Now it will be the law that all EU countries must restore worn-out land.
In any case, if the European Commission gets through its bill.
Worn agricultural land, drained beach meadows and clear-cutting will be restored and become wild nature again.
It is partly a measure against the ongoing extinction of species and a way of capturing greenhouse gas emissions.
A study by the EEA, the European Environment Agency, shows that cities and concrete infrastructures continue to expand and that landscapes are becoming increasingly fragmented.
In its forthcoming working reports 2 and 3, the UN's climate panel IPCC also advocates so-called nature-based solutions.
Is about huge areas
Climate change and the ongoing species extinction are related.
If, for example, insects continue to disappear, food supply will be threatened in the long run.
According to a study in the journal Nature, this could be one of the cheaper and most effective weapons in the fight against the climate crisis.
According to the study, there would be a global need to re-erode an area equivalent to China.
Then you could tie up almost half of the emissions that humans have historically caused since the middle of the 19th century.
It could also halt 70 percent of the ongoing species extinction.
But these are huge areas.
The densely populated United Kingdom has systematically begun work on so-called rewilding.
There are constant conflicts with, among other things, agriculture, for example when wild animals such as bison, beavers and sea eagles are reintroduced.
Golf course plans create conflict
In the coastal town of Southend-on-Sea, for example, 600 hectares of arable land have been laid down to recreate beach meadows and lagoons for resting migratory birds.
In Brighton, the City Council decided in 2020 to say no when the historic golf club Waterhall from 1923 wanted to renew its lease.
Today, the golf house is deserted and the bunkers are growing again.
Here, herb-rich meadows will be recreated on the calcareous soils, among other things with the help of freely roaming cattle, which spread the seeds via the manure.
- This is as rich in species as a rainforest in miniature, says project manager Jamie Lloyd.
But golfer Terry Bones is furious and believes that the whole project is a fad:
- Golf courses are also nature, we have foxes on the golf course, he says to SVT's broadcast.
Re-deforestation issue for the whole EU
The British government has decided that 30 percent of all worn-out land will be restored and reforested by 2030. It is expected to bind 12 percent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions.
When re-deforestation is now to take place across the EU, the conflicts between farmers and conservationists are expected to intensify.
In the United Kingdom, the farmers' interest organization has therefore begun to develop methods for how agriculture can interact with natural interests, in order to create a balance between climate and nature measures and food production.
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The golfers' anger - the ancient course was turned into a horse paddock Photo: Tomas Hallstan / SVT