Peter Smith

A friend sent me some choice quotes from St. Ambrose of Milan (AD 339-397), who could have wrote these yesterday and not in the 4th century.  A man who understood the natural world and that the fundamental causes of poverty and evil all stem from the private ownership and exploitation of the gifts of nature. This got me thinking, while I was just reviewing my pension today, the main reason I will live in penury in my old age is rent, not just rent of a house or the high cost of a mortgage but all the rents on all the things we have in life in a million complex ways that pervade our society. To get around this many old people cling on to property they do not need, and vehemently oppose the one fundamental solution to poverty and environment damage..... taxes on land. Thus we make the situation worse for all and the future, from our greed and fear today. Poverty and environmental destruction today both stem from the private wealth to be generated from forcing rent onto to the...

It is one of my big ambitions to return red squirrels to all of the UK; non-native North American grey squirrels, introduced at the whim of some aristocratic thinking they look cute to his grounds,  have edged out our native red squirrels to near extinction in England. But it has been noted by many naturalists that red squirrels are present in the same place pine martens exist. Pine martens were wiped out in England by gamekeepers to keep them from their shooting estates, allowing our landowning elite to shoot that other alien invader, the pheasant, bred in their millions still today. It is rare for reds, pine martens and grey squirrels to co-exist, in fact the return of Pine Martens to central Ireland has spelt doom for the invasive greys and a leap in red squirrel numbers this has been coined the 'Sheehy Effect' after Wildwood's good friend Dr Emma Sheehy who has done so much of the Pine Marten Surveys that have confirmed this hypothesis.  In fact Dr Emma Sheehy is work...

What’s killing our wildlife, is a question that occupies my mind a lot & getting to the bottom of the issue and addressing it is my lifes work. So it is my mission to understand why many people do not critically assess this and put the policies in place that address wildlife loss as efficiently as possible. In my career I have two issues with fellow conservationists and ‘greens’who have been getting it wrong for so long: Following the herd and not addressing the real needs, chiefly not addressing the issues of inefficient land use as the primary driver of biodiversity loss Focusing on ineffective solutions that are counterproductive to biodiversity conservation, chief of which is subsides to landowners and not on fundamental solutions such as a Land Value Tax and taxes on environmental degradation. One approach, to put some real numbers on the relative importance on the things that are killing our wildlife, is to look at all the threatened (and near threatened) wildlife...

"Something vital was missing from the campaigns to alert the world to the way our natural habitats were being wrecked." Conservationists must relaunch their vision to target the financial drivers of ecological destruction: So says Fred Harrison, the economist who predicted the financial collapse of 2008 in his blog commenting on the chapter I wrote in the new book 'Rent Unmasked' Read his blog about it here: Saving Nature: the Missing Link   http://www.sharetherents.org/saving-nature-missing-link/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The Chancellor, Philip Hammond, yesterday committed the UK government to providing subsidies for farmers worth £2.3 billion a year until 2020 and most of the press has hailed it as vital to the UK economy but is it? Phillip Hammond, the enemy of real British farmers - the friend of landowners  The first thing to understand is where does all these subsidies go, whether its direct payments to farmers or in manipulating global food prices. The net effect of these subsidies is that they are capitalised into higher agricultural land prices and higher rents. "In many ways, nature conservation has become just another method of rent extraction by landowners who are trying to hide the fact that modern farmers’ fields are essentially deserts, devoid of wildlife, and the taxpayer must pay ‘rent’ if we want wild animals to occupy ‘their land’."  Peter Smith Rent & high land values are unique in that it stifles our farming efficiency and robs the productive capacity of our...

I have had my first contribution to a book published, co-authored with 12 leading Professors from around the world, the book focuses on economic solutions to social and environmental problems.  The book comprises of essays in honour of Professor Mason Gaffney, who has for years researched and published the most insightful work in to the economic concepts that can solve our social and environmental problems. Professor Gaffney is a personal hero of mine I am am deeply honored to be chosen by the Schalkenbach Foundation to honor Mason in this way.  “An inveterate optimist [who] makes an excellent case that, by applying the Henry George principle, we can reduce inequality, and raise ample public revenues to be directed at any one of a multitude of society’s ills”. Joseph Stiglitz (University Professor at Columbia University, recipient of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in economics)   Mason Gaffney Describing how to solve the water crisis in California: ...

A short radio interview where I talk about the plight of the hedgehog and why they are disappearing from the British countryside, broadcast on BBC radio. The real issue why our hedgehog population is crashing is a simple food pyramid whereby intensive agriculture and pesticide use has killed of the slugs, worms and snails hedgehogs eat. The efficient solution as ever is to levy a land value tax and tax pesticide use relative to its effects(externalities). This will steer farming to producing food in a way that will allow wildlife to thrive. Why are Hedgehogs disappearing from the British Countryside:

This short BBC documentary follow the Wild Konik Ponies that are spreading across the UK helping to Rewild Britain. It has been great fun learning the art of the cowboy and having our work documented for all to see. This is small but vital programme cutting costs of nature reserve management. But it also highlights a fundamental problem in nature conservation.  Because so little land is left to wildlife we have to intensively manage small nature reserves for specific species. The wild horses would do a much better job if the nature reserves where bigger and where connected. Once again we see that the real solution to rewilding is land availability and to make land available we must stop subsidising land use and remove associated tax breaks. But the best solution is to Levy a Land Value Tax on land.

Watching the sickening well-manicured war criminal & sociopath Tony Blair defend his terrible crime of waging aggressive war has made me both sick and full of hate for him today. Looking into his eyes you saw the terror that his careful ego construct was cracking while he defended the indefensible. But the story missed by most commentators is what are the underlining forces that pushes groups of politicians, who profess they are doing good, to want to perpetrate such terrible crimes. It is my belief that politicians are not policy makers but policy takers, they are people who instinctively know how to adopt the positions that will satisfy their most powerful supporters to ensure their careers progress and they can retire to wealth and comfort. This is the main reasons why elites will do anything to unseat moderate conviction politicians whether that is Jeremy Corbyn, Mohammad Mosaddegh or Salvador Allende. Find out more about Mohammad Mosaddegh who threatened the UK and USA’...

Or….. J'accuse....! Why the Guardian columnists have created BREXIT and the rise of the new fascists of the west & the calamity of environmental destruction….. Brexit has caused outrage among the established commentators of the Gruaniad today and they are all missing the point and only have themselves to blame. A bold and unfair accusation, but hear me out & I shall explain why I accuse some of the best educated and most thoughtful social commentators on politics and the environment. I voted Remain but I also have serious reservations about Europe and now want the Left, Liberal and caring Conservatives to own up to their mistakes and fix them fast. If we do not the ugly rise of fascism and environmental collapse is a real possibility. In this blog I liken my message to the Guardian columnists like the pleas of Tolstoy to Tsarist Russia, Michael Flürscheim to the German Imperium or Churchill and Lloyd-George to the British Empire. Only a Land Va...

#voterbeaver – a plague on both Britain & Europe An amusing internet meme is trending on Twitter after a vandalised sign was  rewritten to spell ‘Vote Beaver’ instead of ‘Vote Leave’. This caused those of us in the rewilding movement a great deal of fun and I myself have been guilty of spreading this meme. But the European argument is much more serious and the vote later this month could spell doom for the humble British beaver. The powers that be across the land in nature conservation are readying documents to give the free beavers of Britain full legal protection, this is vital if their number is to multiply and spread, breathing life back into our rivers, protecting us from flooding and delivering us from the blight of poisoned rivers, poisoned by agricultural pollution. Legally protected beavers will restore desiccated and destroyed wetlands, drained and scalped into a wildlife deserts by our stupid laws, taxation systems and subsidies to landowners. Europe has gi...

Wildwood's animals take centre stage in this amazing film about the rewilding of Britain, featuring TV's Ben Fogle, Simon King and yours truly... A beautifully filmed short Documentary film shot at Wildwood Trust among other places Enjoy.  Producer: Luke Sutton, D.O.P Vatalii Ciobanu, Camera Op. Jack Cuckson, Edited by Jessica Harms.

Well I was truly humbled by the great endorsement I got from BBC Countryfile's presenter Ellie Harrison. "I have got to travel all over the country to see close up many conservation projects…. One that stands out for me was spending time with Peter Smith who runs Wildwood in Kent, a man of extraordinary knowledge and passion and someone who has a vision and a dream of how wildlife can be in this country….." Ellie Harrison BBC Countryfile 2016 But what is the vision that inspired Ellie - it's a Vision of rewilding, the ecological processes and the economic processes of how it can be achieved. In a world that can enjoy prosperity and jobs with wealth for all and the protection of wildlife and natural resources through  rent sharing and earth sharing - shifting our taxes from wages and onto natural resources and land misuse. Watch a recent lecture on the subject here: and here: and here:

At the recent Oxford Real Farming Conference a spat broke out between farmers and rewilding advocate George Monbiot as reported in the Farmers Guardian. "Tenant farmer Rebecca Hosking, who runs the organic Village Farm in south Devon, said while she would be ‘proud’ to farm without subsidy, she needed it to cover her farm rent cheque.  Ms Hosting reported comments, while I am sure not supported by herself, shows how the Farmers Guardian seems blissfully unaware, or is it convenient for them to obfuscate the truth, that most of a farmers rent is the farming subsidies they received as well as the indirect subsidies they do not.  So farming subsidies makes tenant farmers no better off at all. This is shown easily when looking to rent land (or buy land as it is capitalised into vastly inflated land prices). Agricultural land is offered for rent at two prices. One price where the subsidy is claimed by the landowner and another collected by the tenant. The difference is exactl...

A landowner took great umbrage at my last post and asked a number of clarifications, mostly saying farming would be uneconomic and not understanding the economics at play. Under LVT most taxes would of course fall on towns and cities probably about 97%. Most farmers, especially tenant farmers would be much better off when you take into account increased demand and a reduction on taxes on farm labour, profits and selling their produce. But it is a very complex economic picture as some farming below the margin would be forced out and the land rewilded and income just because you own land, the monopoly of land ownership, would be greatly reduced. This was my response to him: I have answered your questions (the logical ones) you just have not understood the answer which takes an open mind and a lot of understanding of the processes of land economics. Something I cannot teach you in a comments exchange such as this If any of the farms around you are tenant farms and are still economi...

Monbiot's best article yet on public policy failure, flooding, rewilding and beavers was published in his Guardian Blog, today please read: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2016/jan/07/liz-truss-is-choosing-to-protect-farmers-over-flood-victims#comment-66312607 This government is a shambles and Monbiot is right on the money but Monbiot needs to further explore  their relationship with landowners and why its is at the heart of all the wildlife, housing, infrastructure, social & poverty problems we face today! The best method to remedy this is not by land redistribution but by a land value tax. equal to the lands unimproved rent. Just like Henry George proposed. This will achieve all that our country needs in housing, poverty reduction, jobs, economic growth and wildlife protection in an efficient manner. Also it will economically push marginal land out of production and become the rewilded uplands & floodplains to protect us from flooding.. Enjoy ...