The Triumph of the Commons: Rewilding, Economics, and the Role of Keystone Species in Modern Britain

 

The relationship between humanity, a functioning economy, and the natural world is perhaps the most critical and complex challenge of our time. In a compelling presentation, Peter Smith dismantles long-held assumptions about conservation. Drawing from decades of hands-on rewilding and wildlife rescue experience, Smith presents a powerful thesis: that our most pressing environmental crises, from biodiversity loss to flooding and climate change, are not the result of the so-called “tragedy of the commons,” but rather a “tragedy of the privates.” Using two of Britain’s most iconic and controversial mammals—seals and beavers—as case studies, he argues that the path to ecological recovery lies not only in understanding natural history but in fundamentally re-engineering the economic incentives that currently drive environmental destruction.

The Seal: A Story of Persecution and Ecological Misunderstanding

Delving into the deep history of pinnipeds, Smith traces their lineage back 45 million years to Puijila, a small, otter-like creature in North Canada that eventually evolved into the distinct families of phocids (true seals), sea lions, and walruses. This long evolutionary history, however, has been punctuated by dramatic population crashes. While natural events like glaciation—which created land bridges like Doggerland and cut seals off from their continental-shelf feeding grounds—caused genetic bottlenecks, the most devastating threat has been human.

Smith argues that prior to the 17th century, prehistoric and medieval exploitation was relatively minor. He posits this as a “Triumph of the Commons,” a period where nature, held as common property, was broadly protected by the communities that depended on it. The true collapse began after 1600, with the rise of industrial harvesting and the privatisation of natural resources. This “tragedy of the non-commons,” as he terms it, saw the private exploitation of nature for profit become merciless. Grey seals were hunted to the brink of extinction, with perhaps fewer than 5,000 left worldwide by 1900, mirroring the fate of the Great Auk, which was hunted to oblivion. This, Smith asserts, is the core principle of the “tragedy of the privates”: when a profit can be made, “man will make a buck,” regardless of the ecological cost.

This historical lens is essential for understanding present-day conflicts. The recovery of seal populations, which are now following a classic sigmoidal growth curve, has placed them in direct conflict with human interests. Harbour seals, which favour estuaries, remain in smaller, “epidemiologically naive” populations vulnerable to periodic crashes from the phocine distemper virus. Grey seals, however, are “shooting up,” expanding rapidly along the British, French, and Dutch coasts. As their numbers grow, so too does the call for culls, predominantly from fishing interests who blame them for declining fish stocks.

Smith systematically debunks this claim as a dangerous misdiagnosis. The real cause of salmon decline, he argues, is the degradation of river catchments through pollution and poor land management, with seals serving as a convenient scapegoat. Citing ecological studies from British Columbia, he explains that culling seals can trigger catastrophic trophic cascades: removing seals caused a population explosion of hake, which in turn devoured the salmon smolts, destroying the very fishery the cull was meant to protect. A similar event in Alaska’s Copper River delta saw a seal cull lead to a spike in starry flounder, which decimated clam beds and, again, destroyed the local fisheries.

Furthermore, Smith highlights the seals’ critical, and largely unrecognised, role as ecosystem engineers. Their relationship with kelp forests is a prime example. Like sea otters in California, seals prey on the grazers that destroy kelp beds. With Britain’s kelp forests—a ginormous carbon sink—largely decimated by pollution and bottom-trawling, the return of a healthy seal population may be one of the only viable, natural pathways to their restoration.

Ultimately, Smith argues the conflict is economic, not just ecological. He describes meeting with local fishers in Rye, whom he calls “lovely people” but who are “perpetrating false information,” blaming Mallydams for “importing” seals and demanding political action for a cull. The true solution, he suggests, lies in changing the economic model. He points to the Farne Islands, where local fishermen discovered they could “make more money by taking people out on boats to see the seals” than by killing them. This pivot to eco-tourism provided a powerful, profit-driven incentive for conservation. “If the money lies in the right place,” Smith concludes, “people will do the right thing.”

The Beaver: An Engineer for a Wetter, Richer World

Smith draws a direct parallel from the seals of the sea to the beavers of the land. His own journey as a rewilding advocate began in 1998 at Kent Wildlife Trust’s Ham Fen reserve. The site, a precious peat basin, was being destroyed. Surrounding agricultural drainage was causing the peat to oxidise, collapse, and release vast stores of carbon, while the rare plants the SSSI was designated to protect were dying. The conventional solution was costly mechanical scraping.

During a site visit, Smith and his colleague John McAllister had a “pipe dream” of introducing beavers to manage the hydrology naturally. This was met with universal opposition from the government and even the trust’s own board. The project only became a reality through sheer serendipity: a meeting with a local landowner about a dormouse led to a pitch for the beaver project. The landowner, who happened to own a dredger named ‘The Beaver’, was so captivated by the idea that he funded the project with two separate £250,000 donations, a sum the trustees could not refuse.

Despite “pig-headed” opposition from Defra and complex legal battles, the project became the first of its kind in England. The beavers, quarantined at the Wildwood Trust—which Smith took over to save from bankruptcy—were released in 2001. Their impact has been revolutionary. Beavers, he explains, “utterly change the landscape.” They are keystone species that create a cascade of benefits: their dams braid channels, purify water, capture silt, and, most critically, stop flooding. The complex wetlands they engineer create deep, peaty soils, sequestering carbon and fostering immense biodiversity.

This work has laid the foundation for a “beaver future.” The animals are now spreading through the Stour catchment and will eventually colonise the Rother, Medway, and other river systems. This expansion, however, brings its own challenges. Mallydams has had to rescue several young beavers who have swum out to sea and suffered kidney failure from ingesting salt water, requiring a complex, three-week licensing process to re-release them. Smith also notes that the national reintroduction effort was nearly derailed when an “unknowledgeable” individual gifted an infected beaver to the Environment Minister, highlighting the critical need for scientific and veterinary rigour.

Just as with seals, beavers are a climate solution. Smith argues that the loss and oxidation of soil is a far greater contributor to atmospheric carbon than is commonly acknowledged. His own modelling suggests that if beavers were allowed to occupy just 30% of UK waterways, they could sequester an amount of carbon equivalent to the UK’s entire human-caused emissions.

To accelerate this process, Smith has co-founded the “Future Landscapes Trust.” Having secured £400,000 from the Environment Agency, this new charity is now proactively building “beaver structures” in the Pett Level catchment. Rather than waiting 15 or 20 years for beavers to arrive naturally, the trust is mimicking their engineering to restore wet woodlands, build soil, and “flatten the curve” of floodwaters now.

In conclusion, the riddle of what seals and beavers share is clear. Both are keystone species whose removal, driven by the “tragedy of the privates,” has impoverished our ecosystems and cost our economy dearly. Their re-establishment offers unparalleled, free ecological services: flood defence, water purification, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity. Smith’s work demonstrates that the greatest obstacle to this recovery is not a lack of ecological understanding, but a flawed economic system that incentivises destruction. The ultimate solution, as hinted in his introduction, lies in radical economic ideas like a Land Value Tax—a system that would finally align human profit with planetary health, ensuring that the true value of nature is at the heart of our society.