The New British Bison - a Climate Success Story

The UK has something of a strained relationship with nature. The Industrial Revolution that surged across the globe began in the UK. But this movement was fuelled by the exploitation of the natural world.

The UK has something of a strained relationship with nature. The Industrial Revolution that surged across the globe began in the UK. But this movement was fuelled by the exploitation of the natural world. Nature was seen by many as a resource to be exhausted, or simply an obstacle to profit and progress. This attitude has arguably continued to this day. Britain’s cultural identity was forged in the fires of industry, and most UK citizens would find the country lacking in the natural wonders other nations enjoy. Our ‘big 5’ might consist of the fox, badger, deer, adder and pigeon - hardly competition for the magnificent elephant or mighty lion. So for many Brits, the natural world is either something to ignore or exploit. However, if we wish to continue our push towards productivity and growth without catastrophic consequences, we must alter our perception of the natural world and our relationship with the wild.  Britain, despite its reputation as a grey, rainy place, is not sheltered from the dangers of a warming planet. Human activity has caused a hike in global temperatures and Britain now faces hotter and drier summers, warmer and wetter winters, and more frequent and extreme weather. Recently, Britain has seen temperatures reach a sweltering 40℃ for the first time, setting a new, alarming record of 40.3℃ on July 19th 2022. The previous record of 36.7℃ stood for 80 years before it was broken on the 3rd of August 1990. It has been broken a further three times since then. If this trend continues, British wildlife will suffer with a severe loss in biodiversity. Already several species are at risk of extinction due to climate change: seabirds such as guillemots and kittiwakes face extinction from starvation because warming seas cannot sustain zooplankton, the basis of the birds’ food chain. Warmer seas will also push cod further north, away from British shores. Erratic weather, coupled with the loss of habitat, means that bees are at risk. And the importance of bees and other pollinators to food security and the global economy cannot be overstated; crops worth £480 billion annually depend on a healthy population of pollinators. Natural landscapes are also at risk. Peatland in the UK, described as, “Nature’s superstar,” by Dr Christian Dunn of Bangor University, sequesters around 3 billion tonnes of carbon. However, most peatlands are in such a degraded state that not only do they no longer capture carbon, some are actively releasing it into the atmosphere. There are, however, nature-based solutions that can not only mitigate the harm of climate change, but reverse it. On the eve of the hottest recorded day in the UK, history was being made for another reason. For the first time in thousands of years, European bison were released into the woodlands of Kent on the 18th of July 2022 as part of a pioneering nature-based solution to the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. Bison are instinctive ‘ecosystem engineers’ and will restore the woodlands through their natural behaviours. Evan Bowen-Jones Chief Executive Officer at Kent Wildlife Trust said: “The restoration of naturally functioning ecosystems is a vital and inexpensive tool in tackling the climate crisis.” This could be a real turning point for the UK, with the bison igniting an explosion in biodiversity and renewing the resilience of the landscape. This project will hopefully be the first of many nature-based solutions in the fight against climate change across the globe. It might also just capture the imagination of a few Brits too and rekindle a love of nature we’ve long since neglected.