Rewilder Weekly #59 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍
Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍
Before we jump into this week’s eight rewilding stories, a quick heads-up: Rewilding Europe’s Wilder Europe series premieres its fifth documentary tomorrow, 08 July, at 6pm CET. It focuses on Italy’s Central Apennines and how communities there work with nature. Witness dam removals, the return of the Marsican bear and the joys and benefits of living the coexistence (even co-prosperity) way. Follow this link and activate notifications to be there for the premiere!
Now then, let’s get on with it - wishing you a good week.
Cheers,
👉 As a reminder: If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in an upcoming edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.
1) Huemul deer subpopulation discovered at the tip of the South American continent
What a beautiful story: Cape Froward has recently been in the news as Chile’s latest national park, a huge undertaking that had come about thanks to the tireless efforts of many, key among them Tompkins Conservation and Rewilding Chile (they donated 230’000 acres in 2023). This vast and rugged region - largely unexplored, largely left unmarred by human endeavors - clearly represents a biodiversity-rich haven.
So much so that, even at the very beginning of a surveying helicopter flight, the team of Rewilding Chile was greeted by a surprise - huemul deer! Rewilding Chile has been hard at work to create a national huemul corridor to increase connectivity between the few isolated populations - there are thought to be only 1’500 left in Chile and Argentina … and so the discovery of huemul deer at the very tip of the continent is fantastic news and gives even more weight to the importance of creating that corridor.
👉 Go here for the post (and clip) on LinkedIn
2) The Blue Hope Alliance: community engagement and citizen science at its best
Scotland’s Wester Ross MPA is the largest maerl protection zone in the world. The importance of maerl beds, and the habitat they provide for so much of marine life, has long been known to local fishermen. But it was only just ten years ago that this MPA was officially closed to trawlers and dredgers. For that past decade, the Blue Hope Alliance has grown with every year, bringing local communities together, building a network of citizen scientists, engaging, educating and inspiring, informing policy makers - you name it.
These past months they’ve done it again - and joyously so - training people to do scientific seabed surveys, to record and monitor. What the Blue Hope Alliance does is first-rate local community engagement. What they do, and how they do it, inspires the local population, creates shared goals, purpose and pride and is, without a doubt, the single best way to protect nature and give it the chance and time it needs to recover. Laws alone are never enough - the real difference comes from caring people coming together to form strong and passionately engaged communities.
3) Bison restoration across the Northern Great Plains
There’s nothing new about the importance of large herbivores and their ecosystem engineering powers of restoring entire landscapes. Before white men slaughtered bison en masse to destroy the American Indian tribes’ ways of life, there were an estimated 30-60 million bison roaming North America. By 1900 only about 300 bison were left. There have been improvements in recent years and the numbers today are around 500’000 again. For these to do the job that’s been assigned to them by nature, they need to roam as free and wild as possible.
A new study looks an important factor, that of food sovereignty of American Indian tribes by way of the restoration of bison herds. With American Indians relegated to reservations on often unproductive lands, they found themselves marginalized in many ways - among them, food. Their lands are expected to warm disproportionally due to climate change - and roaming bison herds could make all the difference. “Efforts led by Native American Nations to restore North American Plains bison to tribal lands can bring desired socio-ecological benefits to underserved communities while improving their capacity to influence the health of their lands, their people, and their livelihoods. Ecological sustainability will depend on the restoration of bison herds and bison’s ability to serve as ecosystem engineers of North America’s Plains.”
4) Frans Schepers explores the wild Balkans
Frans Schepers, co-founder and executive director of Rewilding Europe, traveled the Western Balkans - a three-week camper van trip that covered parts of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. He writes, “After more than 5,000 km driving, hiking, boating, climbing and cycling – with 165 birds, 16 mammal and 12 amphibians and reptile species observed – I am excited to share some of the most interesting experiences in a small series of posts. Of course with a rewilding angle – no escape from that!”
If you’re on LinkedIn - good! If not, join LinkedIn to explore his series of five in-depth post with a series of stunning images: you’ll learn about 👉 1) karst fields in the Dinaric Alps; 👉 2) a sea of forests - like the Sutjeska National Park; 👉 3) wild and amazing rivers - and massive dangers that might stop the flow before long; 👉 4) grasslands - and his thoughts on better ways of managing them for greater soil health; 👉 and 5) Lake Skadar - a transboundary wetland gem (see above image!)
👉 Go here to learn about Rewilding Europe’s efforts in Croatia
5) When Jack and Ruadh stalk deer
Nature-loving people will often instinctively shrink away from the very notion of killing animals. The ideal way of nature recovery is what’s called passive rewilding - but unfortunately all too often nature has been degraded by the endeavors of our species to a degree that nature needs a helping help before it can regain and maintain a healthy ecosystem balance on its own. One of these ways of helping is killing deer, regulating their numbers in the absence of natural predators. SCOTLAND: The Big Picture shares an insightful and personal article that I’ve greatly appreciated.
Seeing Jack Ward and his dog Ruadh (parts of the article is practically an ode to the dog - what a friendship!) reminded me of my own time in the Cairngorms when I traveled Glen Feshie with ecologist (and dee stalker) Ronan Dugan (and his pup Mattie). With him, too, the love of nature was obvious, but also the need to cull deer (which Glen Feshie has been very successfully doing with fantastic nature results). In the article Jack highlights that his work doesn’t lead to less deer stalkers. To the contrary, deer management will require more deer stalkers - with the one difference - it isn’t stalking/killing for sport, it is done as a means to help progress Scotland’s nature recovery.
6) Mexico’s seabird islands - recognized as one of this year’s UN world restoration flagships
Last month the UN has recognized this year’s first three world restoration flagships. They are: The Northern Mozambique Channel; Spain’s Mar Menor lagoon; and Mexico’s seabird islands. Follow the links to learn more about the former two - here a focus on the Mexican efforts that began 26 years ago. Back then they launched a program to restore vital seabird colonies, while at the same time removing invasive species. These efforts were tremendously successful.
The UN highlights that, “thanks to restoration efforts, 85 per cent of formerly extirpated seabird colonies have returned to the islands, including species at risk of extinction. The initiative will complete the restoration of over 100,000 hectares by the end of the decade – equivalent to almost a million hectares of continental land in terms of biodiversity value — encompassing almost 100 islands, and protecting over 300 endemic species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and birds.”
7) Giant otters return to the wild in Argentina
Rewilding Argentina, in collaboration with other organizations has been responsible for the release of a family of giant river otters - a rewilding milestone, as this keystone species was last sighted forty years ago.“The world’s largest otter measures up to five feet, nine inches (1.8m), weighing up to 72 pounds (33kg). A family of four otters, including two pups born in captivity, have been set free in the 2-million-acre protected wetlands of Iberá, marking the first worldwide comeback of this species in a habitat where it had been rendered extinct.”
As anyone in rewilding will tell you, returning a species is hard work that comes with much planning and many hurdles. In this case, the work began eight years ago and it entailed finding suitable mates from zoos, devising the regulatory framework that would make international transfers of wildlife - and their release - possible - and even inventing GPS harnesses that would work for these amazing creatures. Kris Tompkins (co-founder of Tompkins Conservation, the organization that let to the creation of Rewilding Argentina) says: “The giant river otter’s return marks a huge win for the communities of Northeast Argentina, all the park visitors, and the natural world. As we face the largest mass extinction this planet has ever known, this is our most urgent task: helping nature heal.”
8) Say hello to Rewilding Europe’s 11th rewilding landscape!
Rewilding Europe selects, supports, grows and, of course, rewilds large pioneering areas in Europe together with local partners. I’ve long followed their many amazing efforts in the different landscapes (find all of them here) - and now an 11th has been announced - this one in France. The Dauphiné Alps in southeastern France have been selected following years of dialogue and preparation with multiple stakeholders. The landscapes covers 480’000 hectares between the cities of Grenoble, Montélimar and Gap and represents the largest rewilding initiative in France.
The landscape is home to deer, chamois, boar, ibex, wolves, otters, vultures, beavers and marmots … the reason for such rich biodiversity is simple: it is one of those many remote landscapes that were depopulated over the course of the past century when more and more people left rural employment to find better opportunities in the cities. Some valley farming remains - but the hillsides, by and large, have been return to the wild. Olivier Raynaud, Rewilding France Director, impresses on the importance of working with local communities, stating, “Rewilding France will work with local people and partners to restore natural processes in the landscape, according to rewilding principles, with the goal of making the area a flagship for rewilding in France and Europe.”
To conclude this week’s edition, wildlife artist Charlotte Williams shares below otter who seems rather surprised at our presence. Her painting is aptly entitled: “Can I help you?” As a member of Artists for Conservation, Charlotte supports conservation groups around the world - and parts of her proceeds go toward conservation efforts.
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That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?
connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;
join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;
read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;
listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;
and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.
And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍