What do you do and how is that linked to rewilding?
I am a professional field mycologist specialising in the conservation of fungi, and I work as a self-employed consultant on a variety of rewilding projects across the UK. My role involves conduction fungal biodiversity surveys and monitoring, using field identification skills as well as DNA approaches to study how fungi are recovering as the rewilding process unfolds. Because fungi are highly interdependent with plants and animals and are dynamic in nature, traditional conservation measures that focus on preserving areas in which important fungi are found may not be sufficient to prevent their decline, especially if there are other missing elements of the ecosystem. I take my experience in fungal ecology to help rewilding projects develop strategies for preserving fungal diversity, and help them understand how that fungal diversity in turn supports the rest of the ecosystem.
What is your background?
I studied for a MSc in Plant and Fungal Taxonomy, Diversity, and Conservation at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Queen Mary University of London and have previously worked as a science teacher in a secondary school.
When and how did you got involved in rewilding for the first time?
Like many people, my initial inroad to rewilding was the book Feral by George Monbiot, which immediately resonated with me as a conservation paradigm fit for the 21st century. Coinciding with the time I read that book in my early twenties, I was involved with my university’s mountaineering society and one of our autumn trips had us visit Snowdonia in Wales. On a walk one evening, I found myself in a very peculiar woodland. It was rather damp, the field layer lush with ferns, mosses, and other herbaceous plants, and lichens draped the trees. I was captivated by this habitat which I’ve never experienced before, and it was many years before I realised I had entered a remnant of an Atlantic rainforest. Since then, the preservation and restoration of oceanic woodlands and their fungi has been the driving force behind my interest in rewilding, and I am now involved with multiple rainforest projects, studying their fungal diversity.
Do you have any suggestions for a young person that wants to get involved with rewilding?
My biggest piece of advice would be to consider rewilding like one would consider any ecosystem: as composed of numerous interacting and interrelated components that give rise to the whole. Oftentimes we may get sidetracked by assuming that rewilding work only involves the reintroduction of charismatic megafauna, or having to own land as a prerequisite, but the truth is that it is a holistic approach to nature recovery that needs multiple skillsets – including soft skills such as communication – and requires specialists with knowledge across many taxonomic groups, not just animals! It’s up to you to analyse the direction that rewilding is heading as a movement, and figure out how your unique interests and skills can be of value to it.
