We very much welcome the review. Our National Parks should be our most glorious and special places, the absolute jewels in our crown, places where people fall in love with wildlife. But, depressingly, the evidence shows that most National Parks are less diverse than the rest of our countryside and in some places substantially worse. We all know that many parts of our own National Park are devoid of wildlife.
We need to change this. Our National Parks are the obvious place to start developing a Nature Recovery Network – interconnected wild spaces which will restore wildlife, and help reverse the current decline of biodiversity. There are also huge opportunities to re-introduce species back to our National Parks – species that we have lost from our countryside. We need to make our National Parks wilder. Indeed, Michael Gove has himself talked positively about the benefits that rewilding might bring to selected areas of countryside. In an interview with Rob Yorke for Countryfile magazine he stated: “My view is that there may be parts of the uplands that are suitable for rewilding”. We need to see hen harriers and other birds of prey return to their natural home along with other species like pine martins, red squirrels. Maybe even beavers and golden eagles.