I WAS taken aback when I read the short report in the Herald (“Support grows for rewilding in Britain”, September 16) stating that the result of a YouGov poll showed 83% of those who responded where in favour of rewilding. Possibly, as the poll was commissioned by Rewilding Britain, it was sent to those who supported the charity, so it was inevitable that the majority would be in favour. I suspect that many people who live in towns, would support it also as it sounds nice in theory but I wonder if the majority of country dwellers, particularly those who try to make a living from the land, would be happy to rewild 30% of the land and sea.
It is stated that farming could continue in a limited way and that ecotourism would benefit the area. However, so often, rewilding appears to consist of planting trees then letting them grow higgledy-piggledy with the area turning into little more than a jungle. Food could, supposedly, still be produced in a more limited way but with an increasing population which needs to eat, I would have thought that as a country we have to try to be more self-sufficient in food production rather than cutting back – which, in turn, only leads to us be more reliant on imported food and an increase in food miles.
Returning lost creatures to the countryside also leads to problems. When many animals, now extinct, lived wild in Scotland , the population was very much smaller than today and they had the freedom to roam without causing harm. These days ther.