Case study: Rewilding with Randal Plunkett
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- Опубліковано 11 лип 2024
- There’s been a lot of talk about rewilding and we have been getting a lot of enquiries about it, so we decided to take a closer look ourselves. Randal Plunkett, a nominee in 2021, has a rewilding project on his land in Co.Meath.
Here is his story in his own words. What are your thoughts on rewilding? (constructive feedback only please!)
Inspiring,oh that more landowners had this vision. We have worked against nature so long people like you could be the saviours of the world.
Amazing work. Great to see it on such a large scale!!
Wow , the difference to your aura inside and outside with nature is incredible
Inspiration ❤
I am related to Ellen Plunkett who migrated to Australia in 1854 as a 19 year old lass she was from County Meath also. Congratulations on this wonderful rewilding.
beautiful initiative! thank you.
Awesome work guys. Ive got quite a few spots rewilding and some spots that have been wild for hundreds of years. I find introduced mammels like deer and possums do the most damage and prevent saplings taking off!
love what you are doing
Keen to know how they are generating income, if the farm is no longer used for cattle ?
😃🌱💚🙏✨🍄🐝
Selling carbon credits?
But prairie grasses & some trees have many seeds that get seeded by fires. And why not throw native prairie flowers, esp the ones to attract more butterflies, into the grasses whilst you're adding insects like black bees?.. Bees are nooot the BEST pollinators and they DO dig tunnels down into dirt (...or up out of?..🤔)
Also.. What type of deer are there?
Tunneling forests isss manipulating landscape BTW. Animals certainly do not need our help making paths and trails. (I once took an animal trail in Glacier National Park. Whoops! 😂 it looked so well-worn and human-made! 😂😂
Rewilding, of course, is absolutely crucial for us to try and mitigate the worst effects the climate and biodiversity collapse are going to have. The latest report of the UN's IPCC came to the conclusion that rewilding and the restoration of other key ecosystems (peatlands, coastal wetlands, savannas and grasslands) have the highest mitigation potential of all studied measures: "Between 2020 and 2050, mitigation measures in forests and other natural ecosystems provide the largest share of the economic [...] mitigation potential, followed by agriculture and demand-side measures" which means, it is the most effective thing we can (and have to) do right now, and on as large a scale as possible!
They also found that the protection of already established forests (along with wetlands, savannas and grasslands) has the single highest potential to reduce emissions and/or store and sequester carbon: "Among the mitigation options, the protection, improved management, and restoration of forests and other ecosystems (wetlands, savannas and grasslands) have the largest potential to reduce emissions and/or sequester carbon [...], with measures that ‘protect’ having the single highest total mitigation and mitigation densities". This, of course, is another large part of what Randal is doing.
However, we need to be careful not to fall into the trap of what is now mostly called 'regenerative grazing', or 'holistic grazing', and very often supposedly integrated with 'rewilding'. The benefits of this are an utter myth, unless we are talking native species to lands they are native to - like bison in the American prairies - and anyone who is willing to look into that more deeply, might check out grazingfacts.com or vegansustainability.com/a-selection-of-links-on-the-many-harms-of-regenerative-holistic-grazing-and-grass-fed-geef/ - or wait for George Monbiot's upcoming book 'Regenesis'. This is (part of) why it is so significant, and absolutely crucial, that Randal Plunkett and Dunsany Nature Reserve follow a vegan concept of rewilding, or the term Randal coined, v-wilding. You can learn more about the reasoning behind that in his recent podcast with the Irish Doctors for the Environment, available at anchor.fm/irishdovsenv/episodes/Rewilding-in-Ireland-with-Randal-Plunkett-e1i8dug
And: Maybe it's me, but it occurs a bit funny to me that you are featuring him now, given his nomination silently disappeared from last year's list of nominees before voting opened.
If you are a Vegan you are only approaching climate change from one context which will prove to be an error in the future. Carbon sequestration is the goal and grasslands are the most effective way of achieving that goal . Ungrazed grasslands will not continue to renew themselves and their ability to sequester carbon will quickly reduce significantly which Randal will soon encounter. It’s not the Cow it’s the How ! . Unless ruminant animals came from outer space they have an important role in a truly balanced ecosystem. Maintaining the health of grasslands and Savannah relies on ruminant animals as grass has evolved to be grazed by them . The 500,000 hectares over 5 continents brought back from the desert with the help of the Savory institute is real proof of this . Most Vegans I know are Vegans because of animal welfare concerns and I would share these concerns . Regenerative agriculture has tackled these concerns to my satisfaction which is of great relief considering 75% of the world’s population rely on meat as their main source of nutrition.
If we are honest with ourselves we will know that there is more death , destruction and loss of biodiversity with a plant based diet than there is with even conventionally produced beef . Yet again more proof of balance required. Randal contested that there is room for agriculture in his system and that will be adaptive pasture management involving ruminant animals ( you don’t have to eat them ) I have seen Randal on another interview in which he highlighted how he found conventional cattle rearing upsetting and ugly . I agree , but there is another way . Regenerative agriculture is the balance, mimicking nature is the solution.
@@kcahill2777 I have to disappoint you, but this is not the case, much of it is propaganda. I have done quite some research on the topic myself and read the studies so often quoted (and equally often funded by some branch of the meat industry). But I don't have the time to discuss this in detail; that's why I have given the links for further information above.
There are plenty of studies and meta-analyses that come to the conclusion I have stated: Large herbivores are only beneficial in their natural state (bison, aurochs and the like, but not domestic cattle, not even heritage breeds) and only to the lands they are native to. Domestic cattle have very different roaming and grazing patterns. They are also not native to the British Isles (where we are), and do by far more damage than good.
And, the information you have given is actually incorrect: Forests and wetlands store a lot more carbon than grasslands, with the carbon also being much more permanently bound - sequestered - in those landscapes than grasslands, too.
Anyway, there are plenty of studies and links to look into if you're interested, or anyone else who does not look for a last straw to justify their meat consumption. The work of ecologist Nicholas D. Carter is very comprehensive in this regard, too, but some of it is mentioned in the sources given already.
P.S. Your opinion also contradict the IPCC's report on climate change. The IPCC is the one ' internationally accepted authority on climate change, and its work is widely agreed upon by leading climate scientists as well as governments'. Do you really think they could be so wrong in their findings?
Just one question. What is wrong with eating meat ?
And here’s another. What percentage of the yield from the 10000 acres in Dunsany estate that is under tillage and I presume is farmed conventionally (glyphosate , ploughing, harrowing etc) is used to fatten beef steers ?
1000 acres
What a waste of land nonsense we need the meat
We dont 'need' meat. There are over 2 billion vegetarians on earth. And their populations in India and south East Asia are growing.
There's plenty of agricultural land in use. Nature Reserves are vitally important as well.
no we dont need meat,it is nice but we do not need
Youre not going to have meat once there isnt any fertile soil anymore to produce soy for the cows. Rewilding is establishing a fertile landscape for us humans too. My personal vision is a world of connected "core" regions where nature is left its course, mixed regions of agriculture and nature and human areas of agriculture and cities on a large scale. TZhe mixed areas provide the most fertile lands humans have had in the past 200 years in Europe, making food production extremely efficient and the human areas can be constructed in an environmentally friendly way. All this is obviously stillo leaving personal freedom for everyone, It would be not so different from current regulations, just more organised.