Rewilding simply means returning animals or plants where they used to live. Obviously you need expert help, but when done well, it points the way to a more hopeful future.
Read about wolves that were returned to Yellowstone National Park (and dramatically improved the ecosystem), giant tortoises who survived extinction by returning to their island homes.
Wilder is the story of the the global journey by passionate conservationists, who are using a passive approach to restore ecological areas, yet also actively rewilding other areas, where species are at risk and need to be reintroduced to natural environments, then left alone.
Wildlife journalist Millie Kerr details the return of jaguars to an Argentinian national park, the first pangolin reintroduction project in South Africa, and ways in which giant tortoises are aiding the recovery of ecosystems throughout the Galápagos Islands.
Millie gave up her law career to focus on writing and photographing wildlife conservation.
Small Ways to Wild the World
Renaturing is a lovely and unique book. Although rewilding is wonderful, most of us don’t have a sprawling estate to do this!
If gardening alongside animal friends, learn how to make your garden safe for pets.
Also read how to help our garden birds and how to stop birds flying into windows.
So this book looks at how to do ‘renaturing’, which is basically renaturing on a smaller scale, making tiny changes in your own garden, to restore habitats for birds and native wildlife.
20 years ago, the author moved from London to the English countryside. Behind his farm labourer’s cottage was a small field with a ‘for sale’ sign.
At first a site for family picnics and cricket matches with friends, he knew that the 2-acre patch of earth held more potential, as a place for nature to return and flourish.
This is the inspiring story of how over a number of years, James undertook a project to simply ‘rewild the field’.
He dug a pond, forged meadowlands and created habitats for birds and insects (and encouraged pollinators and wildlife, by encouraging flowers and plants).
And soon what was once a grassy space, was again buzzing with life.
In this book, James makes the case that you can become a ‘rewilder’, even with a mini-habitat like plant pots in a tiny garden.
About the Author
James Canton is Director of Wild Writing at University of Essex.
What is Rewilding (and how does it help?)
One great example of successful rewilding has been reintroducing beavers (who once were almost hunted to extinction) to rivers, where their love for building dams is helping to prevent floods.
Most land in England is owned by an elite few . Some campaigners are asking Prince William to give over a larger percentage of Dartmoor (which he owns a lot of) for rewilding.
The Critic has a article on the ‘false argument on rewilding vs affordable housing’. The answer is that you can have both.
Nearly everyone in England wants local biodiversity to be protected, but experts say government could loosen planning laws, to build sustainable homes in high-demand urban areas, while still protecting green belt land from building.
Inspiring Stories of Rewilding
Fourteen Wolves is the true story of how wolves (who disappeared from Yellowstone Park in the 1930s) were reintroduced, as the ecosystem began to collapse.
Enormous herds of elk swarmed the plains, bears starved, rabbit families shrank and birds flew to new homes. Plants vanished, trees withered and rivers meandered.
But in 1995, they were returned to the park and everything changed for the better. Yet Canada still spends millions of dollars shooting wolves from above. Trumps’ previous administration removed wolf protection, though experts say keeping cattle healthy is done by using sheds for birthing calves and removing dead carcasses).
WildEyes is a Swiss AI invention that can detect approaching predators and stop attacks before they occur, sending alerts to farmers from trees to scare off wolves.
One is now being used to stop poachers of critically endangered rhinos and elephants).
The Wolf Watch Sanctuary (nestled along the Shropshire/Welsh border) is a 100-acre woodland offering homes for wolves rescued from captivity (began after rescuing a pair of wolves from a Warwickshire zoo).
It does not allow ‘watching wolves’ for money, instead it takes in displaced wolves to live akin to the wild, as they can’t be released in the wild.
Wild Fell is a book by an ecologist on how a group of people (after the sad lonely death of a golden eagle in an unmarked spot) decided to work with farmers to rewild the remote eastern fells of the Lake District.
An Irish Atlantic Rainforest is a book that charts how a conservationist rebuilt a 1750s cottage in Ireland that over-looked the Atlantic, then set to work on rewilding the 73-acre farm into a temperate Irish rainforest, basically by leaving ecosystems to return, without interference.
How Natural World Fund is Rewilding England
Natural World Fund is an amazing organisation that has big plans to rewild large parts of England, by pooling donations for ‘community rewilding projects’ to buy and restore degraded land to its natural state, to create habitats for native wildlife.
Methods include planting woodlands and wild meadows, and restoring wetlands (which also protects fish populations).
Together this helps to reduce carbon, protect biodiversity, prevent floods and protect endangered species by restoring habitats and natural food chains (many of our native wildlife including dormice, hedgehogs, bees and water voles are all critically endangered).
Pending possible sites to restore include:
A 70-acre plot in Yorkshire (with degraded soil and few trees, hedges or wildflowers) due to intensive farming has plans to restore a natural woodland and wetland paradise, with quality soil. Derelict buildings could be restored to educate, powered by water energy.
Goit Stock Wood (also in Yorkshire) lies in rolling countryside by a popular waterfall, and the charity aims to buy the ancient woodlands so nobody can buy them. It also has plans to install sustainable flood management techniques like leaky dams and natural overspill areas.
A 4-acre site (a former reservoir in York) is overgrown with trees, shrubs and grassland, yet still an important site for local nature. Thankfully a bid to build houses here was refused (due to letters from local residents) but there are sure to be more bids.
So again Natural World Fund wants to buy this plot to protect it from development, to protect local wildlife (foxes, hedgehogs, tawny owls, woodpeckers, waxwings, sparrowhawks and voles).
Natural History Museums reports that England now ranks in the bottom 7 of countries for biodiversity (Costa Rica paradoxically has the most biodiversity, due to stringent laws to protect wildlife).
The main reason we are losing wildlife is due to lack of habitat (we have lost nearly all our forests, wetlands and wild meadows.
The government even tried to sell off remaining forests a few years back to private industry, only stopped due to a petition by 38 degrees. Rewilding is the answer.
Actor Mackenzie Crook (who played dorky ‘Gareth’ in TV comedy The Office) is a passionate environmentalist.
A few years ago (when he could have used money from a project to buy a Ferrari), he instead bought an 8-acre woodland in Essex, so nobody could build on it!
Rewilding a Lincolnshire Farm
A Wilding Year is the personal journey of an artist who celebrates the return of an astonishing variety of wildlife, as she returns her Lincolnshire farm to nature, as she and her husband undertake an ambitious rewilding project.
The book explores how one family embrace the beauty of untidy landscapes, to herald the return of skylarks, meadow pipits, hobbies, polecats and more species.
The land was originally claimed from marshy wetlands, and leans into the land’s natural inclination to be wet, for yielding also amazing ponds and pond life. Both a journal and sketchbook, with a visual record of the incredible variety of species she finds
The farm was a sad inheritance, after a brain tumour took her ‘kind and inspirational’ father-in-law too soon. The land was not fertile for growing any food, so they decided instead to restore the original drained (from centuries ago) land to help wildlife.
Jack’s dad was a regenerative farmer. And after he read about the rewilding of a Sussex farm, they decided their land was suit the same, and a be fitting tribute to his father (who had even invented a seed drill that did not disturb his beloved earthworms).
So together they began to plant trees, create wildlife ponds and scatter wildflower seeds, to bring back the wildlife, and create natural homes for them. Now just a few years later, they have blossoming hedgerows that burst with berries in autumn.
Grasses ‘fizz with insects’, and over 1000 meadow brown butterflies fly over creeping thistles. Birds sing and owls hunt, goldfinches to chatter to each other, and badgers snuffle for worms.
The rewilding project saw these marshy wetlands herald the return of skylarks, meadow pipits, hobbies and polecats to their farm. Which also provided new inspiration for her wildlife paintings.
A Book of Rewilding Stories for Bedtime
Rewild the World at Bedtime is a beautiful keepsake collection of calming wildlife stories to read at bedtime, for children to learn about projects that are rewilding the world with animals, and saving our planet.
From Colombia to Indonesia, 40,000 unique species are threatened with extinction, and it’s never been a better time to teach children of the power of conservation.
This enchanting read soothes little ones with 20 stories about nature healing itself, when animals are returned to their natural habitats, without human interference. The animals re-wilded include:
- Eurasian beavers (reintroduced to Devon rivers)
- Endangered tigers (saved with animal dung stoves in Nepal)
- Peaceful water buffalos (part of a Ukrainian restoration project)
- Adorable lynx (released from captivity in the Iberian Peninsula)
- Majestic humpback whales (banned from being hunted)
Emily Hawkins was once a children’s book editor and now writes books herself. She holds a first-class degree from Nottingham University, and lives in Winchester.
An Illustrated Introduction to Rewilding
Rewilding is a beautifully illustrated guide to the concept of rewilding, and how it is helping creatures worldwide to live in the homes they deserve. ‘ewiding’ simply means returning animals and plants to where they once used to live.
Although it’s great to help native wildlife through gardens, it’s far better to restore their natural habitats – hedgerows with berries and natural protection for birds (remember ‘hedgehogs’ used to live in hedgerows- it’s their natural home, hence why they are so-called).
In this book, you’ll learn about successful rewilding projects both here and abroad including:
- How beavers help to build dams, to stop flooding
- How wolves in Yellowstone National Park dramatically improved the ecosystem
- How Galápagos giant tortoises survived extinction, by returning to island homes
These heart-warming true stories show how different species evolved to live side by side, and children be hopefully inspired to be conservationists in adulthood.
David A Steen is a wildlife scientist and conservation biologist, who founded The Alongside Wildlife Foundation, which offers seed grants for small projects that help wildlife.
Artist Chiara Fedele has won the Italian Children’s Literature Prize for her illustrations.
An Illustrated Guide to Rewilding
Wilding is a beautifully illustrated hardback (giant!) guide to rewilding, which tells the story of England’s most successful rewilding projects in West Sussex.
Alongside lino prints and watercolours, you’ll also find photographs of the estate, and easy garden activities to rewild your own spaces.
If gardening alongside animal friends, read how to make your garden safe for pets.
An estate that was previously barren of birds and wildlife is now home to many happy birds – nightingales, peregrine falcons, turtle doves, ravens, red kites, lesser-spotted woodpeckers, skylarks, house sparrows, yellow hammers and sparrowhawks.
Alongside scarce chaser dragonflies and England’s largest population of purple emperor butterflies. It is home to all five species of native owls and most species of bats. Alongside rare violet dor beetles, visiting hoopoe birds and black storks (one of Europe’s rarest birds).
The estate has interesting seen visiting species normally associated with other habitats (‘heathland’ nightjars and ‘woodland’ nightingales and purple emperor butterflies) – suggesting that presently may be ‘clinging to habitats’ that are not suited for them.
Restoring the wetlands of the floodplains by the River Adur, has also created habitats for wading birds, amphibians, water insects, important marsh plants and riverine trees (like the rare black poplar).
The book encourages you to slow down and observe the natural world around you, and understand the connections between species and habitats.
About the Author & Artist
Isabella Tree is a writer, who was adopted by an aristocratic family. After 17 years of conventional farming, she and her husband created England’s first large-scale lowland rewilding project, on an estate belonging to his ancestral home.
Angela Harding is a professional printmaker, whose unique style has become immensely popular in England. She works from a studio in her garden in a Rutland village.
As well as writing her own beautifully illustrated guides to the seasons, she has illustrated for other authors including Miranda Krestovnikoff and Simon Armitage.
Organic Cotton ‘Rewilding’ Sweatshirts
Matt Sewell is an ornithologist, who writes and illustrates gorgeous books to make learning how to save our feathered friends fun and education.
Now he’s teamed up with Sussex company Silverstick to offer organic cotton sweatshirts, all with his fun bird art. 10% of profits go to help a rewilding project, so endangered species return to natural habitats. Also for men.
Whether you’re walking around town in chilly weather, walking your dog on the hills or simply adding an extra layer in the house or garden to keep warm, when replacing, consider an affordable organic cotton sweatshirt.
Organic cotton is better for the planet and farmers. And as chemicals have not been treated by chemicals, it lasts longer, and does not release microfibres in washing machines. Launder synthetic fibres in a microfiber filter.
