Peter Smith

I give an  impassioned speech on what will happen once we let nature go from its bonds and make rewilding a reality in the UK A beautifully filmed short promo film shot at Wildwood Trust, Kent.  Producer: Luke Sutton, D.O.P Vatalii Ciobanu, Camera Op. Jack Cuckson, Edited by Jessica Harms. Watch this space for the fully edited feature coming soon...

As the UK government is setting us on a path of war tomorrow I thought I would explore how the Syrian war started. Many commentators have speculated how a natural resource disaster may be at its roots. But what is the solution to natural resource disasters, climate change and war?  Many have documented how a drought, high temperatures and very poor regulation of water & grazing rights has led to Syrian desertification, crop failure and the displacement of 1.5Million syrians from relative wealth as farmers to poor urban dwellers and thus formed the social impulse to cause the civil war. Background Stories on this : http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2871076/overgrazing_and_desertification_in_the_syrian_steppe_are_the_root_causes_of_war.html http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/syrias-climate-conflict/ The intervention of those seeking to profit from the crisis by getting their hands on the spoils such as Saudi Arabia, France, USA, Russia & now the U...

Video & Blurb from my Recent lecture at Flood Expo 2015 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER -NATURE`S ROLE IN FLOOD DEFENSE Peter Smith - Rewilding Expert: Speaking at The Flood Expo 2015 Beavers, wild horses and even wolves can cut the costs of flood defence and all this can be achieved by saving the taxpayer a fortune ABOUT PETER SMITH - WILDLIFE FLOOD EXPERT Peter is an ecologist and founder and Chief Executive of the Wildwood Trust and has been for the past 13 years. Wildwood Trust was created to champion practical `re-wilding` projects using animal like Beavers and wild horses in ecological restoration projects. On top of running the charity Peter leads a successful consultancy specialising in mitigating and restoring wetland habitat for water voles. Peter also acts as a consultant to `rewilding` schemes, giving advice to Government agencies and leading wildlife charities. Peter is a regular commentator on wildlife matters in the media and has developed and taken part in a numb...

In this lecture I explain the History of why Wildwood Trust was formed and our mission to Rewild Britain. I try to explain the complex issues that will challenge us as we try to rewild Britain and make a space for nature. At the heart of the problem lies  a broken economic system that gives perverse incentives to abuse nature and use land inefficiently. The corruption of economics over the last century & the propagation of discredited economic principles is directly responsible. Reversing this economic stupidity could lead to a rewilded world where there is wildlife, jobs and wealth for all in a system that  captures economic rents for public revenue. This will enable us to internalise the damage we do to others and nature in a new economic & wildlife renaissance.

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act, and so it is with the rise of the rewilding movement, which has shown the truth behind the silent spring that is befalling our countryside and that farming and landowners and the legal and economic systems that they derive so much privilege from are directly responsible for that wildlife loss. But the Orwellian double think is used by the landowners in claiming to be guardians of the countryside, protecting its wildlife. When of course they are mostly responsible for our countrysides blatant rape. Our Landowners have not only claimed the land as theirs by theft and murder for centuries and in more recent times subverted the legal system & our government to dole out vast taxpayer subsidies and favourable tax treatment in their pursuit of that rape, wiping out so much in their pursuit of personal profit. From the pen of the National Union of Farmers Ministry of Truth  this week comes: Destructi...

A history of Beaver in Britain , a lecture by me at a small rewilding Britain Conference. This contains my knowledge of the history of beaver, the history of beaver extinction, the many efforts of people over the last 100 years who tried to reintroduce beavers and the problems they faced. The many benefits to our water quality, flood risks & and wildlife that beaver could bring. Dispelling some of the myths about the augments against beaver reintroduction. The Lecture was given at Wildwood Trust at a Conference on Rewilding Britain by the conservation organisation 'A Focus on Nature' http://www.afocusonnature.org/

A short Film made in 2012 by Charlie Tanner highlighting the work of Wildwood Trust in its charitable work to rewild Britain. This is an excellent introduction to Rewilding and Charlie captured it well for this video she made for her MSc project, Charlie has volunteered and Worked for the Trust and filmed many of its animals. In an in depth interview with me, she learns of the efforts of the Trust to rewild our countryside and reintroduce animals like the lynx, beaver and Wild horse.

The Pope has come out with a wonderful statement about why we should love nature and George Monbiot writes an excellent article in the Guardian today looking into this and sophistry around why people destroy nature for perceived personal gain, ignoring the damage we are doing. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/16/pope-encyclical-value-of-living-world?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it#comment-53954061 This is a perfect Example of the 'Tragedy of the Privates' as I like to call it, why individuals making individual decisions alway make the choice to do things that destroy nature and abuse land for short term finacial gain, and the perverse incentives the system of private ownership of nature's gifts to us ensure's their abuse & destruction. The economic forces pushing us to destroy nature and land is pervasive throughout the world and forms the very basis of our financial, banking & political systems. Its contumacious virtues extoll...

I run a zoo, the Wildwood Trust, not a normal zoo to be sure, but a zoo. We do great work in education, conservation and promote rewilding. Nearly all the people I know support the work we do however rabidly anti zoo  they are & I was rabidly anti zoo until I wanted to reintroduce beavers - then I need one. So wildwood Trust was born to help conservationists with rewilding projects. Many of our animals are rescued and we try very hard to give them the best of care. On social media a commentator posed me the Question that the  Green Party & Labour Party would ban zoos  and this would somehow lessen my distress at the election outcome. My response: Animals should only be in captivity if they are well looked after and serve a legitimate purpose for conservation & education. And there is nothing wrong with good regulation of zoos (as a Zoo manager & Green party supporter myself) Sure there are people who would ban them and they have a right to hold...

A commentator on this blog was very worried that LVT will destroy gardens and the wildlife that lives there. This is an interesting question - my response is below: There are many gardens that are rubbish for wildlife so we have to be able to distinguish between the two and incentivise biodiversity in gardens and areas of land that are designated as gardens and recreation spaces within cities. Our current system does not do this and this would not change under a 'pure' LVT system - the incentives would not change. LVT does value nature as land that no one can pay the LVT on will go back to nature as we only need so much land. At present all the economic incentives push us to use every bit of land we have however inefficiently and destroy the wild on it to pursue whatever use, however uneconomic, or useless to society. LVT is a very efficient, and 'holistic'  system but is not perfect which is why we should have externality taxes (taxes on things that damage th...

Click on the link below to hear (very poor skype audio) of an interview I did yesterday on the Lynx reintroduction and the complex issues that surround it with the very talented Shelley Milne. Poor Shelley got a lot more than she thought as I bombarded her some some of the deep economic issue that provide a context to the problems that surround lynx reintroduction and rewilding in general. As ever the real solution is to Tax land Values..... REWILDING INTERVIEW: PETER SMITH, WILDWOOD TRUST. APRIL 24, 2015 This morning, I was privileged to undertake a skype interview, with Mr Peter Smith, Scientist, Conservationist and CEO of the Wildwood Trust, a Kent based Charitable Organisation, which has been instrumental in many captive breeding and wildlife reintroduction projects including the Konig Horse, Beaver and Wild Boar. His passion for the subjects of rewilding and land reform is clearly evident and he raises some very interesting points which create a greater economic and pol...

The battle between landowners and wildlife has raged on many 'battlefields' across the world. I hope to comment on examples in the coming years. I made this video some time ago but just got around to publishing it exploring two issues very important to the Thames Estuary - the first part explains some of the issues of coastal sea walls and how landowners have sought to profit from the increase value of the land from such public infrastructure. Of course the uplift in value of the the land behind a sea wall is captured by the landowner and not the taxpayer who funded the sea wall. This is grossly unfair on taxpayers across the country as money is funnelled from all taxpayers into the pockets of landowners who often pay no tax on that huge uplift in the value of their land. Simply charging a Land Value Tax would capture this unearned uplift in the value of the land and repay the taxpayer for its construction. But in many situations the sea wall is not needed to protect peop...

My talk last week at the Necessary Beaver Conference on Scotland Beavers and Ecosystem Services & a plan for Scotland’s Ecological Renaissance, with the help of Robert Burns…..? The study of ecology and economics has resulted in a growing interest in the economics of nature which has been shown in sharp relief by the arrival of the Tay beavers. Peter Smith will take you on a quick journey into the emerging world of environmental economics and ecosystem services– where many of the benefits go unrecognised and much of the cash costs cause fear and opposition to the return of wildlife Beavers make a big difference to our rivers and this means there are winners and losers. There are many obvious and subtle benefits to beavers living in our water ways once again: wildlife, water quality and the buffering of floods & droughts, carbon sequestration are the most obvious, . But how can we measure these benefits, what are the leading scientists and economists thinking when it comes...

I gave a lecture on careers advice to my old Academic Institute to PhD Students this week. At the lecture I was presented with an article that I wrote over 20 years ago on finding employment after my Masters course there (see below): Video of Lecture: obviously the 'in-joke' will be lost on most My Job Hunting Statistics 6 months after leaving DICE in 1994 ( UK in Recession a bit like today) Speculative applications                                214 Job applications                                             357 Job interviews                                                5 PhD applications                     ...