Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life by George Monbiot was published in 2013, so I'm a little late to the game but it was a very appreciated gift earlier this year. The focus of this book is on rewilding projects around the world, but particularly in the UK, and how the latest scientific discoveries have changed our understanding of how natural systems work, as well as just how damaging our interference with them have been.
Monbiot talks about his 'ecological boredom' and his realisation that the areas he had originally thought were wild, and had moved to for those reasons, are actually ecological wastelands. We see him seeking out places he feels contains the untamed spirit he wants to bring back to our shores, in the hills of Britain, the forests of Europe, and the coasts of Wales, and meeting people working towards the restoration of lost forests and bringing back lost species.
The main argument of this book (and the one that got him in the most trouble) is that Britain has an overgrazing problem, especially in the uplands, and that sheep numbers need to be greatly reduced for wildlife to he able to properly come back. This is especially evident in supposed nature reserves here grazing is continued as an apparent way of maintaining an ecosystem, but which are in fact keeping an area species poor and in a post agricultural state. I have to admit that I entirely agree with his stance on this and that grazing should be greatly reduced in most of these areas to allow nature to come back in a much more varied and stable manner.
I also agreed with his idea that we should manage these areas, in general, a lot less, allowing nature to do what it has done pretty well for the last few billion years, and that is to fit the right type amd variety of species to the environment and habitat at hand. The only caveat I would add to that is the removal of non-native species and the reintroduction of native species to an area, otherwise I would leave it alone.
There are two things that I don't necessarily agree with Monbiot on in this book. The first is the idea of introducing similar species to the UK to replace the species we can no longer reintroduce back due to extinction. Having studied enough introduction case of non-native species to areas which we thought would fix an ecological problem, fill the same niche, help fill a gap we had caused......you get the picture, and it gone horribly, horribly wrong. Despite our understanding of the natural world being so much better than it was a decade ago, we're still pretty clueless and I think introducing species that have not evolved here no matter how similar they are, would be a mistake.
The second thing is the way he talks about fishing and hunting being an integral part to our connection with the natural world, stemming it seems from his love of fishing. Whilst they might resonate with a number of people, the concept is completely alien to me. I have no interest in any type of predatory behaviour towards the animals that I watch and I don't feel that this has any negative impact on the connection I feel towards the natural environment around me or that my experience with it is any less immersive.
Apart from those two things I did really enjoy the book and thought it was a very interesting read. It definitely helped solidify ideas I already had about the next stage that conservation work needs to take, especially with climate change looming. I particularly appreciated Monbiot making clear that any rewilding can only really be done with the local communities consent and involvement. There have been many examples were local communities have been railroaded in the name of conservation, and this has not only been bad for the humans but bad for the habitat this was meant to protect as well. Would definitely recommend this book.
No comments:
Post a Comment