The keys to rewilding
BENEDICT Macdonald’s first book, Rebirding, appeared in 2019, and in that he championed the concept of rewilding the land on a grand scale to create ‘big’ habitats to allow our struggling birds to thrive. If he could have his way, we would see major investments in saving habitats so that much of the countryside could be like a tablecloth of wildlife rather than the tatty patchwork quilt that we have today. That book won him the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation. Now, in Cornerstones, he takes another popular concept and promotes it with passion. That concept is to support ‘cornerstone’ species that are key to the existence of others and whose actions create the ideal habitats for wildlife to flourish.
So, what are the cornerstone species under consideration? Some will be very familiar – such as beavers, which are ecosystem engineers, building dams and felling trees and effectively creating diverse wetland habitats for free. They were here 400 years ago until demand for their pelts saw them hunted to extinction. To find wolves in the UK, you have to look back a bit further to about 500 years, and for lynx maybe 1,400 years. They were all here – as were Northern Goshawks. The case for getting them back is strong because they all have a significant impact on the other species around them, and importantly, they do it for free! The author looks at each species and puts forward their case succinctly and powerfully.
Birds feature prominently in the second chapter, which reviews the options for reintroducing ‘cornerstone’ birds of prey. The high-profile work to bring back White-tailed Eagle is familiar to most of us, while the ‘unofficial’ reintroduction of goshawks through accidental (or perhaps intentional) releases has happened quietly.
Macdonald’s skill is in painting a big picture and communicating the benefits for all to see. As with any big picture, details can be the victim and it is easy to make statements that those working on the detail simply don’t recognise. For example, in this chapter he says that in the New Forest most Hawfinches roost within 200 m of active Goshawk nests. Really? I fact-checked that with the New Forest Hawfinch experts, and although there are many goshawks, this claimed linkage does not exist. Maybe someone misinformed Macdonald when he researched the book – but as an author myself, I know how easy it is to take an idea and own it without going back to the source and checking you have interpreted the information correctly. Each page in this book contains many claims, often without references, and I don’t doubt that the majority are correct – but even with big-picture concepts, fact-checking is now easier than ever before, and readers are beginning to expect it when books are making claims.
This book is very timely as many in the world of conservation support the idea of bringing back iconic species and habitats. Indeed, the UK Government said it supported much of this too, but in June slashed its planned support from £800 million per year to £50 million over three years – the equivalent of this 256-page book being reduced to just five pages! However, the cornerstone species concept still has its strengths and if any of this book’s suggestions are to succeed it will be ambitious private individuals who will make it happen rather than government – as with just about everything else these days. Let’s hope it succeeds in changing minds and supporting those who already see cornerstone species as a vital part of our biodiversity.
Keith Betton
■ Rare Birds of Hampshire by John Clark (Hampshire Ornithological Society, 2022).
■ 560 pages, photos, illustrations, colour tables.
■ ISBN 9781999309237. Hbk, £35
■ Available at www.hos.org.uk/book