Brown rice and quinoa sushi


Print Recipe
Brown Rice and Quinoa Sushi
Sushi can be a bit of a faff to prepare but it's well worth the effort. It makes a great snack, lunch or hill-food and the fillings can obviously be adapted to suit.
Servings
Servings
Instructions
  1. Rinse the brown rice and quinoa well
  2. Place in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil
  3. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until all the liquid is absorbed
  4. Remove from heat and add the rice wine vinegar
  5. Allow to cool, then stir in the tahini (helps make the mixture sticky)
  6. Place a nori sheet on a bamboo mat or baking sheet
  7. Spread mixture over approximately 2/3 of the sheet - use the back of a wet spoon to smooth the mixture
  8. Place strips of the julienned vegetables (finely sliced into long strips) across the centre of the rice
  9. Roll tightly into a long roll
  10. Slice the roll into about 6-8 pieces with a wet, sharp (non-serrated) knife
  11. Serve with pickled ginger and tamari/ soy sauce, or alternatively add the ginger to the vegetable filling before rolling
Recipe Notes

Natural Movement Workout 1

Goals: cardiorespiratory fitness, strength, functional movement training

Where: at home, in the garden, in a park

Equipment required: pull up bar or sturdy tree branch; large rock, medicine ball or kettle bell to deadlift;  2 logs or 2 kettle bells for the farmers carry

This is a high intensity circuit training workout. For each type of exercise, either do the number of reps specified below or as many as you can in 30 seconds, with 10 seconds rest between exercises.

Repeat the circuit 3 times:

  • Pull ups x 8
  • Deadlift x 8
  • Bear crawl 20 – 50m
  • Broad jump x 8
  • Farmers carry 50m

Notes:

Remember to use progressions. If pull ups are too difficult at this stage, then do negative pull-ups: jump up to the top of the movement and slowly lower yourself down under control.

Chocolate Beetroot Brownies

This is great snack to carry on the hill – rich and stodgy with some healthy additional ingredients – chia seeds, hemp protein, nuts and berries. There’s even some vegetables thrown in. It’s practically a superfood!

Essential ingredients:

  • Cooked mashed veg 400-450g / 14-15ounces / 2 full cups

DRY:

  • Cocoa powder 1 cup (100-120g)
  • Plain flour 2 cups (250g)
  • Baking powder 1 teaspoon
  • Salt 1 teaspoon

WET:

  • Sugar 1/3 cup (70g)
  • Oil 3/4 cup
  • Milk (as required)

Optional ingredients:

  • Vanilla paste/extract 2 teaspoons
  • Chocolate chips 1 cup (100-150g)
  • Frozen Berries 1 cup heaped/ rounded
  • Pistachios/ nuts 1/3 cup
  • Chia seeds 2 tablespoons
  • Hemp protein powder

Equipment:

  • 20cm x 20cm / 8” x 8” cake tin
  • Food processor (but can also do by hand – mash/grate cooked veg as required)

Instructions:

  • Preheat oven to 160 deg C / 320 deg F fan forced or 180C/ 350F non fan forced
  • Blend cooked veg in food processor
  • Add wet ingredients, mix well (occasionally scrape down sides of processor to ensure even mixing)
  • Add dry ingredients (ideally previously sifted), mix well.
  • If mixture is dry, which is likely, add milk as required. It can be as much as 1/2 cup (or more) depending on consistency of mash and type of flour used. It should be fairly thick – you will need to scoop it out rather than pour it out
  • Scrape mix into a bowl and add optional ingredients (except pistachios) if using.
  • Mix well
  • Scoop into a lined cake tin, push into corners and even out the surface
  • Sprinkle nuts on top and push them in slightly
  • Bake for about 45- 50min until cracks appear in the surface, or until a skewer (or sharp knife) comes out clean
  • Remove from oven and cake tin and allow to cool (still in baking lining) on a wire rack
  • Best left to cool completely before cutting

 

Substitutions:

Plain flour: white, spelt, rye, GF, oat, wholemeal, etc. Requires more milk if using GF flours.

Sugar: light brown muscovado, brown, raw

Oil: olive, sunflower, rapeseed, avocado, walnut oil

Milk: any variety will do – dairy, almond, rice, hemp etc

Mashed veg: beetroot, pumpkin, parsnip, potato, sweet potato – any left over cooked veg can be used

Chocolate chips: can use a chopped block of chocolate. Dark, milk and white chocolate all work well

Frozen berries: any variety – raspberry works really well. Frozen berries hold their shape better while mixing, fresh fruit often disintegrates.

Print Recipe
Chocolate Beetroot Brownies
This is great snack to carry on the hills - rich and stodgy with some healthy additional ingredients - chia seeds, hemp protein, nuts and berries. There's even some vegetables thrown in. It's practically a superfood!
Prep Time 30 mins
Cook Time 45-50 mins
Servings
Prep Time 30 mins
Cook Time 45-50 mins
Servings
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 160 deg C / 320 deg F fan forced or 180C/ 350F non fan forced
  2. Blend cooked veg in food processor
  3. Add wet ingredients (sugar, oil and milk) and mix well (occasionally scrape down sides of processor to ensure even mixing)
  4. Add dry ingredients (cocoa powder, flour, baking powder and salt) and mix well - ideally sift the dry ingredients first
  5. If mixture is dry, which is likely, add milk as required. It can be as much as 1/2 cup (or more) depending on consistency of mash and type of flour used. It should be fairly thick - you will need to scoop it out rather than pour it out
  6. Scrape mix into a bowl and add the remaining ingredients (except pistachios) if using
  7. Mix well
  8. Scoop into a lined cake tin, push mixture into the corners and even out the top surface
  9. Sprinkle nuts on top and push them in slightly
  10. Bake for about 45- 50min, or until a skewer (or sharp knife) comes out clean
  11. Remove from oven and cake tin and allow to cool (still in baking lining) on a wire rack before slicing

Doctors as environmental advocates

By Tim Smith

As we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves. It’s a selfish thing to want to protect nature

– Yvon Chouinard (American climber, environmentalist and businessman)

Humans are not separate from nature, but part of it. As a society, we urgently need to relearn this concept, for the sake of our health.

It’s well established that our survival depends on intact ecosystems and biodiversity (the variety of life on earth). They provide us with essential life-support services such as food, clean air and water, healthy soil, medicines and disease regulation.

However, we don’t just need nature to survive, we also need it to thrive: there is now a growing evidence base to support what we intuitively already know; that our physical and mental health and wellbeing are dependent on interacting with a healthy natural environment.

Despite this, our society tends to treat the natural world solely as a resource to be exploited for our benefit. This shortsighted, extractive philosophy has resulted in the numerous environmental crises we face today: climate breakdown, ecosystems collapse, air and water pollution, biodiversity loss, deforestation, industrial fishing, intensive agriculture and plastic waste. These are all detrimental to human health and some threaten our very survival.

Air pollution for example, is a massive global public health issue. Pollutants from vehicle emissions, industry and fossil fuel combustion are responsible for millions of deaths worldwide from cardiovascular disease, asthma and lung cancer. It is also thought to be a risk factor for neurodevelopmental problems in children and neurodegenerative diseases in adults.

Climate change is said to be the biggest global health threat of the 21st Century, causing food and water insecurity, morbidity and mortality from heat waves, droughts and floods, and mental health problems arising from such extreme events.

Biodiversity loss is a less well-publicised, yet incredibly important health problem. Biodiversity refers to the huge variety of life on earth; not simply species, but also genes and ecosystems.

It’s estimated that there are about 15 million species on Earth; so far we’ve identified approximately 1.9 million. The background or natural extinction rate of species is approximately 1 per million per year, however the current extinction rate is thought to be 100-1000x greater than this due to human activity.

This level of global biodiversity loss is massive and unprecedented. We are in the throes of the earth’s 6th mass extinction event, however for the first time it is caused by human activity: mostly by habitat destruction on land and in the oceans through deforestation, bottom trawling, damning and dredging of rivers and drainage of wetlands. There are other human caused drivers such as pollution, the introduction of invasive species and climate change, which is likely to exceed habitat loss as the most significant threat in the not too distant future.

Why should all this matter to us, aside from the fact that we have a moral obligation to act as stewards of the natural world?

Biodiversity underpins ecosystem function and is therefore essential for providing all the life-support services mentioned above. It also represents a huge, mostly untapped source of potentially life-saving drugs and medical research. Over half of all drugs developed over the past 25 years are either derived directly from, or modeled after natural compounds: morphine, aspirin, warfarin, antibiotics, chemotherapy drugs, ACE inhibitors and AZT, to name but a few.

Despite the many medical breakthroughs we’ve derived from nature, we’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of what it has to offer mankind, yet we continue to allow our greatest repositories of biodiversity to be degraded or even lost forever. Rainforests are being cleared at alarming rates for agriculture, cattle ranching and timber; 17% of the forest in the Amazon has been lost over the past 50 years. Coral reefs are being destroyed by ocean warming and acidification, as a result of climate change. Who knows how many potentially life-saving discoveries have been wiped permanently from existence?

When we start to view environmental problems in this way (i.e. as a public health emergency), it becomes clear that those of us in the healthcare industry have a responsibility to start addressing environmental degradation.

As healthcare practitioners, we are ideally placed to educate our patients, students and the public about the inextricable links between the environment and human health; to promote sustainable, low carbon behaviour; and to convince policy makers that robust environmental legislation is urgently required, as is health promoting infrastructure, such as active travel networks and access to urban green spaces.

If we’re going to start engaging in environmental advocacy, then we’ll have to adopt an evidence-based approach where possible, as we do for the rest of our practice. However, in the face of life threatening problems, it is inappropriate to postpone preventive measures while we wait for full scientific certainty. This is known as the precautionary principle, and it is a key component of environmental decision-making.

Having said that, much evidence now exists to support the assertion that our physical and mental health depend on our interaction with nature. A variety of studies suggest that contact with nature reduces mortality from all causes, alleviates stress, improves mood and self esteem, increases levels of physical activity, increases concentration, reduces symptoms in mental health patients and children with ADHD, and reduces indicators of physiological stress such as pulse rate, blood pressure and cortisol levels.

Urban greenspace (i.e. any vegetated land such as parks, gardens, woods and wetland within an urban area) has also been shown to increase social interaction, reduce health inequality, reduce crime rates, and improve air and noise quality. Interestingly, it’s thought that as the species richness of an area increases, so do the psychological and physical benefits.

At this stage, although extensive, the evidence is of varying degrees of quality. Some of it is short term, with surrogate end points, sampling bias and self reporting. Most of it is correlational. It also tends to be biased towards higher latitudes (ie. North America and Europe) and Western Societies. Clearly there is more work to be done, however, the overwhelming majority of these studies show a positive association between interaction with natural environments and human health measures.

Of course, if health professionals are going to take a leadership role in advocating environmental protection and promoting sustainable, healthy, low-carbon behaviour, then we also need to get our own house in order. The NHS is a major emitter of CO2, and is responsible for approximately 25% of total public sector emissions. It also generates huge amounts of waste, the vast majority of which ends up in landfill.

The healthcare industry has the opportunity to set an example to the rest of the population:

We could build energy efficient hospitals powered by renewable sources, incorporating green space for patients, staff and the local community to use for exercise, rest and relaxation. We must significantly reduce our waste through more appropriate procurement, waste segregation and recycling. Hospital should be sourcing healthy, seasonal, local food; promoting active travel and public transport for staff and patients; and providing incentives for staff to reduce their ecological footprint.

I’ll leave you with a final quote to ponder:

The future will be green, or not at all

– Bob Brown (Australian politician, environmentalist and doctor)

Low volume marathon training

James_Kirby_2113

This year I’ve decided to attempt the Glencoe Skyline, a 55km mountain run which circumnavigates Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands, involving 4700m of ascent with some scrambling/ rock climbing thrown in for good measure. To quote the race organisers ” the nature of the challenge is very severe and there is a risk of serious injury or death whilst participating in the event.” I’m excited and terrified in equal measure.

I’ve done quite a few challenging races in the past, but I’ve never actually run a pure marathon, so it made sense to incorporate one into my Skyline training schedule.

After all, there’s something special about a marathon – not just the challenging distance, but its history – its beginnings with Pheidippides in 490B.C, Spyridon Louis winning the event in the first Olympics of the modern era fortified by local wine, the famous races, the legendary athletes.

First timers like myself inevitably start with a lot of questions about training and nutrition, and the amount of information out there is overwhelming and often conflicting. How many times a week should you run? Should you do any other types of exercise other than running? What is a tempo run? What should you eat before, during and after a race?

It’s highly unlikely that there’s a one size fits all training plan. Ideally we would all have our own coach, who could devise personalised training regimes based on our goals, fitness, physiology, natural abilities, proneness to injuries etc.

But most of us don’t have this luxury, so we have to pick a training plan that sounds reasonable, monitor our performance, experiment with it, and tweak it as our training progresses.

In keeping with my interest in a time efficient, less is more approach to training, I was interested in trying a 3 day a week marathon training schedule, as advocated by some running authorities.

I like the idea of this approach – it seems more achieveable and realistic for the average runner (like myself), and in theory, reduces the risk of injury in the short term. It may also have more of a chance of establishing a lifelong commitment to distance running, than more hardcore training plans which advocate running five or six times a week.

Anyway, here’s how it went:

The plan:

My aim was to get round the course in one piece without getting injured, and use the training as a stepping  stone towards the ultra marathon.

It was a bit of a struggle to find a race that fitted in with work and family commitments and occurred on a date that allowed me enough time to train. Eventually I picked the Lakeland Trails marathon – it sounded great (a loop of Coniston in the Lake District) and it took place about the right time in my training schedule.

I didn’t have the luxury of the usual 4 to 6 month plan, but I thought I had a reasonable base level of fitness, so I found a 10 week plan from a running magazine which advocated 4 runs per week, 2 rest days, with a day of cross training.

training plan

 

The reality:

I work full time and have a young family so I modified the plan to suit. I ran three times a week – I would do an easy 6km run, a 10km run, and a long slow run which was supposed to build to a maximum of 18 miles on week 8. Runs were generally off road on hilly terrain. I tried to add in two sessions of circuit training a week where possible, leaving me two days off.

Training was going well until about 3 weeks away when I developed flu, which forced me to take 10 days off training and so I failed to achieve my long slow run of 18 miles. I never ran further than 14 miles and there was no time for a taper.

On race day itself, I felt I had recovered from my bout of flu and was happy that I could run safely without too great a risk of viral myocarditis. The first half of the race was fine and I felt strong, however my lack of training in the last few weeks eventually took its toll, and the last 10km was particularly grim, and I finished in a slower time that I had hoped.

Given my age and suboptimal training, I expected to feel worse in the days after the marathon, but apart from some knee pain and a bit of nausea on the evening after the race, I recovered better than I thought.

What went well?

Having some sort of plan written down and pinned to the wall was crucial. I stuck to it as far as possible, but didn’t beat myself up if I missed the occasional session through work or other commitments.

I’m a big fan of training as specifically as possible for the event you’re involved in. This was an off-road trail marathon on the fells of the Lake District, so I tried to train in a similar environment.

Learning points

Getting sick was unfortunate, although in retrospect fairly inevitable. It’s highly likely that you’re going to get sick or pick up an injury at some point during your training, so factor this in. Give yourself enough time to train properly, even if you already consider yourself fit.

I like the idea that you can run a marathon using a regime based around only 3 runs per week, however, it doesn’t leave you with much leeway when things inevitably don’t go to plan – like getting sick (or going on a stag weekend the weekend before the race).

Also, once your ambitions go beyond finishing the race in a vaguely respectable time, you’ll undoubtedly need to up your weekly mileage, whilst still focusing on being as efficient and effective as possible during your sessions.

Here are a few other tips I picked up from my first marathon experience:

  • Train as specifically as you can (ideally reconnoitre the course)
  • Every run should have a purpose (hills, speed work, endurance)
  • Factor in set backs – trainer harder and for longer than you might think is necessary
  • Listen to your body

High Intensity Interval Training – is less really more?

We all know exercise is good for us – it helps us lose weight, reduces blood pressure, and increases our fitness levels, which in turn decreases our chance of strokes, heart attacks and premature death. It also makes us feel good.

So why aren’t we all doing the currently recommended prescription of 30 minutes of aerobic exercise per day, 5 times per week?

Firstly, because this isn’t a realistic option for most people, who have other demands on their time, and may also not possess the equipment, facilities, finances or motivation.  Secondly, humans are not logical; we will usually seek the path of least resistance, discounting future benefits (health and longevity) for more immediate ones (pizza and beer).

Traditional endurance exercise prescriptions may well be quite effective, but the reality is that telling people to do 30 minutes of exercise per day, 5 days per week is not helpful, without a major shift in our cultural attitudes and behaviour.

Having said that, there’s an urgent need to incorporate movement and exercise into our daily lives to address the growing obesity and inactivity pandemic.

So what if we could improve our fitness and health by doing simple exercises at home for less than 30 minutes per week?

This is the enticing prospect offered by High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), a shorter, more intense version of traditional interval training,  which dramatically reduces the time necessary to achieve meaningful health benefits.

It sounds like a fad, but there’s a growing body of evidence which suggests that it can be effective. Equally importantly, it offers a realistic approach to getting people moving.

So what is HIIT?

High Intensity Interval Training is generally taken to mean repeated bursts of high intensity exercise at or approaching maximal effort, with short periods of rest or low intensity activity in between.

An typical example of a lab based HITT session might involve cycling all-out for 30 seconds followed by 4 mins of recovery, repeated 5 times. This is repeated 3 times per week for 2 to 6 weeks. This equates to 2.5 mins of intense exercise per session and 7.5 mins per week.

Obviously the total exercise time is somewhat longer when you factor in warm up and recovery times, but is still considerably less than the currently recommended 150 mins per week.

These very low volumes of  high intensity training have been shown to improve not only cardiorespiratory fitness, as measured by a persons VO2 max, but also metabolic health, as measured by ones glucose control.

What is VO2 max and why should we should care about it?

VO2 max is a person’s maximal oxygen consumption. It can be estimated by putting someone on a treadmill or cycle ergometer and measuring their peak work rate achieved.

It represents your ability to transport oxygen from the atmosphere to your muscles to perform physical work. A chain of events are involved in this process, which involves the lungs, heart, blood vessels, skeletal muscle cells and mitochondria. So V02 max can be thought of as a marker of total body health.

A low VO2 max is associated with heart disease and death, and is a marker of poor health in the same way as traditional risk factors such as smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. On the other hand, small improvements in VO2 max are associated with significant improvements in mortality, with the largest benefits being seen at the low end of the fitness spectrum.

It has even been suggested that VO2 max should be measured routinely in health checks in the same way as other vital signs such as heart rate, blood pressure, weight etc.

Does HIIT actually work? What’s the evidence?

A growing body of research exists to support the effectiveness of HIIT in producing beneficial physiological changes in the cardiovascular, metabolic and skeletal muscle systems, even after short periods of low volume training.

A number of such studies have come from McMaster University in Canada (for example see here and here). They suggest that HIIT regimes can be as beneficial as traditional endurance training in improving exercise performance and other markers of health (VO2 max, blood pressure, insulin sensitivity), despite involving considerably less time commitment.

However, there are limitations to the general applicability of this research, because to date, the studies generally involve short term, laboratory based training programmes on small groups of young, active people.

And many questions still remain unanswered, such as the optimal intensity and volume of HIIT regimes to achieve worthwhile benefits, whilst still being practical and tolerable to the average person.

How low can you go?

The investigators at McMaster compared a very brief HIIT protocol with a traditional endurance protocol. The HIIT regime involved 3 lots of 20s sprints on a cycle ergometer, within a 10 minute session including warm up and cool down.  The traditional endurance regime consisted of 50 minutes of moderate intensity cycling. The sessions were performed 3 times per week over 12 weeks. Markers of cardiometabolic health (V02 max, insulin sensitivity, muscle mitochondrial content) improved to the same extent in both groups.

Martin Gibala, a professor of Kinesiology at McMaster, who is responsible for a number of studies on HIIT, suggests that the one minute protocol described above (3 x 20s sprints), is likely to be the lowest effective workload. Indeed this has led to him co-writing a book on HIIT, teasingly entitled the One Minute Workout.

A recent meta-analysis (research which combines data from similar studies) suggested that sessions involving even fewer sprints (e.g., 2 rather than 3) are associated with greater improvements in vo2 max.

So how do the likes of you and me put it into practice?

Most of the studies on HIIT involve sprints on a cycle ergometer or treadmill. I don’t possess either of these and have no desire to, and neither, I imagine, do the majority of people. I’m also not a gym goer, although I appreciate many people find them useful. The whole point of doing HIIT, as opposed to more traditional exercise, is, in my opinion, that it offers a solution to the barriers that prevent many people exercising in the first place, namely time, money and opportunity.

So we need more pragmatic solutions for engaging in HIIT.

One option would be to simply work interval training into your daily routine. For example, if you are out walking then you could simply pick up the pace for short periods, or walk up hills, or take the stairs more often.

Alternatively, the method I’ve found to be interesting and practical is High Intensity Circuit Training (HICT) – there’s no special equipment required here, it can be performed anywhere, using body weight as resistance.

Probably the best known example of a HICT regime is that designed by Brett Klika and Chris Jordan, who published this practical article in the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health and Fitness Journal. Their seven minute workout was popularised by the New York Times and has spawned a number of apps which guide you through the circuit.

Their workout combines both aerobic and resistance training in a series of exercises that takes 7 minutes to complete. The circuit consists of 12 stations, designed to exercise all the major muscle groups and achieve a balance of strength throughout the body. Ideally they should be performed in the following order to allow opposing muscle groups enough time for recovery:

  1. Jumping Jacks
  2. Wall sit
  3. Push ups
  4. Abdominal crunches
  5. Step ups
  6. Squats
  7. Triceps dips
  8. Plank
  9. High knees running on the spot
  10. Lunge
  11. Push ups with rotation
  12. Side plank

 

Each exercise is performed for 30 seconds at maximum intensity, doing as many reps as you can, with 10 seconds of rest between exercises.

Does it work? The bulk of the evidence for the benefits of HIIT compares sprint interval training using cycle ergometers with more traditional moderate intensity endurance training. I’m not aware of as many studies that compare low volume high intensity circuit training (ie. 7 minute workouts) to more traditional workouts (but here’s one). However, provided you’re exercising fairly vigorously there seems no reason why HICT shouldn’t provide similar benefits in terms of cardiorespiratory fitness.

Purely anecdotally, I’ve been doing HICT for a few months now and subjectively I’ve noticed improvements in my fitness levels. By that I mean, the exercises now seem much easier and I can push myself harder, to the extent I’ve started substituting some of the easier exercises for harder ones (e.g. lunges —> jumping lunges, plank —> mountain climbers, jumping jacks —> burpees).

So what are the pros and cons of HIIT? 

HIIT is certainly a time efficient form of aerobic exercise and studies suggest that it’s effective at improving cardiorespiratory fitness and insulin sensitivity.

However, we should keep in mind that these are generally small, short, lab based studies on younger people without significant health problems, so we shouldn’t over-extrapolate the findings.

It’s also not immediately obvious how best to maintain interest and make progress in the long term, once you’ve reached a certain level of fitness. How do you modify the regime? More circuits? Longer sprints? Less recovery time?

Nonetheless, despite these issues, anything that helps people to get moving and exercise regularly is a really exciting prospect both for individuals and at a public health scale.

HIIT is not going to appeal to everyone however, and there will be some people who are put off by the discomfort involved. That’s fair enough –  exercise should be enjoyable, not unpleasant. There are plenty of other options around. HIIT is by no means the only game in town, it’s just time efficient.

Experiment and find an activity that interests and excites you. Or try and incorporate exercise into your daily routine – taking the stairs, walking or cycling to work, run on the spot while you’re waiting for the kettle to boil, chase around after your kids/ grandkids.

Finally, because of the high intensity nature of this type of training, it’s really important for anyone who is overweight, deconditioned, elderly, injured or with comorbidities such as high blood pressure or heart disease to seek medical advice before starting HIIT. While these are the groups that could potentially benefit most, it’s crucial that they approach HIIT in a sensible, graded way, tailored to their needs and background.

 

 

 

 

 

Rewilding Scotland – can we live with the big, bad wolf?

Rewilding can be a pretty divisive issue, particularly when it involves top predators such as wolves and lynx. As you might expect environmentalists are generally enthusiastic, whereas many rural landowners oppose this alternative approach to land use. The general public appear to be fairly ambivalent, and understandably it’s not at the top of many people’s priority list.

However, it’s a fascinating subject and it’s importance is arguably under appreciated.

Rewilding is already occurring in many parts of the world. In mainland Europe, in recent years, there’s been the spontaneous and supported return of many previously threatened species such as bears, wolves, beavers, lynx, ibex and eagles. In North America, wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, after a 70-year absence.

However, these changes have not been met with universal approval, and in certain areas have resulted in conflict and controversy.

So, can the age-old antipathy between wolves and humans be overcome in the UK? Could we see wolves roaming the Scottish Highlands in the not too distant future?

What is rewilding?

The idea behind rewilding is that reintroducing large predators back into ecosystems that they once inhabited, allows those ecosystems to regenerate.

This finding is based on the concept of trophic cascades. A classic example of which is the changes that were observed in the landscape when wolves were returned to Yellowstone:

As predicted, the wolves started to prey on the elk, which reduced their numbers and hence their grazing pressure. Understandably, elk also started to avoid areas where they were likely to be eaten, such as next to streams. This led to increased growth of riverside species such as aspen and willow, which in turn led to reduced riverbank erosion and allowed bird and beaver populations to increase, which led to a rise in fish and otter numbers, and so on through the ecosystem.

Given these impressive regenerative effects and the fact that our neighbours are all at it, why not do the same in the UK? Indeed, why doesn’t rewilding already form a part of mainstream conservation policy?

Rewilding the UK

The UK is in many ways an ideal candidate for rewilding. Its upland areas have undergone centuries of degradation, thanks to clearing of native forest and overgrazing by sheep (in England and Wales) and deer (in Scotland). This has resulted in a fairly barren landscape of heather moorland, lacking in biodiversity and depleted of ecosystem services.

Rewilding would have different aims and strategies in various parts of the UK, but in Scotland it means the return of native Caledonian Forest, ideally replete with wild boar, lynx, beaver and of course, wolves.

In terms of feasibility, Scotland is the only area of the UK that could support a wolf population. One study calculated that, given the minimum viable population number to maintain genetic variability for wolves needs to be around 200, and based on a typical wolf population density of 2 per 100km2, then an area of at least 10,000km2 of suitable habitat would be required.

This exists in the Scottish Highlands, but unlike Yellowstone, much of this land is in the hands of private estate owners who run deer and grouse shooting businesses, and thus may not take too kindly to this new addition to their property.

Having said that, deer numbers are so great in the Highlands that culling is required in order to meet Deer Commission targets; so by preying on deer, wolves may even be of economic benefit to these estates.

In terms of human population and road densities in the Highlands, both are comparable or lower than those in European and North American areas where wolves exist.

Other reasons to reintroduce wolves…

In addition to the ecosystem benefits, there are several other justifications that could be used to help win over a sceptical Scottish public:

Wolf-spotting ecotourism: research shows that the economic benefits to local communities of eco-tourism exceed traditional land management practices, such as agriculture and deer stalking.

Moral obligation: do we have a moral duty to restore extirpated species to their natural habitats? This is a philosophical argument, and many would counter that wolves don’t actually care that they’ve been removed from the UK.

Human Health: there is now a great deal of evidence that links environmental degradation with adverse effects on human health. Restoration of ecosystem services through rewilding would provide clean air, clean water, healthy soil, reduce the risk of flooding and help mitigate climate change, all of which are vital for our health and wellbeing.

Despite these benefits, opinions about wolves are mixed. In North America, the majority of the general public do support wolf reintroduction, with approximately 60% in favour. In Europe however, this is not the case, with a paltry 36% of the UK being supportive. In rural communities, support is even lower.

Resistance is most likely to be due to three things:

1. Conflict with vested interests (threats to livestock):

Farmers and other landowners have been the most vocal group in their criticism of rewilding in Europe and North America.

In the Pyrenees, thanks to depopulation of rural areas, coupled with government conservation projects, previously threatened species now thrive, such as bears, wolves, beaver, marmots, feral goats and deer.

Unfortunately, but somewhat inevitably, these wild animals have entered farms, grazed, preyed on livestock and spread disease. These effects, coupled with the fact that many of these animals are now protected species, have resulted in the perception that conservation and ecotourism are valued above the welfare of local communities.

In Sweden and Norway, the wolf population died out in the 1960’s through hunting, but the area was then naturally recolonised from Finland in the 1980’s, and now a Scandinavian population of around 380 exists.

Despite being a protected species according to the Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Habitats, it is estimated that 50% of wolf mortality here is due to poaching. The source of conflict is moose hunting, a popular activity in Sweden. Wolves prey on moose and reduce their numbers, but also kill the hunting dogs, which makes them deeply unpopular amongst many Swedes.

Farmers would probably be the biggest losers if wolves were re-established in Scotland, as there would undoubtedly be attacks on livestock, as has occurred in Europe. However, in countries where wolves have been reintroduced, it has been estimated that they are only responsible for around 1% of livestock deaths, and compensation schemes have been set up which remunerate farmers whose livestock are killed in this way.

2. Cultural attitudes (threats to humans):

The negative folklore and mythology that surrounds wolves should not be underestimated as a barrier to their reintroduction. We do not have to look far for evidence of the wolf’s image problem. Consider the sayings “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” or “keeping the wolf from the door,” and fairytales such as Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs. We are conditioned from childhood to believing that wolves are our mortal enemy.

However, this reputation is not backed up by evidence. Wolves have been known to kill humans, but these events are so rare that the risks are difficult to quantify. Attempts at quantification usually invoke comparisons with the chances of being struck by lightning or killed by a vending machine.

3. Old fashioned, entrenched policy:

One of the many interesting things about rewilding is that it makes you look at familiar landscapes through a new lens. The Scottish Highlands are portrayed by conservation groups, guidebooks and the media as one of the last remaining areas of wilderness in Europe. However, the reality is they are anything but wild, having been intensively managed by humans for centuries. How have we allowed this misconception to be perpetuated?

According to George Monbiot, it’s because of ‘Shifting Baseline Syndrome.’ Each generation perceives the state of ecosystems they experienced in their youth as normal, and thus the benchmark to be maintained, when in fact, they were already in a state of severe degradation.

In the UK, this has resulted in conservation groups going to great lengths to maintain a landscape that, in terms of biodiversity, is fairly barren and monotonous, when compared with its former glory that rewilding seeks to restore.

So what is the solution in the UK?

Many of our neighbours in Europe and North America are living with wolves, bears and lynx, and are actively pursuing further rewilding goals.

Australians are certainly no stranger to co-existing with potentially dangerous species such as snakes and spiders, crocodiles, sharks and jellyfish. Why are we reluctant to follow suit in the UK, given the potential benefits described above?

I think we have become used to living in our safe, green and pleasant land, with rolling hills, intensive agriculture, sheep, deer and not much else. But it was not always this way and does not have to remain so. We could re-introduce wolves fairly quickly if the will was there, but this would require a number of things to happen first:

There needs to be government support for wolf reintroduction, and for rewilding to become official environmental policy.

There must also be genuine support from the general public. To achieve this, wolves will need an image makeover, through effective campaigns that present an exciting new vision of a rewilded Britain.

Crucially, there needs to be cooperation from farmers and estate owners in the Scottish Highlands. There is some evidence that estate owners are less opposed to rewilding than farmers, as they may even benefit financially through eco-tourism and negation of the need for costly deer culls.

Convincing farmers and the National Farmers Union may prove to be the most challenging aspect, and this would certainly include providing financial compensation for any livestock that were killed by wolves.

However, providing incentives is equally important, and it’s been suggested that instead of receiving subsidies for grazing sheep, farmers could be paid for rewilding services such as planting native trees.

Personally, I would be happy to see wolves reintroduced to my native country, not only for the reasons given above, but also simply because it would be thrilling to have them here. I regularly explore the Highlands to walk and climb, and the idea of wolves being out there only makes the landscape seem more appealing.

From a purely rational viewpoint, if done properly, rewilding with wolves could have widespread benefits: ecosystems regenerate, biodiversity thrives, local communities prosper from eco-tourism, farmers are rewarded, our guilt is assuaged, flood risk is decreased and carbon dioxide is sequestered!

However, I totally appreciate that not everyone shares these sentiments!

What do you think? Could you live with the big, bad wolf?