Cornerstones: Wild Forces That Can Change Our World

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this fascinating book. It was informative, interesting and a great read. I just hope that the appalling damage humans have inflicted on nature can be reversed but at least there does appear to be some hope for the future.

This is all about the ecosystem engineers we carefully hunted to extinction in the past - the beavers, wolves, lynx, eagles, dung beetles... We need to relearn old farming methods & bring them up to date with new technology like drones. We must renew our depleted soils & completely stop using poisons like glyphosate and neonicotinoids. This process has already started & will be our best defence against global heating.

This is a wonderful, inspiring, and beautifully written book. I learned so much about the vital role of cornerstone species from reading it, and Benedict Macdonald, whilst realistic about the problems facing their return to the UK, makes much that had seemed impossible possible. I particularly loved the chapters on beavers, horses/cattle, and whales, which are thought-provoking and full of wonder.I thought for a long time about how many stars to give and would have given 4.75 if I could, but there was something about the last chapter on humans as a cornerstone species that felt forced and left me feeling a little despairing, which was especially sad having been lifted by the rest of the book. Mind you, it was an almost impossible task to summarise what we are and might be without it feeling as it does.All in all, I loved 'Cornerstones', and will be reflecting on it long after having finished reading it I know. I am looking forward to reading another of Benedict Macdonald's books very soon.

I have learnt so much from this book. This needs to be read by every person in whatever job, just to learn about the diversity and wonder of creation and understand the damage we have done to this land. It is a celebration of creation and by reading it, it also opens our eyes to the destruction we have wrought, due to greed. We need to take seriously these observations and start putting them into practice for if we don't we will continue to destroy the basis of life from the roots upwards, until we stand on the emptiness of a life with no life in it.

Macdonald writes with not only a deep knowledge of nature but with eloquence and panache. His Rebirding was the best of many books I read on rewilding. This book gives a chapter each to cornerstone species. His depth of knowledge and sympathetic approach make this book a joy to read

This is an excellent book with clear facts and compelling arguments backed up with interesting background information that brings it all alive. I also loved Rebirding. Great author.

Of how true this is - but how to convince powers that be...hmm it will take some doing to change

Benedict Macdonald’s first book Rebirding appeared in 2019, and in that he championed the concept of rewilding the land on a grand scale to create “big” habitats to allow our struggling birds to thrive. If he could have his way, we would see major investments in saving habitats so that much of the countryside could be like a tablecloth of wildlife rather than the tatty patchwork quilt that we have today. That book won him the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation. Now, In Cornerstones he takes another popular concept and promotes it with passion. That concept is to support “cornerstone species” that are key to the existence of others and whose actions create the ideal habitats for wildlife to flourish.So what are the cornerstone species under consideration? Several will be very familiar such as beavers, which are ecosystem engineers, building dams and felling trees and effectively creating diverse wetland habitats for free. They were here 400 years ago until demand for their pelts saw them become extinct. To find wolves in the UK you have to look back a bit further to about 500 years, and for the lynx maybe 1400 years. They were all here – as were Goshawks. The case for getting them back is strong because they all have a significant impact on the other species around them and importantly, they do it for free! Benedict Macdonald looks at each species and puts their case succinctly and powerfully.Birds feature prominently in the second chapter that reviews the options for reintroducing cornerstone birds of prey. The high-profile work on bringing back White-tailed Eagles is familiar to most of us, while the unofficial reintroduction of the Goshawk through accidental (or perhaps intentional) releases has happened quietly. Benedict Macdonald’s skill is in painting a big picture and communicating the benefits for all to see. As with any big picture, details can be the victim and it is easy to make statements that those working on the detail simply don’t recognise. For example, in this chapter he says that in the New Forest most of the Hawfinches roost within 200m of active Goshawk nests. Really? I fact-checked that with the New Forest Hawfinch experts, and although there are many Goshawks, this claimed linkage simply does not exist. Maybe someone misinformed Benedict Macdonald when he researched the book – but as an author myself, I know how easy it is to take an idea and own it without going back to the source and checking you have interpreted the information correctly. Each page in this book contains many claims, often without references, and I don’t doubt that the majority are correct, but even with big picture concepts, fact-checking is now easier than ever before, and readers are beginning to expect it when books are making claims.This book is very timely as many in the world of conservation support the idea of bringing back iconic species and habitats. Indeed the Government said it supported much of this too, but in June slashed its planned support from £800 million per year to £50 million over three years. That is the equivalent of this 256-page book being reduced to just five pages! However, the cornerstone species concept still has its strengths and if any of this book’s suggestions are to succeed it will be ambitious private individuals who will make it happen rather than Government – as with just about everything else these days. Let’s hope it succeeds in changing minds and supporting those who already see cornerstone species as a vital part of our biodiversity.