Tim Bonner: The politics of rewilding

I have written before about how 'rewilding' has become a toxic brand in much of the countryside and the fault for much of that increasingly lies at the door of the group 'Rewilding Britain'. The aggressive language and arrogance of an organisation funded by the international ultra-rich has already alienated many rural communities who fear that the 'vision' of rewilding does not include a future for them. The most obvious example was the spectacular collapse of Rewilding Britain's flagship 'Summit to Sea' project in West Wales, but the distrust goes much, much deeper.

Rather than considering why its approach has been rejected across so much of rural Britain, Rewilding Britain seems to have decided that a more, not less, aggressive approach is the way to bring the wrong-thinking people who currently farm and manage the countryside into line. It has hired a well-known political campaigner and launched into campaigns for a 'right to roam' across the whole countryside, and to ban grouse shooting in National Parks in cahoots with Chris Packham and Mark Avery's anti-shooting campaign Wild Justice. You might ask what these issues have to do with Rewilding Britain's stated aim of 'catalysing rewilding' and you might conclude, as I do, that they will actually have the exact opposite effect and further alienate farmers and land managers from its aims.

Unfortunately, the trajectory of Rewilding Britain looks set. It was founded by the journalist George Monbiot who campaigns on an overtly political platform which includes everything from radical land reform to compulsory veganism, and is run by his partner. By hiring Guy Shrubsole, who co-authored a report on land reform with Monbiot for Jeremy Corbyn it has shed any pretence to be solely concerned with ecological restoration. Politics is the game these people play, and they are desperate to play it in the countryside. Bizarrely this politics of the far left is funded from the legacy of some of the richest people ever to walk the planet. Most of Rewilding Britain's funding comes from trust funds set up by bankers, industrialists, hedge funders, art dealers and retail magnates. With no membership accountability and ample supplies of trust fund cash neither Rewilding Britain's governance nor its funding streams are likely to be any check on its political activism.

This is a serious problem, because not only is Rewilding Britain damaging its own brand it is also creating concerns about the wider drive to restore nature and increase biodiversity, which is so urgent and important.