#12 Rewilding, megafauna, & ecosystem restoration

"Ultimately, we're providing a seed source for the natural forest of the future. We're giving nature a healing hand - and our work is already having an impact and making this corner of the world a better place."

Earlier this year, the world's first-ever rewilding center opened in Scotland.

The Dundreggan Rewilding Center is located on a 10,000-acre estate near Loch Ness. The center hosts forest tours, seminars, and workshops aimed at educating visitors about ancient forests, local wildlife, and other parts of the complex ecosystem they play a part in.

The Center also serves as a tree nursery where up to 100,000 saplings are planted each year. Those trees are then planted elsewhere across the Scottish highlands, bringing trees like the Scottish pine back to areas where it hadn’t grown for generations.

What is Rewilding?

Rewilding is not just about protecting wildlife and planting trees; it's about restoring entire ecosystems to their natural, self-sustaining glory. Rewilding aims to rekindle the intricate dance between species, reviving landscapes and nurturing biodiversity.

There is no clear definition of rewilding, and many authors and ecologists have offered their take on what rewilding should mean.

The related concept of Ecosystem restoration has been defined as “the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed."

Rewilders want to achieve those goals, but there are some open questions about how exactly to go it.

For example, how actively involved should humans be in that process? Some rewilders think that we should let nature take control, while others believe that human interventions are a necessary response to ecological destruction created by human action.

Also, should we try to preserve the historical integrity of specific ecosystems? Or can we introduce new types of flora and fauna to help ecosystems adapt to changing times?

Cocaine hippos and other megafauna

The Colombian government is trying to figure out what to do with “cocaine hippos.” Infamous Colombian narcotrafficker Pablo Escobar famously brought four African hippopotamuses to his ranch. They escaped in the early 1990s, and now about 160 of their descendants are creating problems across Colombia.

While some argue that the hippos are disrupting local ecosystems, a 2020 study argued that the hippos bear similarities to giant pre-historic beasts that lived in Colombia until they went extinct 10,000 years ago. Megafauna like this, which were largely hunted out of existence by early humans, play an important role in ecosystems. 

Rewilders like Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell, who wrote The Book of Wilding: A Practical Guide to Rewilding, Big and Small, are big advocates of these big beasts.

“It has been only a fleeting moment in evolutionary time, the authors observe, since almost every landmass was crisscrossed by giant animals. Hulking, leaky creatures like hippos, elephants, and rhinos make a dynamic mess wherever they go, engineering the topography and architecture of the forest, cycling nutrients, and dispersing seeds.

Even in death, their rotting carcasses help nourish a patchwork of complex grasslands, open-­canopy forests, and wooded swamps. Their absence from so much of the world has affected everything from the composition of its flora to the chemistry of its soil and seas.”

The pair have used the Knepp estate in southern England as a rewilding laboratory. They have introduced Old English longhorn cattle as a replacement for the now-extinct aurochs. Rare nightingales and purple emperor butterflies breed on the estate. White storks, which hadn't been seen in England for over 600 years, nest above the chimney of Knepp castle.

But wait, there’s more:

If you want to learn more about rewilding, check out the essay “What Rewilding Means” in the MIT Technology Review. You can also read about the rewilding of Knepp estate here.

Or, you can watch one of the coolest videos on YouTube to learn about how rewilding actually changes ecosystems. In this famous video, environmentalist George Monbiot explains how the reintroduction of wild wolves into Yellowstone National Park indirectly led to a change in the course of rivers through the national park.

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Yours,
Dan