The battle for the countryside: Britain should rewild its uplands

Imagine if swaths of the British countryside could become wild again, if rare trees and plants could thrive, and if beavers, wild boars and white-tailed eagles could reclaim their place in the ecosystem. It's the aim of a growing number of nature lovers who support the idea of rewilding the British highlands. We tend to think of these highlands as “wild” and “natural.” But in reality, as the rewildings point out, they are entirely man-made, the result of man-made clearings to make way for millions of sheep whose grazing over the past 200 years has left the land bare . Sheep farming, once a major source of wealth for Britain, is now largely unprofitable and dependent on billions of pounds of subsidies. But where rewilding is happening, in Britain and Europe, booming tourism is contributing to a more sustainable local economy. We need to make room for wilderness where agriculture doesn't make sense.

It’s romanticism, say opponents of rewilding. People matter too, and the idea that we should abandon traditional ways of life for the sake of wild blueberries and wolves blows things out of proportion. Get rid of upland farms and you will destroy not only the livelihoods of farmers, shepherds and vets, but also the village schools, shops and pubs that are at the heart of rural communities. Yes, mountain sheep farming is subsidized, but so is almost all other types of agriculture. And do we really want creeping scrub to replace peaceful scenes of grazing sheep and frolicking lambs, and introduce dangerous animals that will encroach on the outskirts of our towns and villages too soon?

Intelligence Squared brought together four speakers who are passionate about the campaign but deeply disagree about how we should run it.

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