9th November 2026
Room for Rewilding
Goulson understands rewilding to be “[o]ne of the most contentious and divisive issues amongst farmers in the UK at present, seen by some as a threat to the food system… The term refers, so what loosely, to setting aside land – usually farmed land – and then, as far as possible, allowing nature to look after itself.” Such rewilding projects can involve the reintroduction of species to restore the contributions they make to the shaping of a diversity of habitats. eg beavers to restore more flood resilient wetlands; large grazing animals to maintain a balance between scrub and grassland; pine martens to control grey squirrel populations. (P181 Eat the Planet Well)
Goulson advocates for a national land use strategy that identifies what land is best used not just for growing food – ie grade 1 farmland – but for capturing carbon, generating energy, supporting biodiversity, mitigating flooding, providing for recreation etc. (P183) He the draws our attention to what we might think of as the traditional look of the countryside and its associated livelihoods, is a constantly changing picture: from the pre-Neolithic age when farming was in its infancy and the land was a mix of wood and grassland and its people hunter gathers, to the medieval strip fields which were replaced by small enclosed fields and the downgrading of peasant farmers to farm hands, to the huge fields of modern times where miles of hedgerows have been removed, and where meadows have been replaced by monocultures of grasses and grains – and where fewer and fewer people find employment.
So would further change actually be beneficial? Goulson believes so: “You my recall” he writes “from the previous chapter that taking up to 8% of fields out of arable production has no negative impact on yield, in part because farmers choose the least productive bits of land, and in part because the uncropped land then acted as a source of beneficial insects. I would argue that rewinding works in a similar way but on a larger scale. We have long known that farmers get better yields if their farm is near wilder, unfarmed areas, because pollinators spill out of those refuges into the farmland. Similarly, rewilded upland areas with more tree cover and perhaps beaver dams would reduce the catastrophic flooding of lowland farmland that can wipe outcrops ( as well as costing billions in flood damage to property). Rewilded areas help tackle climate change, which poses numerous threats to food production…) (p187)
What Goulson doesn’t mention here, is that if we were to adopt a diet that included less meat and dairy, we would need less land for feeding and rearing livestock. And indeed some of that land could be diverted to growing more of the foods – fruits, vegetables, beans and pulses – that we would be enjoying instead!
