The Scottish Highlands are not a playground for wealthy rewilders

The green pledges of Britain and the US are a step in the right direction if climate change goals are to be met and the world made a more sustainable place. But while global eco-initiatives that ultimately benefit mankind are a good thing, we must be alert to the hijacking of relatively reasonable green thinking by environmental extremists who believe the tide is turning their way. For those of us who live north of the border, it was disconcerting this week to find that Scotland is being targeted as the world’s first “rewilding nation.”

The Scottish Rewilding Alliance is calling for the reintroduction of lost species, such as the Eurasian lynx, and the reawakening of nature, “where a rich tapestry of native woodlands, wetlands, wildflower meadows and grasslands is stitched back together”. They say they have public backing, based on a poll carried out last year, but this is highly dubious; people other than farmers are bound to say yes if asked whether they would like to see more beavers and eagles.

The truth is, there is no room for people in the grand schemes of those who want to take agricultural land out of production and reclaim the sea for their biodiversity pilots. Roaming wolves, wild boar, and feral cats the size of labradors might be a novel distraction when you have more than 200,000 acres at your second home, but urban concepts of wildness bring little in the way of industry and jobs to remote regions.

The notion of Scotland being in the vanguard of the rewilding movement is not new. For some time, the country has been in the sights of wealthy environmentalists. Foremost among them is the environmental evangelist Ben Goldsmith, who last month announced financing for projects that he hopes will help fulfil his dream of a wilder Scotland. He set up his Highlands and Islands Environment Foundation to make the seas around the west coast “lovely and blue” and “dramatically change the way we farm”.

But what do farmers think of proposals that would end grazing, take down fences and give reintroduced species a free rein?

The National Farmers Union Scotland said rewilding is “wholly unacceptable”, following a trip to Norway, where they saw how the reintroduction of lynx, bear and wolverine had been an “absolute catastrophe”, accounting for the loss of 20,000 sheep. In Tayside, the unofficial release of beavers about 15 years ago – by hobby environmentalists with inherited wealth – created a nightmare scenario with trees felled and farmland flooded.

Worryingly, the rewilder Peter Cairns predicted that if the government doesn’t get on with it (rewilding Scotland), “there will almost undoubtedly be a white van that appears in the middle of the night and releases some lynx”. Scotland has more than its fair share of misty-eyed tree huggers, who claim that eco renewal will bring social and economic renewal but then can only come up with nature tourism – which is seasonal and depends on tourists (banned from Scotland by the Nationalist government) – as a substitute for the jobs that would be lost.

The billionaire rewilders – who include two of Scotland’s biggest landowners, the Dane Anders Povlsen and Swede Lisbet Rausing – have gained traction through environmental agitators such as the journalist George Monbiot, whose partner, Rebecca Wrigley, happens to be the chief executive of Rewilding Britain. Wrigley, like Goldsmith, sees Scotland as a trial site for eco-experimentation: “It’s past time to reboot our relationship with the natural world, and Scotland can lead the way,” she said from the comfort of Oxfordshire.

Monbiot, like Goldsmith, may not call Scotland home but once lived in Wales, where Rewilding Britain had to scrap plans to “restore” 10,000 hectares in Mid-Wales and almost 30,000 hectares of the sea in Cardigan Bay after a farmers’ backlash. He believes laboratory grown food should replace all farming and has now turned his attention to fish, advocating an end to both the catching and farming of seafood.

In Scotland, this has become a popular bandwagon of privileged activism, whereby affluent folk urge the destruction of sectors that support real jobs in fragile communities. What Scotland and particularly the Highlands and Islands need is not more rewilders, but development that creates employment and stimulates economic growth.

Stewart Graham, a businessman whose company Gael Force supplies the marine industries in the Highlands and islands, warned recently of new Highland Clearances, where the will of the few – often “an outspoken, sometimes fanatical, minority” – suppress the opportunity of the many. “The welfare of the local people who work the land and the sea is being considered as secondary to the narrow interests of a minority, often not rooted in the area, who care not for the economic wellbeing of other local people,” he said.

He was referring to what some Highlanders call “white settlers”, but they have much in common with their fellow eco-colonialists who don’t care that reconnecting with nature won’t feed families or build houses. We could dismiss the rewilders as cranks, but they are impeccably well connected. Their vast wealth aside, Ben Goldsmith is a Defra board member and his brother, Zac, is the environment minister. They both have the ear of the Prime Minister, or at least his fiancee, Carrie Symonds.

In Scotland, the threat of an eco takeover is more imminent. On 6 May, the Scottish Nationalists will almost certainly win the most seats in the Scottish elections but perhaps not with an overall majority. Like now, the independence supporting Greens could end up holding the balance of power, or even be part of a separatist coalition. The SNP manifesto has many nods to the green agenda. But the Scottish Greens go much further, demanding that 30 per cent of all publicly owned land be used for rewilding and that species native to Scotland be reintroduced.

We should be afraid, very afraid, and not just of the wild animals.