How about just rewilding them with Native people.

@@GodsOwnPrototype Yes, of course. But let the wolves and bears do the messy work first.

Rats can outsmart wolves and bears

Civilization is crumbling, so no worries. Unless you're not prepared...

Rewilding is the offshoring of food production to parts of the world with poorer environmental regulations/ oversight. It’s the ultimate in NIMBYism

Well said! The educated classes have had common sense taught out of them, so they fall prey to any cause clothed in the appearance of righteousness

@@sookibeulah9331 Not really. Rewilding doesn't have to entail much loss of food production. Sheep farming consumes half our farmland, yet produces only 1% of the nation's calories. Reducing sheep farming would be a boon for nature while hardly affecting our food supply.

You can be skeptical if you have better understanding to begin with instead of prejudice with no sound basis. This has little or nothing to do with what you consider wrongheaded views of the "educated middle classes" that you disparage with no evidence. The anti-wilding proponent starts off with claims that are demonstrably false. He claims a wolf is no more special or important than a pigeon, though of course their physical traits are very different, their populations and need for territory are totally different, wolves are apex predators, and so much more. He argues that humans want to believe that wolves serve an important role in such things as controlling the populations of deer or similar animals grazing to excess but there's no proof it happens. Nonsense. It's been shown in many places including in the Yellowstone Park region of the US where reintroduction of gray wolves proved to have a massive benefit on many major elements in that environment, from vegetation to streams to wildlife all brought back into great balance. Look it up--there are many reports about this massive improvement in the park after reintroduction of wolves. The ideas about rewilding are hardly "pernicious" because you dread the "educated classes". Maybe it's a righteous cause because it serves nature so well and actually helps humans as members of and beneficiaries of nature.

Should read above "paying by tapping a phone"! Don't know why computer thought apron a better description. So much for AI.

Onya Simmo! Australia has its own problems with "re-wilding" as the Crocs, like the wolves in the EU no longer fear humans. The Aborigines used to hunt them. So the crocs avoided humans. Now we are prey.

I encourage you to do a little digging into his family background.

Yes, I felt exactly the same. He was incredibly articulate but I sensed there were ulterior motives underneath his message. The other speaker was nowhere near as articulate but I trusted him more. I knew nothing about the topic and just learned how complex the whole issue is.

Don’t forget how smart people like Ben are! Watching him speak really helps one understand the concept of “patronizing”

Where I live (US) the wild animals have basically taken over due lack of predators. Deer, bear, beaver, otter, eagles... on and on. They are everywhere. And I live in a state where hunting is fairly popular. In this environment, a super-predator like a wolf would just wipe the easy prey out. Then what do you do? Arrest them for animal abuse?

@@digitsnetnet Shows what farmers are up against. Money and influence get the Goldsmiths what they want.

Mainland Europeans somehow manage to live next to populations of wild animals. There's no reason why Brits shouldn't be able to.

In the end the real interest of Ben became clear: money! And ruling over other people 🤮

@johnoshea284• If he is so familiar with Sri Lanka, he must have been doing air miles over to there! Now that wouldn’t be good for the planet, now would it! 🤣🤣 Greetings Ireland… Beautiful country, and people!

@@oldcrow4301Could have read the news and watched KZfaq? Who knows how people explore the world.

@@talesofcanterbury42 Hello Canterbury(tales of) I know he could, I was actually joking 🤣 But on a serious note, how well do you know Canterbury?

It was set up to fail by corporate conglomerates. Zero teaching, zero needed support, arbitrary deadline, combined with a poorly ideated mandate, etc. Conventional farming benefits the corporations selling farming merch (ie equipment, chemicals, insurance, fuel, etc) and buying farm products (ie grain and eggs)... The globalist elitists used a country with poor access to better agricultural info. This is to scare people into the conventional agriculture only camp. It does sound compelling, doesn't it? That said I also hate "enforced" programs such as Sri Lanka's, prefer the leadership by example. There are plenty of farmers and ranchers finding that there is something better than: monocropping, CAFO, heavy dependence on purchased inputs, overgrazing, bare earth/fallow practices, annual-based, etc. It is a learning curve, and it takes time to build confidence and to figure what is most suited for some land. Mark Shepard does type of ag that holds a lot promise that is "restorative," resilient, produces better quality, high value food. Suggest you take a deep dive look into it by checking out his book at the local libtary...

@@oldcrow4301 I’m sitting in it and can tell you the height of our Cathedral’s tower. I also know sadly Lidl’s closed.

Hi Richard, among many other things we share the same fore-name!, one of the few things we do not share is the same daft ideas about the realities of the wilderness, it is worth remembering that more than half of all the humans that ever lived did so in a much more close relationship with the natural world than is so popular now!. A significant proportion of the daily diet of large numbers of people even now come from uncultivated plants an animals, in some communities that have lived there for tens of thousands of years still rely entirely on what their environment provides, the try to protect the land they live in from external incursions but none of them claim to 'own' any of it. They know themselves as of the land not masters of it. There are still many of these cultures dotted about the planet, fewer people per square mile than we do in our cities but no city culture has yet survived more than a few hundred years, civilisation appears to be inherently unstable. On another parallel track relying again observation not ideology I see no evidence that humans are actually able to modify the environment sensibly and sustainably, there is no evidence at all that any of our technology actually makes life 'better', no reliable evidence that any of our efforts to control nature are effective and successful or that without such effort human life would cease. It is much more probable that as ever we all =live in a fundamentally benign environment, in a 'real' world where populations are relatively stable wolves have never sought humans as a food source, the worst case scenario is one in which human population and economic pressures create a distortion in which managed livestock displaces so much of the 'natural food supply that hungry wolves eat some sheep, actually they mostly feed on animals that have died of other causes. It is also worth noting that according to official world health organisation's statistics no more than one quarter of the food we eat is produced on farms of more than seven hectares!, factory farming like we have in Europe and north America is designed to produce money not food!. Until the second half of the twentieth century farm workers in England never spent money on food!, they had to grow all their own as well as raise domestic animals like pigs and chickens, when I was Child in Suffolk in the nineteen fifties what few rural shops there were none of them sold vegetables or eggs and very little fruit. Official statistics in the early nineteen sixties was quite clear in stating that the whole population grew more than one third of its food consumption, the main exception being grains for bread and flour, both of which were available at local mills, still the population had to endure periods of severe deprivation, food security has never been a fact of life and is not achievable on a planet with the range of climate dynamics that we have. Cheers, Richard.

@@richardharvey1732mmmm, and how much do you hope to make with your business ventures on ‘wilderness’? There’s certainly no shortage of huge grants ( mainly from taxpayers) for sustainability, diversity…. Sounds like you don’t want us eating meat, the best source of protein? I did watch a documentary years ago about reintroducing wolves. It was impressive but, this was in a MASSIVE area. U.K. is tiny with over 60 million people. It seems the farmers are being attacked across Europe. I fully support the farmers. No farmers no food. Ps, there was no need to call the person whose comment you replied to as daft. Are we not allowed diversity of opinion?

I think you are missing the developing policy on developing natural areas. The idea is to promote bio-diversity and keep humans out.

@@richardharvey1732 A very interesting and informative comment…

@@Kefuddle humans are biodiversity

You forgot to add the Solar and wind farming i.e. the 21st century definition of farming. It’s all about control and investment return.

Your commentary is so filled with misinformation and wacky conspiracy theories that it's a tangle of corrosive nonsense. Rewilding is NOT a govt or corporate boon--quite the opposite. Big Ag, with its harmful and unsustainable model of monoculture growing on large scale with massive chemical inputs, is where govt and big corporations have been investing for decades for profit, benefited by govt subsidies and tax incentives. Just to counter one of your false claims, farmers who use what is generally called "regenerative farming" practices are producing equal or larger yields of better quality produce and greater profits while also improving the topsoil instead of depleting and eroding it by the Big AG approach. It cuts costs for chemical inputs, pest control and indentured farming operations beholden to the corporate farm conglomerates, making farmers more in control and more fulfilled while being good stewards of the land. You need to expand your research, because it's clear you've been feeding from disinformation troughs and grossly distorted conspiracy narratives.

They'll whine "conspiracy theory!" at you for that. I hope you don't care, as I don't.

Don't fall for the propaganda that it's "toffs in their country mansions" who are behind this. Most are farmers themselves. It's the new international money sharks who have no interest in legacy or the future, just themselves and their new "global one world order". Class warfare plays into the hands of the globalists.

Your comment is filled with disinformation, distortion and reactionary fear-mongering. Conflating immigration with rewilding or restoring nature in this way is just ridiculous. You seem more concerned about total population than immigration, for example. You really need to study this issue with research on credible sources. Our planet is not overpopulated, but the food production and distribution systems are generally poor, so that millions of people on the globe are starving or food insecure. Meanwhile, more citizens in China and other countries have become affluent enough that they are demanding the meat they associate with living well. It's simply not feasible with any food delivery system. We have been terrible stewards of the planet since the Industrial Revolution. We can more than feed the planet's population, but the demand for meat and fish protein is not sustainable, so some adjustment is necessary. We waste massive resources on producing crops just to feed livestock to feed those who are affluent enough to afford it, in the process polluting the air, land and water. You have this right-wing conspiracy narrative mindset with tales of "controlling your diet" and other such scare tactics. No one is getting rid of farmers or farming. If anything, we need more truly committed farmers rather than the large-scale industrial Big Ag companies dominating the system with excessive chemical inputs, monoculture growing processes that kill biodiversity and deplete the top soil, massive clearing of forests to raise livestock and other destructive activities that are totally unsustainable. I urge you to educate yourself instead of continuing to spout misinformation and fear.

They'll whine "conspiracy theory!" at you for that. I hope you don't care, as I don't.

It's ok. You must have noticed that the cull of mankind has begun...

What are you ranting about? You're spouting the most ignorant, ill-informed and reactionary nonsense without a shred of evidence or rational thinking. Rewilding and immigration, for example, are largely unrelated to food availability except of course that we actually need immigrant labor in the US and Europe to handle the unpleasant, demanding farm labor jobs that allow many crops to be produced. But you clearly have the mentality of a right-wing extremist, with the wackiest claims all thrown into a blender.

I lived for decades in the HOLLYWOOD HILLS of LA. We always had coyotes, bobcats, Raccoons, deer, quail, hawks, rattle snakes, and a mountain lion or two. Pets could become lunch for some of these animals, but usually it was rodents and the many mule deer that they consumed.

Coyotes were not intentionally introduced. Once the wolves were killed off the Coyotes no longer had a predator that kept their numbers down and they grew in number, expanded their range and started to congregate in larger numbers to take down larger prey as they attempt to fill in the missing niche the wolves left behind. The government has attempted to kill the coyote as well, but coyotes start to go into reproductive hyperdrive when they feel persecuted, so all attempts end in failure and with a larger population than before.

@@greasher926That may have been so in many areas, but not in lower New England or Southeastern NY. We had no wolves or coyotes since colonial times. The Gub'Ment introduced them both as well as bobcats.

@@Richardofdanbury yes coyotes are only native to the plain states, ones the wolves were expatriated from there, that is when coyotes started to expand, eventually reach sea to shiny sea. They are technically an invasive species outside of the plains.

@@greasher926 Not sure about that can you give some official stats to back this up?

I thought it was a good debate, but it was really centred on wolves and sheep. It would have been interesting to hear more about beavers and bison.

@@andrewbaldwin4454 It was a debate you would hear in a sixth form debating club. Rewilding is about the science of ecology. A very complex issue. Not broached at all

Think it points out the fallacies that come with broader programs. Sometimes it's better to go deep on one aspect, than to be overly general, so one can see how well something is considered. I am for some degree of rewilding, with caveats. I also think Britain is a great example of too much gun control as very few people can go out and hunt a deer to supplement their diets, "...cuz who needs that in Britain?"

@@b_uppy The difficulty with the broader programmes is indeed how they deal with the details and the in depth analysis of the situation (and I think Ben did present a good analysis). But why should they start with the part that will create the most controversy and not start by building first a bit of common ground. There will of course be a lot of conflicts between people who are trying to change things and the people whose life depends on the things as they are. There is no difficulty to make such people disagree but for any meaningful conversation to take place some common values and points of reference would have been a much better start. The contempt John had for Ben was palpable but it seems to me to have a cultural aspect to it: this person who tries to transform the farming land into a Disney park. A bit of dialog at the beginning could improve the perspective each one had about the other side.

Isn't it important to focus on the top predator, as without them, the species further down the food chain are uncontrolled & then there are negative impacts on the environment?

Re-wilding on a small scale as in managing woodland and growing crops and livestock in a sustainable way is far more effective for an ecosystem than what Goldsmith has co-opted the phrase to mean. So you haven't misunderstood at all and I suspect there's another agenda at play here.

We can absolutely do re-wilding without wolves, which is what I wish more of this conversation had been about.

Why were you ever pro-wolf??

@@hobbabobba7912 lol. Pro balance

@@hobbabobba7912 I think we're unnecessarily missing out on a lot of things because of our thoughtlessness. I'm greatful for our modern society but there's a kind of recklessness around "progress" that *should* be tempered.

Nonsense. Ben offered a massive amount of solid evidence and compelling arguments in a clear and rational way, while the anti-wilding guy was largely devoid of good data or a broad perspective on the issue of rewilding.

It's a lot to do with managing the woodland areas like you say. Goldsmith has no idea and seems to just thing we can "live at harmony with nature" and other silly platitudes.

It's called ecological succession. First plants to come on scene are pioneer species which include bramble, grasses, etc., which can grow in very depleted land. Over time the pioneer species create the right conditions for the next species in succession until it culminates with climax forests. It's a long process

It will never be a a fully functional viable ecosystem without predator pressure. Apex predators impact the behaviour of herbivores. Without apex predators the bison will cause unforeseen problems not dissimilar to the problems caused by red deer in the highlands - selective grazing and overgrazing.

Eat venison then seen as you seem happy for them to eat everything the countryside has as regards sheep start eating them too or watch both get out of control only wolves and lynx can control numbers

Excellent comment. But I don't think you/one can, "disentangle the beneficial elements of rewilding from the more dangerous, woke PC, self loathing authoritarianism nonsense". Because the system has become corrupted and is incredibly complex and there are few who argue in good faith. It's depressing because it seems to be similar in every aspect of our society at this present time. Always the bottom line is "furthering the revolution" and personal interest in what wealth it can provide "TO ME" (and that ranges from the big corporate down to the I can earn a decent salary doing this).

Hehe!

This goes on in western states here in the US, most recently Colorado, with the same controversies with the farmers/ranchers.

AMP grazing increases biodiversity and creates a more natural environment. It increases profit per acre. But w/e.

The Tamil Tigers were moderately successful

All I hear is chainsaws, they are cutting down thousands of trees, this whole green agenda is absolute bullshit! If you want to reduce co2 and keep the environment healthy you need trees, a lot of trees!

Look up Drax powerstation

@@jayjaydubful Thank you for your reply… Our local station on their website maintain that they only use locally sourced wood although I have found out since and confirmed that it comes down from Scotland. Do authorities lie I wonder! 🤣🤣🤣

Ben Goldsmith is a money grubbing billionaire who uses activism to mask his psychopathic intentions. "Reintroducing" predators that haven't been in the UK for hundreds of years is utterly pointless. You might as well reintroduce lions and large lizards while you're at it and force everyone to endure the dangerous consequences.

Where did he say that

@@spiral-mjust ahead of the 34:00 minute mark.

they could start from getting rid of foreign species, such as grey squirrels. That would help birds, and also bring back red squirrel.

I've watched that and it's a great talk. A good one to share with any vegan friends who may be under the delusion that banning cattle is the way to go.

I don’t think anyone wants the whole country to go back to forest but more like it was start of 20th century with much more wild land. Seems completely opposite of what you’re suggesting. Not everything is a conspiracy…

@@joshyman221who said it was a conspiracy? It’s clearly there in plain sight. 😮

Especially livestock.

Rewilding is the offshoring of food production to parts of the world with poorer ecological oversight/ regulation. Its global NIMBYism

are you so sure? the supporters of rewilding are largely urban intelligentsia belonging to managerial or academic backgrounds. they don't have the same experiential knowledge of nature as those who actually support themselves through the struggle with the natural world. so in the end, it comes down to whether or not you believe experiential knowledge is superior to theoretical knowledge. for me at least, that is an easy choice.

@@ffii7773There is plenty real world evidence. If they are unable to be custodians then please move on so we can subsidise someone else.

@@MrNiuj Who is this "we" you speak of? The fourth generation farmer and naturalist or the literal financier, descendant of dukes, MPs and business tycoons, mister Goldsmith who thinks it is neat to watch wolves with binoculars from cafes on the edge of town? The only people who need custodians are the cosmopolitan petit bourgeois who know neither were food comes from nor how to build their own dwellings. Adults do not need custodians or government hand outs, and when supermarket shoppers, bankers and government officials try to tell them that their financial independence is a threat to the environment, it is obvious that the true concern is not the environment, but a financial coup d'état aiming to reduce the natural world into a vendable token, subject to management and control in accordance with the latest scientific blunder. Whether or not you believe this a conspiracy or simply the product of economic factors makes no difference, the end result is the same: “Rewilding” will open a pandora's box of government intervention into spaces previously unmolested by finance to the detriment of independent, small scale producers.

@@ffii7773 We the taxpayers. You mention that adults don't need government handouts, how does that marry with the level of subsidies farming receives?

​@@MrNiuj there is no relation between tax payer subsidization of the industrial agrichemical businesses that feed people living in cities and "independent, small scale producers" who support themselves in part or whole by managing small herds of grazing animals, market gardens, hunting, fishing, trapping, foraging, etc. Look up the documentary "Victim of WWF (World Wildlife Fund)". The expropriation of rural land and the privatization of natural resources, supposedly in the name of taxpayers cut off from nature, is merely a repeat of the enclosure laws that eliminated "common land" forcing displaced peasants to sell themselves for pennies in the city.