Since 2020 I have noticed an increasing number of orchid sites looking a bit worse for wear; overgrown with brambles or nettles. I return to a site and it is unrecognisable. I question whether I taken the right path, or even if I am at the right place. Where there were orchids is now overgrown. Why should this be? There are a number of possible reasons:

• Financial cutbacks, lack of funding, though it is often volunteers who help manage wildlife sites
• Climate change, though I cannot see quite how this would have such an effect
• A legacy of Covid. Restrictions as to who could go where and do what in 2020 and 2021 meant a change in site management style and these have just persisted, or the changes that occurred have been irreversible.
• Rewilding - which is the topic of this article.

I first came across the term rewilding a good few years ago with reports of a proposal to set loose wolves in the Scottish Highlands. At the time I found this quite exciting. After all it is not long since wolves did roam wild in the UK and I am unlikely to ever encounter one if they did. However, it was probably more an exercise in getting people discussing such matters than a serious proposition. Local livestock farmers would certainly not be happy, and there would be quite an uproar if a family of four on a picnic were hunted down and eaten by by a pack of wolves. The wolf packs would of course keep the deer population manageable, but culling by a sharpshooter is a bit more humane and does provide venison steaks for the table.
Since then (and before) there have been controlled releases of wild species into the UK - species which existed here within recent history and others. I am thinking about bison, boar and beavers. Can anybody think of another suitable release that begins with B? But are these true rewilding exercises? These releases are within confined areas, large enough for a decent sized colony, but not allowing the animals to roam as free as they wish. Additionally, the families are managed in order to prevent in-breeding. Fresh blood is introduced and other individual animals taken away to to other colonies. These colonies, for the most part, contain semi-feral animals. Wild boar get culled for their meat, and the public has to be partitioned from them. They do grub around in woodlands but supporters tell us that this is good for plants as it provides a natural turnover of new species and so on. If it keeps the brambles down I am for. I also like wild boar sausage rolls! Beavers are also claimed to be a positive force for the environment. the ponds formed by their dams helps regulate water flow and lessen flooding. They also fell a good number of trees, but it may that they are just thinning them out allowing the stronger ones to grow taller and faster. This year, 2023, it was reported that some beavers had escaped from their containment and set up shop in where they are not under tight control. Just how will this play out? I would guess that their only possible predator is the fox - like grey squirrels perhaps?. I can see them spreading rather uncontrollably in the coming decades and settling where people do not want them to settle, creating dams and ponds. Rewilding of otters to rivers where they had become extinct may have resulted in a proportionate drop in the fish population. Hopefully otters and fish will reach an equilibrium. However, a local report August 2023 was that a hotel had lost 50 koi carp valued up to £2000 each. Cameras were installed and it was found to be an otter, not thieves, responsible. The nearest decent sized river was a couple of miles away. Success in consevation can come at a cost, so might rewilding other species.
All in all I sort of favour species reintroduction (I have deliberately used that word as it was in use way before the current buzzword was coined) and the possible introduction of other species, but keeping in mind what happened with rabbits and grey squirrels. Foreign deer species have diversified Briatin`s mammals without too much hassle, and the Himalayan goats of Great Orme only became a pest because of the freak event of Covid and going out rules and regulations. When scientists successfully manage to clone wooly mammoths Wales should put its name on the list for some breeding pairs for release.

The term rewilding has also been hijacked in a similar but different context. Basically it means doing little or nothing to manage the plants growing wild. No-mow May is a good example. While it gives a few spring flowering plants to actually flower before being mowed, does it it allow them to seed before the council sets to work again on 1st June? There are some who use this to avoid having to mow there own lawns. I will continue to keep my own lawns moderately well trimmed throughout the year. Why? I have counted at least 15 wild flower species growing in them. All like short turf. They thrive in what is an artificially grazed meadow. This is a big difference to what is happening in parks where wide areas are set aside from mowing as so called wild areas. The result is, in my local experience, is not a blossoming of wild flowers in a range of colours with birds and butterflies abundant. Instead I see a patch of land with nettles, cow parsley, dock and other tall plants amongst the tall grass. For some reason the nymphalid butterflies seem to ignore these nettles when it come to egg laying. Perhaps they do provide an environment for some vertebrates and invertebrates, but I would reckon that it would only be for those species that are as common as the plants, and generally they are well catered for elsewhere. It is not surprising that councils jump at the chance to save some cash by not mowing swathes of land in parks and road verges. They just needed an excuse that would hoodwink the public into believing that it actually was to improve species diversity. I have even seen claims for this helping to reverse climate change. Bo, it just about saving money. If there are any conservation and species diversity advantages these are definitely only secondary considerations; mainly to be used as an excuse for abandoning the mowing. I am sorry if you disagree, but parks should be just that. Well managed nature, kept neat and tidy. Just as valid an environment as the wilds.
Has this philosophy been extended to nature reserves and the like leading to much encroachment by brambles and so on? This is what I am seeing, and it seems to be to the detriment of orchids, and do not forget that I am obsessed with orchids. Anything else is just the wallpaper behind the orchids. I do not want to see the branches of a a trimmed thicket piled up as winter protection for insects when where these have been dumped once featured some Violet Helleborines. Insects have been finding their own natural winter hideaways for millions of years. I am not taking a swipe at the volunteers who help manage reserves. I admire them and appreciate their work. I could use the excuse that I am getting older and less fit for not joining in, but truth is that I am not a mixer, a team player, or whatever, and avoid any commitments that would interfere with whatever else I do. Yes, basically selfish, but I cannot help that. You probably wouldn`t want me anyway
I would like nature reserves to have a degree of consistency from year to year, but with a dash of newness, with new species (orchids of course) popping up thanks to natural succession in the plant life. Apart from the brambles and nettles and bracken.

Lets take a bit of the rewilding philosophy and added to the tried and trusted nature reserve management that has largely worked well up to now. Why not try to re-seed areas where native orchids have died out. Perhaps the reason is that many of those habitats have changed, but there must be some that would be receptive to an orchid rewilding exercise. Or even just cast seed where orchids do grow to give them a helping hand to extend their local range. This year, 2023, Black-veined White butterflies were seen in number in Kent. Hardly surprising as the occasional one does make it over the English Channel and this occurred in the warmest days of the so-called summer. However, there was the suggestion that these were released into England and there was a bit of an outcry. This species has bred in Britain in the past, so why the big deal? Is this any different to the reintroduction of the Large Blue? And that was from foreign stock which, to an expert, are distinguishable from the UK specimens from the past. The big difference is that the Black-veined Whites would have been an individual acting alone, not a conservation group. I do not see this makes a big difference. They would not displace any native species nor cause any destruction. They would just enrich the native lepidoptera. I am not suggesting that foreign and exotic species of orchids be seeded or planted here. Just that existing populations could be given a helping hand to widen their range. Orchids do not threten the environment like the escape of rewilded mammals have the potential to do. I haven’t read The Orchid Outlaw by Ben Jacob yet, but fully intend to. I suspect I will agree with his aims, if not some of his actions. I will update this page after reading.