My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for introducing this topic. It is obviously one that can do with some discussion. I thank the noble Lord for picking his words carefully and reading out the content of Amendment 102, because that illustrates what he is looking for. Following my noble friend Lord Cormack’s argument, I feel it must all be done with great care and attention.
I will add to my declaration: I am a member of NFU Scotland, and I do not know if I dare mention that I fairly regularly have an osprey nest in my property. Most of my experience and evidence of various kinds of rewilding are in Scotland. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, mentioned, there has been an extreme element to that movement, which he is obviously trying to rein in. I live on the edge of the highlands, and some people once regarded the whole highlands as due for rewilding. Anyone familiar with Scotland will have heard of the Langholm Moor experiment, in which all management was withdrawn. It was most amazing. From a peak of grouse, it became a peak of
hen harriers. Then there was nothing for the hen harriers to eat, so they crashed. Luckily it is being left to nature at the moment, and we all wait to see what develops.
Another thing that other Peers mentioned is that we have big areas in Scotland dedicated to various forms of rewilding: millionaires are buying up vast acres to carry out rewilding without any assistance from the Secretary of State. Given the nature of this Bill, I wonder whether they will benefit from the money the Government are likely to make available if they have a large number of animals, birds or whatever they reckon to encourage.
One element we need to be aware of is that some people’s idea of rewilding is to see the removal of anything that cannot be described as totally native. Where I live, it is quite hard to take in that we are told that we must remove all sycamore and beech trees, because somebody has done some research and seems to reckon they were not around immediately after the last ice age, which other Peers have mentioned. I back the proposal put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, that it will take more than a light touch of management.
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A number of Peers have mentioned beavers. It is worth just putting on the record that in Scotland, we have had quite a bit of experience with them. At first, it was with people privately keeping a few beavers in a fenced area; almost inevitably, some of them escaped so their formal introduction by Scottish Natural Heritage took place in 2009. Scottish Natural Heritage now supervises all releases and controls the management. A recent report by the Scottish Wildlife Trust contained the information that the river catchment of Tayside currently has 450 beavers, and the damage to watercourses in the arable areas has been so bad that it has issued licences to cull 87 beavers. At the same time, about 40 have been rehoused in other places. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will pay attention and watch out for the unintended consequences of a policy of unbridled rewilding.