Divided Opinions About Letting Farmland Return To Its Natural State - IELTS Reading Answers & Explanations

==== Read the text below and answer Questions 28–40. ====

Divided opinions about letting farmland return to its natural state

Close to London’s Gatwick Airport is Knepp Castle Estate, owned by Charlie Burrell. It is an intensive 3,500-acre farm that has been ‘rewilded’, that is, allowed to return to its natural, uncultivated state. After barely a decade, nature has come back astonishingly quickly. Neat fields of maize have been replaced with a landscape that resembles the typical grasslands of Africa. The original narrow clipped hedges that edged the farmland are now eight metres wide, and deer race through ragwort, thistles, and other weeds in the meadows. The estate boasts more of the unusual purple emperor butterflies than anywhere else in Britain. It’s also thought to be the only place where Britain’s fastest-declining birds, turtle doves, are multiplying. But as rewilding blossoms, so do controversies.

In Wales, one ecologist says the concept can’t even be mentioned to farmers. Even the harmless beaver is the subject of fierce debate: while it was recognised as a native animal in Scotland last year, beavers reintroduced in south-west England roam free only on a government trial. ‘For us it is strange to see the British struggling with the beaver. Come on, we have thousands of them!’ Dutch ecologist Leo Linnartz told a rewilding conference. Linnartz says that many Dutch objected to ‘nature development’ 30 years ago but rewilding principles are now mainstream.

In Britain, the rewilding movement started by writer and environmental activist George Monbiot is popularly seen to seek the return of large carnivores – bears, wolves and lynx. In practice, it is returning more modest herbivores like ponies and deer to the countryside. For decades, ecologists believed the end result of allowing a landscape to run wild would be dense forest and a mass extinction of sun-loving wild flowers and butterflies. But this belief has been demolished by Dutch ecologist Frans Vera. Since the 1980s, Vera has introduced wild cattle, horses and deer to rewilded marshland, and proved that ‘natural’ grazing creates a more dynamic landscape, a constantly changing pattern of open glades and wooded groves.

In the Scottish Highlands, rewilding is taking a different form as large landowners restore ancient pine forest. But David Balharry, former Scotland director of Rewilding Britain, cautions that rewilding in Scotland will only be championed by policymakers and politicians when it is led by local communities.

For Burrell, rewilding has been a pragmatic way to revive the struggling family farm. Ecotourism there makes as much profit as his conventional farm did. Knepp’s unproductive soil meant Burrell could not compete with globalised food production. His profits may be steady while conventional dairy and cattle farm incomes fall dramatically, but no farmers have yet followed his example. ‘It takes a new eye to look at this and say, “that’s beautiful”, rather than go, “that’s just a real mess”, says Burrell. Other farmers may have a moral attitude towards it too – “why are you stopping food production?” Many criticise rewilding for abandoning productive farmland when the world’s population is growing.

Wouter Helmer, director of Rewilding Europe, sees no conflict between food production and rewilding: 'Europe is heading for a future of food produced more intensively in fewer areas, releasing less productive land for rewilding,' he says. Farming is being done by fewer and fewer farmers on a larger scale on the best soils. They leave the less profitable lands to become adventure land for an increasingly urban population.

Helmer says there is no point in seeking to feed the world with traditional organic farming because there is no one to do the labour: when he asks Dutch students who wants to farm, none raise their hands. 'They have a completely different relationship to nature to their parents or grandparents. They are not fighting with it on a daily basis. On one hand they are disconnected from nature but on the other hand they are becoming more relaxed with nature – it’s hunting and gathering but hunting with a camera and gathering experiences.' The part of the countryside which is not used for intensive farming starts to serve all these new urban needs.

Yet some environmentalists worry how rewilding connects with urban populations. ‘The challenge is how to make rewilding an issue that people in their ordinary lives can take action on,’ says Elaine Gilligan of Friends of the Earth. She thinks it is great for engaging people in nature but doubts whether it is seen as important in large urban areas like Birmingham.

Rewilders argue that reducing flood risks for cities is one practical way rewilding can enhance urban life. Ted Green, founder president of the Ancient Tree Forum, believes that intensive farming can worsen flash flooding, and cause fertile earth to be swept downriver and out to sea. ‘The land may belong to the landowner but the soil must belong to the nation,’ says Green. ‘When you see people cleaning out their houses after floods, you don’t see them removing water, you see them removing mud. It’s no longer an engineering problem – it’s a farming problem.

Some conservationists worry, however, that rewilding could replace the traditional protection of rare species on small nature reserves. If rewilding really takes off, there’s a risk people will say, “Oh we don’t have to do any of that old stuff,” says Matt Shardlow, chief executive of Buglife. ‘But we still have habitat fragmentation and species in tiny places and we have to take care of them even if you have some areas made bigger for wildlife.’ Whatever happens, we need more projects like Knepp.