Hill country in the Lake district - not as wild as it seems... © Copyright Walter Baxter and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence George Monbiot was in tremendous form at the University of Exeter last night. In a double-header with Alan Watson Featherstone of Trees for Life , sponsored by the Network of Wellbeing and Exeter Community Initiatives , he was passionate, incisive, witty and erudite in turns on rewilding Britain . His central thesis: that the bare, upland landscapes of Wales, the Lake District, the Highlands of Scotland, Dartmoor and elsewhere are not natural environments of deep ecology but "sheep-wrecked" wastelands, the constant grazing of which ensures that nothing of significance is allowed to grow. True wilderness contains a hierarchy of flora and fauna, from mighty oaks to gentle mosses, and from large mammals to tiny insects and microbial life forms. Despite the association of the terms, wilderness is not barren , but replete w