Today we’re bringing you our final instalment from our Blog Post Competition – A piece from our second runner-up Lily MacFarlane. Lily presented a really interesting argument advocating a policy of Arctic rewilding (so is certainly worth a read if you study any biogeography-related paper or Part II Politics of the Arctic paper). Compass would once again like to thank everyone who took part in this competition and would like to extend a well-deserved congratulations to Lily for a truly wonderful and insightful piece.
What is the most effective policy that governments can enact to tackle climate change?
Worldwide, governments spend millions on carbon capture schemes, often with ineffective or frustratingly small-scale outcomes. The process of nature-led restoration practices (which for convenience I will refer to as “rewilding”, while aware of the term’s complexities and controversies) currently only receives 1% of funds given to global climate change mitigation, but is a nature-based climate and biodiversity crisis solution that can be implemented in all countries to huge ecological and carbon-sequestering advantages. Hence, using case studies – two from the UK and one, perhaps surprisingly, from the Russian Arctic – I will argue that a strategy implementing rewilding and nature-led restoration practices should make up a minimum of 20% of every nation’s carbon emission reduction expenditure.
One of the key aspects of rewilding in comparison to ‘traditional’ conservation is that it does not have a specific goal; instead, it is process-led, with any potential human intervention determined by how the landscape and ecosystems are forming and recovering. In order to mimic the structures of prior ecosystems and establish the basis for nature-led changes, various grazing species can be introduced, acting as proxies for now-extinct creatures. In a UK setting, as exhibited by the pioneering Knepp project, pigs replace the rootling and ploughing ecological function that wild boars once carried out, and Exmoor Ponies stand in for wild horses. Furthermore, the restoration of coastal wetland or bog terrain (as seen on the Wallasea project in Essex), and resultant biodiversity increase, has been found to capture carbon up to 400 times more than tropical rainforest. This principle of proxy species, food chain and wetland restoration can be enacted on a on a global scale, specific to local ecosystems, and have huge consequences for the carbon storage potential of farmland, while still allowing some farming practices and agricultural profit to be made.
Rewilding of the Arctic is an idea that has been unexplored and largely dismissed as unfeasible, but it would have the potential to make huge changes to the Earth’s climate. The idea seems at first counter-intuitive: how would it be possible and what are the benefits of large herbivore presence on permafrost tundra? However, during the Pleistocene large areas of the Arctic were grassland, grazed by herbivores like Bison and Mammoths. As humans evolved and hunted them, the grassland gave way to wet, peat-forming plants and bogs. Now, the melting permafrost and peat of the Arctic is a huge store of sequestered carbon, with scientists estimating that a catastrophic 4.35 billion tonnes of carbon could be released this century without significant mitigation. Hence, rewilding of the Arctic – involving the reintroduction of proxy species to replace extinct herbivores (like Woolly Rhinoceroses and Mammoths) – would initiate the return of grassland vegetation, increasing the albedo effect as the landscape would be lighter in colour. Furthermore, the trampling of the terrain by heavy herbivores would allow cold temperatures to penetrate deeper into the permafrost, reducing melting and carbon release. The impacts of Arctic rewilding schemes are already exemplified on a small-scale on the Pleistocene Park in Russia, where herbivores such as Yakutian Horses and Reindeer have, over twenty years, increased biodiversity, transformed the predominant vegetation type to grasses, and improved soil carbon storage and rates of nutrient turnover.
In conclusion, rewilding offers a huge opportunity for governments to improve both carbon sequestration rates and biodiversity. Letting nature take back the reins and recover independently is hugely cost-effective compared with traditional micro-managed conservation practices, and also offers us a unique opportunity to learn from the natural world as it gradually reverts human damage.
DISCLAIMER THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY AND DO NOT REPRESENT THE VIEWS OR OPINIONS OF COMPASS MAGAZINE AS A WHOLE OR THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY.