In the many attempts to find a way to preserve and restore habitats and species, conservationists have developed the method of rewilding.  Rewilding is essentially the idea that restoring species to an environment will help balance the population in that area.  If one were to return predators to a specific area, then one would hope that the predators would feed on the prey in that zone and keep the population in check.  If one were to place an endangered species on the other hand, one would hope that the species would repopulate and save itself from complete extinction.

In theory, this is a good idea because we’re simply restoring a piece of the earth to a point in time, where it was able to function and sustain itself.  By returning species and placing extinct species in specific areas, we could end up saving many species.  The act of balancing out an ecosystem is a very strong use of rewilding, however this issue comes when conservationists attempt an extreme form of rewilding.

An issue with extreme rewilding is trying to achieve a “pristine prehumen baseline and restore [the environment] to 13,000 years or more” (57).  First off, due “to many extinctions that have taken place in the last 13,000 years” (58), the possibility of returning to a pristine baseline is eliminated.  It’s impossible to return an ecosystem to an untouched state if the proper species can’t be placed there.  Then, if conservationists attempt to replace the extinct species with live ones, the different habits and diets of the live species could affect the location in negative ways.

Another issue with extreme rewilding is the notion that achieving an agreed upon setting at that time.  For example “ Vera’s project [receives many critics because] ecologists don’t agree that Europe looked like a Savanna 10,000 years ago.  If people can’t agree on the environment at that time, there can be no way of restoring that strip of land back.  Returning a piece of Europe into a Savannah goes beyond rewilding and simply moving species around, it enters a new area of human constructing and rebuilding.  This type of project, while being unbeneficial to society, would also need large amounts of money, which isn’t feasible at this time.

Also, if a piece of land at that time was completely uninhabitable, with the exception of a few species, then there would be no benefit to society in doing so.  Since many species have gone extinct, relatively few would be able to inhabit that area, and with the over population of humans, we don’t have the luxury of setting aside a piece of land only to make it uninhabitable.

Rewilding seems to be a principle only applicable in theory, but not real life.  We can never predict the outcome of moving species around, nor the affects they would have in the long run.  Also, given the low budget for conservation at this time, finding the resources to manage a rewilding project doesn’t seem feasible.  Finally, there’s a chance we might attempt to go beyond rewilding and create even more problems for ourselves.

For the past few centuries mankind has made substantial efforts in shaping the landscape and environment to fit his will.  This in turn caused a separation of nature: that which is man-made and that which is naturally from earth, or more commonly known as nature.  Since man operates in man-made environments, we view nature as something distant and untouched by man.  For this reason, when we attempt to protect a piece of nature, we isolate it from mankind.  This inaccessibility allows us to preserve nature rather than change it into something we’d prefer it would be, like a parking lot, shopping mall, or office building.

However, in her book “Rambunctious Garden,” Emma Marris states “our mistake has been thinking that nature is something ‘out there’ far away…somewhere distant…somewhere faraway.  This dream of pristine wilderness haunts us.  It blinds us.”(1) She recognizes nature as everything around us, from the forests in Hawaii, to the battling elk in the Yellowstone, to the pigeons on the streets of Manhattan.(2)  Because of her perspective on nature, Marris is against the idea of a “pristine nature” and believes in the notion of a “rambunctious garden,” where humans control the environment and manipulate it.(3)

However, since she believes that no piece of the environment is pristine, because humans have touched nature in some type of way, then her idea has already come to pass.  Over the past few centuries, mankind has taken an active effort to inhabit more land and shape it as he pleases.  Since we are living in a human-operated world, the environment already bends to our will.  With this power though, we have shown to be irresponsible and not ready for that kind of power.  With many dying species, a growing population, rampant pollution, global warming and the inability to provide for other humans in certain areas of the world, humans aren’t capable of coexisting with nature, at least not at this point in time.

For this reason, environmentalists and conservationists pursue the idea of isolating specific pieces of nature from the public.  If there were nothing to stop us from entering a piece of land, then we would simply shape in however we would like.  Throughout history we have shown that our pursuit of growth and prosperity has made us inconsiderate to natives of the land.  This includes, plants, animals, and even other humans.  Because of this selfishness, if we were to remove the barrier between the “far away nature” and the man-made then it would eventually result in the elimination of the nature less tainted by human interference.

Hence, while humans ultimately do play a role in the future of nature, we have proven we can’t completely coexist with it at this point in time.  Until we can resolve the issues we have created, or amend them to a certain extent and prove that we are capable of handling the responsibility of nature’s future without abusing our dominance over it, we will never be ready to achieve Marris’s goal of a “rambunctious garden.”