Forget the Bank of England’s Wildlife Banknotes. The Mayor of London’s “Rewilding” Plans Are Even Weirder

This week, many were bemused by the Bank of England’s plans to put wildlife on banknotes. Nigel Farage called the scheme “absolutely crackers”, a sentiment echoed even by otherwise-out-of-touch Ed Davey, who said Winston Churchill “deserves better than being replaced by a badger”.

If the bank’s direction seems a bit nutty, wait until you find out about the Mayor of London’s plans for the capital, in which wildlife can be expected to be everywhere. Indeed, I had a sense of déjà vu when one publication announced that beavers would be on English banknotes – because for the past year I’ve noticed Sadiq Khan repeatedly tweeting about beavers (as well as bees, bats and storks). He has marked events such as “the birth of two new baby beavers” and “a family of beavers being released into the wild in West London”, as well as his deputy mayor (one of nine) introducing the world to “Willow, Woody, Chompy and Chewy” in February last year. It’s hardly what you’d expect the Mayor’s office to be up to.

However, Khan is deep into plans for “urban rewilding”. That much is clear from a C40 Cities report published in 2023. To recap on the arrangement, which I have touched on a bit before for the Daily Sceptic, Khan is the co-Chair of C40 Cities, “a network of mayors driving the future of city climate action” whose funders include Bloomberg Philanthropies, the UK Foreign Office, European Union, Open Society Foundations (run by George Soros), Uber Technologies Inc and Amazon’s Climate Pledge. Its role is to hit the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

C40 Cities’ 2023 report, titled ‘Urban Rewilding: The value and co-benefits of nature in urban spaces‘, cites three SDGs: “11. Sustainable Cities and Communities”, “14. Life below Water” and “15. Life on Land”. It’s apparent that “urban rewilding” is seen as a way to tick off these goals and ensure we all live happily after.

In case you’re wondering what “rewilding” is by the way: C40 Cities says it “follows the principle of letting nature lead by allowing for largely self-sustaining ecosystems and natural processes to become embedded with a landscape”. Elsewhere the report explains: “Rather than cities being perceived as separate from nature, future planning and development should work towards incorporating nature”:

One big fan of rewilding is Lisbet Rausing, the billionaire Tetra Pak heiress, who has awarded hundreds of thousands in donations to former Environment Secretary Steve Reed and Ed Miliband. In 2021 Tatler reported that Rausing had helped to fund a year-long study into the reintroduction of the lynx to the Scottish Highlands, and she has awarded millions to other “rewilding” projects, such as “Rewilding Europe”.

There’s no plan for wild cats in London (yet), but similarly large sums are being plugged into rewilding. There’s the “Rewild London Fund”, sponsored by the Mayor of London and Amazon’s Right Now Climate Fund (Amazon being a funder of C40 Cities), as well as the Mayor’s ”Green Roots Fund”, which has been awarded approximately £13.6 million in taxpayer funding (2025-28).

In 2022 the Mayor also took from a “London Rewilding Taskforce”, “whose role was to explore potential opportunities for rewilding in London to support nature recovery and enhance biodiversity, while bringing benefits to Londoners and addressing the climate and ecological emergency”. However, members of the taskforce were unpaid.

“Rewilding” – like so many UN plans – sounds idyllic, but I just can’t see it working in practice. I genuinely worry about whether the beavers would be victims of knife crime or run over by Lime Bikes. Like everything in London, I don’t think Khan can be trusted to keep them safe. Never mind if small rodents are the pathway to lynxes.

Either way, the Bank of England notes certainly won’t be the last time the nation’s talking about wildlife.

Charlotte Gill regularly publishes about the use of taxpayers’ money to fund Left-wing causes and Left-wing researchers in Woke Waste, her Substack. You can subscribe here.