Dan's Winter 2021 Newsletter

Dear friends, supporters and fellow biophiles,

During these short, northern Scottish days I find myself relishing any scrap of winter sunlight I can get. Many animals are dormant or have slowed down and things are also much quieter in the worlds of plants and fungi.

And yet even around the winter solstice, during the very darkest time we soon start to get hints of spring to come. Some of these are quite natural and normal patterns. These include the male hazel catkins that are already growing, readying themselves to release pollen in late February. And the almost imperceptible change in daylight after the solstice isn't lost on the birds. I often hear the ‘TEAcher TEAcher' song of the great tit and the territorial drumming of the great spotted woodpecker before we even reach New Year. Keep your eyes and ears peeled! 

Reflections and milestones

It's been a very busy year for me in many ways. I feel very grateful to have had the chance to work with a wide range of different organisations, private clients and members of the public. These have included training and events for University of Edinburgh, Aigas Field Centre, Field Studies Council, Edinburgh Science Festival and others.

There were a couple of milestones, one of which was celebrating 10 years of running Dan Puplett Nature Awareness and another was achieving my Level 4 (100%) certificate in Track and Sign after many years practice and study. I don't mention these to boast. While I feel proud of these achievements they really highlight to me the fact that I have been given a huge amount of support the along the way.

So a massive thank you to all my teachers and mentors, clients, tracking buddies, students, online subscribers, and those closest to me all of the support and encouragement. It simply wouldn't have been possible without you all (and the many who in turn support you, and the wild world that supports all of us!), and it reminds me how interconnected we really are. Observing the natural world we learn this lesson again and again. Nothing can really be picked out in isolation. Everything depends on everything else.

Rewilding the world

It's obviously been a challenging year for many people on many fronts. And in the midst of the climate emergency it is clear that the outcomes of COP26 fall disappointingly and alarmingly short. Even so, a state of crisis isn't the whole picture. 

Like many people, I have been involved with, and advocating for, rewilding for over two decades, and It is really exciting to see how interest in this approach to restoring nature has mushroomed in the last few years. Rewilding can play a key role in tackling both the climate and nature emergencies.  The return of the beaver to Britain is just one example and is proving to be a huge conservation success.

This year I have had the privilege of working with a number of rewilding projects including my friends at Trees for Life, Bunloit Rewilding Project and SCOTLAND: The Big Picture. The buzz and sense of possibility in the conservation world are electric at the moment. Perhaps it's a human trait that when things get pretty dire, positive solutions and determination come to the fore.

Rewilding ourselves

I've also noticed another phenomenon which many of my friends and peers who work in the field of environmental education and nature connection have also observed. It seems that there's been a big increase in the number of people actively interested in connecting to nature and becoming more familiar with the wild world. There could be several reasons for this but the key thing is that it is an encouraging sign. Rewilding ourselves is an essential part of the solution.

Coming up

Looking to 2022 I'm really excited about the courses, events and projects I have coming up across Scotland and England. You can see more on my events page which I will be adding to over the next month when we finalise the details of certain courses. I’m also working on a new Field Studies Council chart that will be released in Spring 2022, and am writing a book that will be coming out further down the line. Watch this space!

Many thanks for all your support over the past year. I wish you a joyful and peaceful festive period and a happy, nature-filled 2022.

Stay wild!

Dan

Rewilding - an essential climate solution

I'm a fan of elegant solutions, ones that create a lot of benefit for relatively little effort. To me rewilding is one such solution and one of the single most important things we can do to address the problems of climate change and biodiversity loss. 

Of course, when tackling problems this complex we need many different kinds of action. These range from creating social equity, developing green technologies, reducing emissions and helping people reconnect to nature, to name just a few. However, rewilding has a huge part to play and can also support many of these other solutions.

Before we get into some other benefits of rewilding, let's look at what the word actually means. It’s a term that I'm happy to see has now entered the mainstream, although it can mean many things depending on who you ask. A simple definition could be that rewilding is the process of allowing ecosystems to recover and natural processes to be given freer reign on a large scale. It may involve the reintroduction of missing species, where appropriate. The word is often used interchangeably with ecological restoration. There are actually different types of rewilding and others might use a different definition, but I'm wary about getting too bogged down in semantics, which can sometimes seem like pontificating about the colour of paint on the Titanic!

Regenerating Caledonian pinewoods in Glen Affric

Why does rewilding have such an important role to play? Part of its value is that it can help solve so many different problems. When it comes to addressing climate change, we obviously need to capture carbon. While there are various high-tech methods for capturing carbon, they have serious limitations; nature can do it for us safely, cheaply and more effectively. When forests, grasslands, peatlands and other terrestrial habitats function as they should, dead organic matter becomes locked up in the soil, with fungi playing a key role in this process. When it comes to marine rewilding, habitats such as seagrass beds and kelp forests also act as vast carbon stores. 

Dwarf birch (Betula nana), an essential part of Scotland’s upland ecosystems. Scarce montane scrub habitats are being restored to Glenfeshie in the Cairngorms, at Trees for Life’s Dundreggan Estate and elsewhere.

Obviously our planet isn't just facing climate change. We're also going through Earth's sixth mass extinction. We're haemorrhaging the biodiversity upon which our own species depends and which I believe we have a moral obligation to safeguard for its own sake. Again rewilding is one of the single most effective things we can do to help protect and restore this astonishing, awe-inspiring and diverse community of life on planet Earth.

Not only does rewilding help tackle these two major problems, but addressing either one of them is already helping to mitigate the other. By that I mean climate change is among the key threats to global biodiversity, so tackling it is essential for addressing our nature crisis. And large, dynamic and connected areas of habitat give wildlife a better chance of moving and adapting to climate change. At the same time stable biodiverse ecosystems are vital for regulating the climate and storing carbon.

On top of that we have the added benefits of healthy, rewilded ecosystems mitigating flooding and drought, and so much more. Last but not least, a thriving, species-rich natural world makes life richer, more fascinating, happier and healthier for all of us. This is something that can't be necessarily quantified, but at the end of the day who wouldn't want such a life?

Here are a handful of the growing number of rewilding projects that provide great information, practical action and inspiration for ways you can get involved. This is just a selection of some of my favourites in Britain and the rest of Europe. There are many other great projects out there:

Rewilding Britain

The first and only country-wide organisation in Britain focusing on rewilding and the amazing benefits it can bring for people, nature and climate. They'll keep you up-to-date on the world of rewilding along with things you can do to help. They also offer support if you have a land you want to rewild.

Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation

Roy and his team are leaders in wildlife restoration. Check out and support their many inspiring projects.

Trees for Life

The Trees for Life vision is of a revitalised wild forest in the Scottish Highlands, providing space for wildlife to flourish and communities to thrive. There are opportunities to get involved on their Conservation Weeks.

SCOTLAND: The Big Picture

Their vision is of a vast network of rewilded land and water across Scotland, where wildlife flourishes and people thrive. Check out their Rewilding Escapes, which demonstrate how rewilding can help communities to thrive.

Bunloit Rewilding Project 

The Bunloit Rewilding project hopes to rewild and re-people the Highlands through optimally sequestering carbon, growing biodiversity, creating green new jobs and generating sustainable profit for purpose.

Seawilding

Working with coastal communities to restore degraded inshore marine habitats to enhance biodiversity, improve water quality and sequester carbon.

Knepp Wildland

A pioneering and inspirational rewilding project in West Sussex.

Aigas Field Centre

A world-class field centre with a fantastic demonstration of rewilding in action.

Borders Forest Trust

Reviving the Wild Heart of Southern Scotland.

Scottish Rewilding Alliance 

Calling for Scotland to become the world’s first rewilding nation.

Wild Ennerdale

Wild Ennerdale in Cumbria is one of the UK’s largest wildland partnerships.

Rewilding Europe

Making Europe a wilder place.

Ecological Amnesia

Q: What do the following species have in common: Agile frog, large copper butterfly, blue stag beetle, ghost orchid, apple bumblebee and Dalmatian pelican?

A: Most people have never heard of them. Oh, and all of them are now extinct in Britain.

Our planet was once richer than we can imagine. In the UK, if you speak to someone who grew up in the 1950s (or if you grew up then yourself) they may well recall walking through clouds of butterflies. When was the last time you walked through a cloud of butterflies, let alone thought it was normal? And these butterfly clouds weren't as impressive as those in the 1850s.

Ecologists use the term ‘Shifting Baseline Syndrome.’ We all sufferers. The term was coined by fisheries scientist Daniel Pauly after he realised that ecologists aimed to restore fish stocks to the levels they were at at the beginning of their careers. But these levels were already severely diminished.

Shifting Baseline Syndrome is a kind of ecological amnesia, as Wilding author Isabella Tree puts it. Many of us want to protect and restore our wild places, and this is fantastic. But we often assume that nature as we encountered it in our childhoods is the benchmark for how our depleted world should be now. But look more closely. What we don’t realise is that even the richer natural world of our early years is a pale shadow of what it once was.

With each generation our expectations are eroded. It’s tragic enough that we have lost so much biodiversity. But not even knowing it makes it worse. We come to accept our ecologically ravaged landscape we inherit as normal, or perhaps just a bit below par.

And here’s the embarrassing bit. The 2016 State of Nature report found that the UK is ‘among the most nature-depleted countries in the world’. It ranks 189th out of 218 assessed.

Here are a just are a few example of the countless wild wonders we have lost:

500AD (probably more recently in Scotland) The shy and beautiful lynx roamed our forests.

1000AD Six foot cod were abundant off our coasts.

1600s Wildcats were common across the whole of Britain.

1770s Herring shoals six miles long and four miles wide were normal.

1790s Golden eagles were still nesting in North Yorkshire.

1800s Richmond Park in London was teeming with lapwings.

1900 Cuckoos could be heard in most villages in Britain.

1930s Huge 850lb bluefin tuna were found in British waters.

1940s Large house sparrow flocks were common in city parks.

1950 Red squirrels could still be found in Cornwall.

1960s ‘Moth snowstorms’ were a common sight on night time drives through the countryside . . .

Not only have we lost species, but many of those that remain have fallen victim to the ‘great thinning’. In his excellent book The Moth Snowstorm, Michael McCarthy uses this chilling term to point to the dramatic but often overlooked reduction in the numbers of once common wildlife.

Instead of getting depressed about it, let's use this knowledge as inspiration, as fuel. In the midst of this biodiversity crisis we need vision. What would it be like to live in world where abundant wildlife thrives alongside humans? What would it take to have a human culture that has a net positive impact on the biosphere? If we are to rewild our world it helps to have some sense of what is possible. A life-rich world is not at odds with thriving human culture. If you’re reading this you are no doubt well aware that the opposite is actually the case.

Standing up for habitats and species that are being destroyed is essential but not enough. We need to insist on more. We should be demanding a world brimming with life.

And let's not forget what is already happening. Beavers are making a comeback in many parts of Britain and white-tailed tailed eagles are bringing wildness back to southern England. These and many other projects shows that we can turn things around when we put our minds to it. Now that’s worth remembering.

Sources and inspiration

Macdonald, B. 2019. Rebirding: Rewilding Britain and its birds. Pelagic Publishing: Exeter.

McCarthy, M. 2016. The Moth Snowstorm : Nature and Joy. John Murray: London.

Monbiot, G. 2013. Feral: Rewilding the land, sea and human life. Penguin: London.

Tree, I. 2018. Wilding: The return of nature to a British Farm. Picador: London.

Websites

Bunloit Rewilding Project

Knepp

Rewilding Britain

Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation

Trees for Life

10th Anniversary 'Thank you note'!

This month, May 2021, I’ll be celebrating. It’s the 10th anniversary of putting all my working time into my business, Dan Puplett Nature Awareness. DPNA started a couple of years earlier as a side project while I was employed at Trees for Life. But this month marks 10 years of going all in!

Like many of us, I would love to see a human culture that treats all life with respect. One that has a net positive impact on the biosphere. I believe that understanding and connecting deeply to the more-than-human world are a key parts of realising this vision. My aim in creating this business was (and is) to help people to deepen their understanding of, and sense of kinship with, this wild world and its 8+ million species. Hopefully then we can act as better stewards and be more considerate neighbours!

And that's not meant to sound grandiose. What I'm doing may be a drop in the ocean, but I don’t have anything better to do so I’ve stuck with it. The fantastic thing is that there are lots of drops in the ocean, countless individuals and organisations who are also awed by this planet and want to help create a brighter future. You are probably one of them too. I'm privileged to know some of them personally, and that gives me hope.

Over the last decade I have run (and continue to run) a range of courses and bespoke trainings and events. Many of these have been focused around some core themes. These include wildlife tracking, bird language, foraging, ecology, natural history, rewilding and nature connection. Things I love to geek out about. I deliver training for conservation and environmental education professionals as well as universities and the general public. I also carryout ecological surveys and deliver guided wildlife walks. I have been fortunate to freelance for a number of excellent organisations delivering Forest Schools, nature-based youth work and programmes for people in recovery and with mental health challenges.

A lot has happened over the last decade and I've been privileged to work with some amazing people in a wide range of places from St Kilda to Hungary. The journey so far has been fun and inspiring and at times challenging and difficult. But the overriding feeling is one of gratitude. I'm aware that no project or business can ever be down to one person. So many people have helped me on the way. 

So, a huge thank you to everyone who has supported my work. My own teachers and mentors, clients, tracking buddies, students, online subscribers, and those closest to me who give support and encouragement and also teach me a huge amount. I've had a fascination with nature from a very young age and I feel grateful to those adults who saw and encouraged this interest. And there's massive appreciation for this astonishing natural world that continually teaches and inspires me.

It's been a privilege to meet thousands of people who have a shared passion for the natural world. In turbulent times I find it heartening that so many individuals find joy in engaging with nature and are committed to finding ways to help this wild world thrive. I think that biophilia runs deep in our veins.

I'm looking forward to the next steps. I have a some exciting projects in the pipeline, so watch this space! Thank you once again and I hope that your own connection to nature continues to deepen and flourish.

Stay well and stay wild,

Dan

This Stuff Works – Celebrating 85 Trees for Life Conservation Weeks

“This stuff works!” I thought, gazing out over the regenerating trees. I recently celebrated leading my 85th Trees for Life Conservation Week. A few of these were as a volunteer, the bulk as a Group Leader, and a number also leading the Leader Training weeks. It was also exactly eighteen years since I first came on a Conservation Week as a wide-eyed young volunteer, so being back out at the Athnamulloch Bothy in Glen Affric, where my TFL experience began, gave a lot of pause for reflection.

In that time (during a chunk of which I was also a staff member) I’ve been fortunate to see some of the results of TFL’s work. Even though eighteen years is a blink of a forest ecosystem’s eye, things are happening: vibrant natural regeneration, native woodland springing back where non-natives have been removed, blanket bog recovering, and more. 

I can’t get enough of looking at the view to the west of the Bothy. Scots pines that were planted in the early nineties have now become a young forest. A few years ago I climbed one of these volunteer-planted trees and got about 6 metres above the ground (for a lot of reasons I’m so glad it didn’t fall over)!

Wildlife is responding to the returning trees. Last year I saw a goldcrest further west than I’ve ever seen one in the glen. This year it was the same with a dunnock. Even as far back as 2004 we were already seeing black grouse in West Affric. 

I’m hugely grateful for each of those 85 weeks (and counting!), It has been a privilege to work with hundreds of dedicated volunteers and co-leaders, staff and supporters, many of whom are now great friends. 

I’d like to give a special thanks to TFL’s founder, Alan Watson Featherstone. While he often points out that it has been a team effort, the project would not exist today without his vision, commitment and determination. 

As well as transforming landscapes, I’ve seen countless people’s lives, including my own, enriched and transformed by the Conservation Weeks. There have been fun moments, challenging moments, heartbreaking, frustrating, hilarious and awe-inspiring moments, and I’ve been taught a lot by the people around me and by the forest itself.

Two of the many lessons that I’ve learnt are 1) that rewilding ecosystems tends to rewild people as well, and 2) rewilding really works!