Britain's Lost Species: Should We Resurrect Our Extinct Wildlife? (Derek Gow)

**Sophia Smith-Gaylor** (0:00)
Hi, I'm Sophia Smith-Gaylor. I'm a writer, journalist, and next week, I'm back on Radical as your host. My guest will be Professor Brendan Sims. He's a historian of international relations at the University of Cambridge. And in contrast to much of the received wisdom and prevailing narratives, he argues that the UK remains one of the world's great powers alongside the US, China and Russia.
Brendan bases his argument on the UK's economic strength, its reputation in the world, history of resilience and a military capacity that he argues still allows it to project strength in the world. But why does any of that matter?
Well, Brendan also argues that great power politics has returned as the fundamental framework through which we should understand the world. And that the post-Cold War consensus based on international law and economic cooperation has faded fast. In short, he thinks that a country standing in the world really matters. And unlike many of his contemporaries, Brendan Sim still thinks that we are still a key player. There is so much to discuss here and we want your radical questions to put to Brendan in our Q&A episode. We record it at the same time as our normal podcast, so please don't wait. Send them in now so you have the chance to be part of this absorbing conversation. Please leave us a WhatsApp voicenote on plus 44 330 123 9480 or you can email us on radical at bbc.co.uk.
I'll be back with you very soon. But now on with this week's episode.

**John Burn-Murdoch** (1:49)
Hello and welcome to Radical. Conversations about the underlying forces that reshape our world and the radical ideas that could define the future. I'm John Burn-Murdoch. I'm a columnist and chief data reporter at the Financial Times, but I'm here with you on Radical this week. My guest this week is Derek Gow. Derek is a British farmer, conservationist, author and rewilder. He's long been an outspoken advocate of large scale species reintroductions, but he's now doing something about it himself, which is especially radical. On his farm in Devon, Derek has been breeding British indigenous animals, some of which have been extinct in this country for hundreds of years, with the aim to inspire us to go further and faster on reintroducing native species into the wild. Think wild boar, beavers, water vol, even wild cats like the lynx, all being reared on his farm with the hope that one day these species will again be allowed to roam free. So why is Derek doing all of this? Well, according to a 2020 assessment of global biodiversity by the Natural History Museum, the UK only has half its natural biodiversity left, which puts it in the bottom 10% of all countries globally. Derek wants to change that, not just because he wants to write what he sees as an historic wrong, but he also wants to harness the innate behaviour of our native species, in particular beavers, to restore and protect delicate ecosystems. Now, some farming and animal rights groups, it's fair to say, are not happy with the species reintroduction movement. They have concerns over safety, environmental impact, even legality. These concerns come after reports of underground reintroduction networks where members risk arrest, jail and hefty fines by carrying out covert and unlicensed releases of beavers and other native species.
Derek says he's not one of those beaver vigilantes and that everything he does on his farm is perfectly legal. But he is sympathetic with those people who are frustrated with the limits of the law. And he wants to change the way we think about species reintroduction and be much more radical.
So with all of that in mind, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Derek Gow.
Derek Gow, welcome to Radical. Great to have you with us.

**Derek Gow** (4:10)
OK, hi. It's lovely to be here.

**John Burn-Murdoch** (4:12)
I wanted to start from the beginning, as it were. Can you tell us a bit about what you do today, but maybe start with the journey that took you to this? Because you've not always been on this side of the topic we're going to discuss, as it were.

**Derek Gow** (4:26)
Today, at this point in time, I'm rewilding my farm and some land that's associated with it. By rewilding, what I mean is that we still have some domestic animals and some cattle and ponies. But these animals are here essentially to create a landscape that is good for nature.
We are not farming these animals. They're animals that are more or less pets, they'll live out their long lifespans. The idea is to use them to produce clean blood, clean dung, hair, if it's something like a wild boar hybrid, to root all, to create ponds and wallows so that dragonflies and frogs and other aquatic insects can use them. Basically taking the entire landholding we have, the wetlands, the forests, the grasslands, and we're redeveloping this to create a landscape that is suitable for a whole array of other life.