Distorted Development

Ecosystem decay is a term scientists use to describe a troubling phenomenun. It can unfold as species are over-hunted in forests, or as farmers and gamekeepers remove predators from farmed landscapes. It signifies a multitude of changes and adjustments that take place in communities of species within a natural landscape as species population densities are decreased and as some species are extirpated entirely from an area.

Disrupted nature recovery is a related process that takes place in rewilding landscapes that lack species that ought to be present. The re-assembly of species communities is disrupted by past human activities.

An obvious, ‘in your face’ example of this here in the UK concerns river ‘restoration’ in the absence of Beavers. Another obvious example is natural regeneration of vegetation in the absence of some larger grazers and browsers, notable European Wild Cattle (Aurochs) and Wild Horse. One more less celebrated example: the loss of certain types of disturbance owing to the ecological extinction of Wild Boar across much of Britain.

Within a local species pool lacking certain keystone species and ecosystem engineers, nature recovery is inevitable disrupted by past human interference.

The first precaution of intelligent tinkering is to keep all the pieces. Unfortunately, we’ve failed to do so. Therefore, a second precaution might be to ‘set the system up’ for less distorted recovery by reinstating missing species to the site itself or its immediate region. This is clearly where thoughtful species reintroductions becomes so important. And it’s where the use of surrogates for globally extinct species like the Aurochs and Wild Horse makes complete, if imperfect, sense.