Opinion: It is absolutely vital that rewilding is managed correctly

REWILDING has been in the news a lot recently, especially in connection with the future use and management of Waterhall and Hollingbury Golf Courses. However, there are a lot of misconceptions as to what it is.

Some think rewilding means the land is abandoned, left to its own devices to slowly turning into woodland.

Others think it means reintroducing wolves, beavers and other animals that were made extinct locally.

In fact, it can be all of those things and more, but the reality is it doesn’t normally mean, in the UK, just leaving things alone.

In the UK, we no longer have a truly wild landscape.

What you see today is a largely tamed and heavily managed countryside.

The giant herbivores such as mammoths and their predatory carnivores such as the wolf, lynx or even the sabre-toothed cats have long disappeared from our shores.

Just as we see elephants in Africa today, charging around, smashing and ripping out trees, so their distant ancestors would have done much the same over here in the UK.

This created a mixed landscape that would have allowed grassland species to develop.

While there is much debate about whether the chalk grasslands we see today are the result of early human clearances in the post Neolithic age or whether they dated from before more extensive human interference, they are undoubtedly special.

That’s why they are the focus of much “rewilding” on the South Downs.

Ancient chalk grassland takes a long time to evolve, but it is the most species rich habitat in the UK and a square metre can contain up to 40 different types of grassland plant, more species than a square metre of rainforest. It was the loss of chalk grassland in 1997 a few weeks before the General Election that helped propel the case for a South Downs National Park into the national arena.

Firstly, a farmer near Shoreham legitimately ploughed up chalk grassland that was being restored with public funding.

A week later, another farmer, again legitimately, ploughed up a nationally important wildlife site at Offham.

If the ploughing at Shoreham caused a stir, the damage at Offham Down caused an outcry. It led to a protest camp and teams of volunteers going onto the site to “unplough” the grassland to try and save it.

Then the discovery of rare species such as the Bastard Toadflax and Round Headed Rampion resulted in John Gummer, the then Environment Secretary, stepping in to prevent more damage to the site.

Ultimately, this helped lead to legislation to better protect nationally important wildlife sites and much later in 2010 to the South Downs National Park. Today, ancient chalk grassland only covers around four per cent of the South Downs. It is a habitat that has come under increasing pressure with the advent of mechanisation (tractors) and the emphasis on food growing both during and after the Second World War.

It is one of the Park Authority’s top priorities; to reconnect the many isolated patches of what is left and to create bigger and more viable units, able to adapt and survive as climate change starts to bite.

That’s why, when the golf course leases came up for renewal, conservationists spotted an opportunity to do something different and to turn back the tide of loss. However, while largely welcoming the proposals for Waterhall, the lack of engagement about the future of these public sites has been shocking and has resulted in many missed opportunities.

At Hollingbury, the council refused to consider how the golf course, the hill fort and surrounding areas could be managed as a whole. What happens in one area greatly affects another and all are heavily used by local communities. The sad thing is the council decision on Thursday may have condemned the last remnants of ancient chalk grassland on the hill fort to extinction. Without reconfiguring the golf course to create a larger chalk grassland area, a viable grazing unit cannot be achieved. And grazing is what is needed to restore this habitat to its former glory.

We don’t know what the new lessee will do, but the refusal of the council to place conditions and safeguards on chalk grassland restoration and community engagement is worrying. So too, that it has run this process without professional ecological advice... something clearly evident at the committee on Thursday. We will have to see what happens, but unless community engagement takes place before new designs are drawn up, Hollingbury’s future may not be as secure as people hope.