Rewilder Weekly #12
Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly! Before we get into this week's eight selected rewilding stories, give yourself a special rewilding boost with James Shooter's latest Rewild Podcast: 🎙️ Saving Wildcats. Now then, let's rewild!
👉 As a reminder: If you come across stories you'd like to see featured in an upcoming edition, send them to me and I'll gladly do what I can.
1) URGENT: Swiss wolves, ibex and beaver need your help
Campaigner Lucie Wuethrich has just delivered extraordinary work to combat an upcoming hunting ordinance decision in Switzerland. She has put together an in-depth 19-page paper and sent it to the Swiss federal office for the environment.
Lucie writes, "We are extremely concerned that this project would, if adopted, allow the shooting of species strictly protected under the Bern Convention whose status of conservation still needs consolidating. It would, if adopted, allow the proactive and reactive killing of wolves for eight months each year, thereby endangering their population and risking potentially more, not less, livestock predation, as research clearly indicates is likely to happen due to indirect and collateral effects on wolf pack behaviour and functioning. It would also, if adopted, allow the culling of entire herds of ibex, regardless of whether or not there is the justification of major damage having occurred. It would, if adopted, allow the reactive shooting of beaver."
Read the paper. Lucie urges you and me and everyone to use it in full or in bits and pieces to highlight what's happening and, most importantly, to contact that aforementioned office for the environment with our concerns - let's all do this! She writes: "Any citizen or NGO, whether Swiss or foreign, can participate and submit their thoughts in German, French, Italian or English to the following address: bnl@bafu.admin.ch."
👉 Go here for Lucie's post and paper
2) Restoring nature is not about kindness, but about necessity
Flo Blackbourn attended the Restore Nature Now march in London. After journeying Europe for SCOTLAND: The Big Picture's documentary 'Why Not Scotland', she now spoke to the 60-80'000 marchers. She told listeners that much of the biodiversity that has been lost in the UK can return without much difficulty.
"Much work is already happening around the UK, but with an over-reliance on charities and generous landowners. We need to stop treating nature restoration as an act of good will, but the necessity that it is. Don't let anyone tell you that what we're demanding today is a kindness. Protecting the natural world isn't kind, but necessary for everyone's survival."
👉 Go here for Flo's post and video
3) The rewilding of the American Serengeti
There once were an estimated twenty to sixty million (!!!) bison roaming across what is now the U.S. - they were hunted to near-extinction. White man had recognized how essential bison were for the native tribes. "It was a military strategy to eliminate the buffalo. General Phillip Sheridan famously said if they take away the buffalo, then they can starve the Indians into submission. They saw it as a solution for dealing with the tribes.” (Mike Fox)
Today there are about 20'000 plains bison roaming again (another 400'000 are managed as cattle and are therefore not counted), but, according to the World Wildlife Fund - the destruction of prairie lands continues, with "32 million acres of grasslands plowed for agriculture since 2012, and 1.6 million acres plowed in 2021 alone." Those are insane numbers - and all of it is to the obvious detriment of healthy, functioning, biodiversity-rich nature.
👉 Go here for post and excellent in-depth article
4) We need much, much more nature
Professor Dana R. Fisher wrote 'SAVING OURSELVES: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action' and graciously shared it with me. This is a good read and the professor offers ways forward, ways for humanity to actually come together to tackle the climate crisis and turn things around. After reading it, however, I had to admit to myself that she has a great deal more faith in humanity than I do.
History offers plenty of examples that humanity, as a mass, often doesn't make the smart choices - most often it goes with emotion, with gut feel, and with the herd, of course. So how to grab humanity in a way that this species collectively changes course? I see two ways: one is by way of catastrophes, the other by way of nature. I so sincerely hope we pick option two!
👉 Go here for post and article
5) Cairngorms' milestone with wildcat kittens born
David Hetherington share the wonderful news for the Cairngorms National Park Authority and the Saving Wildcats project - the nineteen wildcats that were released into Cairngorms National Park last summer seem to be making themselves at home. New footage shows that kittens are roaming about!
In The Guardian article, project leader Helen Senn shares that she would consider a population of 40 as viable when the project ends in 2026 - but her vision is considerably bigger - she says, "... my vision would be that we have wildcats back across much larger parts of the country. We’re only starting out on that journey and there’s a lot of work to be done to reverse what is effectively centuries of decline of a species that was once extremely widespread across most of Scotland.”
👉 Go here for post and article (and video!)
6) Enjoy Rewilding Europe's #FieldFeatureFridays
The last few #FieldFeatureFriday editions take you to the Danube Delta's Tarutino Steppe (damaged by illegal ploughing and now being rewilded), the Velebit Mountains (constructing ponds and the joy of wild horses) and the Iberian Highlands (incredible landscapes for nature and people) - with every feature you get amazing pictures and important insights of the ongoing rewilding work.
👉 Go enjoy them here and here and here and here
7) Sussex Bay - the blue mirror to the South Downs
Sussex Bay has been awarded £100,000 by Rewilding Britain. The project covers an area encompassing 11 councils and a million people. It could see oyster beds, salt marshes and kelp reintroduced to help combat the climate crisis and encourage wildlife. A major boost clearly happened three years back, when nearshore trawling was banned. In The Guardian article, 76-year old Eric Smith recalls the kelp forests he saw when diving as a child - and how they had vanished after years of intensive trawling.
“I see Sussex Bay as a blue mirror to the South Downs. This is a story of rewilding, but it’s also a story about a different future where seascape and rivers are much more appreciated and are thriving,” says Paul Brewer, Director for Sustainability & Resources Adur & Worthing Councils.
👉 Go here for post and article
8) Connemara could become the Yellowstone of Ireland
Okay, this opinion piece by Ola Løkken Nordrum is fanciful, but I think it's a fancifully fantastic idea. Connemara has always been a remote place. The author makes the case that Connemara could become, in its entirety, a large-scale national park - a far cry from Ireland's current efforts. Ireland has been turned into a country of extreme biodiversity poverty - its biodiversity ranking leaves it in 161st place! Flora and fauna have been destroyed over the course of many centuries ... turning Connemara into a National Park where nature is fully restored with both passive and active rewilding efforts - it would be a tremendous boost to the island's overall health - and also, with the shadow of a doubt - to ecotourism.
Ola writes, "We must challenge the narrative that rewilding and nature restoration equals anti-farming and anti-rural communities. It’s not either or. It’s not nature or people. We need to move from nature being something we go to visit in isolated uninhabited national parks to living alongside nature and making it an essential part of our daily lives. A reimagined Páirc Naisiúnta Chonamara could provide the entire area with a sustainable nature-based economy and reinvigorate the area. It could become the Yellowstone of Ireland."
👉 Go here for post and article
End the newsletter as always with an artwork by Chilean science illustrator and painter Mauricio Alvarez (mauricio_alvarez_art on Instagram): This time with the beautiful Burrowing Parakeet (Cyanoliseus Patagonus). Find out more about it here.
And that's it for this edition! For more rewilding insights and stories from around the globe, use the #rewilding hashtag and follow people, organizations and groups that are as passionate about rewilding as you are.
Have a good week!
Cheers,
D