I spent some time this morning learning about rewilding by watching a video and doing some research online. My Dad helped me find the video and write this blog so credit to him, YEAH!
The video I watched was a TEDx talk.
TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less).
– TED.com About Our Organisation
TED is a really great organisation. They host talks by some of the most interesting and influential people in the world. The founders of pretty much every big technology company influencing the world today have given talks. For example, Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Sergei Brim and Larry Page (Google and Youtube), Jack Dorsey (Twitter and Square) and Elon Musk (Paypal, Tesla and Space X) have all spoken at TED events.
This TEDx talk (TEDx means it was an independently organised TED event), is by Alan Watson-Featherstone, the founder of Trees for Life. Trees for Life is a British charity focussed on restoring the ancient Caledonian Forest to its former glory. The talk covers that work particularly but also covers a lot of the wider ideas behind rewilding.
I found the video really interesting because of all the advantages of planting trees: it can bring back species, stop global warming and make cleaner air. My favourite of those three was stopping global warming, although all three are very important. The human race needs to take action to stop it, as we the ones causing it, so we also need to fix it. All the pollution we cause – driving, factories, power stations, etc – are producing greenhouse gases which are retaining heat in the atmosphere and making the Earth warmer. Trees break down carbon dioxide and store the carbon, so they can be part of slowing or reversing global warming.
The video was twenty minutes long but it felt a lot shorter, the speaker was very clear and the images were really good at showing what they are doing to change the landscape. From a black stump to a fully grown tree; trees that couldn’t grow because they were eaten, to tall protected trees.
After watching the video I decided to do some more research online. I wanted to research how big the Caledonian Forest was before, and is now. And then I wanted to get a feel for the scale by comparing it to something I know, so I decided to compare the size to my home town, St Albans.
How much space did the Caledonian Forest cover at its peak?
About 4000 years ago the Caledonian forest was about 15,000km2!
How much space does the Caledonian Forest cover now?
Now it’s just 180km2!
Meaning it has been reduced by a massive 14,820km2!!! Wow!
How much space does my home town, St Albans, cover?
I looked up St Albans on Wikipedia to find out how much space it takes up. The total is 18.1km2.
How does the size of the Caledonian Forest compare to my home town?
The Caledonian Forest used to occupy an area 828.7 times the size of St Albans (15,000/18.1km2)!
The Caledonian Forest now occupies an area 9.9 times the size of St Albans (180/18.1km2), or 10 times if you round to the nearest km (180/18km2).
That means an area of forest more than 800 times the size of St Albans has disappeared (828.7 – 9.9 = 818.8)!!
Has more of the Caledonian Forest been deforested than of the Amazon?
The destruction in the Caledonian Forest seems pretty amazing to me. It made me wonder if we in Britain have deforested a bigger proportion of our biggest forest, than South America has lost of the Amazon Rainforest. So I did some more searching and calculations.
Only about 1.2% of the Caledonian Forest at its peak remains (180/15,000km2).
That means 98.8% has been deforested (100-1.2=98.8%).
I found this really interesting article that talks about all the things the Amazon gives us.
Amongst what it tells you it says the following about how much deforestation has occurred.
More than 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest is already gone, and much more is severely threatened as the destruction continues. It is estimated that the Amazon alone is vanishing at a rate of 20,000 square miles a year. If nothing is done to curb this trend, the entire Amazon could well be gone within fifty years.
– Rain-Tree.com (See article here)
So there’s a couple of really interesting things there….
As a percentage, Britain has deforested almost 5 times as much of the Caledonian Forest as the Percentage of the Amazon Rainforest (98.8/20 = 4.94 times) that has been deforested.
Yet, as the Amazon is so vast, there is an area more than 3 times the size of the Caledonian Forest at its peak being cut down each year. (Calculations: 20,000miles2 = 51,800km2 see conversion here. 51,800/15,000 = 3.45 to 2dp).
And finally comparing that to St Albans: an area 2,862 times the size of the whole of the St Albans is being cut down in the Amazon each year (51,800/18.1 = 2862 to nearest whole number).
Scary!!
So, in the UK, I think we need to do our bit and try and help rewild the Caledonian Forest. And we also need to ask that people stop cutting down the Amazon.
One of the reasons I was looking at the video is because of something my school is doing. Alban City School is a member of the Eco-Schools programme and so tries to be conscious of the environment. The school was conscious that it was responsible for adding greenhouse gases to the environment because of the gas it uses to power its heating and for its cooking. So when it was renewing its gas supply it looked at different options for reducing the impact. They ended up deciding to establish a Grove with Trees for Life where parents and pupils can plant trees. They calculated they needed to plant 60 trees to offset the greenhouse gases produced by a year’s gas usage. As I’m writing there has been 71 trees planted and £14 donated to Trees for Life, so the school has more than offset the energy it used last year.
You can go and see the latest count directly at the school’s grove page here. If you are interesting in finding out more about Trees for Life or doing similar for yourself or your organisation you can find out about them here.
Whoa what an interesting report Hamish, that was very well written and so informative, I have definitely learned something new today, we should all do more to protect our forests.
Thanks!! Glad you enjoyed it.