I'm interested in the Wild East project.This is a rewilding project in my own home area, and involving people working close to where I live.
It has a mission to rewild a large area of East Anglia.
The logo shows the outline of a Lynx. You can find out why by visiting the website and following the project as it develops. The lynx is one possible animal to involve in rewilding and restocking. This will require some work first to prepare the area, as Argus Hardy says:
“I don’t think East Anglia is at a point yet where lynx could be reintroduced, but there’s no harm in dreaming that in 70 years’ time we’ll have landscape recovery where there is enough diversity to support healthy lynx populations without the threat of predation to farm animals.
“It would be extraordinary. We’ve lost all our major mammals in the UK. We preach a lot to other countries about preserving their major mammals, but we seem to be incoherent in our own view [of preservation].”
https://www.wildeast.co.uk/the-mission
Lord Hugh Somerleyton is one of the trustees and has already worked on some similar ideas on his estate, with a suggestion that bison could be reintroduced into East Anglia.
Other trustees are Ollie Birkbeck and Argus Hardy.
They describe the plan as being about engaging everyone to recognise or use whatever open space is available – gardens, school playgrounds, farmyards, car parks and industrial estates, partly to show how much land is already home to vital ecosystems, but also in the hope of getting landowners to pledge 20 per cent of what they have to nature.
WildEast is seeking funding for its future plans to generate online educational resources and a schools roadshow, to build its accreditation schemes and communications channels, and to develop a WildEast app to allow everyone in the region to get involved, take the pledge and share interesting nature projects – while mapping progress towards the 250,000-hectare target.
A piece in the Independent provides further information about the project and its plans.
Will perhaps consider the idea of Rewilding projects as part of new teaching plans and curriculum making.
Happy to see that education is a big part of this. Will see what occurs as the project develops - one for a possible curriculum project in the future.
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