According to the authors – Paul Jepson and Cain Blythe – rewilding is viable and is beginning to happen in Europe and America. They predict Europe will lead the way, because rural depopulation and the decline of traditional agriculture are creating large areas of land in need of a new future. When combined with economic reasons for nature-based solutions, a desire for commercial breeding and ranching could emerge. We Are the Ark– Pioneer gardening rewilder, Mary Reynolds brings her warm and enigmatic style of rewilding to a wider audience in this captivating illustrated edition. Her thoughts align closely with my own on rewilding gardens, so I look forward to reading this one. I learned, too, about the importance of reintroducing keystone species, ranging from pigs (as a substitute for the politically unacceptable wild boar), longhorn cattle (substituting for bison), roe and red deer, the beaver and even - perhaps especially - the humble earthworm. The explanations for the significance of these species gave a fascinating insight into animal behaviour. 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. The first half of the book was a bit more difficult to follow with all the ecology, biology and conservation ideas and vocabulary, especially as English isn't my first language and I'm not already familiar with this subject matter. However, I found the social and political aspects interesting too. It had me thinking, that the people who will get these ideas through have to be knowledgeable in many different areas: ecology and conservation for sure, but also with psychology, politics and social sciences.

Yes, that's true. Donald Trump can do a lot of things I can't, but he can no more get out of the prison than I can. But what does this have to do with justice?" To get the chip on my shoulder out of the way: I too would love to inherit a huge family estate in commuting distance of London with a writing shed and a wedding and polo fete business, and stop actively farming it to watch the wildlife return. Isabella and her Charles seem genuinely good eggs, but they're irredeemly posh and I bounced off that a bit, and found myself wondering whether their outlook on the world is entirely realistic.One idea put forward for restoring nature's balance is the re-introduction of mega-herbivores, with increased grazing enabling soil carbon levels to be restored and thus negating the release of methane from thawing of the permafrost (particularly needed in Arctic regions). 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. Maybe we don’t need to just re-wild our landscape but also ourselves, to find a more natural space in which to exist away from our plastic wrapped food and constantly fluttering screens. There are a number of ethical and practical challenges as we move down the path of rewilding and the book does well to bring these forwards and seek debate, so that buy-in can be achieved and the issues can be navigated in a thoughtful and considered way.

When Isabella Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell realised that it was not economically feasible to continue their farming of land in Knepp, West Sussex, they made a bold and radical decision: they decided to step away from the land and watch as nature took over. This book describes the almost twenty years of that project/experiment. The results are staggering and challenge some fundamental assumptions that often guide even the most well-meaning of conservation or ecological decisions. From the perspective of someone studying in this field (Animal Management with a potential career in Conservation) this book was a refreshingly new perspective on the issues that we are facing today in regard to ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss. I will definitely be recommending my college library adds a copy of this book to their shelves as it is well researched, logically structured and overall, very thought provoking.As we live in the midst of a climate catastrophe it can be hard to find hope, but we must. Rewilding as a concept feels like it can be a vital source of positivity in dark times. It seems to hold not only a potential way to help repair the damage of our past actions, but also a way to transform our future relationship with the natural world and that is exciting.

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. 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. The thing Tree never mentions is that her husband's family are traditional aristocrats, and the land they are rewilding is their estate. It was historically not just their productive land, but also the home of many tenant farmers. Their land is apparently shot through with roads and paths (it's unclear) maybe even houses and businesses? And as for the dog walkers, it's not just about the universal British law that anyone can traverse anybody's land whatever they want if they're taking a walk. The estate functioned as a kind of public park and event center for the whole community. On one hand, this makes what they're doing all the more valuable and interesting, but on the other hand, it casts a somewhat different light on the dynamic between them and the angry comments they get from the public. Either way, it seems like something that would have been worth explaining more explicitly, because afaik, even in the densely populated Netherlands, Oostvardersplassen was uninhabited before it was turned over to the wild animals. I'm not sure the degree of urban-rewilding integration here has a clear precedent.Rewilding and ecological restoration narratives are still a very tiny genre of nonfiction, so I'm always excited to see a new one. Most of the reasons I love them are probably obvious: they're stories about nature that aren't just positive, but also proactive, progressive, and full of tantalizing hints of unexpected ecological mechanisms. The first half of this book does all of that pretty well. Unlike some of these books, there really isn't much memoir to it. The story Tree tells is about her land and their management decisions, largely made by expert advice and steering committee, and none of it feels especially personal. The real skill of successful conservation lies in the ability to communicate complicated, scientific concepts to as many people as possible, including children. Isabella Tree is one such communicator. When We Went Wild tells the story of two farmers who make the shift from industrial farming to rewilding, and the wonderful benefits that this brings for wildlife, their community, their animals and for them.

While authors like Ross Barnett and Elizabeth Kolbert ( The Sixth Extinction) teach us about large-scale extinction events, Louv examines a different kind of loss. He details recent changes in the relationship children have with nature, with his focus on the US. Some of his points seem obvious – on average, today’s children spend less time in nature than previous generations – but the reasons behind the shift are complex. The most interesting parts relate first to the broad debate about the role of mega fauna in European ecosystems, and second, the surprising cultural differences in expectations about farmers, farmland, and public access. Unsurprisingly, Tree and the Knepp project in general are heavily and directly influenced by the Vera school of European paleoecology. Thus, most of the interesting spontaneous effects they observe are the downstream effects of horse, cattle, pigs, and deer browsing, wallowing, distributing seeds, and pooping. Their land of course attracts new species of dung beetle, micromoth, fungi, etc., along with big flushes of weedy flowers and new recruitment of woody shrub species, and consequently settlement by birds and other animals that require those kinds of habitats. More interestingly, in several cases they find that highly threatened species in Britain flourished in new kinds of habitat different from their reported preference, suggesting these kinds of habitats are so rare that species which prefer it are only hanging on by living in suboptimal areas. Overall, it's just a pleasure to read about the unfolding of ecological processes, things difficult for most of us to observe, often entirely forgotten, exposing clear and intuitive gaps the way naturalists and conservationists often approach nature. Rewilding is a spectrum of possibility, and everyone is on it. Whether you have a garden, roadside verge or window box, there is no space too small. Rewilding is learning how to contribute to a living landscape, to connect with other areas of nature and help forge the life-support system that will save our planet from calamity and provide humankind with a prosperous and sustainable future. 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.

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All of that is the core topic of the book. But the other interesting aspect was something so obvious to Tree that it took a while to dawn on me. She starts the story by describing her and her husband's efforts to intensively farm their land, winning awards and setting records for dairy production despite unfavorable heavy clay soil. And as she described that work, I was picturing their land as a dairy farm similar to the ones I grew up near: big, rural fields in the country, with a small farmhouse near the sheds and dairy barns on the road. So when they got their land fenced and introduced feral cows and pigs, it seemed fairly reasonable. It was only when she started talking about how conflicts with dog walkers limited their breed choices, and how the wild pigs tried to steal food for a wedding they were hosting, that I remembered just how different things are in Britain. Then she mentions the castle and it all fell into place. There are counter-arguments, of course. Thoughtless rewilding could result in less wildlife, not more (not all plants and insects live in woods). But this challenging, well-written book should stimulate not only ‘wild’ thinking but also the discovery of the wild within ourselves. Often we think of conversation as human non-interference (leaving nature alone and letting it run its course) - this even being an end within itself.