Working together to rewild

This World Rewilding Day, we celebrate the faculty's collaborative research and practical projects that build understanding and action on rewilding for biodiversity, ecosystems and the climate.

Rewilding refers to restoring nature-depleted land by replanting and reintroducing native plants and animals. 

The practice is shown to have benefits to biodiversity, attracting insects and animals even when they aren’t intentionally reintroduced. 

With the Wild Ingleborough project, researchers, partner organisations and volunteers planted over 60,000 native trees worked with farmers to reduce intensive grazing, and supported vegetation to grow naturally.  

The area supports rare flowers, red squirrels, black grouse, cuckoos, curlews, and other exciting wildlife. 

As part of the Upper Duddon Landscape Recovery project, researchers and volunteers released pine martens into Grizedale Forest and the Rusland Valley, where their numbers had drastically declined.  

The project is designed to work with farmers and other land managers to manage the land in ways that will improve soil and water quality and restore nature.

Restoring habitats across a whole valley has the potential to deliver big benefits for people, nature and climate.

Natural flood prevention is another benefit of rewilding. A study in Snaizeholme, North Yorkshire, showed that replanting lost woodlands cuts the risk of extreme flooding. 

Professor Dominick Spracklen, one of the lead scientists in the project, said: “Restoring habitats across a whole valley has the potential to deliver big benefits for people, nature and climate.

“We have used a computer model to calculate that restoring the valley would reduce downstream flooding during a 1-in-50-year storm event by nearly 10%.

“To check that our predictions are correct, we are now installing special equipment to monitor soil and vegetation properties, rainfall and river flow. This will allow us to understand how the flood reduction benefits of the project grow as the native woodlands mature.”

A pine marten in the Scottish Highlands in 2022. Picture courtesy of Dr Mic Mayhew from the University of Cumbria

Where to rewild

As rewilding has become more common, so have the discussions around it – sometimes leading to misinformation and misunderstandings.  

Professor Steve Carver addressed rewilding misconceptions in his book chapter in Great Misconceptions: Rewilding Myths and Misunderstandings, edited by Ian Parsons. 

He wrote about the beliefs that the UK is too small and crowded to rewild and that the intention is to rewild anywhere and everywhere. 

He said: “Those opposed to the idea of rewilding seem to think we want to rewild everywhere. That’s just silly as we need places to live and need to protect our best quality agricultural land to grow much-needed food.

“What we are suggesting is that given the developing climate and biodiversity crisis, we need to look beyond business as usual, and set aside some of our unproductive land for nature and, in doing so, secure ecosystem services that deliver benefits for both humans and wildlife.”

The COP15 Kunming-Montreal Agreement set a target to protect 30% of land, sea and water and to restore 30% of degraded areas. 

Professor Carver’s research includes using spatial data to map wilderness across Europe and identify areas that can be protected or restored.

This data, alongside maps of wild land quality by the Wildland Research Institute shows opportunities for rewilding in the UK and Europe based on remoteness, naturalness and marginality.

 

A recent study showed the importance of choosing appropriate land to rewild.

Dr David Williams co-wrote the article identifying a biodiversity leak ‒ where rewilding productive land in nations with lower biodiversity can shift damaging land use to more biodiverse countries.

Their analysis showed that reclaiming UK farmland for nature could be five times more damaging for global biodiversity than the benefit it provides local species because it displaces food production to more biodiverse regions.

Therefore, it’s important to focus conservation efforts on disused land and wild land in the UK, while continuing to use productive land.

However, this doesn’t mean that farmland can’t be improved to further support wildlife and the climate.

Many of the rewilding projects at the University of Leeds work alongside farmers to promote regenerative agriculture – practices that support farming, land, biodiversity and sustainable food systems.

For example, Dr David Williams, Professor Julia Martin-Ortega, Dr Paula Novo and Professor George Holmes from the School of Earth and Environment are working together on JUSTLANZ.

JUSTLANZ is a project that combines the views, values and knowledge of farmers, rural communities, policymakers, and conservation practitioners with climate and land-use data to co-design sustainable scenarios that support people, the climate and nature.

In addition, Dr Sofia Biffi and Professor Pippa Chapman’s recent research showed that hedgerows increase soil carbon storage by 40%, highlighting the importance of protecting and replanting hedgerows in farms and managed land.

James Robinson, England Chair of the Nature Friendly Farming Network, said: “It’s good to have the science to back up what we farmers already know, which is that there is an ever-growing list of reasons to plant and manage hedgerows, from livestock health, crop protection and biosecurity, through to carbon storage.”

There is an increasing acknowledgement that the climate and biodiversity crises cannot be managed in isolation.

A recent study showed that reintroducing wolves to Scottish Highlands could help address the climate emergency.

This is because they would naturally control the large population of red deer.

Red deer, who are growing in numbers, eat tree saplings that would have contributed to biodiversity, carbon storage, and reforestation.

Lead author Professor Dominick Spracklen said: “There is an increasing acknowledgement that the climate and biodiversity crises cannot be managed in isolation.

“We need to look at the potential role of natural processes such as the reintroduction of species to recover our degraded ecosystems and these in turn can deliver co-benefits for climate and nature recovery.”

However, reintroducing large predators is controversial, particularly among livestock farmers and deer stalkers.

In a Conversation article, Professor George Holmes writes: “Predators like lynx are the most contentious reintroductions, because they are big enough to target livestock and scare humans.

“Coexistence between people and predators is difficult, involving careful strategies to minimise harm and create trusting relationships.”

His article, co-written with Dr Darragh Hare and Dr Hanna Pettersson, discusses illegal attempts to reintroduce Lynx in Scotland.

It discusses the importance of working with communities, the public, and land managers to create strategies around animal reintroduction for long-term success.

Partnerships with farmers, land managers, community groups and wildlife charities are key to the success of the University of Leeds’s rewilding projects and research.

They help to create a joined-up approach to rewilding that considers the needs and lives of all those it will affect.