A panel for Questions was made up from the speakers from the morning session: Peter Taylor, Toby Aykroyd, Steve Carver, Simon Bates, Derek Gow and Rachel Yanick

BRIAN

Q. Could Toby give an explanation of his opinion on wind farms? Does it apply to all wind farms?

Toby: The British Wind Energy Association says that each wind farm should displace current carbon emissions from other energy sources, but their figures don’t add up. This is due to a lower capacity for wind farms than predicted (~24% versus ~60%) and since efficiency is logarithmic, the drop in potential carbon emission displacement is considerably less than implied. Other forms of reduction of carbon emission would make more of a contribution than wind farms, such as house insulation, emissions control, and alternative technologies, and those should be the initiatives that should be funded.

KEITH KIRBY, EN

Q. EN has a project that has been exploring various ideas on the interaction of large herbivores with the landscape. A report will be available shortly, although there is no clear conclusion. What's the purpose of introducing large herbivores: are they returning places to past habitats or are they land management tools?

Q. If we reintroduce large herbivores from our past, how far back in time do you go?

Peter: The reintroduction of large herbivores can be as land managers in some areas, but in other places it would be for the sheer experience of observing wild animals and their activities, and what results from this – it could be large numbers of horses and elk.

Peter: At all the different periods in the past, humans have had an influence on the existence of large herbivores, sometimes bringing about their extinction. If we are re-introducing for the sheer experience, then maybe a return to the end of the ice age of 10,000 years ago when links into corridors across Europe allowed some animals to return. We need to change attitudes and our reaction to risk in these re-introductions.

Derek: We face highly fragmented species in our wild animals: there are no linking corridors, and there are dwindling populations with low genetic variety. We can look at reintroduced wild animals as tools, allowing nature to exhibit its special sort of vitality that happens without our involvement. It’s about allowing nature to run its own course in its own unpredictable way. Domestic stock exists equably in our tightly managed landscapes. Wild animals function totally differently than domestic stock, giving rise to an ecological end result that we generally do not have. We will have to pay for this out of our taxes: for instance, Oostvaarderplassens in the Netherlands is state-owned and financed. We will need to “sell” a correct vision to the public to achieve this.

LAWRENCE TROWBRIDGE, NT

Q. Much money is spent on landscape management that could be done naturally by animals. Why are we so interfering?

Derek: Beavers are an example of land managers in the way that they create new, alluvial landscapes. We know much about their potential impact on landscapes if they were reintroduced in the UK from observing other reintroductions in Europe. The main issue stalling their reintroduction is land use politics – the public supports their re-introduction, but it is held up by a few “Victorian” landowners. We should stop talking about beaver reintroductions and just do it.

NIGEL LOWTHROP, Hill Holt Woods

Q. Rewilding has mostly been talked about in the context of upland areas, but monoculture farming in lowlands has also degraded farmland. Don’t we need a new approach that will change land use in lowland areas and that shouldn’t need subsidy?

Toby: Absolutely – while we look at rewilding upland watersheds, we can look for similar background drivers in lowland settings such as coastal retreat, and also the Great Fen Project in East Anglia. Restoration of wildness on a landscape scale in the lowlands is a land use you can argue for in its own right.

ADRIAN YALLOP, Cranfield

Q. Having been frustrated in re-introducing the marsh fritillary, I find an ingrained, corporate inability within statutory agencies to do anything. EN can be a sponge. How do we move reintroductions forward?

Derek: EN is more approachable than CCW or SNH, but they have to be handled better – and go to the top and convince politicians. Things have moved on the last 15 years.

Peter: There are a huge number of projects where good things are happening. However, some people have been releasing animals illegally.

Derek: The polecat people didn’t ask permission from the statutory agencies, they just released polecats. However, SNH does have an 86% popular mandate for re-introduction of the beaver in Scotland.

WILL WILLIAMS, EN

Q. There is a lot going on and we have to take this energy out into the mainstream, and away from the realms of the specialists. There has to be some strategic thinking as well, maybe linking in wildland to the Regional Spatial Strategies that are being drawn up at the moment. There will be a major change with Natural England coming along soon. The Wildland Network needs to have an influence with Natural England, supporting its broadening of the current research-based approach to wildland to give it a wider-based philosophy. Can it help externalise this effort?

Peter: We intend to build the organisation and activities of the Wildland Network so that it supports the statutory agencies, and that it also provides academic and scientific credibility for wilding.

Rachel: Community participation has been crucial for Ennerdale and will be elsewhere. We must involve communities to change their mindset so that wilding does not mean abandonment of land to them, or their exclusion.