What does it take to bring wild nature back to a country that has forgotten what it looks like? Can rewilding truly benefit local communities and rural economies or does it come at their expense? And is Scotland really thirty years behind the rest of Europe when it comes to restoring its landscapes? This is a Podcasthon episode and this year I’ve chosen SCOTLAND: The Big Picture as my featured charity. Founded by nature photographers and filmmakers it has grown from a single employee to a team of twenty-four in just a few years. Today I’m joined by Lisa Chilton, CEO, and Steph Lauer, Rewilding Training Lead.
Lisa and Steph walk us through the extraordinary scope of what SCOTLAND: The Big Picture has built. At the heart of it all is the Northwoods Rewilding Network, a string of over a hundred land partners spanning the country from the Solway Firth to Shetland. The research backing this work is striking. Rewilded sites within the network have recorded more than 250% more bird species and a tenfold increase in pollinator abundance compared to control sites that weren’t rewilded. Beyond the network, the Loch Hourn Mòr project brings together fourteen landowners across 120,000 acres, working to a fifty-year vision that stretches from the summit of Ben Nevis right down to seagrass beds and native oysters on the seafloor.
Our conversation also covers the long and careful effort to bring lynx back to Scotland. Lisa explains how Lynx to Scotland, a partnership involving SCOTLAND: The Big Picture, Trees for Life, and the Lifescape Project, has spent years engaging over fifty national stakeholder organisations and is now conducting one-to-one consultations in the communities most likely to be affected by any future release. The process is slow and deliberate. But as Steph puts it, the question is really about what kind of ecosystem we want to leave for the next generation. On that front, the ambition and the optimism coming from Lisa and Steph are genuinely infectious.
Our Big Picture Community | SCOTLAND: The Big Picture
Donate | SCOTLAND: The Big Picture
The Big Picture Conference | SCOTLAND: The Big Picture
Rewilding training | SCOTLAND: The Big Picture
Working to return lynx to northern Scotland | Lynx to Scotland
Tommy's Outdoors 