Rewilding

Description

Rewilding is the strategic process of restoring ecosystems by reintroducing native species, removing barriers to natural processes, and reducing human intervention. Its core intent is to revive self-sustaining habitats, enhance biodiversity, and remedy environmental degradation caused by land use, species loss, and ecosystem fragmentation. Practical actions include habitat restoration, species reintroduction, and reconnecting wildlife corridors, aiming to reestablish ecological balance and resilience against climate change and biodiversity decline.

Context

Across the world, urban dwellers have been alienated from the wildlands that surround them. A little more than two centuries ago, only two percent of the Earth’s population lived in cities. We are fast approaching a time when most do. Ironically, we are increasingly dependent for our sanity on the non-indigenous animals we call our pets and perhaps a backyard garden of exotic vegetation, some raised vegetable beds or a few potted, exogenous plants.

Implementation

In Britain, George Monbiot and others have urged that top predators be re-introduced to the countryside.

In the U.S., there have long been successful moves to reintroduce wolves to wilderness areas. Yellowstone’s wolves have had a startlingly benign impact by rebalancing the park’s ecosystem.

Claim

It may be time to consider the measured re-introduction of our own species into the wild in a last ditch effort to re-discover the circumstances of sustainable co-habitation with non-human life-forms.