A lecture hosted by 'Sustainable Earth Institute' at Plymouth University.
George Monbiot is a geologist who discusses the way in which wildlife of Britian has decreased over the years - relating to habitats and our extraordinary low forest cover as a nation, the way moorlands below the tree-line has been cut back and burned in favour of grouse hunting and agriculture - all in the name of 'sustainability'.
Eurasian Lynx - New Forest Wildlife Park
Once again, the reason behind the significant drop in wildlife in the UK, is the result of the government. The destruction of the ecosystems and brutish over-hunting (which I call hunting). There was a time in history before the great urbanisation, in which Elephants, Lions, Hippopotamus and Rhino's walked where London now stands. We consider these animals as being native to exotic regions, but they were universal. We just wiped them all out.
Paleo-ecology - the study of past kingdoms. Informs us of not only what happened before, not only what we are missing today - but also how we might better manage/engage with the natural world in the future. Because without understanding what prevailed in the past, we simply cannot understand what we are looking at today, and we cannot understand how magnificently misguided, irrational, unambitious and retentive today's conservation is.
Until you understand paleo-ecology, and until you grasp the extraordinary ecological processes which show you that certain keystone species, critically important animals - ecological engineers such as, the beaver, the boar, the wolf, the lynx. Are all absolutely essential to the functioning of ecological processes right through the food chain. You cannot understand what a healthy ecosystem looks like, you cannot see how an ecosystem that is missing those keystone species behaves in radically different ways to an ecosystem that retains them.
Conservation has become about locking in the past.
We need to move to a brighter future, and that process is called rewildling.
Thank you for taking the time to inform yourself on this very important issue. If this information is new to you, then it is the first small step in working collectively towards a brighter, more vibrant and flourished habitat for both man and wildlife.
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-Alex Sydenham