I was talking with a few friends last night and the conversation slipped onto environmental matters… (I do try and tone it down as it does wear people out) We were talking about how a plan to plant trees across the Sahara (see below) didn’t provide a viable solution to tackling climate change (mainly because of loosing the reflective power of the desert).
I got onto talking about a Nature Recovery Network, an idea explored at the Wildlife Trusts. I outlined that many conversationalists argue we need not plant trees, they will plant themselves if we just left land to be taken back to nature. And if we leave nature to take over large swathes of land the area would develop complex ecosystems resulting in the maximal deposit of carbon into the soil. If this was done over 10% of Britain that around 20% of our current carbon emissions would be sequestered into the land every year.
A Nature Recovery Network is a great method of tackling climate change as well as helping restore ecosystems. The idea is for land that is set aside for nature to be connected meaning that nature can move, helping maximise the habitat availability.
I’d take it further myself as suggested by Isobella Tree, who with her husband has rewilded the Knepp Estate, a 1,400 hectare previous farm in Sussex. They introduced 5 herbivore species and essentially put a big fence around their land. The carbon sequestration has been very high as has the improvement in the soil. Her suggestion is that you could create enclosed nature parks through a nature recovery network which would be self managing, without much intervention. You would then move the network every ten years or so to expose productive soil from farming.
I love this idea as we would sequester carbon, clean our water and air, provide amazing places to explore across our countryside, and secure an agricultural future.
What do people think?
It reminded me that a key solution to creating a more positive future