The common approach to conservationism is characterized by the goal of achieving a “pristine” wilderness. However, as seen in chapter four of the Rambunctious Garden, there are more radical ways to restore nature; the concept of rewilding is a radical idea that aims to restore ecosystems and species by introducing proxy animals to ecosystems that their relatives used to exist in or into safer environments. Rewilding mostly suggests that top predators in food chains are required to regulate an ecosystem, creating a resilient and diverse ecosystem. Predators keep herbivore populations in check, which allows for more diverse plant and insect life in the ecosystem.
The rewilding idea seems reasonable and theoretically sound enough to create a wilderness that resembles a pre-human baseline. Frans Vera’s own project, the Oostvaardersplassen, shows the capabilities of rewilding in creating a stable ecosystem. However, Vera, and many others, believe that predators, such as wolves, may be beneficial to the developing ecosystem.
Initially, I thought this was a great idea. The current form of conservation is too conservative; people are just looking to enclose areas and essentially tend and garden the ecosystems. This method seems to be outdated in our current times. On the other hand, this idea of rewilding takes a proactive approach on saving nature by creating a wilderness that requires little human interaction within the ecosystem. The only main human influence is maintaining the borders of ecosystems and actually moving proxy animals.
When examined more closely, the concept of rewilding seems a bit too unfeasible. The action of moving the proxy animals into new habitats is an easy procedure, but predicting the outcomes of the rewilding process is too hard. There are many unseen variables in introducing different animals to other animals and there are unknown effects of how animals react with new environments. Some consequences may be invasive animals and different diseases developing. The number of possibilities are unpredictable considering how many species have never interacted before with new environments or other species.
Ethics and general acceptance of this idea is a whole different problem. In the chapter, it stated that someone sent a complaint that the Pleistocene rewilding idea was essentially playing god. There is a great counterpoint stating that humans are already taking a god role in nature. I understand people saving endangered species as an ethical action, but rewilding seems to be a huge experiment that is no different than creating a hands-off zoo. Also, many people do not seem comfortable with the idea that carnivores and dangerous beasts could be released in places that were originally peaceful. Death the danger are not attractive to public opinion, which makes rewilding economically unrealistic when it comes to funding.
As many others have stated, rewilding is a great theory, but there are too many factors that make rewilding unfeasible. Examining how Vera’s own experiment fares if he ever introduces wolves will be a huge indicator of rewilding’s feasibility.
