The Huge Problem With Rewilding...

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[TheSpoovy]

Oxfordshire council let grass verges grow for longer than usual last year, to help wild flowers, insects etc (and save money!) yet the reaction has been depressing. Many, many complaints about the verges looking "scruffy" etc. Many people really don't care about nature at all, they'd prefer to live on a golf course.
It's very sad that people are so disconnected from nature they are like this. Is this fixable though? Maybe some people were always like this.

[johnbaldwin]

I found slow worms at the end of my garden. There is ( or was) a wild area beyond that. It was brought by a developer who ripped down listed trees and mowed it flat. After which I had more slow worms. So I created as natural as possible environment for them. This moved on 5 years later to letting my garden 'just do its thing'. Now there are toads the odd Pheasant hides out here and my dog just accepts their presence because I do!
My neighbours complain endlessly while they tore out the previous residents beautiful garden and covered it with artificial grass. Needless to say that we do not get along!

[dinky-diaussie]

I am a 15 year old boy from Australia and your videos have inspired me. I live in a remote town. I love your videos. I have always loved the Desert and the bush (woods) and I have notice that the bush is sick. the native dingo is Extinct from most of is range, the Aboriginals have stopped burning, and seed dispensers like the burrowing bettong have gone Extinct from the mainland. And I dream of having a cattle and sheep station and working with the bush.

[malcolmfunnell]

When I was a boy, 50 yrs ago we grew our own food in our gardens for me this is the biggest step

[johnbridger]

Rewilding should only be one tool in a toolbox that should include the multiple aspects of regenerative farming which will allow food production in more sustainable ways.

[voiceinthenoise]

While on a natural stretch of beach in Dorset, a woman commented that it was lovely, but it was just a shame that the seaweed and debri marking the tide-line was so untidy, and wouldn't it be nice if someone cleaned it up.

While in the woods I asked a passing dog walker if they knew why the trees had been cut down, and she said, in a well-meaning attempt to bond over the issue "I know, it's messy isn't it!" So I replied that I hoped they were harvesting the non-native pine crop, so that the native shrubs and trees could recolonise themselves.

An old colleague looked at a lawn carpeted in daisies, bright as a smattering of spring snow, and said it was "unkempt" and needed a good mow. It was breathtakingly beautiful, but she missed this because she saw it through eyes trained to see nature as something ever-encroaching that should be cut into squares and bound tight at the borders.

Something can be a little loose in looks, a little "untidy" in traditional terms, and still be beautiful. See beneath the surface and you realise that beauty lies not in how something appears, but what that appearance means.

Sometimes ugliness is beautiful because it is honest.

[twanoligschlaeger]

a serie on how you yourself can re-wild your garden in simple ways would be amazing!

[progressivebusiness]

Here in Wimbledon our community has been rewinding an old sewerage works. We now regularly see Kingfishers, white and also grey herons, 2 types or woodpecker, white swans, Egyptian geese and even cormorants.

[PhotiniByDesign]

I've been establishing my forest farm garden for about 25 years, we have over 30 different types of food for human consumption, a ton of complimentary plants and trees that feed the garden and the surrounding wildlife. It really is amazing to see it bloom during spring with all the snowdrops and bluebells, it's a hive of activity with multiple species of birds, animals, reptiles and insects, we're even privileged to have bats and owls hunting for food.

[michaelairley]

I've always thought about golf courses. There are 1888 of them in Britain. There should be a guide, or vision made to re wild them while they can still be enjoyed.

[userunknown]

As a permit officer: when somebody wants to do something with potential negative impacts on local species we ask for an ecological improvement as part of the plan.

Initially we get questions like: what do we have to do? Plant a forest?

We always tell them to look with an expert around them first. What small plot of land is useless for why you own land? Start looking small and practical.

Once they come back we usually see plans that include many small things that add up and have little negative impact on a farmer or developer. Yet the overal impact over time will be significant for the local wildlife.

[davebond]

My Parents have a garden in Germany and I build a pond, convinced them to let one hlaf of the lawn grow and planted several native trees. All this in a "small" backyard.

[dynamoterror]

Me and my family have let the Bermuda grass lawn around our house transition to clovers and various low-growing native forbs just from lack of maintenance, and recently I’ve been rewarded with trail camera photos of local deer grazing along the side of my house. Although I may wish for a vast oak savanna full of bison and horses and elk, this somewhat wilder yard is an incredibly fulfilling project. Even if you’ve got a single flower pot, you can do incredible work with and for biodiversity.

[smalyk]

I’ve rewilded most of our yard with native plants with veggies getting the rest. Now our garden is a habitat for so many more pollinators, birds, deer and small mammals. Our native species bloom for extended periods so our stunning front yard brings me new people from the neighborhood to chat with about their possibilities to rewild too, of course with help from sharing the plants and seeds from our yard. We are on the dry Canadian Prairie so we benefit from much lower maintenance as the native plants get through drought periods without extra water. Lawns are sooo last year!

[stephanie.r]

I'm more worried about extensive property development.
I'm all for rewilding.

[Soilfood]

Took a while for this to show up on my feed. Liked it, agreed with the nuances, and commenting so others won't miss it.

[MrHorserider]

If one million people did one small thing positive for wildlife, that amounts to a massive difference. One person can change the world, and it’s more powerful when we all do it!

[IanPhillipsWildlife]

Great video mate, I've found a lot of kick back against some of the projects I've worked on has been rooted in a fear of the unknown. Often people don't understand what rewilding is and assume that massive projects will change the way they use the land, when often this isn't the case, If I've learnt one thing in the last couple of years particularly in urban areas its that explanation and education are as important as the actual manual work.

[philiptaylor]

In a nutshell I’d define rewinding as standing back and letting nature do her thing. Thanks Rob and keep the content flowing.

[polutropos]

It's insane that we know in 1941 with a population of around 40 million we could not produce enough food in the UK, hence the war time need for rationing where imports could not get through. In 2024, with glib concern for food security, and double the population we are still not addressing this primary issue. Rewilding needs to sit in the context of food production before we can take it seriously - otherwise it will always have the anti-human or at least anti-civilisation whiff. The primitivists side of rewilders naively hold up the hunter-gatherer as something beautiful to be re-attained - these most delusionary of the rewilders entirely unaware that apex gangs will quickly crack their heads open to take control of limited food resources. Anyone who has ever had an allotment knows people come and steal your crops ...