I was recently browsing a breathlessly enthusiastic article about the joys of rewilding.

If only, argued the author, we could just leave the land alone. It would heal itself and care for us. There is some truth in this — and also over-optimistic nonsense.

Perhaps the most important point in rebuttal is that we can't leave the land alone.

Short of migrating the human race into space, we are by default dependent on the land — and the sea — to sustain us.

And as there are quite a few of us, we need land to grow food on.

It is a simplistic fallacy to imagine that all we have to do is nothing to somehow magically fix the environment we live in.

We have been looking for excuses to do nothing for far too long.

Which is not to say that rewilding is a bad idea. It is an excellent idea. But it is important to understand that rewilding should not mean just 'do nothing'.

Quite the opposite. It can and does work, but this is because there is ongoing work to ensure that habitats and species survive sustainably alongside people.

In the pure rewilding scenario of doing absolutely nothing to the land, we would need to reconcile ourselves to the loss of many of our most beloved species and habitats.

Chalk downs, for a start. Do you enjoy those views from Brading Down? So did the Romans, and since their time, agriculture on that land is what has stopped it from getting covered in bushes.

Rare chalkhill blue butterflies, gentians, cowslips and orchids would all be grown over by common hawthorn and blackthorn.

Similarly in woodland. Who doesn't love the spring primroses and bluebells, the smell of the wild garlic and the dangling yellow catkins of hazel?

In the strict rewilding management regime, all of these would eventually be lost or much reduced, replaced by high forest.

Obviously hardly anybody would actually want this.

For example, most current rewilding projects involve some low-intensity grazing or direct management to avoid this issue.

Still, if you have a big enough area of land, and a few centuries to wait, then it might work.

Naturally occurring clearings, and the activity of big mammals such as wild boar, beavers and ponies, eventually would start to make a more diverse and self-sustaining habitat.

But because we humans still live here, there is not likely to be enough land available for that any time soon.

But that's alright. So long as we don't fool ourselves into imagining that rewilding is some miraculous formula for instant wilderness; it's something that could and should happen in the right places if we work to make it succeed.