THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN LIGHT AND SHADE - MEAT: A Benign Extravagance - page 308

Maybe, in much of upland Scotland at least, we have had our Oostvarrdersplassens
all along - large tracts of land with significant numbers of indigenous herbivores, res-
ulting in a relatively natural vegetation pattern. Maybe we have them throughout up-
land Britain, the only difference being that sheep have replaced the red deer. It is a
common observation in Scotland that if sheep are taken off a hill, red deer come in. 46
It is ironical that the government should finally bow to pressure to reduce subsidies for
grazing animals on hill farms, just at the point when the conservationists' pendulum may
be starting to swing in the opposite direction. But by no means everybody welcomes the
changes brought about by Vera's hypothesis. Mark Fisher, a UK permaculturist and tree
enthusiast, observes:
It was only a matter of time before the theories of Frans Vera would end up in a
justification of agriculture in nature conservation. I have no problem with his chal-
lenge to a primeval blanket of climax woodland across Europe because instinct sug-
gests that it is too simple an explanation, and it belies evidence from other countries
showing a variety of grassland, scrub and open and closed woodland. But if we go
with Vera's theory we have to examine … the stage at which wild herbivores exerted
their influence, and their population size. Would it have been equivalent to the 10 mil-
lion cattle, 30 to 40 million sheep and untold rabbits and horses that we have now? 47
Almost certainly not. Reintroduced herbivores are rarely subject to the pressures that
they would have to face in a truly wild situation. Even when wilderness is the objective,
animal welfare legislation intervenes, as Peter Taylor, another contributor to Ecos, notes :
'They have a right to slow death by natural diseases, death by combat or predation by big
cats. Even the laudable effort of the Dutch at Ostvarrdersplassen failed to get the first of
these, despite getting the second, and is a far cry from bringing back the northern European
lion.' 48 The manufacture of wilderness, its seems, is not for the squeamish.
And Fisher takes up the point about the missing carnivores: 'In a natural system that has
plants, herbivores and carnivores, [there] would be more woodland of various types com-
pared to the area of open grassed spaces, even in most of our upland areas.' 49 His recipe
for what he calls 'self-willed land' (meaning that it does its own thing) involves remov-
ing livestock to improve upon the 'diminutive woodland coverage of today … along with
a landscape wholly fashioned by people. I think wild nature can do better and I am willing
to give it a chance.'
The values expressed in this last sentence imply that it may not be wildness for its own
sake that Mark Fisher seeks but the trees that he hopes it will bring about. But fencing
out herbivores in order to compensate for an absence of carnivores sounds more like estate