Thorns and Holly were considered so important to the regeneration of trees that in 1768 a statute was established imposing three months forced labour on anyone found damaging them starting each month with a number of lashes of the whip.
Because scrub is habitat on the move. It is difficult to define and has, for centuries, been regarded as an enemy. However, tolerance towards thorny scrub actually protect whips and obviates the use of carbon-intensive polypropylene cylinders attached to wooden stakes with plastic ties..a financial and environmental cost and heavily labour intensive.
It has been noted that most tree guards are not exposed to enough sunlight to degrade.
Officers from the Woodland Trust demonstrated at Knepp that thorny shrubs provide the best protection and growing environment for saplings….as well as the variety of species spontaneously establishing themselves-including wild service and crab apples.
Maybe it should be noted that charities rely on grant aid to plant woodland.
COPPICING
Coppicing, where trees were regularly felled to near ground level allow shoots known as ‘spring wood’ regrow from the stump was traditionally used for tracks and for fuel for the iron industry and also has the added benefit of prolonging the trees’ life.
Interestingly, a lime still regularly coppiced is thought to be thousands of years old.
Mixed coppice is the most biodiverse and coppicing intervals vary according to species but many trees may have been coppiced seventy or more times in their history.
INCREASED FOOD PRODUCTION (Facts)
The notion that every inch of our land must be worked for our survival is highly emotive:
The prediction of world population increase is from 7 billion currently to 10 billion by 2050.
The required increase in global food production is said to be 70-100%.
Vested interests do not show farmers being forced out of business by low commodity prices resulting from subsidies and overproduction.
The reality is that the world already produces enough to feed 10 billion people and one third (1.3 billion tonnes) is wasted annually
According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation industrialised nations annually waste 670 million tons of perfectly edible food.
As a local example, even Tesco admits to have thrown away 50,000 tons from their UK stores.. Multiply that up globally.
Restaurants routinely waste food by over ordering and us, the public,
demand ‘perfect’ food….straight carrots, blemish-free apples etc and then in rich countries we throw away 222 million tonnes annually.
We overbuy and are not taught how to cook leftovers,
A startling statistic is that in the UK, 15 million tonnes of food was wasted in 2013 of which 7 million tonnes was wasted by households.
Bear in mind the epidemic of obesity and associated illnesses.
Food losses in developing countries are also far too high but are caused by poor distribution infrastructure, lack of refrigeration, communication, transportation and hunger rather than obesity which is the overriding problem here.
The food and farming industry is reluctant to resolve the issue of waste for commercial reasons
40% of US maize is used to feed cars
It is estimated that by 2021 14% of world’s maize, 16% of its vegetable oil and 34% of its sugar cane will be burned as fuel.
I am not being ironic when I say “food for thought”
Rewilding may not look always look attractive but maybe we should rethink our attitudes.
Much of this information is taken from ‘Wilding’ by Isabella Tree – The true story of the return of nature to a British farm