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If you’re wondering about how to manage the community response to a rewilding project, then the discussion of Patagonia’s rewilding experiment in S America is very informative. There is also insightful guidance into how rewilders might navigate choppy political waters, and some predictions of future industry growth. The author has seen incredible changes to the environment over the years. Whole chapters of this book are dedicated to the “glamour species” that have returned to the land - the nightingale, the turtle dove, the purple emperor. But it is the less glamorous creatures sitting low down in the food chain that are, for me, the real stars of the book. Perhaps the most interesting environmental commentator of our times, Monbiot will find a large audience with this book. His own encounters with the wild are lyrically described, and his arguments against the primacy of the sheep-farming and fishing industries compelling. His encounters with politicians will make you angry, while his ability to find the wild in unexpected places may fill you with hope. The reintroduction of known species or those that can offer similar ecosystem functions seems to be an excellent way to accomplish the goal of rewilding these damaged landscapes. Given the climate crisis facing our future generations, lets hope that these scientists will be successful and that rewilding can reverse the trends in our favor. The language is sometimes too florid for my taste. At times, I was itching to take out a copy editor's red pencil, to make sentences or passages clearer.
As an introductory text to potential students and practitioners of rewilding, this is a 5-star book. As a pop science book (which I assume is the intention, given the publisher's blurb of 'the first popular book on...'), it's a 4-star one (maybe even 3.5). The passages about the process of wilding - breed choices, population control choices, problems with the neighbours - were fascinatingly colourful and informative. The great thing about rewilding science is that it is not about anti-globalism; it does not seek to restore what industrialization has destroyed or damaged. It wants to go hand-in-hand with technological progress. in the first place by organizing our available space more efficiently, thus freeing up space to rewild our nature: integrating nature and people, with a focus on innovation rather than on protection. It is also a great way to fight climate change. Soils store more carbon than all terrestrial plants, including rainforests. Rewilding (parts of) Antartica with herbivores could help keep the carbon stored in the soil, as the large animals snow trampling compacts the snow layer and leads to deeper winter soil freezing. Which sets in motion a series of events that favours deep-rooted grasses and herbs. The way this book is structured is very helpful for rewilding novices, with confusing jargon demystified and competing theories explained. The authors also make sure to cover the most common case studies, so you’re not left feeling embarrassed when someone brings up the Oostvaardersplassen in casual conversation.
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Before I started reading it, I knew the author had a good story to tell of what her family had been doing at Knepp Castle since the early noughties. What particularly impresses though is, firstly, how extremely well written it is. By turns poetic or polemical, according to the topic in hand. And, secondly, how profoundly knowledgeable the author is. About wildlife of course - the turtle doves, the nightingales, the purple emperors and Dartmoor ponies. But so many other areas too. Whether stepping carefully through the thirty different terms for 'mud' in the old Sussex dialect, or wading waist-deep into the various academic debates in ecological circles surrounding 'vegetation succession' and the role of large grazing herbivores in pre-agrarian Europe - the author is an unfailingly articulate and clear-sighted guide. Writing style appealed to me with very rich references to other studies, books, and rabbit holes of reading material that I may actually pursue for once. The Book of Wilding – a practical guide to rewilding big and small – will be published by Picador in Spring 2023, and her second children’s book When the Storks Came Home in 2022. I'm not quite sure where this book fits within the ecological literature I've become deeply interested in as an adult. Most likely you could use this as a 101 or 102 level introduction to the topic and a light argument for its practice.
Unfortunately, this fascinating history is lost among a sea of details. While no one could doubt the author’s devotion to enlivening Britain’s depleted nature, this book relies heavily on his decades-old notes and diaries. Narrative and nuance is hidden among a stream of names, dates and measurements.Rewilding is possibly the most important and empowering revolution to have evolved out of the conservation movement in the last hundred years. This book shares the knowledge and wisdom of that movement that we all need to better understand how we can all play our part in helping nature restore the planet Rewilding is the idea of reintroducing species to the environment. In most cases, humans are responsible for the disappearance of those species in the first place. This book presents the idea of rewilding by finding suitable replacements for some extinct species of megaherbivores and finding places where they can be reintroduced. This would recreate some of the natural conditions that were here prior to human intervention in the natural systems.
All in all, I think Rewilding gives a glimpse into many different ideas, trials and steps already taken. The last chapter does sound a bit too forcefully optimistic, but that might just be my own cynicism talking. Hopefully I'll find a copy of this in writing. I think I might retain more information by reading and just listening. With Ben’s history working in Natural History TV, there’s a strong sense of story here with some astonishing statistics thrown in to emphasise quite how badly we need a conservation rethink. This is an inspiring read, though, with the final section giving a real sense of hope and building concrete ideas for the future. It’s a book I always recommend to nature enthusiasts who want an introduction to rewilding. Isabella Tree is an award-winning author and journalist and lives with her husband, the conservationist Charlie Burrell, in the middle of the rewilding project at Knepp. I can already say, with absolutely no hesitation, that this will be one of my books of the year. There is no book I’ve learned more from, or been more enthralled by reading. I say this as someone who has only a mild-to-middling interest in nature/environment/ecology issues, at least in terms of prior knowledge and depth of scientific understanding. Isabella Tree is a great storyteller who manages to convert quite a lot of technical information into a plot - a drama, even - which any reasonably intelligent and diligent reader can follow. After all, humans have impacted ecosystems way before Industrialisation. There is strong evidence that human migration lead to the extinction of megafauna throughout the world. Megafauna that often played a role in shaping regional geography and carving out niches for a range of other wildlife (an evocative idea in itself). Biodiversity that has been lost as environments transform with the extincition of megafauna.From discovering lost rainforests to reintroducing missing species, we loved the diverse mix of new releases. Together these books shine alight on the people, projects and species behind rewilding and its climate-storing and biodiversity-boosting powers. The Book of Wilding is a handbook for how we can all help restore nature. It is ambitious, visionary and pragmatic. The book has grown out of Isabella and Charlie’s mission to help rewild Britain, Europe and the rest of the world by sharing knowledge from their pioneering project at Knepp in Sussex. It is inspired by the requests they receive from people wanting to learn how to rewild everything from unprofitable farms, landed estates and rivers, to ponds, allotments, churchyards, urban parks and public spaces.. The Book of Wilding has the answers. Jake is very much a bloke’s bloke. He’s the kind of guy you might meet down the pub on a Saturday night chewing over what that stupid politician did now, or talking incessantly about the weather. A gamekeeper for many years, after a short, successful stint in the London club scene, he’s not someone you would expect to be at the forefront of rewilding. I met him at an event and he was exactly how I expected – honest, enthusiastic and raw. That’s what makes this book so bloody brilliant – it’s relatable.
Large herbivores (think Bison) served key ecosystem functions and by focusing on replacing predators only we are missing significant parts of ecosystem structure Now the book. Isabella Tree writes a language as floral as the honey produced on the land, and I loved it. I found some messy sentences with missing words or clauses, or that seemed to suffer from having been poorly operated on during revisions, but my enjoyment of the book in spite of this is manifest in the fact that I managed to read it in three days. Three days of late nights spent reading. For context, I'm on my honeymoon. I'm literally honeymooning, as I type. The book begins and ends with the soil. During the WWII, Britain faced severe food shortages and the only way to survive was to increase food production somehow. So began intensive farming which increased yields and enabled the country to survive those war years. When the war finished, however, the country did not return to the pre-war methods, but rather intensified the the pressure on the land to produce more and more at cheaper and cheaper cost. Today, the cost of food takes a remarkably low percentage of our income compared with previous generations. But we pay for this in other ways. There is scientific evidence to suggest that food quality has dropped significantly, even to levels that could explain the apparent sudden rise in things like lactose intolerance or other allergies: there could be more of this around nowadays because the products themselves have altered in response to the intensive farming methods used to increase yields. Isabella Tree would argue, I think, that this pursuit of higher yields has gone beyond the point where it is self-defeating: we apply more and more pressure to the land to produce more when the reason it does not is because of all the pressure we have already applied that has damaged it. This is probably the first book I've ever read where I consider it an honour that it exists for me to read.Of particular interest is the detailed explanation of challenges and difficulties that the project faced, some practical (how to move wild deer), some institutional (Natural England were wary), some cultural (local objections to the ‘mess’ and ‘waste’ compared to arable land), and some philosophical (allowing control of the land to lapse). Tree devotes time and careful discussion to the academic theories and popular perceptions that make rewilding especially hard to achieve in Britain, relative to other parts of Europe; George Monbiot also observed this peculiar tendency. Defining ‘wildness’ is fraught with difficulty, as is deciding which species have lived here long enough to be considered ‘native’. I found the argument that Britain was not covered in closed-canopy forest during pre-history convincing, as well as useful. Tree also points out (as I’d recently read in this Citylab article) that the changing climate is forcing species to relocate, so rather than try to replicate the past we should allow wild space to accommodate whatever species can find a niche. In short, stop over-managing for the sake of single species and instead interfere as little as possible. Counter-intuitive in such a heavily managed landscape as Britain, yet the results are incredible. What is the right point to conserve/restore the environment to? What you remember from your childhood? When industrialization happened? When Europeans arrived? When humans arrived? They argue that the latter two are more healthy/complete ecosystems, and yet current conservation efforts are not that ambitious. They touch on numerous rewilding projects – from the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone to the rewilding of England’s Knepp Estate – helping readers get a sense of rewilding’s many shapes and sizes. The acclaimed TV forager and adventurer brings British woodlands to life in this romp through the native trees of our green and pleasant land. It’s a great reference for those interested in restoring a biodiverse rural landscape. Reading about the mishaps in Argentina reminded me of the reindeer discussions in Finland. It's not all or nothing, but rather finding a way and a solution that as many interest groups as possible can live with.
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