Rewilder Weekly #7
Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly!
The days fly by and with them come and go those many international days that highlight, celebrate or commemorate this or that. Actually, a fascinating rabbit hole in itself - discover them all here. Anyway, so last week was the International Day for Biological Diversity - check out #IBD2024 for the many posts to highlight that special day. Alrighty then, let's go with this week's eight selected rewilding stories.
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) Coexistence Not Killing: Please sign the petition
Take a moment and follow below link to sign the petition (regardless of whether you're in Switzerland or abroad). In his post, Marco Lambertini highlights the petition against the new Swiss government federal hunting regulations and demands that the government promotes coexistence not extreme culling measures.
Mario explains that the revised ordinance contradicts Switzerland's obligation to protect and conserve our biodiversity and adds, "Our response to the consultation calls for a focus on the expansion and consistent implementation of non-lethal prevention approaches such as herd protection and calls for the promotion of coexistence with native wild animals. All of these species play an important role in the health of the ecosystems on which we all depend. We know that we can coexist…if we want."
👉 Read Marco's post and please do take a moment to sign the petition
2) Przewalski's horse foal born in Spain's highlands
I've known too many who wouldn't share a story unless it was 'major' or 'big' or 'important' ... well, those people have the wrong measure. 'Important' comes in all sizes and quite often the small stories are the big stories, right? This Rewilding Europe news is about just one foal, born in the Iberian highlands. And isn't that in itself wonderful news!
But look closer and you discover that the Przewalski's horse is the closest relative we have today to the prehistoric horse that was depicted on cave walls tens of thousands of years ago. And these horses are sturdy, and they're important to restoring the lands to a truly natural state. In fact, the moment we'll see herds of the Przewalkski horse roam wild across Europe, we'll know that we've come a long way on our restoration and rewilding journey.
👉 Go here for post and beautiful pictures
3) It's been a good week for the lynx - two success stories!
The population of lynx in Spain and Portugal has been on the rise since 2015. Just twenty years ago there were as few as one hundred left - today that number stands at two thousand! The majority of these lynx are in Spain, while about 300 are in Portugal. The 2'000 threshold means they can be considered past the risk of extinction.
👉 Go here for post and article
The second lynx good news story comes from Switzerland, a country that showed itself in a terrible light with last winter's ill-conceived wolf culling. No such concerns with the lynx, it appears. This is the story of three orphaned lynx discovered in two different cantons. They were taken to an animal park where they were given all the necessary care - and now these young guns have been released into the wild again.
👉 Go here for the post
4) The man who wants to see 200 million bison and horses
Russian scientist Sergey Zimov has been called everything from bat-shit crazy to visionary genius. Actually, I guess if you look at visionaries of the past, they've probably all been called crazy at some point by what then was considered the norm, or the mainstream. He started the Pleistocene Park in remotest Russia in 1986 - an idea, already then, to bring life back to the tundra with the help of large herbivores - and to ensure the powerful methane gas would stay in the ground for good.
The fall of the Soviet Union but a dent in the project - but the man is resilient! Today he runs the park together with his son and reindeer, yakutian horse, moose, bison, muskox, kalmykian cow, sheep, camels and goats. In an insightful (and long but worthwhile) documentary, Sergey's Zimov's son Nikita says that he envisions their park to become something like a 'Serengeti of the North' ... some might think that crazy, I'd call it a beautiful vision!
👉 Go here for post and documentary
5) Should domestic cats be kept indoors?
There are over 220 million domestic cats in the world - and in North America alone they kill between 10 and 30 billion birds and mammals annually. In the UK, the number is 160-270 million animals annually - a forth of which are birds.
Since we're interested in and engaged around the topics or restoration, rewilding and protecting nature - the very idea of roaming domestic cats should be more than a little worrisome to us, right? I mean, look at the above numbers! However, particularly here in Europe, we let them roam for the most part and we look the other way when bring home mice and birds. Disclaimer: I'm one of those people with a happily roaming cat. The solution is obvious, and yet it's a very tricky subject!
👉 Go here for post and article
6) Do you know about the Thousand Year Trust?
I've e-met Merlin Hanbury-Tenison on LinkedIn a while back and knew about the plans - and now the Thousand Year Trust's website is live! This is a charity dedicated to the restoration of Atlantic temperate rainforests. They aim to triple the amount of rainforest growing across Britain over the next thirty years ... and that's sorely needed. In very olden times more than half of Britain was covered with forest. By AD 1000 that had shrunk to about 20% ... and today it is 1%.
Learn about the Thousand Year Trust and their vision of "restoring Britain's rainforests for our generation and all future generations." I have to say, I love the scope - a thousand years. I love people who engage and strive and labor and fight for something that is far bigger than their own life, their own lifetime. Well, I guess that's us, all of those with rewilding@heart!
👉 Go here for Merlin's post the charity's website (looks good!)
7) Norway restoration shows what can happen in Scotland
David Hetherington, Nature Networks Manager at the Cairngorms National Park Authority traveled to Norway to a place that mirrors, in landscape and weather conditions, the Scottish Highlands. He shares two remarkable images, on from 1927, one from today. The farm in that valley had no longer been in operation since 1917 and that meant that grazing intensities of sheep dropped significantly. From then on, year after year, things began to change.
👉 Go here for David's post and take a look!
8) A deep-dive into challenges and conservation in Mongolia
I had no idea: Already thirty years ago Mongolia adopted the vision of formally protecting 30% of its country. In April, the Government of Mongolia, together with The Nature Conservancy announced the 'Eternal Mongolia' initiative that commits all funding and policies needed for Mongolia to achieve its 30x30 conservation ambitions.
The Nature Conservancy shares that "Eternal Mongolia will dramatically expand conservation of one of the world’s most intact and connected temperate grasslands—one of the least protected ecosystems on earth, as well as sweeping sand dunes, rugged mountains, pristine lakes and over 13,000 kilometers of winding rivers that support rare wildlife and feed much of central and northern Asia."
👉 Go here for post, video - and amazing in-depth article
And that's it for this edition! For more 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