The new buzzword is ‘rewilding', and it is the impetus behind a radical plan to reintroduce formerly extinct, and possibly dangerous, species back into landscapes in the United Kingdom.

What its founders want is a reversal of the human tendency to build fences, plow fields, build roads and housing, and restrict regional ecologies to cuddly species like hedgehogs and ground squirrels. Their goal is to reverse man's instinct to treat most of Nature like a damaged child who must be confined to protect others.

Arguing that saving species via zoos is both ineffectual and inadvisable, these conservation biologists envision a future in which vast tracts of land are set aside for bears, elk, lynx, beavers, and other species which once inhabited the landscape and were gradually eradicated to make farming and the modern lifestyle possible.

It isn't just in the UK either. France has already reintroduced the Eurasian lynx to the Haute Vosques, the highest and least inhabited portion of a mountain range in the eastern part of the country. From 1972 to 1990, at least 20 lynx of both sexes were reinserted into the wilderness, but the program met with strong resistance from sheep farmers and many lynx were killed until the government began offering a bounty for dead sheep. The same has happened in the American West, where the reintroduction of wolves has met with serious, armed opposition from cattle ranchers, often in spite of bounties.

In the UK, conservation biologists acknowledge the same is likely to happen in any rewilding program, but argue that appropriate bounties to repay farmers for dead livestock should deter all but the most determined. A great deal also depends on the species being reintroduced. Elk may trample unprotected gardens, and beavers decimate stands of trees, but the truly fearful predators are bears and wild boar, which became extinct in Britain and Ireland in the 17^th century.

In Gloucestershire, in the Forest of Dean, residents are becoming increasingly alarmed as a wild boar population - introduced in 2004 and expanded exponentially since then - threatens everything from footballers to primary school children. If cornered, wild boars, particularly females with young, will attack and bite. Such assaults are rarely fatal to adults, but they could be so to young children.

This likelihood does not deflect wildlife lovers like Roy Dennis, director of the Highland Foundation for Wildlife. Dennis believes lynx - which have been absent from Scotland for thousands of years - deserve to be returned to their former range. He also suggests an animal bill of rights, very much like the one recently established in Ecuador, and setting aside a third of the country for the reintroduction of wildlife.

Dennis insists this is the only way to control rising red deer populations, and his premise is simple:

"I don't think everything we do should be for the benefit of humans. We have a moral responsibility. We killed it off, so we should bring it back."

Dissenters like Colin Galbraith, the director of policy at Scottish Natural Heritage, argue that the Scots need to take rewilding a step at a time, beginning with the proposed reintroduction of beavers, once native to the country but hunted to extinction over 400 years ago.

Of course, rewilding doesn't rely on the original subspecies, which no longer exist. In Scotland, for example, the beaver will come from Norway. There's no telling how well the animals will adapt to a changed climate and an altered food supply, or how the Scots will react to trees being cut down and streams dammed. So far, no one has discussed how beavers will affect Scottish fishing. In the case of beaver, the strongest opposition comes from the Scottish Crofting Foundation (whose objections remain somewhat obscure), closely followed by forestry and game fishing representatives and organizations.

When it comes to the rewilding of dangerous species, farmers, hikers, gardening enthusiasts and parents worry equally that the introduction of species may affect their lives, mostly in adverse ways. As one observer notes, the professed British love of wildlife isn't as strong when that wildlife is large, foreign and potentially predatory.

Of course, not all rewilding involves potentially dangerous or destructive species. Short and shaggy Highland cattle are slowly replacing more domesticated varieties on many English farms. Scottish Blackface and North Country Cheviot Highland sheep are becoming more common amongst eco-canny crofters, who recognize these old-time breed's survival skills in a harsh climate. In England, Sir Charles Burrell has taken down fences on his vast estate to permit Old English Longhorn cattle, Tamworth pigs, Exmoor ponies and fallow deer the sort of free range they once enjoyed.

For true rewilders, though, the ultimate hope is to see all species - including the dangerous ones - reintroduced to their once native habitat. How this will conflict with the peaceful landscape and people of Great Britain is anybody's guess. It is a small country, with an expanding population - much of it immigrant based - and in some quarters the prevailing argument suggests that rewilding is simply a means of aggregating vast tracts of land which will ultimately become playgrounds for the rich. In addition, the recent economic downturn may put paid to the more grandiose of these proposals in the near term.

In the longer term, however, the rewilding of nature may encourage people to recognize how badly civilization has impacted the natural world. In fifty or a hundred years, when climate change begins to exact its final toll, these wild oases may be all that remains of that former world.

In that future time, likely faced with want, people may discover that the wild boar's ability to survive climate change provides one of the few sources of meat. Like the treasured seeds of wild apple, these wild things may be all that remain to sustain us. Or they may simply be all that survives. Either way, it's a win-win for Earth.

Related Reading:
Hitting the Sweetspot: Honey Bee Haven
Biodiversity, Climate Change, and Henry David Thoreau

Image Credits:
Tambako the Jaguar
Mad Paul