How do you restore an ecosystem if species are extinct/introduced so the previous structure isn't possible? They argue to focus on the functions that aren't being served properly because too much of one species or missing another. Replace the functions, even if it is a different species. The reintroduction of known species or those that can offer similar ecosystem functions seems to be an excellent way to accomplish the goal of rewilding these damaged landscapes. Given the climate crisis facing our future generations, lets hope that these scientists will be successful and that rewilding can reverse the trends in our favor. For instance, America’s increasingly litigious culture means that playground owners and parents are resistant to kids playing outside unsupervised. When I was growing up in the 1980's, I was allowed to ride my bike all over my neighbourhood in San Antonio, Texas, without my parents knowing where I was. Nowadays, American parents risk prosecution if they allow their children to go places alone!

Rewilding is the idea of reintroducing species to the environment. In most cases, humans are responsible for the disappearance of those species in the first place. This book presents the idea of rewilding by finding suitable replacements for some extinct species of megaherbivores and finding places where they can be reintroduced. This would recreate some of the natural conditions that were here prior to human intervention in the natural systems. Paul Jepson and Cain Blythe present an overview of rewilding, what it is, why it matters, and how increased knowledge, understanding, and embracing of its principles can help bring about the recovery of natural ecosystems. Rewilding is a spectrum of possibility, and everyone is on it. Whether you have a garden, roadside verge or window box, there is no space too small. Rewilding is learning how to contribute to a living landscape, to connect with other areas of nature and help forge the life-support system that will save our planet from calamity and provide humankind with a prosperous and sustainable future. What is the right point to conserve/restore the environment to? What you remember from your childhood? When industrialization happened? When Europeans arrived? When humans arrived? They argue that the latter two are more healthy/complete ecosystems, and yet current conservation efforts are not that ambitious. Writing style appealed to me with very rich references to other studies, books, and rabbit holes of reading material that I may actually pursue for once.

The vast lands of the family estate are given over to native seeds, wildflowers, natural processes, grazing wild animals and the re-wilding of the earth. Intervention is kept to a minimum and species start to flourish like never before, with plentiful habitats and safe spaces to breed. Wilder primarily explores large-scale, costly rewilding projects that few of us could replicate. I intentionally wrote about places like Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique – which is in the midst of a multimillion-dollar rewilding effort designed to undo the damage caused by the country’s civil war – to inspire readers.

Feral was – is – a landmark book. It attuned to a craving that people were feeling, I think, but hadn’t yet voiced: the idea that we’re missing something – wilder, deeper nature; that our landscapes have become pedestrian and soulless, unfulfilling. The response to George’s book was astonishing and it is still selling strongly four years on. He’s particularly good on ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ – the continuous lowering of standards and acceptance of degraded natural ecosystems from one generation to the next. Our great-grandparents, even our grandparents, would be astonished and saddened at what we now consider normal in terms of countryside and wildlife. While it’s a great book, which stands on its own merits, it’s also ideal for getting skeptics interested in the concepts behind rewilding. This, of course, requires large tracts of land on which to experiment and introduce these species. It requires cooperation among landowners and any government entities that control that land. And it requires scientists to be able to understand the incredibly complex relationships among, not only the megaherbivores and their predators, but also plants, trees, grasses, smaller mammals, insects and the like. It’s a big undertaking and not one to be taken lightly. Can we do it? Can humans successfully undo the damage we have done to the land and repair these ecosystems by rewilding them? The narrator of the audiobook has a beautiful Scottish brogue, which had me talking quietly to myself while walking around listening to it, regularly trying to mimic the ways he pronounces familiar words such as "book" (the "oo" is more like the sound from saying "boo" or "dew") or anything containing a soft "e," which made me realize how much more phonetic and natural the Scottish way sounds than the way I'm used to speaking. There are many books that cover global extinction, but Ross Barnett’s The Missing Lynx is unique in its focus on Great Britain. He begins by reminding us of the many fascinating species our planet lost during the last few million years, writing, “The world of today seems terribly meagre in comparison. So much is gone.” A self-professed “advocate for the extinct Pleistocene megafauna,” the palaeontologist walks readers through the possibilities of resurrecting long-extinct species via “Pleistocene rewilding.”They go into so detail about the sorts of animals that are needed to bring about lasting and significant change to the ecosystems. It turns out that as good as apex predators are altering the dynamic, the best animals for changing ecosystems are large herbivores. In Europe we used to have large cattle breed called aurochs, these are now extinct but there is a scheme to selectively breeding older species of cattle to recreate this ancient species. The result of this is the Taurus, these have been bred with large horns, small udders and longer legs. It is intended that these will become the wild bovine to populate the rewilded areas in years to come.