Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍
Before jumping in, a quick heads-up that the 20th of September marks World Cleanup Day. Imagine if everyone were to pick up just one bit of litter today. Let’s all do our bit. Let’s pick it up and put it in the trash.
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) The unravelling of a success story: how politics is killing Europe’s wolves
Oh, how I’d love to be able to share nothing but rewilding success stories. But the road of nature recovery is long and bumpy and, at times, insidiously enriched with detours and traps and mines. Undoubtedly, one of the saddest stories on the nature recovery journey is how politicians across Europe are turning their back’s on thirty years’ worth of success brought about by protecting the wolf.
A team of journalists have put together the big story. It’s a fascinating read, a sobering read, an infuriating read, a frightening read … but it’s also a story that shows how, against increasing odds, positive coexistence efforts - if scattered - take hold. “The future of wolves and bears will not be decided by predators, but by whether Europe addresses these deeper challenges and chooses prevention and support over fear and politics.”
2) A closer look at the return of wild horses to Spain
Mongabay is a first-rate reporter of what’s happening in the world of nature recovery - and this time they’ve delivered doubly, with both a video and article with transcript to illustrate why wild horses have been reintroduced in Spain. The video features Diego Rodriguez and Manuel Villa of Rewilding Spain. Fantastic to walk in their shoes for a while and see the wild horses do what they’re supposed to do.
And what is that, you ask? Well, let me say that wild horses belong to the Iberian Peninsula. They were there since prehistoric times and eventually vanished because of human activities. Now they’re being restored to their natural habitat and they enrich the soil, make the land more wildfire resistant, and bring life and new hope to rural communities and their local economies. In the words of Diego and Manuel, “Seeing how the horses change the landscape year after year in the direction we expected, is very satisfying. I believe that this will be the future.”
3) “Within five years, we hope to have paws on the ground.”
The above words are spoken by Mighty Earth CEO Glen Hurowitz in a video (watch it in the article) about the campaign to bring the catamount (also puma, cougar, mountain lion) back to Vermont. While human endeavors destroyed much of flora and fauna after arriving in New England, forests have recovered, and so have deer - in destructive abundance. Mighty Earth writes, “A lack of large predators means that overpopulated deer diminish forest health, cause deadly vehicle crashes, and spread Lyme and other tick-borne disease.”
People are often instantly up in arms, when the the wolf is mentioned. Mighty Earth argues that there’s no such built-in opposition with the cougar, that they “enjoy strong cultural support in the region and are recognized as an animal that has a rightful place in Northeastern forests. We are on the cusp of a great rewilding moment, with the potential to restore native wildlife to hundreds of millions of acres by 2030, balance ecosystems across the country, and help suck gigatons of carbon out of the atmosphere.”
4) Getting the UK’s nature recovery back on track
Rewilding Britain says that the 30by30 2025 UK Progress Report from Wildlife and Countryside Link makes for a sobering read. Latest figures show that, just five before the 2030 deadline to protect 30% of the UK’s land and sea, only around 6% (SIX!) are effectively protected for nature. In the article, Rewilding Britain explains the delays and spells out the solutions.
Rewilding Britain’s Rebecca Wrigley minces no words, “These woeful figures should be ringing alarm bells loud and clear in everyone’s ears. The time for urgent action is definitively here and in rewilding lies a powerful solution. We need an ambitious and credible delivery action plan for landscape scale restoration with rewilding at its heart. Rewilding Britain calls on the government to ensure that rewilding is part of the new land use framework for Britain; that nature recovery is made the primary purpose of our National Parks, transforming them into the paragon of thriving nature they should be; and that the restoration of our woodlands, peatlands and coastal & river habitats is rapidly scaled up in delivery and investment. Only by creating wilder, more natural landscapes at their core can we have any hope of meeting 30by30 whilst delivering sustained benefits to our economy and wellbeing of ourselves and our communities.”
5) Scotland’s wildfires and muirburn debate
Such a good SCOTLAND: The Big Picture article, penned by Hugh Webster. Recent wildfires have given those favoring the status quo fuel, so to speak, to tout the benefits of muirburns - the controlled (ideally) burning of moorlands for the benefit of grouse hunting and grazing. Alas, this article goes deep, looks into all corners of the issue - and shows that muirburns are nowhere near as unproblematic as they claim - and are most certainly no panacea against wildfires.
“A perspective that sees natural vegetation only as potential fuel, and dismisses ecosystem restoration targets as misguided, misses the point. In the end, the idea that continually burning the land is the only way to reduce the risk of wildfire is overly simplistic. There may be times and places where muirburn remains a useful tool, but its negative impacts should not be ignored.” … “An increasingly holistic approach to landscape planning is now being adopted in many European countries, integrating the restoration of naturally fire-resistant habitats with traditional tools such as prescribed burns. This approach is helping to build resilience and deliver a win-win for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Rather than depend solely on muirburn to manage wildfire risk, Scotland should develop a similarly holistic approach.”
6) Visit the amazing wilderness of Romania
Rewilding Europe reports that they’ve supported the creation of two new guest homes in Romania’s Southern Carpathians. There are so many places worth visiting across Europe, places where passionate people tackle nature recovery efforts at ever growing scale. In terms of truly vast landscapes filled with wild nature, I don’t think you can do much better than Romania. I’ve never been and it’s definitely top of my list.
When it comes to rewilding, the focus is pretty much always on nature AND people - and that means making coexistence work, and making local communities partners that can benefit economically. Rewilding Europe Capital’s financial support for enterprises such as this one that centers on eco-tourism are essential for increased buy-in. Take a look at the article - and guest homes - and I’m pretty sure you’ll feel like me, you’ll want to go to Romania right away!
7) 3’000 acres protected in Ohio’s Appalachian foothills
Fantastic news for nature - a private landowner has pledged to transfer ownership of the land that has been in the family for a hundred years to Athens Conservancy. The Nature Conservancy is granted a permanent conservation easement on the property. The two conservancies will manage and monitor the land.
Athens Conservancy board member Brian Blair couldn’t be happier, writing, “Athens Conservancy commends Betty’s vision to preserve this precious forested property, and we fully embrace a partnership with The Nature Conservancy to protect it forever. This remarkable land is abundant in natural beauty, rugged history, and environmental treasures. Its vast hardwood forests have significant impact—locally, regionally, and globally—today and for the future.”
8) It’s high time to end the nonsensical hunting of small animals
☝️ You may wonder why, in a forum about rewilding, I occasionally write about shooting estates, hobby hunters, illegal trafficking and animal cruelty. The thing is that rewilding is about a better balance between humanity and nature, and it is very much about a lived respect and care for nature … and that, of course, includes animals. Ongoing mistreatment and cruelty toward animals clearly goes against a better path forward, a path of respectful coexistence.
Small animals, I’ve read, are actually seen by hunters more like target practice, getting them into the groove for big game season. In centuries past small animals were hunted by rural farm folks to a) put food on the table and to b) protect their small farmholding’s crops. Let’s just state for the record that we are no longer in centuries past. The continued slaughter of small animals en masse is both ethically and ecologically wrong. Allowing these animals, and here I include all animals (wolf, lynx, deer, ibex, you name it), to live their natural lives, will mean nature returning to a natural flow, with natural, self-regulating numbers. This is science - what hunters tell you is twisted logic to justify their blood-sport’s existence.
👉 Go here for the article and 👉 here to sign the petition
To conclude this week’s edition, wildlife artist Charlotte Williams captures nature once more with her wonderful talent. As a member of Artists for Conservation, Charlotte supports conservation groups around the world - and parts of her proceeds go toward conservation efforts.
Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!
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! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍