In this week’s readings, Emma Marris describes to us the idea that humans have affected the landscape long ago and the idea of Pleistocene rewilding. Back in the Pleistocene era, big mammals roam the earth such as the wooly mammoth and the ground sloths. However, their numbers were greatly diminished by one species: humans. Humans have driven many species to extinction such as the flightless bird the Maori as it was easy prey and had a lot of meat.
When the European explorers found the Americas, Native Americans were stated to have a population of 112 million people then. The reason why later European explorers only saw them in small tribes were due to the fact many have died off due the introduction of European diseases such as smallpox. That means before Europeans came, Native Americans have probably affected a great portion of the lands here before the Europeans settled. Thus, nature that we considered pristine may not actually be as pristine as it is thought to be. Humans have touched the land throughout time and history.
As the author stated, people who spend a lot of time on the wilderness, including the conservationists, don’t have the same standards of purity as those who merely dabble in wilderness do. People who explore and study nature thoroughly know too much about how things have changed to fool themselves into believing an area to be pristine.
To create an area with the characteristics, such as diversity, that conservationists and ecologists want, Pleistocene rewilding is introduced as a new idea. The idea is to introduce proxies for lost animals into an ecosystem to keep ecosystems resilient and diverse. The ones important to the diversity as the predators up top which can range from wolves to cheetahs. The areas would be regulated but it is the danger of predators coming into human dwellings that makes the idea controversial.
Honestly, the idea doesn’t seem too farfetched to me. If anything, there have been results that show this idea is working. There are arguments that since native species already live in certain areas, introducing proxy species might disrupt the ecosystems in unknown ways and create unpredictable results. However, if some people are keen to have biodiversity, I think the idea is worth a try.
Right now, conservationists and ecologists are merely slowly down the rate of loss of biodiversity. If some biodiversity can be created through this process, I am wondering why wouldn’t the ones who want it aren’t supporting it once they hear it. Although the predators can be scary, through strict regulation I believe it is a feasible idea.
The goals of protection of large mammals by expanding their range, biodiversity maintenance (if the theory is correct), tourism and aesthetic values are possible through this idea.
