Rewilder Weekly #13
Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly! Before we get into this week's eight select stories, let me ask you something - how would you like to spend six months in the jungles of Ecuador?! If you can take the time, check out this amazing opportunity from Mossy Earth - and apply by 23 July latest! 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) Sweden aims to halve its wolf population
'Sweden's Big Five' reports that, Swedish governments wants to rapidly halve the wolf population from around 375 to 170. The rationale is, get this, that the massive cull of wolves in Sweden will 'increase acceptance.' This is rubbish as calling of the last 14 years have not increased acceptance. And I would bet you this very much also has to do with fearmongering of pro-hunt lobbies.
Humans all too often think themselves the superior species. I think we prove ourselves to be inferior every time we kill for the joy of it. All of this is terribly misguided. We know of the importance of the wolf, a keystone species for healthy biodiversity and yet, according to the article, Sweden's Minister of Rural Affairs, Peter Kullgren, "is also behind the government’s active lobbying toward the EU for a lowered protection status for all large carnivores."
👉 Go here for post and article
2) 500 billion for rewilding effort in Saudi Arabia
Did your eyes just do a double-take? Yep, you read that right - 500 billion! I've looked into this mega project happening in northwestern Saudi Arabia - the overall project is called NEOM is three times the size of Yellowstone - it's big, it's really, really big. There are huge tourist plans for the projects - tourist resorts and some such - plus a floating industrial complex in the Red Sea, plus a global trade hub, plus a linear city called 'The Line'. But here's the thing - most of the land, 95% of it, will belong to nature.
As for flora: two million trees have already been planted, a hundred million more native plants will follow. And fauna? Two years ago ibex, sand gazelles, mountain gazelles and the Arabian oryx were released into the wild - and they're flourishing. Next up are plans to reintroduce the caracal, the Arabian lynx and the cheetah ... The scope of this project is staggering and Head of Nature (what a title) Paul Marshall says, "We're already off to a really good start and we're seeing some amazing successes already."
👉 Go here for post and article
3) Have you ever heard of a 'fog oasis'?
The Mongabay article's entitled 'Peru puts endemic fog oasis under protection' - I was immediately intrigued, of course! As a writer, my first thought was 'What is a fog oasis' and my second thought was 'I can't wait to use that in one of my novels'! Back to reality - it took fifteen years for the protective status to come about, fifteen years' worth of fervent and persistent advocacy. It's nature, baby - it's the long game!
From the article: "Peru has granted formal conservation status to Lomas y Tillandsiales de Amara y Ullujaya, a unique fog oasis ecosystem on the arid Peruvian coastline. The state-owned land, which spans 6,449 hectares (15,936 acres) in the Ica region of Southwest Peru and hosts hundreds of rare and threatened native species, will be protected for future research and exploration for at least three decades."
👉 Go here for post and article
4) We paved paradise and put up a parking lot - then came rewilding!
Most cities are still seen and felt as concrete jungles. But all of that concrete and all of that asphalt doesn't need to be the end of it. Underneath it all, there's rock and there's soil - there's nature, just waiting to be given a chance. By now there are organizations dedicated to 'depaving' - and this story highlights one such example from Canada - it really is a huge paved parking lot will become a pond (Joni Mitchell would happy - here the Amy Grant version of Big Yellow Taxi).
These types of efforts always leave me wondering. Any nature is better than no nature. But look at the rendering of what they envision I see something that looks very pretty, downright neat. This rewilding efforts are still often very much dependent of what the human species holds as convenient and/or beneficial. There is a middle ground, of course. But that middle ground should always lean toward more accepting of nature where it wants to lead, and less human boundaries. But in any case - big fan of organizations like Depave.
👉 Go here for post and article
5) Nature-based businesses show the healthy way forward
In his post, Rewilding Europe's Daniel Allen highlights the Europe-wide efforts to discount the notion that it is either nature or people - it should absolutely be nature AND people. Luckily, more and more example show that rewilding opens the door to nature-positive business with both tourism experiences and economic opportunities.
Daniel writes that, "In places such as Portugal's Greater Côa Valley, the Central Apennines of Italy, and the Iberian Highlands in Spain, businesses encompassing everything from soap and cheese making to wildlife watching and boutique accommodation are reaping the benefits of such networks, generating even greater buy-in for rewilding." Importantly, such nature-based businesses may be able to access financial and other support from Rewilding Europe Capital.
👉 Go here for post and article
6) “We can’t offset our way out of the extinction crisis”
Thus writes Australia's Biodiversity Council when asked about recent audit of Australia's biodiversity offset scheme. It revealed that a third of the sites surveyed are in a worse condition than before they were established as offsets. Sigh. There we go again, humans. The simple truth is that wherever money's involved, there will be people who misuse and abuse and circumvent to make a buck without actually doing the work.
Greenwashing's gone rampant. And the solution to all those shenanigans really is what the Biodiversity Council (and every right-minded person) demands - namely that far more efforts should go into avoiding, with offsets a last resort. "We need to make sure offsets are truly relegated to a measure of last resort and there is a much stronger focus on avoidance and mitigation of impacts through assessment processes. Too often we hear stories of proponents and regulators racing to offsets rather than carefully considering project location and design to minimise impacts on biodiversity."
👉 Go here for post, article and report
7) We were responsible for the extinction of large mammals
Shares by Professor Jens-Christian Svenning: Researchers at Aarhus University have reviewed over 300 scientific articles and it brings them to conclusion that it was human hunting, not climate change, that played a decisive role in the extinction of large mammals over the last 50,000 years. The climate change version is still a convenient excuse for many, a way to put the blame elsewhere. Nope, it's with us, our species - and it's high time we own up to it - and make up for it by rewilding!
If you've never read it, take a gander at Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens. He gives you all the compelling arguments that make the case for human culpability. For examples with our species settling Australia (45'000 years back) - and Australian megafauna ending then. Or sapiens popping up in America (16'000 years ago) - and American megafauna ending then. He writes, "Some scholars try to exonerate Homo sapiens and blame climate change. But we are the culprits. There is no way around that truth. Even if climate change abetted us, the human contribution was decisive."
👉 Go here for post and article
8) A few thoughts about hunting, sport and conservation
I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to include this in the Rewilder Weekly. But here it is, since it very much is about biodiversity-rich nature - and our human ways of getting to have the cake (hunting) and eating it, too (calling it conservation). I have an issue with the killing of animals. Sometimes there are reasons, good reasons, that a cull cannot be avoided. But then that happens out of necessity and with a heavy heart.
On the other side of necessity are hunters who get excited about looking at an innocent soon-to-be-slaughtered animal (preferably exotic) through their rifle's scope. A) hunting is not a sport - a sport is a competition between willing participants and animals are simply innocent victims of one killing frenzy after another. I will never understand the broad smile, the pride, the excitement in hunter's faces as they look into the camera, rifle in hand, dead animal at their feet. So no, hunting is not a sport - and I also won't agree with any such hunter hiding their killing joy under the guise of conservationism (beware, there are some disturbing photographs behind one of the links).
👉 Go here for post and articles
End the newsletter as always with an artwork by Chilean science illustrator and painter Mauricio Alvarez (mauricio_alvarez_art on Instagram): This time with rendering of life above and below the surface along a Chilean shore.
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