Since it first reached public consciousness in Britain in the mid-2000s, the meaning of the word ‘rewilding’ has been on a bit of a rollercoaster. At first, it was linked to the idea of bringing back predators such as wolves, because, as we began to understand, ecosystems were impoverished where they were absent.
This view was fuelled by the well-publicised but unfulfilled plans of Paul Lister, the owner of Alladale Estate in the Scottish Highlands, to release wolves into a large fenced area of his land. It was reinforced by books, such as by George Monbiot, which argued the case for the importance of predators in our landscapes. Woodlands cannot recover, the argument went, unless we regain native species, such as wolves and lynx, to reduce numbers of deer, whose grazing inhibits tree regrowth.
