My Lords, in moving Amendment 19 I shall speak also to my Amendments 52 and 102. I remind the Committee of the interests I declared at Second Reading. I should have done this when I spoke on Tuesday, but I forgot. They are more relevant to our debates on Tuesday, but never mind.
Amendment 19 in this small group seeks to probe the Government on one issue, that of whether farm-based schemes could include the reintroduction of native plants and animals that have become extinct nationally or, what is more likely, locally. I hope that the Minister can reassure me on this point. I want to concentrate on an issue that is of growing interest to many people, that of rewilding. I shall explain in a minute what is meant by that.
First, I want to make clear what is not meant. A lot of misrepresentation has been made by tabloid media of a few proponents of rewilding who frankly go over the top and, in my view, do not do the cause any good. Rewilding as it is used here does not involve the reintroduction to the English countryside of animals such as bears and wolves. Unfenced reintroductions for some species may be justified—beavers may be a case in point, and who can deny the glory of peregrine falcons and red kites, as well as locally extinct species of butterflies and reptiles—but it is not what rewilding as such is about.
Rewilding is also not about the wholesale transformation of whole regions into some romanticised version of this country before its widespread cultivation by the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Danes and their descendants. Nor is it about the creation of nature reserves as we know them conventionally, where the ecology of the flora and fauna in a local environment is carefully managed, sometimes in tiny detail. However, a success rewilding scheme could in due course become a very special but different kind of nature stronghold. Nor, finally, is it a means to just abandon large areas of land that are devoid of economic value. Indeed, it can be a means by which landowners increase their income by diversifying in areas where farming alone may no longer be viable. If I can drop into government speak for a moment, it can deliver public goods at scale both efficiently and effectively.
Amendment 52 would add rewilding to the list of activities that can be financed under Clause 1. A two-tier scheme could involve the rewilding of all or much or a largish farm, if that is what the landowner would like. I keep prompting the Minister for examples of tier 3 schemes involving things other than peat restoration and tree planting, but perhaps the rewilding of a broad upland valley could qualify for such funding. Rewilding could mean allowing coastal land or floodplains to revert to wild marshlands. It may be that while the Government are not averse to rewilding schemes as I have described in appropriate places, they would prefer to them to be funded in other ways and through other budgets. If that is the Minister’s response, can he or she set out what those other ways could be?
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I shall come back to the question: what is rewilding? Amendment 102 would add a definition based on that put forward by the Rewilding Britain, which I shall put on the record. It states that,
“‘rewilding’ means the large-scale restoration of ecosystems to the point where nature can take of itself within very light touch habitat management, involving reinstating natural processes and, where appropriate, missing species, allowing them to share the landscape and the habitats within.”
The group also says that rewilding
“encourages a balance between people and the rest of nature where each can thrive. It provides opportunities for communities to diversify and create nature-based economies; for living systems to provide the ecological functions on which we all depend; and for people to re-connect with wild nature.”
Rewilding is not appropriate to only one or two kinds of area that may already be semi-wild. Examples being promoted include a range of areas, from upland sheep grazing and grouse moors to lowland mixed farms. Any kind of rural areas is appropriate. It can be for large estates or for areas on small tenanted farms.
I have put this amendment into a specific group because rewilding is by and large a new concept. It is not something that I expect the Government will suddenly fall over and say, “Yes, we are going to do this”, but I wonder whether the Minister would agree to meet me, representatives of Rewilding Britain and other interested Peers to discuss the whole concept and thus understand it better. Perhaps the noble Baroness who is to reply might respond to that on behalf of the Minister.
Some will say that that rewilding sounds like a modern version of impractical hippy idealism, but the reverse is true. It is growing in popularity from small beginnings and it is here to stay. Holding a brief debate about it today in the House of Lords is a useful thing to do. I beg to move.