species - of which lime, elm and beech are chief, whereas he classifies oak along w ith the other shade intolerant species such as birch, ash and pine. These early forests w ould, Peterken argues, have been characterized by a p atch w o rk of single aged stands, each patch of varying age, as the opportunities for regener­ ation were limited and furthered by w in d -th ro w or periodic die-offs from dro ught. As the closed canopies degraded due to hu m an influences, the oak replaced the lime and elm. It is im p o rtan t to note however, th a t this ancient lime-elm high-canopy w o o d lan d may n o t have been typical of the n orth tem perate forests that formerly included elephant, rhino, hippo and beaver, the activities of which created glades, riparian m eadow s, and p erhaps park-like forests supporting large p opulations of grazers and browsers th a t may then have favoured oak. The pervasive effect of grazers on forest dynamics is no w the subject of much rethinking, led by the D utch ecologists with their large-scale projects (see C h apte r 7).

Beneath the trees: the importance of woodland flora It is also clear th a t any re-afforestation p rog ra m m e m ust aim to restore the whole range of characteristic w oo dlan d flora for each type. R o dw ell’s classification of assemblages (know n by N V C or N atio nal Vegetation Classification numbers) is a starting point based up on the present day, and there may n o t be a better indication of w h a t the w ildw o od w ould have contained. The C arrifran project now has detailed m apping of planting proposals according to N V C categories, taking account of the base flushes, soil and aspect. We have no t the space to outline the floral associations of all the w o o d lan d types of relevance to o ur core areas, and certainly n o t the vast

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range associated w ith Forest H a b ita t N etw o rk s th at would include heath and grassland. H ow ever, some idea of the floral complexity associated with restored vegetation can be gained (drawing on R odw ell’s w ork) by looking at the basic mix of m o n tan e scrublands, pine, oak and ash w o o d lan d that would constitute the m ost substantial elements.

M o n t a n e w il lo w and j u n i p e r sc ru b

Scrub does no t have quite the status o f forest or w o o d lan d , yet it is an im p o rtan t hab itat in the m o n tan e zones th a t w ould form ou r core areas, and in its natu ral state, extremely scarce. In the absence of over-grazing, as we can infer from continental habitats, it w ould be the p red o m in an t cover between 4 00 and 900 metres in the uplands. Thus, large areas of the Caledonian forest would have been a p atch w o rk of willow scrub of several species above the tree line grading into sub-arctic grassland and heath above 900m . This form of tree-cover is quickly degraded by heavy grazing pressure and n o w exists in rem nan ts in the N W H ig hlands, the central and southern H ighlands, the M o ffat Hills and on Helvellyn in the Lake District. It would be expected that the R hinogydd with its peaks between 700 and 800m w o uld have had little natural grassland and th at some form of willow scrub w ould d om inate, and th at D a rtm o o r, with its highest point at 500m w ould also have had willow scrub on the peaks with areas of grassland confined to the bogs. It w ould be im p o rtan t to m ap any rem nants to identify the type and serve as seed sources. The sub-shrub and herb layer in this low canopy can be especially rich where grazing is n o t severe and is characterised by large mats of the w o o d ru sh , especially on rocky slopes, bilberry, cow berry, bog w h o rtle ­ berry, crow berry and ling ; and am o ng the taller herbs, lady’s m antle, w ater aven, wild angelica, northern bedstraw , m o un tain sorrel, alpine saw -w ort, golden rod, devil’s bit scabious, m eadow sw eet, valerian and frog orchid. This m on ta n e scrub with its tall herb layer is especially w o rth y of study in relation to h ab itat for the chiefly vegetarian bear as it is rich in berries, juicy stems and rhizomes. Bears in other m o un tain areas spend time above the tree line seeking food and these habitats could be crucial for the m aintenance of a viable po pulation in the H ighland zone. In ascertaining the potential for the Glen Affric area to su p p o rt bears, studies of their food preferences in such areas as the Sarek N ation al Park in Sweden would be of great assistance. In the drier eastern Highlands, the d o m in a n t m o n tan e scrub is ch ara cter­ ised by the presence of juniper, with w o o d sorrel in the field layer. This type of low scrubby w o o d la n d is restricted to the C airngorm s and M o n ad h liath , with small rem nan ts in the Pennines and Lake District. Rodwell notes that water-logging is strongly inimical to juniper and supposes th a t in the

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western H ighlands above the tree line it is replaced by willow scrub. H ow ever, I have found rem n an t juniper high up in Snow donia, and as he also notes, in its natural state these co m m u n ity might have been as w idespread and tolerant of more varying conditions as it is in Scandinavia. He has fo und rem n ants existing widely as a scrubby fringe between pine w o o d la n d and m o ntan e heath o r grassland, and calls for more research using enclosures to determine the relationship of grazing and burning to its persistence and potential re-colonisation of the m on ta n e zone. T here is no d o u b t from observations of the absence o f seedlings in grazed areas that this w o o d la n d is peculiarly susceptible to high grazing pressure. In some areas heavy grazing has opened up the juniper stands and the field layer is reduced to grassland. Under less intensive pressure, the relatively u npalatable juniper offers some protection to the field layer, which is characterised by 'Vaccinia species, heather and an ab un d anc e of ferns and mosses. The rare Linnaea borealis and the wintergreens Pyrola m edia, P. m in o r and O rthillia secunda are associated w ith this habitat.

Pine w o o d la n d

The native pine w o o d s of Scotland have been variously surveyed and classified and represent a m ixture of stands, few in a sem i-natural state, alm ost all affected by the removal of m ature trees, the opening up of the canopy, and varying degrees of grazing pressure either by o ver-ab un dan t deer or domestic stock. Large areas of relic pine forest are very open and Rodwell follows McV ean and Ratcliffe in their studies by setting a lower limit o f 25 per cent cover to distinguish the w o o d la n d type from larger areas of ericoid heath with isolated pines. Semi-natural stands tend to have less than 70 per cent canopy, and the m ore closed canopies are n oted in plantations. It is likely th at under natural conditions closed canopy occurred only in the m ore sheltered locations with better soils. The w o o d la n d is notable by being m ade up of quite well segregated age-classes as in other semi-natural high forest, and M cV ean and Ratcliffe noted three m ajor arrangem ents at the time of their survey in 1962: even-aged stands, 8 0 - 1 5 0 years old; tw o generation m ixtures of pioneers, 1 5 0 -2 0 0 years old with straight-stemmed offspring 8 0 - 1 0 0 years old; and pine-heath stands of varying densities but com posed of b road-crow ned pioneers 1 5 0 -2 0 0 years old, (few individual pine trees live as long as 300 years). In m ost locations the canopy is only 1 3 -1 5 metres high, and up to 20 m on better soils. Associated tree species in the western reaches are b ro w n or do w n y birch, row an, sessile oak at lower altitudes, holly and on w etter grou nd and stream-sides, alder various willows Salix and aspen. The shrub and field layers divide into several types according to soils and a general east-w e st H ighland divide of rainfall, but are also strongly affected by

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treatm ents - such as plantation stocking density, and grazing. Rodwell notes three m ajor elements in the associated flora: the grass D escham psia flexuosa; ericoid shrubs; and bryophytes. The grass pred o m inated in shady stands, with bilberry, cow berry, and ling in the more open canopies. In dense stands these shrubs can be eliminated and leave a field layer of bryophytes and D escham psia. The more open semi-natural stands also contain m ore rarely cro w berry and Erica cinerea, bog w hortleb erry and bear berry A rcto sta p h ylo s uva-ursi (the latter a m ust for returning bears!). In denser stands the ericoid shrubs d isappear and a rich byrophyte flora is characterised by the moss H y lo co m iu m along with a b o u t tw enty other species, and the ferns P teridium and B lechnum . Interesting herbs, though generally infrequent, are lesser tw ayblade and the various wintergreens Pyrola m in o r, including the nationally rare P. m edia and P. rotun d ifo lia , M oneses uniflora, O rthilia secunda, the n orth e rn m on tan es Linnaea borealis and creeping lady’s tresses. The wintergreens, and n o rthern m o ntanes such as L innaea have their stronghold in these pinew oods and some of their rarity may be due to the reduction in the extent of the forest. An im p o rtan t factor in the natural dynamic of pin ew oods is the occurrence of fire - some experts considering pine a fire-dependent species. N atu ral regeneration is largely confined to the m ore open forest and fire helps seedling establishment by removing the felted m at of m o r and recycling nutrients. Herbivores browse pine seedlings and the top s of young trees emerging in the shrub layer, and although it is clear th a t current deer num bers as well as the former grazing of cattle and ponies, and the later use of sheep, have all contributed to the general lack o f regeneration th r o u g h o u t the C al­ edonian Forest, it is also the case th at under n atural conditions there would have been a strong herbivore presence of deer, moose, and forest cattle. Wild b oa r would also have been an im p o rta n t element in the disturbance of g round enabling the germ ination of seeds. In this case, the harrying actions of wolves may have been a deciding factor in keeping herbivores from congregating for too long in particular areas. Clearly, the forest regenerated naturally despite the presence of so many herbivores.

O a k - B i r c h w o o d la n d s

T here are three basic N V C types of o a k -b irc h w o o d lan d th at are of relevance and these combine a range of former descriptions of birch, hazel and oak w o o d lan d types from au th ors such as Tansley, M cVean and Ratcliffe, Birse and Peterken. We will follow R od w ell’s synthesis as it provides a good indication of the floristic variations and the nature of the oak w o o d s in o u r three core areas in the west. All of o u r sites are in areas of high rainfall and relatively acidic leached soils. In C aledon, oak w oo ds

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are chiefly a feature of the m ore tem perate coastal zone in the western Hig hlands, and of valley w o od s in the eastern Hig hlands, but come in on the better soils to the n orth-w est of the Glen Affric core area. In the R hinogydd it w ou ld be the d o m in a n t forest over much of the core area and likewise on D artm o o r. In Scotland, the climate is cooler, although the coastal o a k w o o d s benefit from the Atlantic milder winters; in the R hinogydd the climate is also ameliorated by the proxim ity o f the sea, and we have already seen th a t the ash w o o d s hold elements in c om m o n with m ore southerly and eastern w oods; in D a rtm o o r the southern influences are m ore strongly show n by the occurrence o f the pedunculate oak Q uercus robur, rather th an the sessile oak Q. petraea. T he three types represent variations due essentially to climate and soils, although they grade in to each other, and in the case of the Welsh hills, several types are present. Silvicultural treatm ent and grazing regimes also contribute to a convergence of types. Indeed, m ost birch w oo ds are regarded by R odwell (following Ratcliffe) as ‘o a k - b i r c h ’ with the oak removed. I found thus surprising, as I had previously th ought, regarding their prevalence in northern Scandinavia, th a t H ighland birch w o o ds were an altitudinal feature of the Highlands. This will have some relevance to regeneration schemes in the core areas. In the main type of w o o d la n d for the western areas of Britain either sessile oak or do w ny birch may predom inate, and it is associated with leached acidic soils. The canopy is often low, at 20m or less. O n D a rtm o o r, curiously, Q. robur forms some of the higher altitude w ind-stunted stands, as at W is tm a n ’s W o o d , and this species may also feature in the eastern H ig hlands and N o rth Wales (where it may be the result of old planting regimes). All of these w o od land s have been subject to centuries of exploitation of oak for charcoal and tanning, where large trees (and hence seed sources) have been removed and m an y multi-stemmed trees attest to former coppicing. Q. ro b u r was the foresters’ preferred species for planting even in the natural range of Q . petraea. O th e r tree species include ro w an and silver birch scattered throu gh the canopy; holly where there is less grazing and browsing; and hazel as the main com p o n en t, along w ith saplings of the other species in the usually patchy and low under-storey. This w o o d la n d has been colonised by R h o d o d en d ro n p o n tic u m in many places where this alien has been introduced - particularly in N o rth Wales where it often forms a dense under-storey shading o u t all o th er species and boding ill for the future regeneration of the can op y trees. The field layer has three com ponents th a t make up the distinctive type grasses, bracken and ericoid shrubs. The bracken is n o t so prevalent as in eastern and southern oak w o o d s on better soils, being limited by the thin soil and prom inence of boulders and rocks. Likewise, bram ble and honeysuckle are present but n o t in abundance. T he ericoids dem arcate this

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w o od lan d from the eastern and southern sub-types. These shrubs are very sensitive to grazing pressure and readily give way to such grasses as A grostris capillaris and H olcus m ollis. H erbs in the field layer include heath bedstraw , tormentil, cow w heat, w o o d sage, devil’s bit scabious, goldenrod and the rushes, L uzu la pilosa, L. m u ltiflora, L. sylvatica. Bluebell is generally scarce and w o o d an em on e restricted to base-rich flushes. Ferns are a m ajor feature, especially in ravines, with B lechnum spicant d o m in an t in the field layer and P olyp o d iu m vulgare as an epiphyte. H ow ever, the mosses often form distinctive mats over boulders and rock faces and on the forest floor where there is excessive grazing. T here is an ab un dan ce of moss species - Rodwell lists over thirty as well represented, and in one sub-com m unity, considerably more, including national rarities which give these m o ss-w oodlands their unique character. These w oods are typical of o ur Welsh core area, D a rtm o o r and also west of the G reat Glen. In all cases they have been subject to removal of large oak, o ak coppicing, and heavy grazing. It is typical to find very few saplings - usually a m o ng the protection offered by boulders. The bryophyte flora, th ou gh of conservation im portance, has benefited from excessive grazing by the suppression of grasses and w o o drush. Reduction in grazing pressure leads to saplings of birch and ro w a n w ith occasional oak seedlings, but they often fail to prosper where the moss carpet prevents access to the soil. O a k with d o m in a n t bracken and bram ble is typical of central and southern Britain on deeper clay soils, but it features in a few places in N orth Wales and on the fringes of D artm o o r. Q. ro b u r is the c o m m o n est tree, although Q. petraea m ay also be present, and hybrids arc a feature in the zones where b oth occur. The next co m m o ne st tree is the silver birch, especially characteristic of those comm unities th a t have colonised open ground and the m o st frequent invader of gaps in the canopy. Ash and field maple are generally scarce, with sycamore often colonising gaps and reaching into the high forest canopy in the wetter areas. W ych elm is frequent in the n o rth and west, and h orn be am and lime in the drier south-east, as well as the introduced sweet chestnut. In places, the past history of plantings, removals and coppicing has left h ornb eam , lime or chestnut dom inated w oods. O th e r sparse associates include holly and ro w an , which m ay contribute to the canopy, and where adjacent to the natural zone of beech this tree may also contribute. Yew is sometimes present as a patchy lower tier; alder in less well-drained areas; gean which Rodwell notes can sometimes reach magnificent size; and the crab apple. In the Harlech w o o d s there are some large specimens of gean, as well as a few old lime trees, w ith som e yellow archangel in the field layer, and the adjacent scrub containing spindle and crab apple - all indicative of the milder climate and m ore continental influence. T he shrub and field layers are species p o o r - shrubs being often absent in the more park-like grazed w oods. Saplings are generally confined to gaps

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in the canopy and usually d om inated by birch or sycamore. In the high-forest, th ou gh the canopy is n o t dense, oak seedlings are very scarce. H ow ever, these are the ‘bluebell’ w oo ds par excellance, and this is the vernal d om ina nt, except for w o o d anem one on the wetter g round. This type of w o o d lan d is quintessentially British, occurring in the rest of Europe only in north-w est France and Belgium. In late spring and sum m er the field layer is characterised by bracken, bram ble and honeysuckle. T he field layers tend to vary according to the degree of canopy shade, soil moisture and grazing - being at times grassy, do m in ated by high bracken, a mass of b ram ble and honeysuckle, or carpeted by ivy. Ferns of D ryopteris are frequent bu t the bryophyte flora is much reduced and the herbs also, with greater stitchwort red cam pion, hairy w oo d rush, golden rod, g round ivy, yellow archangel, foxglove. The latter can be ab u n d a n t, especially where the canopy is reduced. This forest is the nearest to the n atu ral high-forest of the English low lands (w ithout the elm and lime of the original w ildw ood). As such it occurs on the fringes of D a rtm o o r on the better soils, and features of it are also present in the western Rhinogydd, such as bram ble, bracken, and honeysuckle, as well as yellow archangel, a b u n d a n t red cam pion, ground ivy, stitchw ort and foxglove.

Ash w o o d la n d

Although o ak -b irch w o o d lan d is the d o m in a n t type south of the pine province, it gives way to a characteristic ash w o o d lan d wherever the soil has sufficient base enrichm ent - as on limestone or in base-rich flushes am o ng generally base p o o r soils. Rodwell notes th a t the w oo dy com p o n en t of these com m unities is am o ng the richest in British w o o d lan d . I have found such ash w o o d lan d near H arlech on the western edge of the Rhinogydd and R odw ell’s m aps show occurrence in eastern D a rtm o o r of the ash-field m a p l e -d o g ’s mercury variant that is m ore characteristic of the south-east divide. These w o od s do n o t ap p e ar in the western Flighlands, except along the coastal zone on and near Skye, but consideration in planting regimes should obviously be given to areas where there is base-enrichment in any of the core areas w here these w oo ds may have disappeared. The range of w o o d y species includes dow ny birch and alder, wych elm, hazel, sycamore, sessile o ak, silver birch, h a w th o rn , and elder, holly, bird cherry, the sallow Salix cinerea, and aspen. T he field layer is particularly rich and Rodwell lists over thirty species of flowering plant in a shrub layer th a t is generally 38 per cent of cover to 5m and a herb layer of 40 cm at 76 per cent cover. T he type occurs up to 35 0m , alm o st always on slopes. T he characteristic plants of the field layer are d o g ’s mercury, w o o d sorrel, co m m o n violet, bluebell, en cha nte r’s nightshade, w o o d avens, herb robert,

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wood false brome, primrose, wood anemone, barren strawberry, germ ander speedwell and wood speedwell, globe flower, the thistle Cirsium helenoides, sanicle, yellow pimpernel and sweet woodruff. Rodwell cites the yellow archangel as characteristic but confined to southern examples, yet I have found it in small patches in the Harlech woods. Several rarities are associated with this w oodland type - the baneberry, the soft h a w k ’s-beard, yellow star of Bethlehem and whorled Solomon’s seal. These ash woods so characteristic of some of the Welsh mountain slopes where flushes of base rich water appear in an otherwise relatively base-poor environment dominated by oak woods, when not grazed-out by sheep, have given me some of the most wonderful, magical moments - from the early spring abundance of anemone, celandine, primrose, marsh marigold, violets, and wood sorrel, followed by the bluebells, speedwells, yellow pimpernel and herb robert, to the eventual carpet of enchanter’s nightshade, this w oodland floor is a natural garden of delights and quite different from the more rugged oak woods on the greater part of the hills. Around Llety’r Fwyalchen, this floral abundance was maintained despite a lack of fencing and ready access for a small suckler herd of cattle and a larger flock of sheep. Grazing pressure was intermittent, but enough to keep back bramble and ivy, and not so heavy as to convert the field layer to grasses. In adjacent, more heavily grazed woods of this type, the grassy carpet held virtually no flowering plants until the summer when foxgloves predom i­ nated. I have tended to associate the berry-bearing bushes black currant, red currant and gooseberry with these wet w oodlands, as well as large patches of raspberry, but they do not feature strongly in the data gathered by Rodwell. The red and black currant feature in the alder-wood species lists, but not the gooseberry, and the raspberry in the alder-nettle community which are essentially lowland woods. Perhaps these species are very sensitive to grazing and have become less frequent in the uplands - I have found blackcurrant, raspberry and gooseberry in isolated locations where there is no access to sheep in the lower Rhinogydd streamsides, and as they are an im portant element of floral diversity, as well as containing food plants for birds and a favourite feeding ground for bear, I have often wondered at how much more widespread they would have been in the original wildwood.

Restoration and creating anew We should, however, be aware that not only can we not expect to recreate w hat has passed, but that there may be little merit in trying to do so. We are starting with an impoverished soil and a fauna denuded of keystone

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species. Furtherm ore, the climate is undergoing an accelerated change. In my view we need to consider the fu n c tio n a l element of ou r future forest as well as any species we may re-establish. In this regard, the forest canopy can be seen as protective of the flora beneath, which in tu rn supports the diversity of invertebrate and vertebrate species. W hen we consider areas outside of the w ildw o od core, then the forest will take on functions relating to h um a n uses such as the provision o f timber, w o o d pasture, hunting and recreation. The functional forest is thus a vessel for the rich diversity of life its structure supports - including hum ans. In this respect, the field layer becomes as im p o rta n t as the trees. Some forests will have the primary function of providing buffer zones and corridors for large vertebrates and for ro am in g carnivores. In terms of this function, the floral diversity of the field layer or the n ear-natural nature of the canopy is of less im portance and a forest primarily m anaged for timber, rather th an for naturalness, would fulfil that role. A forest with a strong recreational function - such as a C om m un ity Forest, w ould be served by the establishment of a rich field layer of flowering plants such as bluebell or anem one. W here near-natural con di­ tions are aimed for in the core areas, it m ay take many decades for the diverse field layer to develop in regenerated areas and hund red s of years in the case of the planting of open grassland. In any restoration project it will be im p o rta n t to ascertain the prevalence of rem n an t seed sources for these field layers, as there may need to be planting pro gram m es for the missing herbs and shrubs. It is k n o w n that some species can survive for several decades und er conditions unfavourable for flowering - w oo d spurge, for example, has reappeared after 125 years of suppression by closed canopy. Some w o od lan d flowers colonize at very slow rates - oxlip for example, th ou gh n o t a feature of o ur western w oods, progresses at l m per year. T ranslocation or seeding may only be successful w hen m atu re w oo dlan d soil conditions evolve. There are precious few studies of the recovery of this w o od lan d diversity after centuries of grazing, particularly in co m parin g exclosure w ith reduction in grazing pressure.

Dynamics of regeneration We have argued th at herbivore pressure is a c onstant feature of natural w o od lan d. All species present in the w o o d la n d s today evolved w ithin the context of th at dynamic. If th at grazing and browsing pressure is suddenly reduced, the vigour that has evolved to co un ter that pressure is suddenly unleashed - in the herb layer, the m ost vigorous can quickly eliminate those plants requiring a closer-cropped sw ard, and diversity usually falls. Likewise, the shrub layer is ad apted to brow sing and a certain browsing

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pressure keeps the bushes low and rounded and, as any gardener keen to procure the m a x im u m floral show know s, the nipping of the end shoots prom otes a denser-flowering and thus berry-bearing shrub. Saplings are also adapted to this pressure, w ith some species being resilient to the loss of a leading sh oot and others being m ore affected and producing smaller, m ore-branched trees. This natural dynamic presents som ething of a dilemma in the early stages of re-establishing a functional forest. Forest regeneration will be ham pered by grazing and brow sing animals, especially in the absence of predators, but if regenerating w o o d la n d is fenced off, the resultant gro w th will no t be natural in form and the field layer will be less diverse. Fences are also inimical to the ethos of w ildland, although they can readily be removed later. Ideally, where high grazing pressure exists, it needs to be reduced by the removal of stock and the culling of deer, but some fencing will be required in m ost situations. Areas with no n atu ral herbivores show the reverse side of this coin: trees m ay do well, but the understorey will be do m in ated by vigorous species. In the case of new plantings, there will often be little choice but to protect the evolving w o o d lan d until such time as it is ro b u st enough for large herbivores to be introduced; the project at C arrifran has taken this approach. H ow ever, as will be appreciated from the sections on w o o d lan d classification, regenerating a near-natural forest will be a long process. In the western uplands we have less of a problem than if we wished to restore the high forest of elm and lime of the English low lands - and in any case, elm has been decim ated by D utch elm disease. In ou r core areas the relic oak and pine w oo ds can readily act as centres for natural regeneration, and this process can be seen in adjacent m ead ow s and heaths where seedlings are establishing themselves. This process is slow for spreading oaks and pine, m ore rapid for birch and ro w an but w ould take a very long time to naturally colonize large areas of acid grassland on heavily degraded soils. In these cases, planting pro gram m es could establish patches of w o od land throu gh the use of whips and stan dards - using birch and ro w a n w ith small num bers of oak, ash and alder according to soil conditions. Scarifying and sowing of birch seed w ould accelerate colonization of open g ro un d far from seed sources. O n e technique pioneered by the N a tion al T ru st in Snow donia is to fence off streamsides and plant with alder and oak using Tulley tubes. Thus, m oorlan d areas can be colonized through the netw ork of streams and gullies. In these enclosures, the ericoid shrub layer regenerates rapidly, as does the streamside vegetation of meadow sw eet, purple loosestrife, valerian and oth er herbs. In C aledon, Trees for Life have set up large fenced exclosures an d seen rapid regeneration of pine, birch and row an . Where fencing has been used in Snow donia to exclude sheep, for example in the C ader Idris range, there is a clearly m arked reversion to ericoid heath with

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isolated ro w an and birch. Such areas w ould, over decades, develop into m a ture forest. Large areas of bracken exist in Snow donia and D a rtm o o r in places where grazing pressure has reduced, and this species indicates relatively good soil for w oo dlan d. It has proven very expensive to reclaim these areas for grazing, and w o o d lan d w o u ld be a better option. I have seen quite remote bracken-infested hillsides successfully planted with oak, birch, ro w an , holly and alder in the C am b rians, with only spiral guards for protection inside the stock-proof fence. In one of ou r candidate core areas, the R hinogydd, there arc large plantations of exotics, mainly Sitka spruce and Japanese larch. These blocks often come o n to the m arket and are close to felling age; some belong to Forest Enterprise. O bservation shows that if simply left after felling, birch and ro w a n colonize rapidly and seedling exotics (as well as the unwelcome rh od od en d ro n ) could be readily pulled out. The forest rides have already been colonized by m any of the w ood lan d herbs, grasses, ferns and mosses, although the characteristic flora of ancient w oo dlan d w ould be very slow to appear. Some of these margins become self-sown with oak at some distance from the nearest seed trees - perhaps as a result of the habit that jays have of burying acorns. Fencing and protective tubes are expensive, and over much of Scotland, reduction of deer num bers by the culling of hinds is required. Browsing will still be present, b u t in large areas adjacent to w o o d s in the C airngorm M o u n tain s, much reduced browsing has n o t prevented regeneration. H ow ever, where culling is im practical or where intensive grazing of domestic stock on open hill land is the problem , fencing off domestic stock from rem n a n t but overgrazed w oods, or newly planted areas, is the only option. Fences can be removed once trees are established, but the natural dynamic and structure of a self-regenerating forest will necessarily take centuries to evolve. In the R hinogydd and on D a rtm o o r there are considerable areas of co m m o n grazing land and the only op tio n for systematic reduction of stock is either conservation agreements with the holders of grazing rights or the purchase of strategic farms and their rights, such th a t the overall grazing pressure is reduced. The dynamic between a regenerating forest and domestic or wild herbivores has received limited study and should certainly be a focus of ecological research over the coming decades. English N atu re , spurred on by Dutch experiments, has begun some research and has introduced Chillingham cattle (sec C h ap ter 7) into the forest reserve at Savernake, near M a r lb o ro u g h .10 Again, however, herbivore num bers and grazing patterns are strongly affected by the presence of predators, especially wolves, and relevant research on complete forest ecosystems for Western Europe is virtually non-existent. T here may be relevant studies in the eastern forests of Bialowieza or the R hodope M o u n tain s of southern Bulgaria where some

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of these elements still exist. Similar arg um ents apply to the rooting activity of boar and the n atural scarifying of the ground such that seedlings can take hold, as well as to the w etland-creating propensity of beavers. In this regard the in troduction of bo ar to enclosures in Glen Affric and beaver in pens in the Kent Wildlife T rust reserves, both as m an age m en t tools, may yield useful data. This general absence of relevant research on forest dynamics, the absence of key species, the presence o f alien introductions, and the necessary compromises over domestic stock and h u m a n use in buffer zones and corridors, all mean th a t ou r m oo ted largc-area pro gram m e s are going to be essentially experimental. The Ennerdale project makes a point ab o u t not being ‘prescriptive’ and leaving the future ‘o p e n ’. This may go against the grain of m od ern conservation practice with its preference for predictive c o m p uter models and simulations, but it is unlikely th at either sufficiently rob ust data will exist from past studies or th at the past is necessarily prescriptive of a future under a progressively changing climate. In those areas of Wales and England under consideration for large-area initiatives, the long history of over-grazing may have so seriously denuded the native vegetation th at recovery will require m ore th an tree planting and fencing. Studies need to be carried ou t on the distribution of seed sources for a wide range of plants in the understorey, in the shrub and field layer of the forest and in m uch-denuded riparian habitats, an d suitable nurseries need to be established. In my o w n limited w o rk in Coed Eryri 1 came across small pockets of relic w o o d la n d in the R hinogydd th a t held a few plants only o f native blackcurrant, raspberry and gooseberry, and noted h o w easily local genetic variability could be lost. There was one small area of base-rich ancient w o od land in the R hinog, near H arlech, that held old lime trees and gean (with m any seedlings lost to grazing and no regeneration), with some spindle on the nearby fryd d , again with no sign of young trees - these three species would be hard to find in the rest of S now donia. O n e is led to w o n d er at ho w extensive these no w scarce species would be in a natural ecosystem. Berry- and nut-bearing species and the often scarce crab apple w o uld be im p o rtan t food plants in any area considered for the re-introduction of bears. There are a host of tuberous species upon which bears also feed and the British equivalent of a rich hab itat for this species w ould require some detailed research. Generally, how ever, given the long time scale over which these large-area initiatives w ould be developed, these matters should no t present m ajor problems. In the upland areas, birch forest and alpine scrub should be relatively easy to establish w ithin a few decades, whereas a m atu re oak w o o d will take over tw o h u nd red years. We may never have access to large areas of deep soil to recreate the lime w o o d s of low land England or the riparian forests of the flood plains, bu t in the three candidate areas th a t we

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are looking at in m ore detail, we have an o pp o rtu n ity to recreate something closely resembling the past structure and diversity. The Glen Affric project area w ould have pine w o o d lan d (with im p o rtan t species such as aspen) in the sheltered glens and d w a rf willow on the higher ground, with grassland on the areas of bog; the R hinogydd w ould be predom inantly o ak -b irc h w o od land , though some high g rou nd would remain open under sufficient grazing pressure as grassland, m o o r and heath; D a rtm o o r w o uld also primarily be oak, b u t has extensive secondary grassland and heath th a t has accrued high conservation status and would thus need to rem ain open. Detailed inventories of the ancient w ood lan d in Snow donia and D a r t­ m o o r exist, and Trees for Life has begun an inventory of the flora for the Glen Affric project. This data will be required to appreciate the variations present within the various w o o d la n d types and to orchestrate planting and seeding regimes within core areas, buffer zones and wildlife-friendly corridors. A key pa rt of the strategy for regenerating these areas will be to strike the right balance between grazing and browsing regimes; planting co m ­ pared to natural colonization; and the fencing of domestic stock or wild ungulates. We might expect the Glen Affric area to respond quickly to reduced grazing pressure, b u t very large areas in the northern section of higher g ro un d lack seed trees. In the R hinogydd, in the absence of stock, regeneration led by birch and ro w a n w ou ld be rapid in m o st areas close to the w oo ds, and there w ou ld likely be conservation pressure to keep grazing on the higher ground. This could be effected by naturalized goats supplemented by E x m o o r ponies, wild cattle breeds and the re-introduction of red and roe deer. In D a rtm o o r there are large areas in the southw est of wet acid grassland, b u t eventually these would be colonized by birch and willow where domestic stock intensity was reduced. A lthough there are no red deer in the R hinogydd, there is a healthy pop ulation of rath er majestic feral goat in the no rth ern part; on D a rtm o o r red deer are infrequent w anderers from E xm o o r, but semi-wild ponies are w idespread. At some stage, red deer herds should be established in these core areas, but no t until forest regeneration or planting has had tw o or three decades to extend the cover. Ultimately, the forest structure will only ap pro ach its natural processes and diversity when both the larger spectrum of grazers and brow sers and their predato rs are returned and in some kind of balance with the vegetation. In practical terms, however, it is likely that all large herbivores will require active control if the vegetation status is to be m aintained. A lthough predato rs may not ultimately control herbivore num bers, w hich are forage dependent, they can influence spatial density such th a t regeneration is assured; however, one of the main safeguards for herbivores in the tem perate forest w ould have been the ability to migrate to lower gro un d in times of harsh weather, and the provision of adequate

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corridors connecting o u r core areas to richer pastures will be an im p o rtan t element in their sustainability. In the next tw o chapters we shall look at the potential for returning the full herbivore guild and some of its predators, in ord er to restore the processes of a natural forest dynamic.

7 Restoring Ecological Processes: The Herbivore Guild

T here was a time w hen ‘forest’ did no t mean so m uch a place of trees as a place for deer and other game. Indeed, the medieval meaning still applies to large expanses of alm ost treeless ‘deer forest’ in Scotland. With the disappearance of deer and other large herbivores over much of Britain, the m o dern vernacular use of the w o rd has come to mean little other than the trees. The sense of a functional forest, both as an ecological entity or a cultural one, has been lost along w ith the large mam m als. In the previous chapte r we discussed the role of large herbivores as an integral p art of evolving tem perate and boreal forests. T h a t herbivore guild included elephant, rhino and hippo, and it is unlikely th at we could find the space for their functional equivalents. Although it should be said that 2 0 0 0 k m 2 of a dedicated n atural area (the size o f some of o u r national parks and the Affric core area pro posal, com pares well with some reserves for ex tant relatives of these species, such as the Asian elephant and the Indian and Sum atran rhino. It is therefore w o rth stating at the outset th a t any ecological functionality to which we aspire will be missing these powerful structural elements of the forest. O f the range of large herbivores th at we would norm ally expect to find - tw o species of deer, forest horse, forest cattle, w o od lan d bison, wild boar and beaver - m ost British forests and certainly m ost smaller w o o d la n d have few if any representatives of the original guild. Even E uro pean forests w ithin the larger natural areas in the cores of national parks do no t have the full guild: the forest horse or tarpan (E quus ferus) is extinct as are forest cattle or aurochsen (Bos primigenius)-, the w ood bison or wisent (Bison bonasus), like its cousin the American buffalo, w as until recently restricted to small herds in zoological gardens; beaver were eradicated th ro u g h o u t western Europe. Only the wild bo ar has remained co m m o n , and even that species has had a history of persecution and disappearance, followed by a recent return to its former range.

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W e can therefore appreciate th at the n atu ra l forest had a very different structure from anything likely to be seen in E urope today. Cattle, horses, deer, elk and bison all have different feeding niches as they graze and browse the forest. Perhaps the closest in Britain w ould be the N ew Forest, which has been used for centuries to graze ponies and cattle. This is surprisingly little com m ented upon in treatises relating to restoration of ancient w o o d lan d . O ften, one of the main stated purposes of restoration is to recreate indigenous or near-natural forest, but ‘forest’ is seen alm ost entirely in terms of tree cover, rath er th an in terms of an inclusive dynamic relationship between plants and animals. Some conservationists have been arguing for the use of wild herbivores as a n atural m etho d of m anag em ent to m aintain biodiversity in the control of scrub. W h itb read and Jen m a n set ou t proposals for an extensive p a tc h w o rk of Sussex w oo ds draw ing on the O ostvaardersplassen experi­ ence in Flolland (discussed in m ore detail b elo w ).1 W e can n o t now expect to restore the functional equivalents of the extinct mega-herbivores to Britain, for example, by breeding cold-adapted Indian rhino and elephant, and there are no tem perate zone populations of hippo - th ough we could usefully look at the potential of setting up areas large enough to contem plate a project in Europe. Even in areas such as Bialowieza in Poland, celebrated as the last great European forest wilder­ ness, the largest herbivores are missing. (The beaver w as absent until re-introduced in 1955.) N o t only are forest elephant and rhino extinct, but so are the aurochs, tarp an and, very nearly, the w o o d bison. Only in the last century have the reconstituted aurochs-like Heck cattle, forest horses (Konik ponies) and w o o d bison been re-introduced in Bialowieza, and although wolf, lynx and apparently bear are present, the bear had to be re-introduced and is still absent from m ost m od ern references. Bialowieza is also surprisingly small - ab o u t 500 k m 2 of forest, roughly half the size of D a rtm o o r N atio na l Park, w ith the prim ary reserve being only 50 k m 2 or 500 0 ha. Considering th a t an im p o rta n t factor relating to ab und an ce of herbivores is their ability to migrate, this reserve is extremely small. In pre-agricultural times, large herbivores could have undertaken long-distance migration to avoid severe winters or drought. Nevertheless, as Derek Yalden (1999) has pointed out, Bialowieza gives us some guide as to the ab un da nce of herbivores in relation to forest size. He quoted data from Polish sources show ing th at 580 k m 2 contained 14,274 large herbivores: 2 50 bison, 3710 red deer, 27 30 roe deer, 170 elk, 7375 boar; 19 lynx and 20 wolves. There are references in p o pu lar articles to the recent re-introduction of b oth tarpan-like Konik horses and aurochsen (Heck cattle) as well as bear, but I have no data on their num bers.2 T h us, for this forest there are ab o u t 25 large herbivores per square kilometre. This may n o t be an accurate guide to abu nd ance for o ur core areas w hen fully restored as they w ou ld differ in

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forest type, soil fertility and climate. Bialowieza has a truly ancient and diverse mixed forest structure on w h a t may be m ore productive soil with w a rm e r sum mers, but these advanta ges m ay be offset by the harsh winters. It may, therefore, be cautiously assumed th a t o u r Snow do nian (ca 150 k m 2) and D a rtm o o r (ca 300 k m 2) core areas might hold 375 0 and 75 00 large herbivores respectively, and Caledon (ca 20 0 0 k m 2), where a large p r o p o r ­ tion is above the tree line, might hold 1 0 ,0 0 0 -2 0 ,0 0 0 . H erbivore behaviour and ab un da nce may also be affected by the absence of large cats. The post-glacial lion P anthera leo ranged as far no rth as H olland , but was presum ably an open-country p red ato r th a t disappeared as steppe gave way to forest. H ow ever, it is n o t clear w h a t hap pen ed to the post-glacial leopard Panthera pardus in Europe - fossils are kn o w n from Italy, but in form er inter-glacials it occurred as far n orth as H u n g a ry .3 A lthough wolves will take sick, injured or very old a dult elk, cattle and pony, a fit adult is seldom attacked, w hereas the lion could tackle all sizes of herbivore as well as young pachyderm s. Lynx are k n o w n to suppress roe deer n um bers in forest and also to affect behaviour of pasture-grazers that avoid the forest edge.4 There are also post-glacial fossil records of hyena and hunting dog in central areas of Europe. Given the potential for eco-tourist developm ent, we should at least contem plate and research the possibility of a large-area initiative in Poland and Belarus th a t would recreate the ancient European ‘Serengeti’ of forest, grassland and forested savannah, with an all-im p ortan t wildlife corridor linking these areas to the refuges of southeast Europe th a t w ou ld be needed during any periods of future glaciation. Such thinking has recently emerged on a smaller scale in H o llan d and Belgium w ith regard to large herbivore pop ulation s.5 For Britain, we can start w ith our baseline of a herbivore guild th a t evolved over the last three o r four glaciations to occupy the tem perate, largely broad-leaved forests. This g rou p has its origins in the dynamic relationship between cold tu nd ra , boreal forest, tem perate forest and forested steppe, which we see today as static geographically located ecological zones, but which exist in a con stant longer term flux. As the ice retreated, cold tun dra at first became w a rm , virtually treeless grassland w ith arctic willows and d w a rf birch - this was rapidly colonized by the cold steppe fauna of central Asia: horse, steppe bison B ison prisons, saiga antelope and red deer (and in the more distant past, steppe m a m m o th and the steppe rhino D icerorhinus). These species then gave w ay to forest types as the open c ountry was colonized by boreal pine, spruce and birch, with tem perate oaks and beech coming later. In m ountain regions, the latitudinal zoning is repeated with altitude. Thus, as the inter-glacial advances, the cold-adapted grassland species retreat to the Asian steppe or to tu n d ra and alpine habitats. Within this dynamic, the various herbivore genera have either evolved ecotypes (sub-species) or separate species ad apted to each habitat. Kurtcn

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considered many of the supposedly separate species identified in the fossil record as sub-specific, differing only in size (horse for example). The elephant and rhino had different species each adapte d either to grazing or browsing. Red deer had smaller forms in open country and larger forms for forests (with d w a rf types evolving on islands). The bison were at first th ou gh t to have separate steppe forms (Bison prisons) and forest forms (Bison bonasus) b u t are n o w considered conspecific (we deal w ith some of the im plications of specific status later). Cattle ap p ear to have had only forest forms, although m odern domestic stock, d raw n from th a t gene pool, arc well a da pte d to open country. In the course of ten such ice ages, this faunal assemblage had proven its adapta bility, with the w arm th -a d a p ted forest types having their refuges in southern Europe during cold periods, and the cold-adapted open-country forms having refuges during the w arm inter-glacials in the eastern steppe, the n o rth ern tu nd ra or alpine zones. The tw o types often replace each other at a given location in the fossil record of Britain. It is w o rth reiterating th a t this rhythm of steppe and forest will, as far as we can predict, repeat itself w ithin a future time frame perhaps equivalent to the period of agriculture th at we have k n o w n over the past eight th ou sand years.6 It is n o t c o m m o n to find any conservation thinking or planning on this timescale! And this m ay seem at first rather fanciful and scientifically questionable given the uncertainties, but in m an y oth er areas of environmental concern, such timescales are no t u nco m m o n , for example, waste m anag em ent strategies in relation to chemically toxic and radioactive materials have to incorporate predictive modelling over tens of th ousands of years despite the uncertainties regarding h u m a n populations. During these natural oscillations the ab un da nce o f these species would have altered drastically. The glacial refuges for E urop ean species, for example, are very small: only the southern parts of Spain and Portugal and the southern tips of the Balkan peninsula held closed-canopy forests. This means th at forest species would have had their nu m bers considerably reduced, whereas open country species would have proliferated. In the immediate post-glacial period, for example, steppe horses, bison and saiga antelope formed vast herds that extended from southern Britain across E urope and Asia. As the forests returned, these species retreated to the steppes and forest species proliferated. W h a t will a future oscillation look like? In the past 8000 years, farming has transform ed E u ro p e ’s h abitat and vastly increased the hu m an population. W hen the ice returns, hum ans, as well as forests, will migrate south! W h a t chance is there th a t we will leave sufficient forest for the fauna and flora to find their traditional refuges? Certainly, w ith o u t planning, there will be a zero probability. In terms of scientific conservation, therefore, a forest c o rrid or linking the n orth ern and central E uropean forests to the southw est is vital, as is the conservation of

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rem nan t forests in the sou thern Balkans - areas such as the R ho do pe in n o rthe rn Greece and Bulgaria. The C arp ath ian arc also has great signifi­ cance. It is crucial, therefore, th at infrastructural planning in an extended European Union takes this into account. The central Asian steppe fauna will also become the European fauna at some future time. Indeed, it may well be that some forest eco-types regularly disappeared at glacial m axim a and were replaced by evolving eco-types from the steppe - this is certainly possible for ta rp an and w o o d bison.

Rebuilding the herbivore guild In ou r m ore m odest am bitions for Britain we can n o t expect to rebuild the complete herbivore guild (see Figure 7.1). H ow ever, we are capable, given the political will, of creating a very large area for conservation in Scotland and significant cores in Snow donia and D a rtm o o r that could go some way tow ard s re-establishing a functional forest ecosystem. W e might note, at the outset, however, th at the future-oriented arg um ent w o rk s against o ur conservation ethic, as we do n o t k n ow h ow the past British fauna adapted to an o ncom ing ice age. M igration would have been impossible until the English C hannel had been reduced by the lowering of sea levels, and it may well be th at the British fauna was extinguished only to be replaced my incomers in the next cycle. If, however, the deteriorating climate coincided with falling sea levels, there may have been time for migration - certainly the onset of an ice age has generally been much slower than its post-glacial transition. W e have to take on b oard, therefore, that anything we do for species conservation in Britain may ultimately be of no account in an evolutionary perspective. Unless, th at is, w h a t we do here can influence values and practices in eastern and sou thern E urope and perhaps also, equally crucially, in the M iddle East and near Asia. Certainly, w h a t we can do in Britain is to set up models and advance thinking on the functionality of forest ecosystems. In this respect, we need to look more closely a t ho w a guild of herbivores makes use of the range of niches present in the habitat: from the branches and leaves of trees and leaves of shrubs (browsers) to grass m eadow s and glades (grazers), lu xu rian t riparian herbage (beaver) and roots and bulbs (pig). The presence of the herbivore guild modifies the structure of the habitat: •

elephant can u p ro o t w hole trees, open the canopy and create a more p ark land type of forest. In drier areas the sheer a m o u n t of herbage cycled throu gh them may have had an im p o rtan t restraining effect on the ferocity of forest fires - and although tem perate forests generally do no t bu rn , a more open sh rubby understorey w o uld have been more susceptible

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Figure 7.1 T he British tem perate fo rest herbivore g u ild a n d its g h o st species

• • • • •

hippos create extensive close-cropped riverside grasslands (and would have ranged th r o u g h o u t the m ajo r river systems of the lowland forests) large browsers and grazers can trample vegetation and keep the understorey m ore open (rhino, aurochsen and bison) deer can inhibit gro w th of tree seedlings on the forest floor and, by pru ning the shrub layer, increase the berry crops wild pig can open up gro un d to aid germ ination, as well as thinning ou t the acorn and beech mast crop substantially beaver create riverside w ater m eado w s of lush vegetation and virtually coppice the surrou nd in g willow.

W ith o u t this guild of herbivores, the forest is denser and darker. If only the largest are absent, such as elephant and rhino, the canopy can be expected to be m ore closed and the shrub layer less developed. If the large aurochsen and bison are absent, this effect will be greater still, although the denser forest might favour larger num bers of deer and pig. Thus, we can have very little predictive know ledge of the carrying capacities of the kind of habitats we w ould recreate in large-area initiatives. O u r modern British forests are either large plantations of conifers, usually in blocks of a single age structure an d species, or much smaller tracts of ‘sem i-natural’ or ‘ancient’ b roadleaf w o o d la n d in a patch w ork with pasture and arable land. In the conifers outside of the C aledonian

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Forest and northern England, there are usually only a few deer. A p art from the fallow deer in Coed-y-Brenin, Welsh conifer forests are devoid of deer. In the b roadleaf w o o d lan d , deer num bers can be a problem for regeneration in areas o f lowland England where populations of roe and the naturalized m untjac M untiacus reevesi have increased. Absent from British w oo dla nd , a p a rt from a few p ark lan d estates, and m ost of continental Europe, are the wild cattle, bison, elk (moose) and tarp an. We have no w'ild b oar other than a small popu lation of escapees in Kent and, as yet, no free-living beaver. We thus have the m ost un natural forests (and n ature reserves) in Europe. T he first step, therefore, to w ards creating a ‘balanced ecosystem’ would be to restore the n atu ra l herbivore guild in those areas th at could su p po rt it. T here is an arg um ent for restricting th at to species we knew m ade it to Britain after the last ice age, which would exclude bison, but we could also usefully re-evaluate o ur old paradigm of naturalness in the light of a more functional wildland ethos. If we are to set up a w hole and fully functional ecosystem, then we could argue it should contain all com po nents of the guild th at evolved with it. This would mean seeking substitutes for the n o w extinct forest elephant and forest rhino! In the case of forest horse and aurochs, breeding prog ram m e s have come close to recreating the primitive characteristics and we shall review these below. The large pachyderm s are obviously m ore problematic, but we should consider the issue carefully rather than rejecting it out-of-hand. Clearly, th o ug h, a fully functional forest ecosystem with these elements present w ould require n o t only a large core area, bu t an effective system of corridors so th a t these anim als could migrate and m aintain their a b u n ­ dance. It is unlikely th at even were we able to breed suitable replacements for the forest elephant and rhino, n o t even Scotland could provide a large enough area for a sustainable popu latio n. H ow ever, such a concept would n o t be so outrageous as p art of a central E uropean core area and corridor scheme along the Polish-Belarus b order with corridors running d ow n to the C arpathians. For the ‘sm aller’ herbivores - elk, wild cattle and tarp an , a core area such as Glen Affric w ou ld need to have corridors ou t to western areas of K noydart, Ben Eighe and Inverpolly. An eastern co rrid o r to the M o n a d h liath and C airng orm massif is m ore problematic, but these areas could also su p p o rt the return of these herbivores. The N a tion al T ru st for Scotland’s M a r Lodge estate covers 30,0 00 ha of forest and open m o orland , with good connectivity to the RSPB reserves in Abernethy, but the N ation al T ru st for S cotland’s m ana ge m en t is com m itted to ‘tr ad itio n al’ H ighland em ploym ent in grouse shooting, deer stalking and fishing, thus limiting the potential for a return to entirely n atural processes and re-introductions. T he core areas of Wales and England w ou ld be able to a cco m m o date only the smaller species, but these could include forest cattle, horse, wild

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b o a r and perhaps beaver, as well as re-instated deer. T here are many small-scale n ature reserves th at include special breeds as part of their conservation strategy, although used largely to limit scrub and keep im p o rtan t species-rich grasslands open.

The herbivore species F o re s t e l e p h a n t an d rhino

We shall deal w ith these species briefly rather than dismissing them w itho ut some reflection. First, as we have noted earlier, the tem perate Atlantic forests of all previous inter-glacials held the forest elephant species P alaeoloxodott an tiq u u s as well as an early forest rhino D icerorhinus kircbbergensis (M erck ’s rhino) an d the later S tep b a n o rb in u s (D icerorhinus) b em itoechus, as well as a tem perate popu lation of hippos with no m arked skeletal differences to the m od ern day African species.7 The three m ega­ herbivores were constant com pan ion s in the fossil record of Britain’s lowland forests. It is im p o rta n t to realize th at these tem perate broadleaf forests were little different from those of today - w ith Britain enjoying marginally w a rm e r tem p eratu re regimes so m ew h at akin to the Atlantic region of France - and th a t the larger m am m als w ould have had seasonal migrations. Elsewhere in Europe the w o o d la n d elephant gave w ay to a steppe species M a m m u tb u s trogontherii. Both elephant species were present during the early part of the last glacial period in Spain, where both types of h abitat m u st have existed, but died out, presum ably exterm inated by m an. The European hippo, once present on the Ouse, T ham es, Rhine and R hone, and having survived previous glacial cycles, disappeared at the same time. Unlike brow sing ungulates, elephants are able to eat the w oo dy parts of plants, such as branches, saplings an d bark, as well as being able to bulldoze small trees to get at their branches. They also eat fruit, grasses and leaves. Their dung-heaps left in clearings would thus provide a ready germ ination site for seeds of the fruits they had eaten and for other colonizers to take hold. The diet of brow sing Indian rhinos is ab o u t 20 per cent w oo dy material and also includes fruit, leaves and grasses, whereas the Sum atran species is an exclusive brow ser of w o o d y material, leaves and fruit. T he British and European rhino were of the browsing type - rhino are either grazers with heads held low like the so-called white rhino Ceratotberium sim u m , o r browsers with heads held high, such as the black rhino D iceros bicornis, the Indian R hinoceros unicornis, the Javan R. sondiacus and South East Asian species D icerorhinus sum atrensis. The S um atran form (and the w arm e st zone) appears to be the closest relative of the extinct European species.

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The no rm al range of these rhino genera today obviously coincides with w a rm e r climes, and historically, the Asian elephants extended only as far as northern Iraq. Although this area of the M iddle East can have harsh winters, it must be assumed th at the anim als could readily have migrated to avoid them. Some Asian elephant inhabit m on tan e forests th at have cold winters. And we k n o w th at the family generally can a d a p t to cold with woolly coats, given evolutionary time. T em perate forests were certainly w a rm e r in Britain in the past inter-glacials, bu t n o t such th a t the habitats in w hich these pachyderm s lived were significantly different floristically w inter tem peratures were cool and there w ould have been some periods below freezing. Thus, any no rth w estern pop ulation s would have evolved a hardiness to deal with the seasonal climate, much as cattle and horse breeds have done. The question arises, therefore, as to ho w feasible it would be to breed a hardy p o pu latio n of rhino and elephant from the current species? By at least asking the question, we may be led to some research strategies. African rhino species are regularly kept out of doors in ‘safari p a rk s’ in England and there m ust be a w ealth of experience w ith regard to their te m perature tolerances. E lephant have n o t generally been so free-roaming, but there may be useful data on m o n tan e forest populations in the H im alaya. Both these species are under threat in their native ranges and the rhino are kept in Zoological G ardens, ostensibly for conservation purposes. If we take a long-term perspective, an a rgu m en t can be m ade for setting up E u rop ean breeding po pu latio ns of brow sing rhino in large enclosures, much as forest cattle, bison and tarp an were conserved in medieval times in Europe, and until such time as large areas exist for their return as functional elements in the ecosystem.

The E u r o p e a n w i s e n t or wo od bison

The European bison is a classic example of the historical im portance of ‘zoological p a rk s ’ and enclosures in protecting a species from extinction and then throu gh careful breeding, restoring p opulations in suitable wild habitat. The last wild-living w oo d bison disappeared from Polish forests in the 1920s and from the C aucasus M o u n ta in s in the same decade. As late as 1857 there were said to be ab o u t 2000 anim als in Bialowieza, and this po pulation dwindled to 700 in 1914, only to be wiped out during the ravages of the First W orld W ar. Sixty anim als rem ained in zoos, some having been cross-bred with American bison Bison bison. The C aucasian form w as a distinct sub-species ad apted to the m ountains, B.b. caucasicus and w as smaller than the low land form. As early as the 1920s, breeding prog ram m es were oriented to w ards repopulating the ancient Bialowieza forest, with enclosures set up close to

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Figure 7.2 E uropean w o o d bison or w isen t

the reserve. The first anim als were released in 1952 and num bered 20 by 1959. The former Soviet Union em barked on similar operations in the C aucasus and by 1959 there were 30 wild-living animals. In 1971 captive and wild populations had reached 1500 with ab o u t half in the wild in ten different localities in Poland and Russia. T he European bison with its plains and w o o d la n d forms m ust have once rivalled in num bers those of the American west when E uropean settlers first began their systematic slaughter - indeed, it w ould ap pe ar th a t the American plains bison was a post-glacial Eurasian invader crossing via the Bering land bridge.8 The E uropean plains bison became extinct in the most recent post-glacial period as it w as a favourite quarry of hum ans, but the w ood lan d form held on in the forests of Scandinavia until AD 1000 and in eastern and central Europe until the 15th century, gradually being restricted by the 16th century to a few royal hunting reserves and eventually to Bialowieza.

T he b ison in Britain The bison’s history in Britain is so m e w h a t mysterious. It was certainly a feature of the inter-glacial forests, and the steppe bison occurred during the w a rm e r phases of the glacial period at a ro u n d 4 0 ,0 0 0 b p . The w oo d land form appears no t to have returned with the advancing w o o d la n d a consequence of its late arrival in relation to the land bridge or of predation in Western Europe. Given th a t the elk, which shared a similar range and habitat, w as able to return, as were the w oodland-dw elling

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aurochs, there is no clear reason w hy the bison should no t have returned. It may be a m a tter of the p o o r fossilization potential of the w o od lan d species - it was th o u g h t th at w oolly m a m m o th had also not returned in the last glacial period, but in 1987 the record had to be revised w hen new fossils were found in Shropshire dating to 12,800 b p . 9 T he bison is such a charismatic anim al that a case can be made for its presence in a restoration p ro gram m e for Britain. It is also an im p o rtan t anim al ecologically, both as a forest grazer and a browser.

Bison e c o lo g y Typically, herds n u m b e r 3 0 - 4 0 and arc do m in ated by a bull, with the young bulls either forming small herds or w andering off alone. Each herd tends to remain w ithin a home range of 2 5 - 3 5 k m 2 depending upon food supplies. In earlier times the w o o d bison un derw en t m igrations from low lands to higher and drier ground in w inter, but the Bialowieza herd is n o w confined to the inner core area of wilderness. The anim als are both grazers and browsers (capable of brow sing conifers, which cattle and horses are not), preferring m atu re mixed forests w ith a rich understorey of shrubs. In Europe the w o o d la n d anim als browse leaves and new shoots of trees such as willow, elm and oak. They also eat grasses, herbs and lichens during the sum mer, supplemented by acorns and beech mast in au tu m n and heather, bark and evergreen foliage in winter. In Yellowstone glades it crops the grass and improves productivity of the meadow s, fertilizing them with its phosphorous-rich faeces and urine. It is also prey for Y ellowstone’s wolves, and carcasses from w olf kills are also an im p o rtan t food source for scavenging bears. There are, however, som e crucial problems with the species. As a bovine, it can h a rb o u r diseases th a t would threaten livestock interests. In Yellow­ stone, problems have arisen because of the propensity of the po pulation, w'hich h arb ou rs brucellosis, to disperse into rangelands. The disease causes fever in h u m a ns (seldom fatal) and abortions in cattle and is subject to strict regulatory control: infected herds m ust be destroyed. In the severe winter of 1 9 9 6 -1 9 9 7 , 1100 dispersing bison were slaughtered by federal officials. This led to corrals being constructed at the edge of the p ark to hold dispersing bison for slaughter. Any program m e for a larger European po pulation w ould likely encounter similar problems.

F o re s t c a t t le : t h e a u r o c h s e n

Cattle are fundam entally forest anim als, despite the images of pasture and open-range grazing we get from domesticated stock; the range of form manifested in domestic cattle are the result of tw o lines of domestication from one now extinct forest species - the aurochs, Bos p rim ig en iu s, whose

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range extended from the Atlantic to Pacific coasts of Eurasia, N o rth Africa and India. The aurochs was a co nstant feature of British forests during the previous inter-glacials, returning in the immediate post-glacial period as soon as a p atch w o rk of w o o d lan d existed to su pp ort it. Its fossil bones begin to ap p ea r as soon as the first birch and alder w o o d s feature in the pollen record, at a b o u t 9400 b p . It shared this early w o o d lan d h abitat with elk, roe and red deer, boar, beaver, w o lf and bear, and continued to do so th r o u g h o u t the Mesolithic period, when it w as quarry, along with deer and boar, for the sparse popu latio n of h u m a n hunters and gatherers. With the arrival of Neolithic farmers and the rapid destruction of forests, it became steadily scarcer, until, by the time of the R om ans, its large bones were a rare feature of to w n middens - the last being recorded in N o rth Wales in the 4th century a d . In the rest of E urope it experienced a similar decline as the forests receded, and by the 10th and 11th centuries had disappeared from W estern Europe. In the following centuries it gradually became confined to a royal hunting reserve in the J a k to ro w forest of Poland, w here by 1599 the herd had dwindled to 24 animals. In 1603 only four rem ained and the last survivor, a cow, died in 1 6 2 0 .10 Because it survived into the historical period we have a good idea of its ap pearance and behaviour - it is depicted in n u m ero us bas-relief w o rk at R o m a n sites in central E urope and there is even a 16th century painting of a bull. The males were blackish b ro w n with a yellowish stripe along the spine and were large, alm ost 2 m at the shoulder and weighing up to 1000 kg; cows were reddish b ro w n and ab o u t 25 per cent smaller. Herds are th o u g h t to have num bered ab o u t 30 individuals - the last Ja k to ro v herd had 22 adult cows, 5 calves and 11 bulls, 8 of which were fully grow n. Its lifespan is th o u g h t to have been 2 0 - 2 5 years. Calves were bo rn in M a y or June an d were suckled for six m o nth s, following the m other until the next calf was born. T he horns of the aurochs were formidable w eap on s and the anim als had a rep utation for ferocity w hen h u nted by m a n or w hen threatened by predators, as they were fleet of foot and intelligent. They were fu n d am e n ­ tally grazers, and from studies o f feral cattle of today, we can assume that they could feed on a wider range of coarse grasses and herbage th an can domestic animals. M an y sub-fossil remains in Scandinavia are associated with w ater, and it is likely th at the herds were dependent upo n riparian pastures and the lush herbage associated w ith these habitats. In this regard, they would have benefited considerably from the presence of beaver. T h e w il d w h it e c a ttle o f B r ita in Britain is blessed with a unique breed of feral cattle, the origin of which has been the subject of long debate and still presents som ething of a mystery. G. Kenneth W h iteh ead ’s m o nog raph T he A n c ie n t W hite C attle o f Britain and their descendents reviewed the history and status of the herds in 1953.

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Figure 7.3 La sca u x's 'w h ite ' cattle

Several herds of wild white cattle have existed on private estates in northern Britain and central Scotland since records began at the time of the enclosures of land in the 13th century - the herd at Chillingham Park has a d ocum ented history of 700 years. Prior to the enclosures, wild white cattle were com m ented up on at different times as a feature of these n orth e rn forests: by the Earl of W arw ick in 924; by C anute in 1042, particularly in the sou thern counties of England such as at Enfield Chase; and by Elector Boece in 1527 as a feature of the wild Caledonian Forest in particular. Yet, as far as is k n ow n , the early cattle of the Celtic tribes were reddish bro w n or black, and the first records of white cattle relate to the R om an period when they were certainly im ported and were of a type k n o w n as Piedm ont an d were im p o rta n t for ritual sacrifices. The likeliest origin is th a t after the R o m ans left Britain in the 4th century, these herds becam e feral and populated the remaining wild forests of N o rth u m b e rla n d and Caledonia. The possibility th a t these ancient white cattle were a distinct sub-species of the wild aurochsen and evolved in Britain, or were present in Europe but had their last refuge here, has been cham pioned by some. There are several factors th at co u n t against this: the anim als are much smaller than aurochs; they share certain skull ch ara cter­ istics with domestic breeds, such as the occipital angle, and they retain the domestic trait of round-the-year b reeding ." The first tw o are n o t necessar­ ily convincing as these genetic traits may also have been present in the original aurochsen gene pool from which all domestic breeds have their origin. The changes in breeding pattern, however, are m ore convincing, as it is hard to see h o w such changes would have conferred any advantage in the harsh no rth ern climate. Further, Derek Yalden (1999) presents data showing how cattle bones from Neolithic middens in Britain show a distribution of bone sizes th a t do no t overlap with th at for aurochs, suggesting th a t Neolithic settlers b ro u g h t domestic stock with them th at did n o t interbreed with wild aurochs, which were by then probably confined to wilder Scotland and W ale s.12 On the wild side of this speculation, the naturalist Rod Lawrence recently drew my attention to cave paintings at Lascaux (ca 15,000 b p , see Figure 7.3)

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that could be interpreted as depicting white ‘au ro ch sen ’ with black noses and, curiously, spots on their neck similar to those appearing on the park herds (the artist used the white rock as body colour and black outlines). The m ajority of aurochs paintings including some in the same cave, involved infilling the body colours, either black for bulls or red for cows. The possibility remains, of course, th at these draw ings involved a form of artistic license. Despite their potential origin from domestic stock, the Chillingham herd have re-acquired the aurochsen wild traits of herding dom inance, w ith bulls fighting for con tro l of the females, sometimes to the death; a great wariness of hum ans; ferocious protection of young by cows; and an ability to survive on much ro ugher forage th an domestic stock (they will no t accept pelleted food at all). These stocks of wild cattle thus present a unique potential for restoring wild cattle to future forests - they are well accustomed to British conditions and have proved themselves rob ust despite centuries of inbreeding. H ow ever, as w ith the aurochsen, they are dangerously protective of their young and are thus unsuitable for areas with frequent public access. In this regard, H ighland cattle, equally robust, but tam e by co m pariso n, have been used in preference at a nu m b er of conservation sites. H e c k c a ttle : r e c o n s tit u te d a u r o c h s e n There are, however, other potential sources of wild stock from breeding schemes on the continent. As early as the 1920s, the brothers Heinz and Lutz Heck, G erm an zoologists, began a breeding p rogram m e: one brother in M u nich zoo crossing Scottish H ighland cattle (small and red w ith long hair) with H un garian steppe cattle (the largest breed and white with short hair) and a few others th a t contained different elements of the aurochs; the other in Berlin crossed Spanish fighting bulls with o ther M editerranean breeds. The H ecks were surprised at how quickly their p ro gram m e produced a dark very aurochs-like form, the same for bo th of the program m es. By 1932 a male and female of the type were m ated, and to the b ro the rs’ even greater surprise, bred true to type instead of th ro w ing up the mix of types that had gone into the pot. The males developed the blackish b ro w n colou ratio n and even the yellow stripe, and the females were reddish, both w ith the typical aurochs shape of horns. H erds were quickly built up of the reconstituted aurochs - identical in all respects but for size, as the brothers could no t reconstitute the e n orm ou s height of the bulls (see Figure 7 .4).13 T h us were born the Heck cattle that have been used by several conservation program m es to replicate wild grazing regimes, including the m ajor initiative of O ostvaardersplassen in H olland. H ere the 560 0 ha reserve hosts 300 head of Heck cattle, as well as 2 00 Konik horses (representative of the original tarp an , see below) and 150 red deer. These herds are untuanaged and exist within a p atch w o rk of reedbeds, willow

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P h o to : H a n s K a m p f

Figure 7.4 H eck bull: reco n stitu ted aurochs

carr and alder w o o d la n d that began grow ing on reclaimed polder land in 1968. The bulls fight and sometimes seriously w o u n d and kill each other and carcasses are left on the reserve (or were until this fell foul of the local veterinary laws).14 The different grazing and browsing patterns have created an open w o o d la n d structure, with deer tending to keep to scrub and the cattle and ponies keeping to the meadow s. These p ark lan d herds and cross-breeding program m es have provided us with some useful insights: th a t an isolated and inbred p op ulation can survive for several centuries and th at relatively small areas can sustain them . The Chillingham herd occupies a b o u t 3 00 h a (formerly twice that area), which it used to share with red deer, but which it now only shares with fallow deer. T od ay there are 50 or so individuals, including 13 m ature bulls, but at certain points the p op ulation has fallen to critical levels - in 1947 it w as d o w n to 13 following extreme blizzards, and at one point in the 18th century, w hen there were only three bulls left, one of w hich was infertile, the other tw o killed each other in a fight and the h e rd ’s co ntinuation depended upon male offspring from the preg nan t cows. U pon sexual maturity, the bulls establish territories of 4 0 - 5 0 ha shared with n o n -d o m in a n t bulls and then a ttrac t females. The d o m in a n t bull controls access to the females, b u t will eventually be challenged for dom inance, th ough fights are usually ritual affairs only rarely resulting in death. The Dutch habitats are a mosaic of reedbeds, lagoons and w o o d lan d where 300 head occupy 50 00 ha at a crude density of one anim al per 16 ha (see Figure 7.5), com pared to one anim al per 6 ha at Chillingham (where there is no com petition from red deer and horses). If we add deer and

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P h o to : H a n s K a m p f

Figure 7.5 A urochsen at O ostvaardersplassen

horses, then the D u tch reserve has a similar one anim al per 7 hectares, and at 14 anim als per square kilometre, this com pares w ith the Bialowieza data of 25 large herbivores per square kilometre. In Caledon, although we may be looking at 20 0 ,0 0 0 ha (2000 k m 2), a great deal of this habitat is above 600 m and has a very low presumed carrying capacity. Likewise, the R hinogydd, although much lower and further south, consists of large expanses of treeless grassland, with perhaps one q u arter of the 2 0 ,00 0 ha eventually providing a suitable w oo d land habitat. D a r tm o o r ’s potential w o o d la n d zones are of the same o rder as those o f the Rhinog, although its m oo rlan d might be m ore conducive to cattle. It can readily be seen, however, th a t Heck o r Chillingham cattle would have ample space. Some British n ature reserves already use rare breeds - essentially primitive cattle able to survive with minim al attention, in order to diversify habitats. H ow ever, in large-area initiatives, an im p o rta n t elem ent of wilding is to leave the herds subject to n atu ral selection, including the periodic scarcity of feed, w inter tem peratures, disease and w ounding. This may raise issues of anim al welfare - m ore likely in the case of tam e breeds, and perhaps less so w ith those bred specially for the purpose such as Heck or those w ith a long pedigree of survival in wild conditions, such as the wild white park cattle.

Wild f o r e s t h o rs e s or t a r p a n

The wild forest horse E q u u s ferus is a n o th er enigmatic anim al, with less d ata than for cattle, which is curious considering the po pu larity of horses.

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I have come across anecdotal reference to exta nt herds of ta rp an in similar zoological situations to the wisent in Poland or R o m ania, but all academ ic references assume that the forest horse or tarp a n became extinct in the wild at much the same time as the w o o d bison.15 T here have apparently been cross-breeding program m e s between primitive ponies E q u u s caballus and Przewalski’s horse which have achieved n ear-tarpan form bu t w ith o u t the upright mane th at is k no w n from historical records as characteristic of the tarpan. Judith Kolbas, writing in W ildlife in September 1997 a b o u t her e nc ou n­ ters w ith wild horses in M o ng olia, describes four types o f post-glacial horse: the Scandinavian ‘forest’ type, the central European tarp an , Przewalski’s steppe type, and a ‘t u n d r a ’ type - the tu nd ra type is sh ow n by her as grey and spotted. There are ‘sp o tted ’ pale horses d ra w n in Lascaux paintings, which, as with the pale and spotted cattle, m ay just be artistic licence - but a licence not extended to any other anim als such as bison, elk or deer. T he pre-history of the horse in Britain is also som ew hat mysterious. The wild horse depicted in Continental cave drawings is of the Przewalski type with a tan coat, pale muzzle, striped forelegs and dark upright mane, and hence is the ‘steppe’ form. This form is well represented in late glacial fossils in Britain - the time w hen, as the ice melted, large areas of w arm tun dra grassland developed a nd w hen other steppe species, such as the saiga antelope, were fo und as far west as Somerset. Later, as scrubby willow, birch, alder and hazel w o o d lan d developed, horse fossils are at first c o m m o n bu t become progressively m ore scarce and eventually are asso­ ciated only with higher g ro un d in the Mesolithic of a b o u t 9300 b p , after which the anim als either disappeared or were to o scarce to be represented in the fossil record. Typical w oo dla nd species such as the aurochs, elk and b oar continued to be represented in the archaeological record and hence coexisted w ith m an for th ousan ds of years. If the w o o d lan d form of the horse is kn o w n to have persisted in the forests of central and eastern E urope into the 19th century, why then did the upland ta rp an of Britain disappear? T here is a possibility th a t it did not disappear entirely. Some writers have considered the wild E xm o o r pony as a direct descendent of this upland type. The ta r p a n ’s absence may simply be an artefact of the imperfect archaeological record between 900 0 b p and 40 0 0 b p when bones and teeth of the identical early domesticated forms first appeared, associated with the n um erous middens of the agricultural settlers. Derek Yalden, although preferring to believe th a t the E x m o o r pon y is derived from feral stock (i.e., from escaped domestic im ports) largely because of its floppy m ane (which all domestic breeds have) concedes that w ithin th a t gap of several th o u s a n d years when there were no domestic breeds, there are a sm attering of teeth th a t are difficult to date. Rod

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Figure 7.6 L a sc a u x ’s ‘E x m o o r ’ p o n y Lawrence has sho w n me ph oto s of cave paintings of floppy-m aned horses in Lascaux, and tho ug h they are indistinct, they clearly lack an upright m ane (see Figure 7.6). The E x m o o r Pony Society argues th a t w ho rl patterns on the coat, as well as the floppy mane and h o od ed eyes, are adaptation s enabling rain to be dispersed m ore easily - and it is clear th at horses adapted to the British uplands are going to require adap ta tion s from any ancestral steppe animal. Joep van der Vlassaker of the Large H erbivore Fo un datio n, based in the N etherlands, believes the E x m o o r pony to be the m ost primitive horse available for wildland projects. This fo undation is active in the breeding and re-introduction of feral horses, mostly Polish Koniks, aurochsen, w o o d bison and a range o f endangered ungulates across Eurasia.16 T o some extent the question is academic - the E x m o o r pony oug ht to be treasured for its uniqueness w hatever the provenance. But conservation science leans to w ard s the academic and it is not treasured. If that pop ulation were regarded as ‘p u re ’ ta rp a n , it w ould be classified as an endangered species and strictly protected. Przewalski’s horse has itself suffered persecution and presum ed extinc­ tion in the wild, and has been rescued by zoological collections. This horse has tw o more chrom oso m es than E. cabbalus, th ou gh offspring are still fertile. In the last decade, a re-introduction pro g ram m e has been ongoing in M on go lia from pure bred stock from the w o rld ’s zoos, all of which are derived from just 13 parents. Initially a wild herd w as established by taking anim als from Britain’s M arw ell zoo to a site in the Cevennes M o u n ta in s of France in 1989. The first releases in M ongolia occurred in 1997, and there are n o w tw o herds, one in relatively lush grasslands, with 140 head, and a n oth er in semi-desert, with 25 head.

E c o lo g y o f u p la n d fo re st p o n ie s The E xm o o r pony is, in any case, regarded by m any c om m enta to rs as one of the most tarpan-like of the feral horses, with characteristic pale muzzles and a large head and jaw structure; they also breed true to type (see Figure 7.7). It is able to survive on extremely po o r fodder and its presence w ould appear to go back beyond historical records. T he small herds roam an area

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P h o to : Toby H ic k m a n

Figure 7.7 E x m o o r ponies

of ab o u t 300 ha on p oorer grassland, d ow n to 150 ha on better land. Herds comprise a stallion and 8 -1 8 mares plus foals, although matriarchal groups also exist. The ponies graze grass sw ards and gorse in the sum m er and aquatic vegetation, mosses and leaves in winter. T here are a total of 1200 individuals of the breed, bu t only a b o u t 180 of these are free living; they are ro un ded up in O c tob er for inspection, branding and registration. The free-roaming herd is u nm a nag e d and subject to the natural processes of selection, leaving them very hardy. In the year 2 0 0 0 ab o u t 30 ponies were released on the D ow n s above Lewes as part of a p rog ra m m e to improve the sw ard of chalk grassland, and several other conservation sites are grazed by small n um bers of animals. Feral ponies exist on many uplands of Britain, all with slightly different characters and histories of ‘im p ro v em en t’. T he C arned da u in Snow donia is a stronghold of the primitive Welsh breed of pale grey ponies, and D a rtm o o r has a m uch less primitive im proved stock. The N ew Forest holds feral herds in park w o o d lan d s and provides study material for the grazing im pact of horses on w o o d la n d vegetation. As might be expected, as primarily grazers of coarse grasses and sedge, horses transform the ground layer of w o o d la n d to a closer crop ped sw ard and this is richer in herbs. The primitive E x m o o r breed w ould thus be ideal as an anim al to restore the functional equivalent o f the ta rp a n to the core areas pro po sed , and by being dispersed to other areas, it w o uld be in a better state to continue its evolutionary trends. H ow ever, aesthetics, at least, w ould dictate th at care

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P h o to : H a n s K a m p f

Figure 7.8 K onik horses a t O ostvaardersplassen

be taken to protect the breed from breeding with feral ponies closer to the domestic types. There appears to be a conservation preference emerging for the Konik, as used in H olland (see Figure 7.8), where there is now a surplus in the herds. This anim al is closer to the pale-coated steppe form and has a semi-upright mane. It thrives in w etlands and is therefore app ro p riate for low land heath and marshes. The N T reserve at Wicken and RSPB reserve at M insm ere have recently introduced small herds. H ow ever, it should be noted th a t E xm o o r ponies also have extremely to ugh m ouths ad apted for gorse and holly, and in addition to coat structure and h oo ded eyes for protection against rain and w ind, are better adapte d to wet upland ecosystems.

The elk

Elk, Alces alces (M oose in America, where the red deer is called elk) were a regular feature of Britain’s Atlantic tem perate forests, surviving the advances even of Neolithic agriculture until some time before the R o m an occupation. The latest C 14 date for elk bones is 3925 b p in Scotland, but there are few fossil sites from this period, and it may have survived longer in northern parts of Scotland where there was much suitable habitat. It can be assumed th a t h um an p redation was the cause of its demise.

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In the rest of E urope they had been exterm inated from low lands and G erm any by the middle ages, but survived in eastern Prussia until the 1930s with a p op ulation of a b o u t 1000 individuals.17 These did not survive the Second W orld W ar, w hen it also became extinct in Poland. H ow ever it was re-introduced in Poland in 1957, and occasional anim als no w w a n d er into G erm any. In Scandinavia it was all-but exterm inated by hunting when royal prerogatives were removed in the 18th century - it disappeared from southern Sweden and N o rw a y and only a few were left in the northern forests. At the end of 19th century it began to recover due to protective legislation and staged a rem arkable resurgence, aided also by m odern forestry practices and the exterm ination of large predators, such that in m o dern Sweden 126,000 were sho t in 1986 co m p ared to 4 0 0 0 in 1910. E lk e c o lo g y Elk are primarily no cturnal browsers and grazers. Adult bulls at five years old in E urope may weigh up to 500 kg (in C an ada they reach 800 kg) and stand 2 m at the shoulder. Each a dult requires between 10 and 20 kg of food each day, brow sing on shrubs of bilberry and heather; on bushes and trees such as ro w an , aspen, sallow and willows in summer; and on pine and juniper in winter. They also forage for aquatic plants and are particularly fond of the roots of w ater lilies. Population sizes are strongly related to suitable habitat, and tolerable densities in Scandinavia are also limited by the a m o u n t of damage they can do to forestry p lantations from brow sing on spring shoots. In Finland 4 - 7 anim als per 1000 ha w as considered acceptable in terms o f forestry and also for traffic safety (these big anim als are a m otoring hazard in Sweden, where 5 0 0 0 - 6 0 0 0 are killed o n the ro ads each year; they are also capable of serious dam age to cereal crops). In m any parts o f Sweden densities exceed this: winter densities in n orth ern Sweden were estim ated at 11.4/1000 ha below the treeline and at 5 .0 /1000 ha above the treeline (animals will feed above the treeline up to 25 0 0 m in summer). N a tu ra l densities in southern Sweden are ab o u t 8/1000 ha, but can be as high as 30 /10 00 ha in the royal parks. Elk will w a nd er up to 50 km and can sw im well. A lthough a clear case can be m ade for the return of this charism atic anim al to Britain, the currently overgrazed British uplands are perhaps not the best place to start! In the Caledonian core area it w ou ld be better to plan for the réintroduction of elk after one or tw o decades of lower red deer num bers and the restoration of the vegetation, particularly riparian habitat and the m o n ta n e scrub zones. The return of the beaver w o uld considerably enrich the hab itat for elk, and the return of wolves should also predate their re-introduction in order to avoid a rapid grow th in numbers. It is also ap p a re n t th a t introduced anim als will quickly spread to oth er areas and th a t even with the presence of wolves in the core area, culling will probably be required. The core area might eventually su p p o rt as m an y as 2000

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animals. T he anim al is highly prized by hunters and could bring added revenues to the H ighland stalking industry. O n e anim al we ca n n o t consider for re-introduction is the now extinct Irish elk M egaloceros giganteus - not a moose-like elk, but a giant deer of similar p ro p o rtio n s to the moose b u t with w ider, deer-type antlers. This magnificent anim al died o u t well before hunters could account for its demise. It existed in Ireland before the arrival of man and disappeared in the immediate post-glacial period, surviving there until ab o u t 10,000 b p . It was p robably an open country anim al and a genuine evolutionary casualty.

R e in d e e r

The reindeer R angifer tarandus was a regular feature of glacial Britain and survived into the immediate post-glacial, with the m o st reliable fossil record dating from 8300 b i >. References in N orse sagas ab o u t red deer and reindeer hunts in Caithness in the 12th century have been taken as evidence for their continued existence there, but there is no fossil evidence. Despite the loss of reindeer being m ost probably na tural (although it was a main prey item for Palaeolithic hunters and m ust have been much reduced in num bers as a result), it has been the subject of a re-introduction p ro gram m e in the H ighland sub-arctic tu nd ra zone of the C airngorm massif, w here the herd remains above the treeline. The anim als were bro u g h t from semi-domestic stock in Sweden in 1952, b u t have been supplemented by wild anim als from N o rw a y and Russia. R e in d e e r e c o lo g y In the rest of E urope the wild reindeer is quite rare - there is a m o ntane sub-species R.r. tarandus th a t occupies a small area of southern N o rw a y and the Russian Kola Peninsula. The forest reindeer R .r. fennicus survives in Karelia and Finland. Semi-domestic forms occur in no rth ern N o rw ay , Sweden and Finland, where they are herded by the Sami people of Lapland. This form of nom adic husb and ry accounts for strong a nti-predato r policies th ro u g h o u t no rth ern Scandinavia - affecting wolves, lynx, wolverine and bear. The Sami also persecuted the wild m o u n ta in reindeer to extinction in Sweden and Finland, because it competed with their stock. C onservation pro gram m es bro ug ht the southern N o rw eg ian and Kola wild populations to recovery levels of 6 0 ,00 0 by the 1970s, after num bers had dwindled in the 1930s to less than 3000. Larger herds of both forest and open country forms are found in Siberia, G reenland, C a n a d a and Alaska (where they are called caribo u).18 Reindeer are essentially grazers of mosses, lichens and grasses, but the forest form also browses leaves an d shoots as well as riparian vegetation. In N o rw ay the wild herds are hunted to control num bers, and yield 10,000

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anim als per year. They are also the n atural prey of wolves, lynx and wolverine (especially the young animals). Again, it w ould n o t be a wise move to add this herbivore to the core area of Caledon until its natural predators were in place, but the species could eventually add to the diversity of anim als above the treeline.

Wild bo ar

Wild b o a r are a characteristic feature of forests th r o u g h o u t central and southern Europe, France and Spain. They were also co m m o n in Britain th r o u g h o u t the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, surviving until the N o rm a n conquest in w o o d lan d th r o u g h o u t low land Britain and Scotland. Their eventual demise in Britain is obscure due to the paucity of reliable records, but as they were considered an agricultural pest they survived in wild herds p robably only until the 13th century when they were last recorded in the Forest of Dean, and then until the 17th century confined in a few royal parks and hunting preserves. This fate was paralleled in Europe by their disappearance from m uch of France, G erm any, Austria, H u ng ary and the Balkans as well as Scandinavia during the M iddle Ages.19 O n the continent, however, they have been re-introduced to Southern Sweden (accidentally from farmed animals) and the N etherlands; Karelian populations have re-colonized Finland. Populations in France and G erm any have increased considerably and large populations also exist in central and southern Italy and n orthern Spain. The species occurs across Eurasia and into South East Asia; it is also found in N o rth Africa, an d has been introduced to N o rth and South America and Australia. It is regarded as a m ajor game anim al in Europe and from a po pulation of 5 00 ,00 0, 4 00 ,0 0 0 are taken annually, a cull made possible by typically large litters of up to 12 young. B o a r e c o lo g y Their n atu ral preference is for old deciduous w o od lan d because they prosper on a diet rich in acorns, beech mast, seeds, fungi, grasses, roots and rhizomes, as well as insect grubs and carrion. In mixed hab itat of w oo dland and arable land they can cause considerable dam age to crops. The breeding range is limited by severe winters, at which time they are subject to high mortality. A breeding male will control a territory of 1000 ha, w ith females and young roam ing over 1 0 0 -3 0 0 ha; one male m ay control several groups. M o s t anim als stay within 5 km of the breeding territory, bu t excluded males may w an d e r up to 10 km from the home range. A large male may be 1 m high at the shoulder and weigh as much as 350 kg, w ith females usually weighing less than 100 kg.

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W ith high fecundity, good h abitat and mild winters, their num bers can increase to pest p rop ortio ns very quickly, and central E u rop ean p opulations sustain intense sport h unting as a means of controlling numbers. Their natural predators are wolves and bear, w ith the young also being vulnerable to lynx, and although boar have a re putation for ferocity and can certainly inflict severe w o u n d s with their tusks, they are shy and not dangerous unless provoked. In recent times wild b o a r have been ‘farm ed’ in enclosures to provide meat, and as with so m any other penned or farmed ‘exotics’ some have escaped and become naturalized. T here is n o w a thriving po p ulation of betw een 1 0 0 - 2 0 0 b o a r in ideal habitats along the Kent and Sussex border. Derek G ow reviewed this situation in E C O S in 2 00 2 , noting in particular that governm ent d epartm ents were m on itoring the situation with regard to crop dam age and also to the potential for bo ar to h a rb o u r contagious diseases of stock such as fo ot-an d-m o uth disease and swine fever. H e notes that in France, where they were long considered a pest species, a change of attitude occurred in the 1970s when they were reclassified for game hunting, with licence fees funding co m pensation for agricultural damage. M a rtin G oulding, an ecologist at Sussex University, in 2003 p roduced a useful m o n o g rap h on the b oar po p ulatio n in Britain, w hich he had studied in the field for the previous six years.20 In Britain, the N a tion al T ru st and RSPCA have supported the presence of boar, whereas farm ers’ o rganiz­ ations such as the NFU, and curiously, the shooting fraternity have called for their eradication. G ow notes th at the m ajo r public issue in these areas has been one of safety, and th at both Kent and Sussex C ou nty Councils regard the anim als as n o t dangerous unless p rovoked, and have simply p u t up notices in their w o od lan d s to deter foolish behaviour. The anim als are, in any case, typical in being nocturnal, shy and seldom seen. G ow goes on to make a case for keeping the b o a r (despite doubts ab o u t their genetic purity) under our obligations to return exterm inated species, but also notes th a t Britain’s globally im p o rtan t bluebell comm unities might be adversely affected. Boar certainly u p ro o t bluebells and feed on the bulbs, but there have been no studies to assess the potential im pact on this species. O n the continent there are contradictory indications of inhibition of anem one comm unities - some studies showing a negative im pact and others a positive im pact from regeneration of fragmented rhizomes. G ow also makes the point that natural w o o d lan d evolved with b oa r and should thus be adequately robust or even im proved by their presence. Some species may suffer from competition, such as badger, which has a similar diet, and some may benefit from the disturbed soil and w allow ing th at creates colonization o p p o r t u n ­ ities. Consideration should certainly be given to the return of this anim al to wilder land in o u r three core areas, b u t with some caution: it would be wise

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to re-establish the n atu ral predators and com petitors first, such as wild cattle (which will also feed on mast and acorns), the wolf, bear and lynx in Scotland, and lynx in the Welsh and D a rtm o o r habitats.

Feral g o a ts an d s h e e p

N either goats Capra aegagrus n o r sheep O vis a m m o n are indigenous to Britain, and although the mouflon O vis m u sim o n , or wild sheep, is w idespread in European forests, its n atu ral distribution was limited to M e d iterran ean islands. Nevertheless, Britain has some very ancient n a tu r a l­ ized p opulations of charismatic ‘breeds’ th at merit conservation status. Snow donia is hom e to some very fine and distinctive feral goats, which can be quite shy of hum an s, and the W estern Isles of Scotland h a rb o u r ancient and hardy breeds of feral sheep th at are close to the original domesticated ‘mouflon-like’ stock. These ancient breeds of sheep are often used as conservation tools for m anaging grassland sw ards, w hereas feral goats, although tolerated, are generally regarded as a nuisance because of the need for co nstan t surveillance of their n um bers and effects up on vegetation. In the R hinogydd, the goats m ake a unique co ntribu tion to the fauna, and although capable of extensive dam age to new tree planting due to their great agility in m o un tin g walls and fences, my ow n feeling is th a t they are so rem arkable for their beauty and long history th at they should be carefully conserved. They would contribute to conservation objectives in those hills particularly, where the m o n tan e heaths are regarded as of high value and should rem ain scrub free. Likewise, Soay sheep are unique anim als th at could also contribute to the diversity of herbivores in large areas such as the upper parts of Caledon, the R hinogydd and D artm oo r. H ow ever, m ore herbivory is hardly a p p r o ­ priate until the vegetation status is im proved and natural predators are present.

The b e a v e r

The beaver is ab o u t to become the first formerly indigenous m a m m al to be officially re-introduced to Britain. Scottish N a tu ra l H eritage and Forest Enterprise have instigated a project in the forest of Knapdale (Mull of Kintyre) that will act as a pilot scheme.21 If ‘successful’, other sites will follow. The first anim als were scheduled to be released in the spring of 2003. This scheme follows ten years of fact finding and consultation since the idea was mooted by, a m on g others, Alan Featherstone of Trees-for-Life at Fin dh orn, as p a rt of the longer-term vision for the Caledonian forest. Beaver were once extensive residents on the m ajor rivers an d w etlands of Britain, and well into the Scottish highlands. They were trap ped to

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extinction by the 13th century, for their m usk as well as their fur. Derek Yalden (1999) gives a detailed account o f their history including place names related to beaver and the archaeological evidence for their general distribution. They were already scarce by Saxon times. The question is - to w h a t extent could they re-establish themselves in former habitats such as the Broads, the Somerset Levels and marshes aro u n d the H um ber? M o st English w etlands are now a com plex of levees, dykes and p um ping stations with small n ature reserves where w ater regimes are artificially regulated. In the fens, some reserves such as Wicken stand above the surro un d in g terrain, and in the Somerset Levels, newly engineered reed beds arc as much as a meter below the w ater level in the main dykes. In these highly engineered systems, beaver would be rath er chaotic m an age m ent tools. In the core areas under consideration, however, they would be more contained and could act as a test bed for oth er areas, just as the Knapdale scheme is intended to do. U pland zones are, at first, not obviously ideal habitat, but observations in the Parc d ’A rm orique in Brittany were instructive. The p ro gram m e there began in the 1970s following successful introductions elsewhere in France, and the Parc was still engaged in a p ro gram m e of extension, focusing on purchasing suitable habitat, w h en we visited in 1992. Beaver had colonized a variety of sites ranging over small streams in m eado w la n d, reed-fringed lakes (one with a nuclear pow er station, much like T raw sfynydd in the R hinogydd), and m ost rem arkably, some steep boulder-strew n m o un tain streams reminiscent of D artm o or. Small dam s were evident on the smaller streams, b u t there were no large beaver po nd s and lodges - E urop ean beaver do n o t generally build large dams, b u t seem con tent with small pools, w et m eadow s and even m o un ta in o u s terrain, where they engineer at m o st a series of still reaches and generally w etter meadow s. B e a v e r e c o lo g y Above all, beaver require luxuriant streamside vegetation for their sum m er feeding (for example, m eadow sw eet, willow herb and thistle) and ample supplies of usually small trees for winter feed when they strip the bark from twigs. They are no t limited to flat-reaches of rivers or lakes - in the Parc d ’Arm orique, Alan Featherstone and I saw some lodges on steep w ooded streamsides th at were reminiscent of D artm o or. R e - in t r o d u c t io n s Beaver p opulations have been re-established th r o u g h o u t Scandinavia, southern G erm any, Austria and Switzerland. H ow ever, attem pts to interest the C ountryside Council for Wales in a Snow donia project (and to steal a march on the Scots) dem o nstrated w h a t lay ahead. N o b o d y w an ted to stick their necks o u t - the line being ‘the Scots are leading on th at o n e’, and

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officialdom was glad to keep out of any controversy. SN H persevered, however, and set up the obligatory consultation process, which finally found an approving public and a willing participant in Forest Enterprise. Even so, there have been reports in the press of neighbouring landow ners in Knapdale campaigning to have the pro g ram m e stopped on the grounds of potential im pact on sport fishing. This despite an extensive educational pro g ram m e th a t should have allayed such fears - salmon and tr o u t can benefit from the enhanced riparian habitats. The Scottish project no w has some N o rw egian anim als in q u aran tin e and in 2005 still aw aiting ap prov al from the Scottish Parliam ent for their release. H ow ever, I w as surprised to discover th at Kent Wildlife T ru st are ab o u t to let beaver loose in one of their reserves; no consultation process, no co m p uter models, no messing! Except on closer inspection it is no t a ‘re-introd uctio n’ p ro g ram m e - the beaver are ‘m an age m en t tools’ in a wider scheme to re-wild near-natu ral areas and use herbivores (Heck and Flighland cattle, wild ponies and roe deer). The beaver will be penned and carefully m on ito red to assess their effectiveness. The T ru st no w has several anim als th ro ug h the q uarantin e period. In N ative American lore, the beaver symbolizes the building of strong foundations (the foundations of its dams are extremely resistant to w inter floods), industrious activity and the maxim of always having more than one exit from any situation. Native Americans w ould study the habits of anim als and become imbued with their spirit, so it is interesting th a t for those w h o have w o rk ed ha rd to get the beaver re-introduced here, there are so m any caveats and exit points for this re-introduction program m e ! It is, however, the fou nd ation upo n which other re-introduction schemes for the missing m a m m alian fauna will be laid.22

Red , roe, fa llo w and o t h e r de e r

It is w o rth noting th a t ou r indigenous deer species, keystone species in any habitat, have been ex term inated th r o u g h o u t m uch of their form er range, and crucially, are absent from m any n ature reserves and areas of high conservation status. In the Rhinogydd, for example, where large areas are designated a U N E S C O Biosphere Reserve, there are no native deer and only stragglers from the fallow deer pop ulatio n in the Forestry C om m issio n’s Coed y Brenin to the southeast. Thus, the so-called natural h abitat of such great im portance is no t grazed by any n atu ral herbivores, th ou g h the upland pastures and heaths su p p o rt a considerable n um b er of alien sheep. Red deer are absent from S now donia, having been exterm inated in the 19th century outside of private parks on the periphery (Vaynol Estate near C aernarfon may still hold some, as well as a stock of relatively tam e white park cattle), and the roe deer have been absent there since their overall extinction south o f the Scottish bo rder in the 18th century.

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Red deer are scarce on D a rtm o o r, there being a few w andering individuals from E x m o o r to the n orth, w hich has held one of the very few wild rem n a n t herds in England, outside of deer parks (the other herd is in the southern Lake District). This species has, as we rem arked, exp and ed its population in Scotland after severe reductions following the introduction of sheep to the highlands in the late 18th century. There has been a co nco m ita nt severe im pact up o n natural forest regeneration. Despite high costs of m anagem ent, app roach ing £3million per a n n um for fencing plantations, alm ost £2 million is added to the econom y th ro ug h stalking, and as with policy on the continent, deer are now regarded as an economic resource for shooters rather than as an agricultural or forest pest to be exterminated. H o w ev er, sport shooting is n o t effective at controlling num bers, and professional culling o r some other form of licensed shooting is required. The advent of stalking effectively saved the H ighland red deer from extinction, as some estate ow ners turned aw ay from sheep w hen the m ark et collapsed in 1870. The problem is th at the popu latio n, at over 3 0 0 ,0 00 , is too dense to allow adequate regeneration of forests and natu ral plant associations, and only in recent years has the Deer Comm ission instigated sufficient culling operations to stabilize the population. Conservation interests aro u n d the C airngorm s (the RSPB and the N ational Trust) have begun culling program m e s in moves to regenerate the natural forest cover and these are proving successful, w hereas culling in Affric has been less effective due to in-migration. In England, the red deer suffered as soon as roy alty’s interests switched from deer (with severe penalties for poaching anim als of the royal chase) to trees (especially oak for timber) and deer were systematically eradicated from the royal forests and were poached elsewhere. They were effectively extinct in the wild some time in the 18th century - there is evidence that even the E x m o o r herd stem from continental im ports, or at least are no t free from having been so augmented. The red deer was replaced to some extent in England by fallow deer escaping from deer parks. This is n o w the main species in the N ew Forest, where it too had a precarious existence, the pop ulation having fallen from 7000 in 1670 to 200 a ro u n d 1900. N u m b e rs are now up to 1000 under controlled culling. Roe deer suffered much the same fate - becoming extinct in England by the beginning of the 18th century and scarce in Scotland. They were re-introduced to D orset from Scotland in 1800 and to N o rfo lk from G erm any in 1884. At the present time they have spread west to Devon and n orth to the M idlands and Welsh b o rder at a rate of 1 km/year. Scottish anim als have re-colonized the central lowlands and n o rthe rn Britain. They are thus absent from Snowdonia.

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D e e r e c o lo g y Considering the exten t to which deer are keystone anim als of the forest, having profou nd effects upo n the understorey as well as providing the mainstay of large predators, their historic scarcity is an im p o rta n t dete rm inan t of many conservation values and priorities - a great many British ‘n a tu r e ’ reserves are far removed from any na tural dynamic of veg etation -h erbiv ore-carn ivo re interactions. W hen, therefore, deer do return, they are regarded as causing considerable ‘d am ag e’ to conservation interests as well as to commercial forestry. They are particularly destructive in areas of coppicing, a once-commercial practice n o w kept alive by the conservation co m m unity to benefit the vernal herb layer. This latter problem is exacerbated by the in troduction of tw o alien species, the Indian m un tjac M untia cn s reevesi and the Chinese w ater deer H yd ro p o tes inerm is, the former having exploded in num bers and spread rapidly th rou gh low land England, largely th ro ug h h u m an agency. M u ntjac are n o w present in Snow donia (1969) and D a rtm o o r (19 7 9).23 Yalden reports th at this species tends to suppress n um bers of roe deer and is an even greater source of trouble to w o o d lan d conservationists, having an im pact on bluebells, primroses and orchids, as well as on bird and butterfly diversity. The m untjac is a shy and elusive anim al that is difficult to cull humanely. Chinese w ater deer (a rare species found on riparian grassland in China) has established small p opulations in the Broads and fens of East Anglia (from where it is unlikely to spread). A nother exotic, the sika Cervus n ip p o n , which w as introduced to Scotland in 1914 and to Dorset in 1896 (escaping by sw im ming to the m ainland from Brownsea Island), with a further herd established in the Forest of Bowland in 1906 (and spreading to w ard s the Lake District), presents problem s o f a different kind. T he sika raises im p o rta n t questions relating to ‘aliens’ and ‘natives’. The species was at first confined to the areas where it w as introduced, b u t began to spread in the 1970s with the m atu ring of large areas of conifers. It appears peculiarly adapted to this (alien) h ab itat in ways th a t red deer and fallow deer are not, and it has become a forestry pest because few plantations have been designed with deer control in mind. It is very difficult to locate and cull the anim als humanely. H ow ever, it also presents a problem for conservation: the ‘species’ is inter-fertile w ith red deer and the hybrids prosper. H ybrid herds now exist th r o u g h o u t Scotland, and even apparently native red deer have been found with sika genes. This is no w n o t a reversible process, and it is likely th at in the future the entire British po pu latio n of C ervus will consist of these hybrids. Derek Yalden speaks for m a n y conservationists: M a n y o f th e h y b rid s are u n re c o g n isa b le as su ch . . . . T h is seem s a very sa d w a y to lo se o u r la rg est n a tiv e lan d m a m m a l.

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and refers to the ‘hybrid s w a rm ’ spreading to ‘th reaten the genuine native red deer’. O f course, the red deer do no t view the sika in this way! Quite the contrary, given the hybridization rate. And, equally, we are n o t losing ou r largest native land m am m al, bu t simply w atching it being tr ansform ed to a species better ad apted to the varied British environment. O u r red deer are, in any case, already altered by being much smaller than their continental cousins, which dwell in more intact forest ecosystems with more efficient culling and less over-grazing, and in some eases, the presence o f effective predators. This is a classic example o f scientific conservation values draw n from an old paradigm of an alm ost nationalistic tax o n o m y , rather than from functional ecology. The whole situation with deer species will require a careful appraisal. M a n y conservationists are also concerned for anim al welfare and rights, and object to shooting, some in all circumstances, including even profes­ sional culling, and others only to sport shooting. Yet, w ith o u t control, deer num bers will prevent regeneration of native w oo dlan ds and impact upon the ground flora, birds and insects. F urtherm ore, high winter densities of deer will lead to high mortality and suffering during harsh w inters and also to high rates of disease and parasitic stress. Policies w ith respect to alien species, culling, spo rt shooting, licence fees, com pensation for damage, anim al welfare in h ard winters and traffic hazards will be particularly relevant to buffer zones aro u n d core areas and to wildlife-friendly corridors. These aspects will also apply to elk, boar, wild cattle and horses. Conservationists no w have to reckon with the ‘tiggywinkle effect’ following a public outcry by anim al rights and welfare groups, led by the special trust of th at nam e set up for hospitalized hedgehogs. T h a t species, having been disastrously introduced to ground-nesting bird areas of the Hebrides, w as m arked for eradication by SN H. The welfare g roup organized rescue o perations to carry anim als caught by the trapp ing p ro gram m e to the m ainland, despite scientific advice to the effect th a t the anim als would simply starve while trying to compete with the resident population. Few laypeople seem to have any grasp of the principles of natural selection w hereby the majority of the offspring of species with litters above the replacement rate, m ust necessarily perish by starvation, disease or predation.

The s m a l l h e rb iv o re s : s q u ir re ls , r a ts , ra b b its and h a re s

Finally, we should mention some small herbivores of relevance to vegeta­ tion dynamics, as well as to the issues of naturalness and the effects of hu m a n interference. It is perhaps n o t generally kn o w n th a t such a familiar indigenous species as the red squirrel was driven to virtual extinction, even

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in Scotland, largely by deforestation; neither is it well kn o w n th at rabbits, rats and b ro w n hares are n o t indigenous to Britain. M o s t people will k no w th at the grey squirrel is an American im po rt and is held responsible for the retreat of the native red. H ow ever, the native red squirrel had to be re-introduced to Scotland in the late 18th century, and after the nadir for w o o d la n d in Britain at the close of the 1700s, the native squirrel w as very scarce in England - surviving mainly in the Peak District, Lake District and N o rth Wales. By 1920 the native red had re-colonized m ost of Britain, bu t after in troduction of American greys in 1876 it began a w idespread retreat in the face of com petition with the aggressive newcomer. The red squirrel no w survive only in those areas where greys have n o t reached or seem at a disadvantage, such as the native pinew oods of Scotland; p lantations in East Anglia and Snow donia; or islands such as Brownsea, Isle of Wight, Jersey and Anglesey. It is, however, a w idespread species from Scandinavia to the Balkans and across Eurasia to Japan. The grey squirrel is acknow ledged as a serious pest of forestry plantations because of its bark stripping and shoot nibbling habits. Yet, it no w has few n atural predators. Pine martens and w ildcat were severely persecuted in the 19th century, as were raptors such as goshaw k; all were efficient predators of squirrels. O f the small herbivores, black and brown rats are not indigenous to Britain, and were no t native to Europe either. The black rat (and house mouse) w as established some time in the M iddle Ages as a m ajor pest of the urban environment, but w as replaced by the bro w n rat R a ttu s norvegicits in the mid-1700s, when it spread from landings of timber brought from Russia (it is native to the Asian steppe). It has persisted despite a £50 million per year pest-control industry for its eradication, and remains a bu nd ant with estimates ranging from 7 to 40 million animals. It occupies ab o u t 45 per cent of agricultural buildings and 3 per cent of u rban buildings. It has adapted to hedgerows and fields and even to seashore environments, thus forming an im p o rtan t element of the food web for m any predators. Its affect on bird populations is incalculable, since any birds that are vulnerable to its predilection for eggs and young have long since altered their habits, died o u t (as in many docum ented island communities aro un d the world) or become less abundant. The rabb it is an earlier fellow-traveller of expanding h u m a n populations. It was b ro ug ht over by the N o rm a n s , having been native to Iberia and N o rth Africa, and has colonized dry sho rt-turf grassland th r o u g h o u t Britain to a level of abu nd an ce where, both here and elsewhere (particularly Australia), it is a serious agricultural pest. Its damage to agriculture, estim ated in the 1950s in Britain at £ 50 million, has inspired little short of biological w arfare by governm ents w orldw ide. T he viral disease m yxom atosis was introduced to Britain in 1953, perhaps deliberately for control purposes, but n o t th rou gh official channels. The virus w eap on was developed from a South American rabbit-specific

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virus in laboratories in France and Australia, and an initial governm ent trial on S kokholm Island failed. In 1950 the virus suddenly caught hold in Australia and decim ated the plagues of rab bit that threatened that con tin ent’s agriculture as well as native flora. UK governm ent legislation in 1953 actually forbade the dissemination of the virus, bu t it caught hold and spread rapidly, killing 99 per cent of rabbits in 1955. The loss of such a large p a rt of the food web caused ripple effects: overly suppressed do w n lan d orchids blossomed, field voles prospered in the long grass as did the weasel popu lation feeding on them , bu t stoats were reduced and there was a w idespread breeding failure of buzzards. It is estim ated that w hereas there were 100 million rabbits in 1950, they have been reduced to ab o u t 40 million today after populations have adapted. A nother more virulent virus, R abb it haem orrhagic disease (R H D), is yet to reach Britain, but in Spain it killed 90 per cent of the pop ulation , thus leading to kn ock -on effects on predators such as lynx and eagles. As well as its effects up o n grassland sw ard, the rab bit is still a m ajor co m p o n e n t of the food web in the British countryside, being a m ajor prey item for foxes, stoats, weasels, badgers, buzzards, eagles, harriers, owls and crows. In Wales, perhaps because of the resurgence of polecats and the prevalence of buzzards, goshaw ks and kites, it is less co m m o n. The brow n hare L ep u s europaeus arrived with the Iron Age farmers and was thus com m on in the English lowlands by the time the Romans arrived and comm ented upon it. The native mountain hare, blue hare, or Irish hare, Lepus tim idus was probably formerly extensive in the uplands but had retreated and was confined to Scotland by the time records began. It w as introduced to N o rth Wales b u t is prob ably n o w extinct there - certainly bro w n hares are denizens of the lower pastures of the Rhinog. T he m o un tain hare popu latio n of Scotland prospers under m o o r burning for grouse, and declines when that industry declines; it is thought that the poor success of the Lake District golden eagles is due to the absence of m o u ntain hare, a staple prey item in Scotland. Agricultural intensification has reduced hare n um bers in eastern Britain, and the extension of forestry and the d om inance of sheep have also reduced n um bers in the western uplands. As this anim al is also a m ajo r co m p on ent of food webs, particularly for eagles in Scotland, strategies of w o o d lan d creation in the uplands and w oo d pasture corridors in the lowlands could have m ajor implications. Wildlife-friendly corridors of w o o d pasture would likely benefit po pu lation s of hare in the eastern half of Britain where they have declined due to agricultural intensification. The prevalence of these ‘aliens’, some of which are now ‘keystone’ species affecting the structure of plant comm unities, should give cause for reflection w hen other species, such as bison, Pardel lynx and even escaped panthers, are evaluated as potential additions to the British m am m al fauna. I would argue th a t in these cases, nationalistic policies could give way to a more liberal policy of trans-locatory asylum!

8 Restoring Ecological Processes: Bringing Back the Carnivores

In the US, the W ildlands Project is described as one of cores, corridors and carnivores. The large m am m alian carnivores such as bear, w olf and lynx are considered essential to wildland. It is n o t just a m a tter of natural processes of predation, but central to the whole ethos of wildland. It is a m ark of respect, or tolerance, and a willingness to accept some economic loss and personal risk in ord er to accord a certain sanctity to n a tu r e ’s ways. In the previous century the w olf was all-but eradicated across the US and the grizzly bear confined to the northern Rocky M o u n tain s; the lynx and the m ou ntain lion suffered equally. Each of these carnivores is no w subject to recovery program m es. In E urope there is a definite move in this direction, with active pro gram m e s for re-establishing bear and lynx (in France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Poland) and tolerating the return of the w olf (in N o rw a y , G erm any, Poland and the Alps). The m ap in Figure 8.1 shows the cu rrent range of the w olf and bear, in Western Europe, and C o lou r Plate 6 shows the lynx and re-introduction projects. Britain c a n n o t be truly wild whilst these former residents are absent, and we shall see th a t we can n o t now argue th a t there is no room or th at o ur ecosystems c a n n o t sup po rt large carnivores. T he E uro pean prog ram m es th at I will outline below have n o t been w ith o u t their problems, particularly in adju stm ents by the sheep farming and deer hunting communities. H ow ever, the d ata clearly show th a t these problems are of little economic significance, and that as cultural attitudes change, the carnivores are accepted. The ecological data also makes it clear that Britain, particularly Scotland, has ample ro om for w olf and lynx, th ou gh the bear might have to w ait until forests recover their n atu ra l state of floristic abundance.

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s h a d e d g re y a r e a s in d ic a te th e ra n g e an d d o tte d g rey lines of w a n d e r i n g in d ivid u als . B e a r -

d o t t e d l in e

in d ic a te s th e ra n g e o f S c a n d in a v ia n , R u s s ia n , C a rp a th ia n , Dinaric a n d B a lk a n m a in p o p u la tio n s , w ith s m a ll i s o l a t e d g r o u p in C a n t a b r i a n m o u n t a i n s ; +

i n d i c a t e s r e m n a n t s a n d r e - i n t r o d u c t i o n s . ( S o u r c e s : W W F a n d L C IE )

Figure 8.1 Distribution o f the w o lf and bear in Europe

The guild of carnivores

In a natural environment with a fully functional guild of herbivores, there is also a guild of carnivores of varying sizes and hunting strategies that are adapted to the size and behaviour of their prey. The two guilds evolve side by side and predation affects herbivore population, health and structure, possibly also limiting numbers and density and thus affecting grazing and

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brow sing patterns. Such guilds are beautifully illustrated by Alan T u rn er and M auricio A n ton (1997) in ‘T h e Big Cats a n d their Fossil R elatives', and I particularly recom m end the final chapters on environm ental change and ada p ta tio n , as these place the differing sizes and hunting strategies within the con text of the climatic cycles th at have moulded the n orth ern tem perate ecosystems. In the absence of such pre dator pressure, foraging behaviour, density and perhaps overall num bers are altered such th at m ore intensive pressure is exerted by the herbivores on the vegetation. Resultant deterioration in vegetation cover can also affect other species as the structure o f their hab itat and availability of food changes. We have seen a classic exam ple of this with red deer num bers in the Scottish H ighlands. As we noted previously (see C ha pter 3), the deer popu lation has expan d ed to the m ax im um carrying capacity of the land and to a po int where num bers may be self-regulating due to density-dependent mechanisms th at limit breeding. The problem is th at although deer n um bers may no w stabilize, they are at a density th a t prevents the forest from regenerating. In the presence of predators such as the wolf, foraging behaviour is significantly altered and deer herds, particularly in w inter, are n o t able to congregate in sheltered locations. Such congregating can lead to the severe detrim ent of the vegetation. The dam aging effects of herbivore density extend beyond the regeneration of tree seedlings: the shrub and field layer may be totally altered leaving less palatable species, grasses and mosses in place o f an abu nd ance of flowering and berry-bearing shrubs and tall herbs. These changes have a k nock-on effect on the diversity o f other life, particularly birds and insects. In the m atu re forests of the C arp athians, where predato rs such as the wolf still exist, foresters will tell you th a t herbivores shun areas aro u n d the w olves’ breeding dens for significant distances such that pressure on seedlings is reduced and there is notable regen eration .1 As the wolves move their dens, so different parts of the forest experience the reduction in herbivore pressure. Perhaps because there are so few large areas of n atural forest with herbivore and p re d a to r p opulations intact, these anecdotal observations have n o t been subject to detailed scientific assessment. Scotland’s open m oo rlan d with large deer herds is not representative of m ost tem perate forest h abitat and such denning factors m ay n o t be relevant. H ow ever, there are further anecdotal observations from hunters in the Vosges and Ju ra, where lynx have returned, claiming a reduction in roe deer density, and this might also be expected to impact on vegetation. Even in the US, m odern studies are few because wolves are only now returning to areas th a t can be surveyed scientifically, such as Yellowstone.2 D ata from M innesota, where w olf num bers first recovered and where hunting fraternities keep detailed records, show th a t w eather is the prime dete rm inan t of num bers for deer and m oose.3 H owever, generalizations

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cann ot be safely applied to more southerly zones (where there are no severe winters) or across all herbivore species. In addition to affecting num bers, density and grazing pressure, predators selectively kill the weak and the old, thus prom otin g the overall fitness of the herbivore p op ulation and its resistance to disease. Large predators such as the big cats will take adult animals, and the different hunting strategies will test adult fitness. Wolves will h u n t in packs and subject deer to a trial of stam ina before singling o u t a target anim al, b u t in general, fit adult moose and larger deer are relatively immune: it is the old, the sick and the young th a t arc taken. Smaller pred ators will exert pressure on population num bers by taking the m ore vulnerable young animals. There is also a hierarchy aro u n d kills - with some carnivores operating as scavengers of other species’ kills, sometimes driving the other p red ato r off the kill and hence forcing th at species to increase its kill rate. Wolves are k n o w n to drive pum a off a kill, and bears will often drive any other species away. Scavenging birds and foxes also benefit from the presence of large predators, although in the case of foxes and smaller predators, their num bers are reduced by direct p redation from the top predators such as big cats (lynx in particular) and wolves.

The E u r o p e a n c a rn iv o r e guild

In addition to their functional role in the ecosystem, the big carnivores do, of course, have a magic of their ow n, introducing issues of risk, excitement, danger and loss. W hen we consider the formerly typical western European tem perate forest fauna, we encounter some perhaps surprising data. M o s t people are familiar w ith m a m m o th s and woolly rhino, but would perhaps no t expect lion to be a significant m em ber of the tem perate or boreal landscape. M a n y people also think of the fabled sabre-toothed ‘tiger’ H o m o tb eriu m as a prehistoric anim al, but few can appreciate h ow recent this beast is in the palaeontological record. Further, despite my student studies of n atural sciences including a substantial co m p o n en t of pala e o nto l­ ogy, I did n o t appreciate the former presence in Europe of large panthers of a ‘jag uar’ type, w ith m o de rn leopards present even during the intense cold of the glacial periods. I certainly had n o t appreciated h o w widespread the lion had become. These anim als roam ed the typical tem perate p arkland forests, alder sw amps, upland birch and crags, pine forests and dune slacks that we associate with the ‘near to n a tu r a l’ nature reserves of Britain to day .4 It is the big cats th at have suffered more than any other carnivore. W olf and bear are still present in m any countries of W estern Europe, from N o rw a y in the n o rth to Spain and Greece in the south, but both lion and leopard are now extinct in this continent. The sabre-toothed cat (it w as n ot

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closely related to the tiger) may have hung on in Britain until the last glaciation, and certainly survived until the im mediate post-glacial period in America. T hus, any large herbivore guild, such as the fauna of Bialowieza (often presented as the nearest to a complete boreal or tem perate forest ecosystem) still lacks the large cats capable of do w ning the largest herbivores. There are ample post-glacial fossils of lion in Poland, n o w regarded as an extension of the then w idespread Asiatic subspecies, and although the lion is an open c ountry anim al and disappeared as the steppe fauna was replaced, it m u st be assumed th a t leopard hung on in the forests, despite the paucity of fossil remains. Further, w ith o u t h u m an interference, lion would have fo und h ab itat and ample prey in the large riverine m eadow s formerly m aintained by the mega-herbivores. There would be a case, therefore, for the intro du ction of large cats into such faunal assemblages, provided the habitat was extensive enough, and aside from any political or h u m an itarian considerations. Clearly, the latter would be deciding factors, as the m a jo r difference between big cats and wolves, the current top predato r, is th a t they are quite capable of killing people. Pum a, which are much smaller than lion, kill several people each year in the US. Indian lions regularly kill villagers, and so, of course, do their African cousins. H ow ever, from o u r safely denuded European viewpoints, we still call upon Indians and Africans, Russians and A m erin­ dians, not to exterm inate their big cats and to live with the risk. In the US it w ould n o w be un thinkable to pursue a policy of exterm ination for the m o un tain lion and there arc even moves to rehabilitate the jaguar in the southwest. H o w much m ore weight o ur ex ho rtation w o uld carry were we also p repared to accept these risks! There w ould be an argu m en t for establishing a small popu latio n of the endangered Asiatic lion at O ostvaardersplassen. T he rem n an t primeval forests of eastern Poland are not the only area of E urope with top predators. The main area for wolf, lynx and bear is the C arp ath ian arc stretching from Slovakia through R om ania and the Ukraine. In Scandinavia, the big three predato rs are supplemented by migration from their Karelian strongholds in n orthern Russia. There are sizeable p o p u la ­ tions of bear in Slovenia, and a few w o lf and lynx ranging through the Balkan states. W an derers from these po pu latio ns have begun repopulating the Alps. Small pop ulation s of w olf and bear live in the Abruzzi M ou ntain s of Italy and there is a healthy pop ulatio n of wolves in northern Spain. M a n y European countries have been struggling hard to protect their po pu latio ns of these pred ators and to encourage an influx from the eastern states; they have even trans-located anim als (bear and lynx) to re-occupy their form er ranges. In Britain these three carnivores were formerly present. The lynx, so m ew h at enigmatically, disappeared before any cultural record of its presence, and the bear is also a d istant Medieval m em ory, but wolf

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hung on until a b o u t 300 years ago, having ad apted to the loss of forest and was clearly exterm inated by hum ans. H av in g considered the ecology of their current E u ro pean sites, I have absolutely no d o u b t in my mind that with suitable restoration of h abitat and herbivore num bers, these three anim als could be returned to Britain. We shall therefore review European experience and the species’ ecology w ith regard to potential re-introduction.

Lynx O f the great carnivores in E uro pe’s heritage, the lynx is curiously silent w hen it comes to a cultural relationship. Bear and w olf figure strongly in fable and are clearly ho no ured in the culture of the Celts, but the lynx, despite its special character and pow ers, is strangely absent. Its very existence in Britain is shrouded in mystery. Until 1980, there were no references to it as a former m em ber of the British fauna, although one late-glacial fossil had been found in Kilgreany Cave in Ireland. The naturalist C orbet, writing in 1974 in the first edition of the h a n d b o o k of British m am m als, made no reference to lynx. The same is even true of S tu art’s Pleistocene Vertebrates o f the British Isles, an extensive fossil

Figure 8.2 The E uropean fo rm s o f the lyn x

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history published in 1981. Yet, by the time of Derek Y ald en’s H isto ry o f B ritish M am m als in 2 00 0 , a plethora of data from post-glacial sites in Britain w as available for review, including th a t from a cave in Sutherland where a complete ‘sub-fossil’ skeleton had been carb on -d ate d to a d 170, the time of the R o m an occupation. Lynx are secretive anim als, even in the fossil record. Their existence in Celtic Europe must have been w ell-known to the artists and jewellers, yet there are few images.

N a t u r a l p r e - h is t o r y

The earliest lynx-like cat ap peared at the beginning of the Pleistocene, and is represented in fossils ranging from C hina, th ro ug h Asia to Italy, France and Spain. This ancestor, k n o w n as the Issoire lynx, had a typical short tail and the characteristic dentition of m od ern lynx, but was longer in the face and shorter in the leg - rather like a short-tailed pu m a. The eminent Finnish palaeontologist Bjorn K urten th o u g h t th a t m od ern forms developed as an a d a p ta tio n to hunting the hare as chief prey. In Europe, during the Middle Pleistocene, a p op ulation must have been isolated in the Iberian Peninsula where it became a specialist p red ato r of rabb it and small game birds. This po pulation began to differ sufficiently to form a new species, so th at w hen its range eventually reconnected with the more easterly p opulations in Southern France, no interm ediate forms appeared in the fossil record, indicating no inter-breeding. T h ro u g h o u t the last glacial period, the Eurasian L y n x ly n x and the Iberian or Pardel L y n x pardina remained similar in size, but after the end of the last glaciation, the Pardel lynx becam e increasingly smaller, shrinking to alm o st half the size of the largest Scandinavian forms. These changes are likely to be related to prey size and killing strategies - with the northern European forms regularly preying on roe deer or reindeer, and the Iberian form on rabbit. At the end of the last glaciation, the Eurasian lynx ranged th ro u g h o u t N o rth e r n and C entral Europe, the Balkans, Asia M in or, Persia, Tibet and the entire no rth ern taiga belt. It w as no t confined to forests, but roam ed in open semi-desert country where it inhabited rocky terrain with scrub. The lynx of Central and Eastern E urope take a large prop o rtio n of roe deer in their diet, as well as young red deer, and n orth ern lynx take a prop ortio n of reindeer. This may represent post-glacial expansiveness in the absence of a pantherine cat, such as leopard or lion. It is curious th a t the Pardel lynx became smaller in post-glacial times in the absence of other feline competitors. Perhaps h u m a n com petition reduced the available large game, as well as climate change and hu m an intervention reducing the canopy forests in favour of M editerranean scrub to which the Pardel lynx is now confined.

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Ly n x ec olo gy

Lynx vary in their ecology: in the no rth of their range, they are a large p red ator, w ith males weighing at most 45 kg (average 30 kg) and with females weighing in at 20 kg; the Iberian species weighs a b o u t half th a t at 9 kg average for a female up to 12 kg for a male. The larger animals are pow erful enough to bring d ow n adult roe deer and have a fabled standing leap of 5 m. Territories in the north can range up to 500 k m 2, but average 100 k m 2 in better habitat; in central and southern E urope this reduces to 2 0 - 3 0 km 2, and d o w n to 4 - 2 0 k m 2 in the best of the Spanish habitat." Prey species vary according to the po pulations and ranges: in the Altai, for example, deer represent 60 per cent of the diet, w hereas in T a rta r ranges, hare constitute 66 per cent. In Sweden, roe deer and reindeer make up 80 per cent of the diet. In the Bialowieza forest of Poland hare represent 50 per cent, mice 15 per cent and roe deer only 7 per cent, whereas anim als in western European forests have a larger take of roe deer. In Spain, the Pardel lynx is primarily a rab bit specialist, with small game birds such as partridge, rodents and a few young deer also taken. The recent decim ation of the rab b it population (down to 5 per cent of the 1950 population), firstly by myxom atosis and then by rab bit haem orrhagic disease (RHD), has doubtless con tribu ted to the demise of the lynx in Spain. The IU C N now report th a t the Pardel lynx is confined to a b o u t 11,000 k m 2 of breeding range, where it exists in m any isolated pockets.6 Derek Yalden (1999) provides some useful figures on Bialowieza: an area of 580 k m 2 supports 15 lynx (38 k m 2 each) as well as 32 wolves [some authorities, M allinson (1978), for example, assert th at wolf will no t tolerate a territorial overlap - others m ake no references to this]. Prey anim als in Bialowieza are d ra w n from a po pu latio n of 37 00 red deer, 270 0 roe deer, 3400 boar, 170 elk and 250 bison. M ath iasso n and D alhov (1990) give territorial figures of 3 0 0 - 1 0 0 0 k m 2 for Scandinavian lynx and 1 0 250 k m 2 for the smaller E u rop ean forms. Lynx will take domestic sheep and large game birds, tho ug h these are usually peripheral to their diets. H ow ever, re-introduced populations in the Vosges and Jura have had a reputation for killing sheep. In the provinces of Ain (France) and Valais (Switzerland), w here there may now be over 100 lynx, they are reckoned to take between 300 0 and 5000 roe deer annually from a p op ulation of 168,000 (3 per cent); the Alpine carnivore conserva­ tion g roup K O R A puts a figure of 0.4 per cent for losses in sheep. This po pulation of lynx has angered n ot only shepherds, b u t also deer hunters concerned at the competition. H u nters claim th a t the presence of lynx im mediately depresses deer num bers (which have no other p re d a to r than man). H ow ever, ab o u t 10,000 deer are killed every year by cars on the region’s ro ads and it is clear th at the hunting fraternity are n o t basing their hostility on rational or economic grounds.

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C u r re n t p o p u la t io n s an d r e - in t r o d u c t i o n s

The main pop ulation of the lynx in Europe is in the C arp ath ia n M o u n tain s of R om ania (1 0 0 0 - 1 2 0 0 anim als estim ated in 1962, w ith the latest survey of 2001 suggesting 2000), and in Scandinavia (2 5 0 0 - 2 8 0 0 animals in 2001). The Baltic countries and Finland receive incomers from larger po pu latio ns in Russia. In the C arpathian s, Slovakia has a population estim ated at 400; Poland had 300 in 1963, but num bers had declined to 100 in 20 01 . In the Balkans the p opu latio n m ay be decreasing with 5 0 - 7 0 in Albania, M aced on ia and Serbia. The current p o p ulation in the Dinaric Alps (Bosnia, C roatia and Slovenia) has prospered from re-introduction and now n um bers ab o u t 130. In Scandinavia, Finland holds the largest population, th ou gh t to be 500 in 1990 and now num berin g 870, w ith Sweden having 2 0 0 - 3 0 0 in the 1960s (it alm ost w ent extinct at the tu rn of the century), but rising to an estimated 1500 in 1998 and 1800 in 2001. N orw egian lynx are decreasing where they have been subject to culling and illegal hunting as a result of heavy depredations on free-roaming sheep flocks. T h ro u g h o u t the 1960s and 1970s lynx were regularly hunted - in one eight-year period in N o rw a y, 286 were killed; in Czechoslovakia in 1963, 80 were killed. In R om ania a b o u t 100 were sh ot per year. In Sweden hunting was banned in 1986 but started again in 1995, with a q uo ta of 168 of which 97 were taken. The W W F repo rt th a t in 1998 the N orw e gia n population was estim ated at 500, w ith 117 being shot under licence in th a t year alone. W W F ’s estimate of the ‘E u ro p e a n ’ p op ulation is ab o u t 7000, which includes the large po pu lation of E uro pean Russia and the Baltic States.7 There is no d o u b t that lynx can be eradicated from suitable habitat even in quite rem ote regions. It was extinct in G erm any by 1846, despite extensive forests in Bavaria and the Alps; in Austria it has been extinct since 1872 and in Italy since 1910. In France the last one in the M assif C entral was killed in 1875 and the last killed in the Alps was in 1909. The lynx is m ore vulnerable than the w olf - which survived in the rem oter regions of Italy.8 It w ou ld ap p ear th a t the Scandinavian populations are reasonably robust; perhaps the same is also true in Poland, the Czech republic, Slovakia and R o m ania, but recent research show s declines in the Balkans, do u bts ab o u t R om anian estimates and problems with the newly introduced and e x p a n d ­ ing po pu latio ns in the Alps (100 + ) , Ju ra (75) and Vosges (25), largely due to their unpo pu larity with the hunting fraternity.9 There is a long history of re-introductions for lynx in its former range in Western Europe. M athiasson and D alhov (1990) report attem pts made in G erm any in 1938, bu t m o st projects to o k place in the late 1970s in France, Austria a nd Switzerland. After successful re-introduction in the Jura (not w holeheartedly welcomed by shepherds, despite co m pensation arran g e­ ments), the early 1980s saw introductions to the Vosges m o untains, when tw o wild-caught males and one female were released and radio-tagged.

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T w o additional five-year-old anim als (a pair) were added from Riber Z o o in Derby, England, and reported at the time to have been of the southern ‘subspecies’ the Pardel lynx, which pre-historically had certainly overlapped with the Eurasian lynx in southern France. By 1987, six anim als remained in the Ribeauville Forest, preying largely on rab bit and deer. In 1974 three pairs of Slovakian lynx were released in Slovenia’s Kocevje Forest and Inner C arniola (600 k m 2), and by 1976, 1 5 - 1 7 individuals were present. The cu rren t po pulation of 130 in the Dinaric Alps has grow n from these re-introductions. W anderers from these Alpine po p ulation s have been tracked in northern Italy where there is now an eastern Alpine population of a b o u t ten. T h e Bohemian po pulation is also the result of re-introductions and now stands at a b o u t 75 anim als - with colonization of the Bavarian Forest from the Czech side (about 12 and decreasing). In Spain and Portugal the formerly stable p o pu latio n of L y n x pardina has crashed since the 1950s to a few h un dred in fragmented pockets of scrubland. In their recent report, W W F estimated it at 800 anim als but this would have m eant only 13 k m 2 per territory: if 2 0 - 3 0 k m 2 is m ore realistic, then the breeding pop ulatio n m ay then have been as low as 400. The latest data show further declines with some estimates as low as 1 5 0 -2 0 0 animals, and a captive breeding p ro gram m e is envisaged by the Spanish authorities. IU C N regard this as the m ost endangered species of the cat family and a candidate for the first 21 st century extinction of no t only a European m am m al b u t also of any cat w o rld w id e.10

The p o t e n t i a l fo r r e - in t r o d u c t i o n to B ri ta in

T here is no d o u b t th a t lynx w as a key element of the British fauna th r o u g h o u t the formative period of the larger European fauna. It is an adapta ble anim al, show ing great variation in size and prey preferences, and ranging from rocks and scrubland to dense forest. It may be vulnerable to da m p , but is otherwise very cold-adapted. Its presence has a m arked depressive effect on nu m bers of small deer. Provided there are ample populations of its main prey species, it prefers to h u n t in forests and its depredations on livestock (outside of N o rw ay ) are m inim al, especially if preventative measures are taken. It has d em onstrated a capacity to prosper from re-introductions (in the Alps, Ju ra, Vosges, Dinaric Alps and Bohemian Forest), even to levels th a t call for culling - where anim als may w a n d er from preferred hab itat and attack livestock. There can be little d o u b t th a t sufficient prey and hab itat exist in Scotland, which has excessive deer num bers and ample forests. In northern Britain, the forests of Kielder are extensive and hold roe deer. In Wales, there is a paucity of deer, though rabbit, hare, pheasant, rodents and the young of feral goats w ould provide prey in the R hinogydd, and there are fallow deer

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in Coed-y-Brenin. D a rtm o o r has an abu nd an ce of game - roe deer, rabb it and p heasant, th o ug h predation of feral ponies, or their foals at least, could be a problem in terms of public acceptability. The possibility exists of re-introducing a hybrid grouping - with anim als of northerly size and disposition released in Scotland (perhaps of N o r w e ­ gian and Swedish origin, where there are currently licensed culls), anim als of central European origin released in Wales, and controversially, no do ub t, of Spanish origin released in southw est England (D artm oor). Such releases should only be contem plated a fter ap pro priate conservation policies are in place, such as the designation of large core areas in Wales and southw est England, or suitable safeguards and co m pensation agreements in Scotland and no rth ern England, where there are already large, relatively remote forested habitats. The im portance of professional g ro u n d w o rk and c om m itm e nt is made clear by the successes and failures of various re-introduction projects. These have been reviewed by the K O R A project, based in Switzerland, which operates an online data-base, [von Arx and Breitenmoser (Breitenmoser, 1990, 1998; K O R A , 2001) provide a sum m ary in ECO S.] The introduction of the Spanish species to an area where it was not formerly kn ow n (there are no fossils further n orth than central France) is controversial and w ou ld contravene cu rren t IUCN guidelines. H owever, these guidelines are n o t ad apted to the current real w orld of alien invasions and climate change. T here is an a rg um e nt for setting up an o th er population of Pardel lynx as a safeguard should disease strike in Spain, where there is also still heavy loss o f habitat. The smaller lynx w ould be better adapted to the terrain and prey species a ro u n d D a rtm o o r, where the non-indigenous ra b b it and phe asant are com m on. O n e further elem ent in this equation is w h a t we might call ‘g osha w k ing ’ - the deliberate release or accidental escape of anim als kept privately by individuals of various motives. Britain’s now thriving p op ulation of goshaw k grew from falconers’ ‘losses’ and is m ade up of a mixed bag of Scandinavian and C ontinental races. Lynx are regularly sighted in the British countryside, and one anim al of u n k n o w n provenance was shot on the N orfo lk-Su ffo lk border in 1 9 9 0 ." Recently a group of Scottish hunting activists threatened to release 20 anim als in protest at the ban on hunting w ith hounds - presum ably w ith the intent of then hunting the cats. This p h e n o m en o n is not, however, restricted to the lynx. M u ch larger cats have been deliberately released!

Big cats in Britain The living ‘big’ cats encompass the lion, tiger, pu m a, jaguar, leopard, snow leopard and cheetah. Europe has in times past hosted lion, leopard and

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cheetah. O f these, we can assume that lion and cheetah were a feature of the m ore open habitats of a w arm er inter-glacial period or of the cold tu ndra and w a rm steppe phases of glacial and post-glacial environments, but the adap tab le leopard appears in all climate phases. It was also a feature of all past British ecosystems prior to the present post-glacial episode. It occupied caves in the M endips even during the coldest phases of the ice ages, and ranged widely across Europe, w ith a few post-glacial fossils in Italy. Q uite when and w hy this resilient anim al should have disappeared is a bit of a mystery. There is, however, grow ing evidence th a t ‘n aturalized ’ panthers are already at large in Britain, with black leopard leading the sightings! T w o close friends of mine have encountered black panthers in the English countryside, and my brother, an experienced naturalist to u r guide, saw a pu m a attacking pheasants in H am pshire! T he relatively staid Field m a g a ­ zine carried an article in the year 2 0 0 0 in w hich estimates of several hu nd red individuals were m ade, ranging from p um a and black leopard to the small jungle cat Felis c b a u s.12 T here are regular reports of encounters real enough to cause police helicopters to be scrambled and troops of arm y sharpshooters to be called out. Sheep farmers tend to k no w w hen a large cat moves into the region, but ap pea r quite stoic in the face of a generally disbelieving establishment. Field magazine, reporting on the issue in M arch 200 0, interviewed the Wildlife Liaison Officer for D u rh am C o un ty Police Force, Sergeant Eddie Bell, w h o had personally sighted a pu m a and w h o stated ‘m ost gamekeepers in the area will adm it privately to know ing they are there, but are w ary of being ridiculed’. Bell had been keeping track of sightings for the police force for ten years, and reckoned there were 8 -1 0 pu m a in the region, 1 or 2 lynx an d 1 caracal lynx! Sightings had been co nstan t over a ten-year period, with ab o u t 60 out of 280 reports a year proving reliable. T he best sighting from an experienced naturalist is d ocum ented in T revor Beer’s B east o f E x m o o r ,b Beer began to investigate the reports of panthers on E x m o o r th r o u g h o u t the early 1980s. H e collated all reliable records, analysed the characteristics and concluded th at both pum a (20 per cent of sightings) and black pan th er (black variant of the leopard) were present. There were no reports of spotted leopards. His little boo k reports m any of the sightings and descriptions, often by trustw o rthy field naturalists, and it makes enlightening reading. In 1984, after visiting a midden of deer remains for six consecutive weeks, he had his first sighting of a black pantherine cat at close quarters. Beer’s description is slightly at odds with the expectation of a leopard, in th at the anim al is rather longer-legged and fleet of foot, with a relatively smaller head - alm ost a black pu m a. T here is a w onderful d raw ing in the book. Nevertheless, Beer believes his anim al w as leopard rather than pum a. Black p u m a are no t u n k n o w n in their American range, but there are no

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D ra w in g : T re vo r B eer

Figure 8.3 Large pantberine cat seen on E x m o o r, 1984

records of them being im ported to the UK, as black panthers clearly were. H ow ever, inquiries with the im port authorities have thus far not revealed any detailed records of im ports, n o r of any system of p ost-im po rt checks on the eventual fate of the animals. C ustom s and Excise do not keep records, and it is d ow n to the licensing d epartm ents of DEFRA to keep track - my enquiries there are ongoing, b u t so far have no t turned up any system of logging im ports, or, alarmingly, their subsequent fate! W hatever their origin, black panthers were a favourite pet of gangsterland bosses, and m any anim als were cared for by anim al trainers. Large cats could still be readily procured in N o rth e rn Ireland in 1997, when B BC W ildlife reported on the range of cats th at had been let loose, shot, or found in garages and lock-ups. It talked also to dealers. Lynx and p u m a were no problem to procure at £ 40 0 a pair. Even tigers had been discovered kept in country houses. It appears now to be established th a t these cats escaped, or rath er were released, from captivity. In the early 1970s regulations were b ro ug ht in to counter both the risk and anim al welfare considerations of such beasts being held as 'pets’. The resultant obligations were onerous, and many ow ners m ay have simply tu rned their anim als loose rather th a n sending them to zoos (which could often n o t take them) or having them put dow n. O n e such anim al trainer has admitted to a Tim es reporter that he released both a p u m a and a black p anth er on the m oors above Sheffield in 1974 (the Tim es, 29 Ja n u ary 2000). The trainer Leslie M aiden once ow ned more than a dozen big cats; he know s of several other ow ners w ho did likewise in the Pennine region. For m any people it is inconceivable th a t so many large and potentially dangerous cats could be living in Britain. There are few do cum ented records

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by experts. D erek Yalden (1999) reports in his boo k the escape of tw o clouded leopards N eofelis nebulosa from L on do n Z o o ; although one was recaptured immediately, the other w as n o t captured for several m o nths until an irate farmer discovered w h a t had been killing his sheep. The ability of leopard to rem ain secretive and unobserved is legion. I spent 3 m o nths in close association with them in a Kenyan m o n tan e forest and despite the abu nd an ce of fresh tracks (often following mine by a m atter of minutes!), 1 never saw a single anim al. Q uentin Rose in the Field article tells the story of an incident in the suburbs of Jo han nesb urg in South Africa: a vehicle carrying a wild leopard due for transloca tion crashed and the anim al escaped; th a t night the alarm ed authorities set traps and much to their consternation caught seven separate individuals on the one night! Despite the ability of these animals to rem ain hidden, there is a huge a m o u n t of evidence from o rdinary people, the police an d farmers, m an y of w h o m report the anim als moving aro un d in broad daylight and with little evident fear of hum ans. There is thus little d o u b t that a small pop ulatio n of pantherine cats could m aintain itself in the British countryside preying on a b u n d a n t small deer, ph easan t and rabbit. W h a t is surprising is the wide range of rural countryside in which sightings have been reported. At some stage, w hen final ‘p ro o f’ is forthcoming, a policy will have to be developed, either of tolerance and safeguards, or of eradication.

The European leopard A lthough the lion is relatively well k n o w n n o t only as a fossil but also in historic times from Greece and T urkey, the fully functional European tem perate forest also had an interm ediate cat as p a rt of the p red ato r guild - the leopard - which to ok primarily medium-sized ungulates and wild boar. Yet this cat does n o t feature in the historical record. It currently occurs, th o ug h in small num bers, no further aw ay than the southern m o untains of Turkey, and there are little-known relic pop ulation s in Palestine and the Sinai w ilderness.14 In eastern Russia, the A m ur sub-species occupies cold tem perate forest. There are a small n u m b e r of cave paintings of spotted cats, several post-glacial fossil sites in Italy, and more surprisingly, late glacial fossils in Britain. The leopard thus has as equally long a history in Europe as the lion. Furtherm ore, it is present in both glacial and inter-glacial periods, showing typical adaptability to forests and open m o u n tain o u s or cold environments. The latest British fossils are at Robin H o o d ’s Cave (Cresswell Crags, Derbyshire) dating to the period of intense cold of the last glaciation, and also at caves in Somerset. Its range during the Pleistocene had a northern b o u nd ary across the M idlands of Britain, through Liege, Thuringia,

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M o rav ia and the Transylvanian Alps. Sixty-nine fossil sites were logged by Stehlin in 1933 (cited in Kurten, 1968), w ith Kurten com m enting that there have been m any more since. He assumes th a t leopard were ab o u t three times less a b u n d a n t than lion, but also points ou t th at solitary forest anim als are less likely to be fossilized. It seems inconceivable that the post-glacial European forests and Alpine regions did n o t contain leopard until even later than the lion th a t were a feature of ancient Greece. Yet it is entirely unclear w h a t becam e of them. European leopard were larger than their African cousins, w hich average 70 kg. It is curious th a t leopard should have survived th ro ug h to the last glaciation in Britain and to post-glacial times in Italy, and no t have colonized the subsequent forests of this current inter-glacial as they had done in all previous inter-glacials. T heir prey species would have been undim inished and this cat has a large range of adapta bility, from the snowy forests and rocky wastes in cold climes to tem perate and tropical w oo dlan d and savannah and desert. It would also ap pear to be relatively ro b u st to hu m a n persecution, having thrived in Africa and India until recent times, and having hung on in Turkey, Palestine, the A rabian Peninsula, Persia, and eastern Russia despite h u m an pressure. M u ch of this is former territory of the lion, which survived in southeast Europe well into the historical period. Is it possible th a t the exigencies of the fossil record, coupled with hum an indifference, left the leopard unnoticed and th at it died ou t in Europe much later tha n supposed? Considering the late extinctions of aurochs and bison and the survival of wolf, lynx and bear in Eastern Europe, the loss of the leopard is som ething of a mystery. With regard to risks to h u m a n populations from leopard, these are low when anim als occupy rem ote areas with a b u n d a n t prey - only in heavily po pulated areas of Africa and India do leopards regularly predate humans. H ow ever, in Britain the only areas c om parable in size and prey availability to other small leopard outposts are in Scotland, where the 20 0 0 k m 2 Caledonian Forest core area proposed by Alan Featherstone could a cco m ­ m od ate a small p o pu latio n of cold-adapted anim als such as those of the A m u r race. Given the sighting of black panthers in Fife and the capture of an adult pum a of u n k n o w n provenance near Inverness in 1980, there may already be a naturalized p op ulation at w o rk on the deer problem!

Wolf If the leopard may be regarded as o f low risk to hum an s, despite the fear factor, the w olf has an even lower, alm ost zero risk, yet it has been subjected to the m o st persistent and effective eradication p rogram m es visited upon any m am m alian p redator. By the mid-1800s it w as extinct not only in Western Europe and Britain, but over the w hole of the US outside

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BF.YOND C O N S E R V A T IO N

F ig ure 8.4 W o l f D r a w in g : P e te r T a y lo r

o f A lask a , b a r a sm all island in the G r e a t L akes. Y et a lo o k a t w h e r e it surv ived in E u r o p e - n o r t h w e s t S pain , P o rtu g a l, Italy, th e B a lk an s a n d G reece, th e C a r p a t h i a n s , F in la n d a n d E u r o p e a n R ussia, s h o w s t h a t m a n y c u ltu re s h ave also to l e r a t e d its presence. F o r th e m o s t p a r t , p o p u l a t i o n s o f this m o s t a d a p t a b l e p r e d a t o r ha ve be en fo rce d to r e t r e a t to ru gg ed m o u n t a i n o r fo rested te r ra in . In the a re a s o f s o u t h e r n E u r o p e w h e re it has surviv ed , it h a s d o n e so d esp ite a lo n g tr a d it io n o f livestock h u s b a n d r y in these r e m o t e r regions. T h is p a t t e r n o f t o l e r a t io n a m o n g s o u t h e r n a n d e a s te rn E u r o p e a n s a n d ra d ic a l e x t e r m i n a t i o n o n th e p a r t o f th e ir w e s te r n a n d n o r t h e r n c o u n t e r ­ p a rts m a y re p r e s e n t d ifferen t e c o n o m i c c ir c u m s ta n c e s , b u t th e re is also a p o w e r f u l p s y c h o lo g ical e le m e n t a t w o r k such t h a t the w o lf h as b e c o m e the m o s t ‘p o litic a l’ o f a n im a ls in re c e n t c o n s e r v a ti o n p r o g r a m m e s . It seem s to insp ire fear a n d lo a th in g o u t o f all p r o p o r t i o n to its d e p r e d a t io n s o n livestock, a n d c e rta in ly in rela tio n to its risks to h u m a n life. In the la tte r re g a rd , th e re a re no reliable re c o rd s o f se rio us h a r m to h u m a n s in W e s te rn E u r o p e o r A m e ric a , yet the m y th o f w o l f a tt a c k still survives. In N o r w a y , rece ntly , th e g o v e r n m e n t e x t e r m i n a te d a w o lf p a c k (at a c o st o f £ 2 0 0 , 0 0 0 ) largely d u e to p re s su re fr o m livestock in terests, b u t in the p u blic d e b a te , th e c o n c e rn fo r h u m a n life w a s also a m a j o r feature. In

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Colwyn Bay

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Tremadog Bay

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Cardigan Bay

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Dolgelli

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The Glen Affric core area

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