The Huge Problem With Rewilding...
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
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Maybe you should make another video on garden rewilding, with hints and tips, and drop a comment underneath it, asking people who subscribe to this channel if they rewild their gardens, and how big that garden site is. Tot up the total area out of interest.
For those who don't have gardens, but guerrilla garden as a regular practice, they could include their contribution. And ask for others to record there a pledge, a promise to start rewilding in their gardens this year.
By the way, don't know if I've missed such a video - but have you connected with Joel Ashton, who does the Rewild Your Garden channel?
It may help if you assisted in promoting his usual 'No Mow May' and 'No Mow Summer's campaigns this year.
Encourage more people to put away those mowers (I could hear one whining away only yesterday, already), and let Nature have a better chance this year.
I'm a veteran non-mower for 21 years now, 2 acres of grassland being turned over to a combination rewilding/permaculture/bee friendly ornamentals garden.
I cannot begin to describe the freedom enjoyed by casting aside the mower and declaring, 'No more!' to the wind - instead of wasting countless hours pushing that wretched thing around, putting money in the pockets of energy companies, my mind dumbed down by a pointless task like an obedient serf, my ears damaged (and mowers do that, my beauties. I was a professional gardener once upon a time, and I had plenty of colleagues deafened by prolonged use of these machines).
My grassland is now a wealth of little trees and happy creatures that have to fear nothing more than the slow tramp of my feet, a spade, and each other.
I've seen the unhappy result of mowing in a park where I used to work, a hover mower chopping through an entire litter of baby hedgehogs by an unsuspecting gardener. She'll not forget what she did.
And those are the victims we did know about, but countless butterflies, frogs, toads, newts, beetles and other insects fall foul of those flashing blades every year - and for what purpose? Because our forefathers wanted to copy the idle rich, who developed the bad habit of keeping a tight-mown lawn just to show off their level of decadence.
Let's build a new trend of condemning that boring mow , green square, removing turf to put down shrubs, trees, piercing turf with wild flowers and Spring bulbs. It's time lawns became a thing of the past.
I found slow worms at the end of my garden. There is ( or was) a wild area beyond that. It was brought by a developer who ripped down listed trees and mowed it flat. After which I had more slow worms. So I created as natural as possible environment for them. This moved on 5 years later to letting my garden 'just do its thing'. Now there are toads the odd Pheasant hides out here and my dog just accepts their presence because I do!
My neighbours complain endlessly while they tore out the previous residents beautiful garden and covered it with artificial grass. Needless to say that we do not get along!
I’d happily have you has my neighbour. Good work. I’m sure you can warm them around to small steps 👍
@@LeaveCuriousNah! they are neat freaks that hark back to the times when the rich would have a chase that led to their house to show that they didn't need to turn all their land over to growing. They even vacuum their garden with a Kirby to remove the leaves.
In fairness my neighbours on the other side asked me 'why' and then made some endeavours to create that much needed habitat.
That is the story from both sides. I hit a wall but made an impression elsewhere. I am happy with that!
I did sort of the same thing. Around me is farmland and now new houses the look like they belong in town. About 10 years ago I let my back yard go wild. After the first year of not mowing, i noticed I had lots and lots of butterflies, the next year preying mantis were everywhere, then something I had not seen in my state in 25 years, those big black and yellow garden spiders.!! Song birds soon followed and I have so many! I know I drive my neighbors crazy, and my poor mom who lives with me. In all fairness I detest their manicured and perfectly measured bushes planted in neat rows. But you do you , right?!
I do a bit of a compromise and mow the rest of the yard. But You would be surprised what life will happen in a half an acre.
I loved reading your story, I think every little bit helps! I know I have an effect on the wild life, I keep dogs to keep the coyotes away, and a cat to keep the mice and rats away. They all stay right at home and so they don't impact the wildlife beyond my yard. They are my best friends too. Some would argue against keeping pets, my friend hassles me over my cat, and I know he makes a good point, We all think differently and have that right, we have to respect others thoughts and feelings as well.
👏👏👏🙏💪
ua-cam.com/video/8ALdL8oV_sY/v-deo.html&si=Isa76IW73w48JxSm
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Oxfordshire council let grass verges grow for longer than usual last year, to help wild flowers, insects etc (and save money!) yet the reaction has been depressing. Many, many complaints about the verges looking "scruffy" etc. Many people really don't care about nature at all, they'd prefer to live on a golf course.
It's very sad that people are so disconnected from nature they are like this. Is this fixable though? Maybe some people were always like this.
Its a shame because where I live in wales does that every year, and It's so much nicer to see the wildflowers blooming when out and about.
I just can't understand why people are like this. Coming out of a dark , gloomy winter into seeing signs of spring with hawthorn buds coming out and grass starting to green up the first thing people do is get the hedge cutters and mowers out.
It's beyond comprehension.🌱🌿
Doing that in Somerset and Devon etc and the feedback is great. I imagine it’s just because they are mainly rich stuck up snobs around that area that want the golf course look. Just ignore them and keep doing it, can’t stand people like that.
Honestly, wished more people were like me and my potential future girlfriend
We both share such a passion for flowers and stuff, no matter if they are big or small. Wildend patches of grass are something we'd walk through all day, every day
it's human nature to want to find order in the disorder. It's hard for some to see the positives because you have to override a survival instinct. It's up to us to try and educate which, this video aims to do!
When I was a boy , 50 yrs ago we grew our own food in our gardens for me this is the biggest step
oh it has to be, something i'm really interested in
@@LeaveCurious
I’m sure you’re on it how life changed 100yrs ago till now .
Motor cars then electric cars now , not a big difference when you look under the surface .
The big difference now is the manipulation of the truth to enhance the wealth of the elite who have the biggest impact on this planet and preach to the struggling,who being environmentally friendly is not an option to survive
Yes..my father grew all his veg ..he even gave it away to some of the neighbour,such was his kindness.
I love Mossy Earth’s approach, scientific. They observe whats been done so far, apply the latest science, try it out, observe the results and if it fails, correct and try again, if it succeeds scale up. They don’t promise that they know everything but they do promise to learn.
My biggest hope is science and people learning to think more scientificly. But my biggest fear is how we use the advantages we provide ourself with scientific methods. In the end we are instinct driven animals and our instincts adapt A LOT slower than we change our own environment. People generally act acording to what feels best and justify in lateron cognitively. With our potential as species this becomes very destructive very quickly. We can't let "the systeme" guide our actions. It leads to depression and barron soil.
Nuclear bombs, the ability to edit genomes, AI all these things are way to much power for us to handle unquestioned and uncontrolled.
I am a 15 year old boy from Australia and your videos have inspired me. I live in a remote town. I love your videos. I have always loved the Desert and the bush (woods) and I have notice that the bush is sick. the native dingo is Extinct from most of is range, the Aboriginals have stopped burning, and seed dispensers like the burrowing bettong have gone Extinct from the mainland. And I dream of having a cattle and sheep station and working with the bush.
Good on you mate, we most certainly need to be using traditional burning were ever it was previously practiced. Indigenous people or otherwise. There are plenty of elders out there who are willing to teach.
Do you realize that cattle and sheep are one worst things when it comes to destroying landscapes? They compact the soil which means no water can penetrate the soil anymore which then leads to the dying of plants. because they need water. Also it can cause huge floods because the water just runs off because it cant stay on the land it falls on and it accumulates in streams which leads to floods. Also because it can't penetrate it washes away huge amounts of topsoil which is very important to any ecosystem. Also cattle and sheep eat of every seedling that comes up naturally and strip the seedback of their seeds. So it can not rewild on its own.
@@timvogelin8632 It would be more accurate to state over grazing of cattle and sheep. They can exist on landscapes in lower numbers without too much disturbance.
Much work and innovation has been done in Australia in regards to more sustainable forms of grazing practice.
@@timvogelin8632yes I am a aware that sheep and cattle eat seedlings and compact soil. And sheep and cattle can destroy Species like desert kurrajong, cypress, and quandong. That is why I will do light grazing. And to compensate for lose in profits I will sell native timber and feral animal skins like goat, cat, fox, and rabbit. And creeks and dams(ponds) will be fenced of and that means that I can all so sell yabbies(crayfish). So yes I have thought this through.
@@dinky-diaussie9007 Good fortune to you young friend, I for one believe in your vision.
Rewilding should only be one tool in a toolbox that should include the multiple aspects of regenerative farming which will allow food production in more sustainable ways.
Yes! Exactly, regen farming is part of rewilding in my book.
As well as a more holistic and interconnected approach to ecological and climate action, by including social issues, and thus including things such as food cooperatives, repair workshops, community centres, community-supported agriculture, climate cafes, workers cooperatives, community larders... rewilding nature is great, but humans are part of nature, and we need to 'rewild' our society away from capitalism as well ;)
@@LeaveCuriouswould you be interested in watching this video.
I believe it will only help you plan around such obstacles to make rewilding policy more insightful and produce more productive strategies.
ua-cam.com/video/p3TQ5vgtV6g/v-deo.html&si=Hw-Lqb6l3bJzX0YQ
@@LeaveCurioushave you heard of the greyhound fox
Also I left a nice comment to you under this comments post can you see it? It's gone on my side this happens all on my account.
It is not the same as my video comment
Nah. Rewilding isn't about farming, regenerative or not, or food production. It's about biodiversity and healthy ecosystems. (typed this before watching the video, then saw his definition just now lol. Increasing nature, increasing biodiversity. I wholeheartedly agree).
a serie on how you yourself can re-wild your garden in simple ways would be amazing!
Smother the grass with a few inches of composted much. Plant trees, bushes, and pollinator friendly flowers. Incorporate some food plants for yourself if you like, like fruit trees, berry bushes, etc.
I can recommend the channel Wild your garden with Joel Ashton :D
While on a natural stretch of beach in Dorset, a woman commented that it was lovely, but it was just a shame that the seaweed and debri marking the tide-line was so untidy, and wouldn't it be nice if someone cleaned it up.
While in the woods I asked a passing dog walker if they knew why the trees had been cut down, and she said, in a well-meaning attempt to bond over the issue "I know, it's messy isn't it!" So I replied that I hoped they were harvesting the non-native pine crop, so that the native shrubs and trees could recolonise themselves.
An old colleague looked at a lawn carpeted in daisies, bright as a smattering of spring snow, and said it was "unkempt" and needed a good mow. It was breathtakingly beautiful, but she missed this because she saw it through eyes trained to see nature as something ever-encroaching that should be cut into squares and bound tight at the borders.
Something can be a little loose in looks, a little "untidy" in traditional terms, and still be beautiful. See beneath the surface and you realise that beauty lies not in how something appears, but what that appearance means.
Sometimes ugliness is beautiful because it is honest.
Some people's idea of what is ugly is very strange to me. An abundant wilderness will always look more beautiful to me than a well manicured lawn.
Well said. Agreed
Nicely put :)
Here in Wimbledon our community has been rewinding an old sewerage works. We now regularly see Kingfishers, white and also grey herons, 2 types or woodpecker, white swans, Egyptian geese and even cormorants.
Well done.
So your geese are Egyptian instead of the Canadians that we have on our side of the Pond.
I'm more worried about extensive property development.
I'm all for rewilding.
New builds should definitely have more wild design & subsistence built in through out!
The native populations of developed countries are in population decline.
@@paladintrueknightcorrect, it is the importation of the 3rd world that drives demand for housing (in the UK at least). We don’t need to build a single house as our birth rate is lower than 2.1 and around 600000 people emigrate each year. The ‘housing crisis’ is a manufactured one because it best serves political party donors to have abundant cheap labour
@@LeaveCuriouswhat about less buildings?
@@ia8018you must be joking if you think less buildings is something that we should be pursuing with this housing crisis
If one million people did one small thing positive for wildlife, that amounts to a massive difference. One person can change the world, and it’s more powerful when we all do it!
If we all stopped eating animals we might have a livable future. If 10% of us do it, the rest will follow.
@@MrNick3742I agree. Eliminating animal products and byproducts from the commercial market. It is the best option to prevent total extinction.
@@marley7659 Exactly that, and we're almost out of time according to the UN, the IPCC, NOAA, and everyone else who's looked at climate data. They're just complicit in a big pyramid scheme so they're not willing to call out the biggest perpetrator of environmental damage for 10,000 years. Cutting methane as much as possible is the only fast-track to cooling and we need to rewild the pastures and feed crops. Nothing else ethical comes close in terms of the economics, effectiveness and ease of application. Eat plants, plant trees. Done. World saved. Now let's learn how to get along with each other. 💚☮🌱🌳
Our movement - any environmental movement - should model itself after Nature and have many different approaches.
This! I get real worried when I hear people talking about how they know "the way". I'm a huge proponent of Beaver Dam Analogs, but the hard part is getting people to understand that it's the concept that works, but the scale of it can be changed a hundred different ways to fit themselves and their local area. Rainfall flows over every slope, down every fold and crease, so any kind of "Micro-BDA" in those spots will help things.
And at the same time, they can work to remove a non-native plant, maybe help on a weekend project to remove invasive plants. Or just install a native species in their back yard. Take up a bit of the lawn, getting rid of that nasty turf grass, and plant some native wild flowers. Make the garden as formal as Buckingham Palace, or not. You get to decide. Just make sure to use native plants that help the local eco-region and the wildlife that evolved over eons in that area.
My passion of late is the reintroduction of the Traditional Trades. It used to be that folks relied on local craftsmen making goods from local materials for the local market. We drove them out of town on the rails by always clamoring for lower prices while also insisting on more taxes and policies and regulations that made us feel good about ourselves. We listened to the snakes in the grass, and didn't think about the 2nd Order Effects of the stuff.
Now, we can see the damage caused by mass-production in factories and cheap chintz shipped in from around the world. Folks are talking about rebuilding the traditional hedgerows because they understand one aspect of their value.
By showing people the benefits of willow baskets, for example, we encourage more people to use them, which means more jobs at the local level, a literal cottage industry like it once was. A gate made from split hazel rods might seem a quaint thing, but it works, and it is made by a local craftsman from local materials. That means he's out there in the woods, keeping things clean, watching for problems, and putting food on his family's table. Both are great for the environment, provide work at the local level, and teach people that there's value in the natural resources all around them. It drives home the idea that they should be stewards of their little corner of the world.
In this way, we use a multi-pronged approach that accomplishes the overarching goal of safeguarding the ecosystem we all rely on.
Since the day humans left the shelter of caves our homes have served as fortresses to wall out nature. In the fifties there was much speculation on what the homes of the future would look like. It is my fervent hope that our homes begin to work more, and more, with nature. Perhaps, in a hundred years home, and nature, will not only coexist, but become one in the same. The home of tomorrow providing shelter for us and a haven for nature as well, both inside and out.
I like your definition. "Where are we going to live and farm?" Essentially we just need to get more efficient with land use and we can return plenty of land to nature without sacrificing much at all. Many places are horribly land inefficient.
Animal agriculture is the inefficiency you're thinking of friend. If we stop using most of our land, water, and resources to turn food into 92 billion land animals a year, we would never be short on ecosystems, space, food or water again.
@@MrNick3742 I mean, partially but it's not just that. Stopping car oriented infrastructure where other kinds would be more efficient, eliminating single family zoning, eliminating corn ethanol subsidies for fuel additives, eliminating parking minimums, and heck even meat could be grown in a more land use efficient manner for instance with techniques such as integrated fish, poultry, and plant farming.
@@CompuBrains27 Yes, large corporations want us to focus on all the little bandaid fixes because if we change our diet, we change our economic system. Both currently rely on exploitation of the poor and weak to function. The truth is, and I'll happily show you the meta studies to prove this, 80% of every kind of damage we do to our planet is because we eat animals. It is literally four times more important than every other form of pollution combined. Yes, we should change other things about society and infrastructure, but unless we stop breeding 92 billion land animals into existence annually and pulling 3 trillion more animals from the ocean, nothing we can do will ever be enough to prevent climate collapse and global extinction within our lifetimes. Please consider watching Eating our Way to Extinction, Cowspiracy, Seaspiracy, and United in Heart: Hunger and Climate Solution for details. As an environmental engineer who studies this topic from every possible angle, I can assure you that no other approach comes close to this one simple, beneficial habit change.
I think people need to understand that returning planet to how it’s supposed to be is for the benefit of humanity and all. We have had a “me first “ and “me above and more important than nature’ attitude that is leading to the ruin of ourselves as well as all other life. We cut off our noses to spite our own faces.
I am in favour of rewilding but within limits... I don't want Paris turned back into forest! 😮
In a nutshell I’d define rewinding as standing back and letting nature do her thing. Thanks Rob and keep the content flowing.
its insanely crazy to hear people say 'what are we supposed to eat if we convert all of our land back to wilderness' as if we dont destroy 90% of an ecosystem to farm food that either feeds other animals or goes to waste because of capitalism, meaning YOU ARENT EATING IT ANYWAYS!!!!
theres SO much waste in our agricultural system that restoring even a small percentage of it wouldnt affect us much, but affect the planet enormously
Bravo, my friend! Thank you for all your tireless hard work, dedication and contagious enthusiasm!!
No worries, its my job now and i'm more than happy to do it :)
I love this perspective! It's unusual to find someone who is deeply understanding the issues while simultaneously open to new ideas. Defining rewilding in this way allows you to cast a broad umbrella all aimed at the same goal. I love it!
There's a reason you are worth following.
Stephanie is right! Their always building and destroying the landscape!😢 It is time for rewilding and less time and money for the selfish people.
Years ago Blackpool council allowed unusable football fields rewild. They cut paths along desire lines that had developed. Butterflies, other insects, swallows and other birds. Local families bringing little picnics and enjoying the grasses. But, Like in other places, there were the complaints. As these were the noisier and slightly better off locals they got their way. The grasses were returned to the green desert. So sad.
If all you can do to rewild is make a home for some native plants and insects, then you've given birds and other animals a bigger and more stable food source, you've given native plants a stable jumping point to spread out. If everyone did this, then the fewer large areas would have a massive foundation to support larger animals and plants that depends on an abundance of those smaller ones.
I would very much like to restore the moors of the pennines and the Rossendale valley with the forests it once had, while maintaining space for the heathers and other species which benefit birds. I would love to do this as a job. How do I get onto this path of actively helping? I already donate, but I want to *do*
I know what you mean. One possibility is to volunteer with the local Wildlife Trust. It might not be planting trees but volunteers help to look after nature reserves for the benefit of the plants and animals that live there.
I'm a retired Army officer and my girlfriend and I are both members of the Native Plant Society of Texas, she's a Texas Master Naturalist, so we both really appreciate the outdoors, native plants, and restoring the ecosystem. We plan to do that in retirement in far west Texas. However, I also believe in Capitalism and Entrepreneurship, it has brought the most people out of poverty. We need to have a balance between nature and sustainable usage.
Capitalism has brought a lot of people out of poverty, but that doesn't mean it will continue to do that. In fact, there's a bunch of reasons to believe that it won't, because its “recent” success has only been possible by exploitation of fossil fuels (which must and will end) and exploitation of colonies. Scientific progress has been part of enabling capitalism, but capitalism was never necessary for scientific progress.
Capitalism means allowing wealth to be concentrated with the few, and allowing those few to wield the power that comes with their wealth. And that's a recipe for disaster, as anyone with open eyes can see-let alone the staggering, inhumane injustice.
If you live in Wales please create a tree nursery of local providence broadleaf species and help restore our Atlantic temperate rainforest.
“What are we supposed to eat when we turn all our land to nature”
Well, currently we use 76% of land for farming in the UK.
With a plant based food system you can bring this back down to possibly as low as 12%
That is where we would see massive change, but we do have to face that reality as a rewilding movement.
We have an option to get stuck in the verges on the roads, trying to boost biodiversity there. Or we turn our faces to all the fields and sheds that are preventing nature from recovering.
I am very aware that loads of people do not believe in this, but that exactly is the work. We need to show the reality of the situation we are in and dare to dream big.
That is what inspires me anyway about rewilding❤
Great job on this channel, so much to learn!
“Well, currently we use 76% of land for farming in the UK.
With a plant based food system you can bring this back down to possibly as low as 12%”.
Agreed; however, this is often viewed as an all or nothing proposition. There is still a lot of meat to be had from sustainably managed hunting (especially invasives), fishing/seafood, using damaged food or otherwise inedible food processing waste as livestock feed, grazing areas that need to remain open for other reasons (under power lines, solar panels, etc). But yes, we need to eat less meat and drive less (ethanol fuel production in the US uses a tremendous amount of land) if we plan on not consuming our ecosystem. Voluntarily reducing our reproductive rate will also go a long way to preserving our environment.
Took a while for this to show up on my feed. Liked it, agreed with the nuances, and commenting so others won't miss it.
I'd absolutely love a detailed series on just rewilding gardens of different scale in different climates, from small balconies to, like, castle gardens and everything in between, from very arid to very wet climates with two or four seasons etc.
Also a combo with gardens that can feed you as close to all year round as possible (which can go *some* way towards rewilding, but there's also gonna be a clash at some point), or bring you closer to autarkic, and how that might look like in a low maintenance and a high maintenance setting (I'm guessing the wilder version will be lower maintenance but also less likely to be *directly* productive, so there's gonna be a tradeoff)
And stuff about water reservoirs from bird baths to small fish ponds to recreational swimming biotopes to rain storage...
So many topics for which there are so many videos out there already, but I feel like most of them focus on agricultural scale settings which is more land than most people have control over.
I'm sure for a start you'll necessarily be focused on gardens in the British Isles, but if you ever manage to go global, that would be great too!
Already on it :) great ideas and suggestions!
That was a fantastic video
Thank you thumbs up 👍🏼 I’m a gardener and I’m always promoting re wild areas in all the work I do and the customers love it
Butter cup meadows abound
Love a buttercup meadow! Keep up the good work !!
@@LeaveCurious you too
Thanks for your reply
Ive wilded and rewilded and rerewilded, it never gets old
When we moved into our home, the garden looked overgrown and yet there were pockets of some gorgeous plants, but it’s lacked diversity, and similarly with wildlife (it was mainly grass and ivy, with spring bulbs and a few herbs). Six years later, it’s a massive haven for all sorts from the tinniest wrens, chaff/gold finches, ghost newts, toads, frogs to grass snakes, hedgehogs through to solitary bees, ladybirds, dragon flies and all others between, including the occasional fox passing through. We have a very small pond which we can easily net off when the toddlers come round, and it’s used daily by all sorts. The beds are full all year round with a riot of colour from a few trees, bulbs, perennials, shrubs and a few annuals; plus veg dotted here and there. We grow a huge variety of all our own herbs and most of our veg and salads, home here too, as well as on our double sized allotment. I’ve planned the garden beds to support all sorts of wildlife and encourage diversity. The ornamental parts of the garden have only required hand watering twice, once when we planted the plants, and through the drought of 2 yrs ago (mainly for the fruit 🍉 ), plus we collect all our own rain water for the raised veg beds and topping up the pond. It’s taken a lot of energy at the beginning, but when we look out whilst eating, or sitting outside, we have immense satisfaction. It looks stunning (well we think so), and such a change from some others we know who have a mega huge lawn (we have a medium sized one), and slabs, or a few green shrubs in the act of looking minimalistic -boring springs to mind. So many people want an easy to maintain garden and make the mistake of using slabs, stones and rely on colour from annuals. It’s not so, as they have to sweep these huge swathes of dead stone, spend ages feeding their lawns, weeding it and cutting, and leaf blowing the borders, and clean the slime off the stone clippings or pebbles. Their gardens are devoid of bird or wildlife, and hardly any bird song (always from their neighbours), where we have to mow, occasionally dead head the borders, and weed (we don’t feed, just compost), whilst we enjoy the beauty, scents, taste, and ultimately the colours and a choir of bird song. I think it’s a no brainier, and before people judge about the cost, it was negligible as I grew most of the plants from seed, or cuttings, and still swap them today for plants I haven’t got.
Love your work Rob.
thanks Charlotte!
"Rewilding is... managing the land". That is not returning someing to the wild, it literally is managing it for the sake of conversation. Rewilding sounds radical and misanthropic. Just call it conservation and avoid the controversy.
The radical types don’t see us as part of the ecosystem. They see all humans apart from themselves as vermin. Sad.
You are just awesome, on this channel and on mossy earth. Keep up rewilding and taking us with you
In Denmark, rewilding has been framed, by the political right, as animal abuse. When most Danes hear the word rewilding they automatically think about the Mols lab, which is a Danish rewilding initiative that has garnered strong opposition due to the animals, allegedly, being abused. The nature-part is completely overshadowed by the animal-abuse-frame.
> These animals, however, are species that are used to being wild in other countries and their genes are optimized for the rewilding project they inhabit.
❤ Thank you Rob!
very welcome :)
Great video. 'Rewilding' is an emotive term, for example many gardening forums are negative of it, believing it meams letting a garden be overgrown ny brambles etc. Rewilding is absent, replaced by terms like 'gardening for nature' or 'naturalistic gardening'. But your definition of rewiliding as land management makes sense - gardening is managing your patch of land. We can all play our part, big or small.
I tell folks that there's nothing wrong with your yard being as manicured as the gardens at Buckingham Palace. The key is that you are using native plants, not the non-native and invasive species that look pretty but create a desert in the local eco-region. If you want it formal, make it formal. If you want a bit of lawn for the kids to play in, or to set a nice table and chairs, by all means, please do. Just keep the grass to a minimum and use native plants everywhere possible.
In the US, there is more land taken up by yards than by most of our huge national parks combined. It's estimated that we have 40,000,000 acres of ground growing the non-native turf grasses. Homes, businesses, road edges, everywhere you look, there's turf grass of one kind or another, and it provides no aid for the pollinators or other wildlife because they didn't evolve together.
Dr. Doug Tallamy has done a few good videos here on UA-cam about ecosystem fragmentation, and suggests that we aim for getting 70% of the yard back to native species. That can be done with the most formal designs, or the more casual landscaping approach. However you like. The key is that it gets done.
Rewilding means having a give-and-take relationship with the land, not dominating it, controlling it, cultivating it, exploiting it.
I'm afraid large parts of my county have been lost to rhododendron.Rewilding is impossible in these areas as it's impossible to access. Unfortunately its spreading so fast even the national parks can't control it.Dread to think what it'll be like in 20 years time.
Found this channel cause I was looking into the difference between rewilding projects. Have been a contributor to Mossy Earth but also found Project Wild just today. Really makes me think of just how many rewilding projects there are
Around New York City, USA there is the Billion Oyster project in progress, doing similar work.
'Allowing a farm to naturally regenerate with whatever plants grow there' is just another (rather casual) way of saying, 'shut down the farm and production of food', isn't it? 🤔
As a small scale shepard, i can only speak of small scale farms. But it is possible to regenerate nature with livestock grazing but it does require concessions. For example, using smaller heritage breeds of sheep and cows, decreases soil compression. They also seem to have curious skills to use more, hard to get fodder, like bushes. It is more labour intensive, since i for example rent and fence mainly old overgrowing fields and shorelines, where the yield isn't great but the impact on biodiversity is.
Wish I could do this guys job for a living !
I love watching your work/videos. As an environmentalist and public health worker, and voluntarily trying to tackle the legal/monetary side of harmful environmental issues, it can be disheartening and tedious. Your videos are always re-inspiring me and I'm really grateful. Thank you 💚
Enjoying rewilding my quarter acre, moving it from orchard to a food forest, coppice, wildlife pond and woodland, all while creating a sustainable stream of domestic scale food production.
This is the answer, the problem is some wouldn’t consider this rewilding. They would rather see the land with zero human activity.
I knew a forest pathologist who claimed that "benign neglect" might be our best management tool.
Discovering the approach of Mossy Earth to rewilding was really eye opening for me. Thanks.
There is an estate near me that is supposedly rewilding! The hedges are still trimmed to 3 feet each year! The arable land has just been left fallow and now has been taken over by spear and creeping thistle and a toxic plant which studies show can be found in milk, honey and eggs. Cattle are grazed in this weederness! It is very difficult to go organic with land that has been artificially fertilised and sprayed with insecticides and pesticides. I am doing it on a few acres and it is very labour intensive.
Good definition.
I would add, rewilding nature is most important to do in areas people temporarily use for resources, than abandon.
Example, mining operations (both underwater and on land), deforestation, mono-cultured areas, or demolition areas.
I always enjoy your chit chats, knowledgeable information, passion for nature and kindness towards everyone and compassion for everything 💜. And… Your hair still looks fantastic! Thank you Rob for everything that you do to connect with us through your videos!! 💚🤍
Production and editing have improved a lot mate! Great video once again. The problem for me with rewilding is there isn't enough of it! 😃
Opponents of progress want to make the argument from extremes. "Where are we going to live and grow food if we convert ALL of the land...," etc.
The point of rewilding is not to convert 100% of the land back to productive wilderness, it's to do that with spaces that are supposed to be wild. There is a lot of land that falls into that category:not lived on, not farmed Let's start there.
yep well said!
I think of Rewilding as a way to see Landscape Management writ large on a planet wide platform. My yard, my community, my region, my nation, our planet. In this way they all become a part of what we can call ours, even my yard.
Yes. And the emphasis should always be on the local and national. As the wise man once said, there are only so many F's to give. Trying to change the world sounds nice, but is ultimately self-defeating, eating up all your energy.
I'm a huge proponent of bringing back awareness of the Traditional Trades, things like the bodger and cooper, because they show the importance of the local craftsmen making goods for local customers from local materials. A gate for your garden made from local hazel rods works just as well as any gate you'd find at the big stores, but it's also going to cut down on the pollution and waste while also keeping a local gent employed. And when that gate has reached the end of its life, it can be thrown into the woods to rot -- no harm done.
Willow baskets were once made by every family and added to the beauty of local cultures. We got away from that with the fascination for cheap plastics that crack and break, ending up in the landfill in just a year or two. Willow is a keystone species, critically important to the native bees and other pollinators, so the more we can grow.... the better for them and for us. As we get folks interested in growing the willows for their own use, making baskets for their homes or for the local market, we can also be helping with erosion control and feeding the pollinators that everyone relies on.
Like with so many other things, we are now seeing that what we used to do provided far more benefits than we realized. It's only since the 1950's that we got away from these Traditional Trades in a big way, so we know it's possible to rebuild if we want. The only real problem is raising awareness and getting folks to see that protecting the Traditional Trades is a key element to protecting the ecosystem those trades rely on. If we can show people that their local woods have actual value, that they can use the woods to make things for their homes - stools, gates, bowls, spoons, and baskets - they'll be more inclined to care for those wild places and work to see them continue down through the years. And it'll help get the kids off the streets, giving them something positive they can be doing.
Thanks for all the work you do. Mossy Earth was the first time I saw your videos. Both your channel and theirs offer hope and practical solutions
I bought an 3 acre property in Alberta, Canada. My future garden will be as wild as my past ones have been. But I'm building the house now, the garden is 3 years in the future. But I already do the most important thing in that respect: Talking with the neighbors in order to soften them up. They seem to spend whole days on tractor like machines grooming the "lawn". Watching them they seem to be in a state of trance when doing this idiotic work. Back in Germany people would call me out to the authorities and threaten me with the courts for such crimes as converting the prescribed front lawn into garden beds, having some frogs in a pond, etc. They would count the dandelions in my beds. Very important to bribe people around you into just accepting you and a little bit of nature.
2:49.......what glorious ancientness!!!
A very easy way to increase nationwide tree cover, without impacting farming is to encourage farmers to plant more trees on perimeters of their fields. If you look at fields, like in your hedging video, you'll notice it is completely random. One side might have 10 trees amongst the hedgerow, but then the 3 other sides might just have a total of 2 trees between them all. If they were planted just the same as the 10 tree side, that would add 28 trees to that field perimeter. Just adding more native trees like Oak and Ash on the perimeters of pasture fields would add hundreds of thousands, if not millions of trees to the landscape.
we really need way less land in use for cattle(feed), we could have so much more nature that way
I acquired a house with 0.75 acres of grass and trees 5 years ago and decided to let much of the grass grow " wild". There was an explosion in mole numbers which prevent me using my mower to make paths as their tunnels and hillocks stand up. My intention was just to use a scythe and a strimmer to cut verges and paths but artrhritis in my spine makes this largely impossible. I have planted several apple and plum trees which have done well but in the last two years these have been attacked by deer with a lot of bark damage. The tops of the trees are now growing out of reach of the deer but they strip the bark off lower down. The rough grass I have now along with the deer visits mean I was twice bitten by ticks last summer and had to have blood tests and antibiotics. Grey squirrels are very damaging also.
A side effect of the long grass has been a massive slug population that damages the veg crops I try to grow in raised beds and even the flowers in pots in the front yard of the house. Tulip and hyacinth bulbs are regularly pillaged by grey squirrels .
The long grass has also resulted in an explosion in woodmice numbers and this despite plenty of tawny owls which I can hear calling loudly when I am sitting in my kitchen. The woodmice invaded my garage and destroyed bulbs before I got them planted and also they destroyed by stored onion crop in the garage.
Worse still is they invade the house daily. After killing twelve in as many days in succession I switched to live traps but I have to drive over the river to release them which is a daily task.
I switched tactics and stuffed all the holes around pipes I could find with wire wool and this has helped but they still come un regularly.
I try to prevent them getting further through the house but still had to deal with one caught by its front leg in a trap in the wee sma hours. As I crept along the corridor to bed in the dark I heard the trap bouncing and rattling about. I managed to get the trap into a bucket and released the mouse out side but its leg was smashed although it scuttled off.
All this spiel is just to prove that nothing is ever simple and I genuinely feel under attack by nature here ! I have a sizeable burn on three sides of the garden here and am dreading the arrival of beavers from the big river at the foot of the garden - that will be the end of my orchard area for sure.
Loving your content here in the USA!
Agree with your meaning. Thank you.
My biggest worry in rewinding is invasive plants. Because in America, our lawns grass is not native and can be invasive, so even if we let it grow, it wouldn’t benefit nature.
Here in the, US where I'm from, there are native American activists who referred to humans as a keystone species. This idea lit up my mind in a powerful way! I had been thinking of humans as a mistake, a species that the earth would be better off without. My discovery of the rewilding concept has given my hope for our species yet another boost, and I have been enjoying your content, and that of mossy.earth as well! I have a question for the rewilding community, though. Is anyone doing/making content on the rewilding of our species: religion, relationships, even society itself? Not, as you joked, running through the forest naked, but trying to figure out what more natural versions of these things would look like?
In the UK an area the size of greater Manchester is used for golf courses.
We were talking about landscape scale conservation management when I got my first job in the 1980s. It was pretty much a pipe dream. But it was boosted by the work of Vera and others and it morphed into rewilding. I'd agree with your core definition: rewilding is about increasing nature. This might entail keeping grass short and knocking holes in the sward to expose the chalk just below to prevent the local extinction of autumn ladies tresses orchids, eyebrights, kidney vetch (with the small blue butterflies whose caterpillars feed on it) and bastard toadflax on an isolated site. It might be restoring hazel coppice in ancient woodland on a farm with the aim of having it re-cut every 7 years on a commercial basis and advocating for the control of deer browsing. Just standing back from an area of land and doing nothing isn't rewilding. It's doing nothing....
I would like to contribute in rewilding process in my country Poland as well. There is this strange fashion to cut the back yards to sad short lawns which kills all biodiversity and leaves basically no space for nature. Changing this fashion and peoples mindset would be good start to introduce rewilding my and may other countries.
Great video Rob! Love the water vole feature :)
Thanks Alana !! I had to :)
I'm on a whopping .17 acres (LOL) but I'm rewilding as much as I can. Here in Western NY (w/o and HOA) I can do quite a bit. I've been working on it for three years now. I've let trees grow, and the "weeds & wildflowers" grow, as well as many grasses that are native to this area. The bugs love it, the critters love it, and I love it!
It all started when we had a dry summer and the lawn went dormant, but there was still SO MUCH GREEN, and I realized ( with a trusty field guild from the 80s lol) that I had a goldmine of healthy plants that I could use medicinally- right here in my yard!
I have to be careful as many neighbors still have commercial weed killers sprayed and that stuff blows all over and the water run off can sometimes seep into my yard. It's a rural suburb.
But I'm doing a wee bit. I've seen so many bees, and butterflies and dragonflies I've never seen before. I have praying mantis egg cases in the branches if some saplings. The mamma was in my front flower garden for a while and then I saw her on my back slider screen door!
I've got wild strawberries that literally grow like weeds! LOL 6 tiny plants have taken over and in June the lawn is full of tiny wild strawberries!
I love it.
One of the best videos you've made. Very informative and holds a very different viewpoint to rewilding which should definitely be more talked about. I study zoology and cardiff uni and hope to do research on rewilding
A civilisation that is designed to be conducive and complimentary to the nature world would look totally different to what we currently have.
While I love the big schemes like restoring the Caledonian Forest, I also get a huge kick from watching little projects, too - such as the water voles. They were returned to a tiny corner of the country and the project took a lot of work and organisation, but it really warms my heart to think that those streams and rivers might have water voles living there, slowly spreading in every direction. I live on a boat - there's not much I can do to rewild my surrounds - but I contribute to organisations that do and encourage my land-based friends to make room for nature. From small acorns, giant oaks grow and if people discover the joy of nature in their own garden, or encourage their local authority to go easy on the tidying up, then many more people will start to understand and support the concept.
Yes, we live in a time when theres alot of different ways to help and empower nature restoration. Thank you to your on going support of the channel Annie, means a lot!
I am glad there are differing opinions, viewpoints and even interpretations of rewilding. It shows health and interest in the sector - if there was a single definition it would be so easy to unite around something that doesn't work all that well.
I regard rewilding as any approach that thinks of the less visible species - the earthworms, the carpenter bees, the fungi, the... the moss. An approach that listens as well as simply looks.
yeah this is a good point!!!
I love your content and would be interested in seeing a video on how you have gone about rewilding your own garden! Much love and appreciation! ❤
Land management is the perfect way to describe it
I was really pleased when Simon Reeve visited a farmer in Cornwall who introduced beavers to prevent flooding and soil erosion. 2 huge farming issues addressed by working in harmony with nature.
More working with nature, less victorian over engineering
You area very special man, and you are trying. Keep going. Respect! Good luck.
Ah thanks, pleased the message are getting out :)
Hi! Great video clip, thank you! Just one little comment, it's enormously helpful to include wild flowers that are native to the UK in your garden. There are some wild bees that specialise in only one or two wild flowers - and if we don't provide these, the bees will not survive. Same with, e.g., butterflies! The very great thing about wild flowers is that slugs and snails don't usually eat them - so you can have a gloriously flowering garden supporting loads of wildlife and enjoy the flowers without the gastropods getting there first! :)
AMAZING!!!
Where I live its fairly normal to just have wildlife in town, there are deer and coyotes in town and even the occasional bear or mountain lion. There are genuine apex predators in and around a town with 20,000 people and zero attacks. The town has patches or forest in it and even some abandoned properties where nature has reclaimed land, our abandoned mall has trees growing in it even.
I agree, and I think we need to get back to being able to have nuance in conversations generally, there doesn't need to be a simple solution that applies everywhere... nature and society are complex.
People should not mistake "gardening" with "rewilding"
What excites me is the fact that engineering and ecology are becoming very friendly with one another. Coming from the engineering side, with nature based solutions and green infrastructure, nature is being used to achieve engineering ends. Coming from the ecology side, with rewilding, engineering approaches like reengineering stream courses or restoring missing cogs and wheels in the form of exterpaited species are being used to achieve ecological ends.
Binding the good of humanity to the good of the rest of the biosphere will be at the core of our transition from being a predator/parasite on the rest of life to becoming a symbiote with it.
I live in a region near the interior of the european continent. I have been experimenting with wildflowers for years now and some of them are just amazing. They flower through the hottest and driest parts of summer without any watering and they attract so many types of wild animals from insects to birds. I do not know why people call any native wild plant a weed.
The UK context is important. It’s a country the size of the state of Ohio and about a third of the land is upland and not really suitable for productive agriculture and much human settlement. In the rest of it there are 67 million people, with an expanding population. So unsurprisingly it’s not easy finding space for wildlife and choices about what sort of wildlife have to be made
Populations are naturally declining, but unfortunately is the unbalance between riches and poor which creates empty buildings (read secondary houses) for the former and small crowded always more expensive spaces or no homes for the latter (most of the world population) 😐
Creating livable and more sustainable cities and towns which are connected to each others. 🔄
Agree with you on most part 🌿
We reap what we sow
from West Virginia here - I get it. Why can't we co-exist with nature. We don't have to control every last little aspect of nature around us. Good luck with your work going forward!
No matter how you rewild on what ever scale you still need to manage it to a degree.
Proper rewilding can only be done on a huge scale of about 3000 acres and it still needs to be managed properly with certain animals.
We think the same way. Rewilding is a scale and you don't always have to go all the way to 11.
yep!
great video, well said. 😀👍 I very much liked how you interspersed the beautiful visuals of nature and yourself in that, with your commentary. Rewilding is divisive, like any change to established ways of doing things. But as you say, talking about it and understanding what different people mean or understand about rewilding affects their perceptions, whether positive or negative. Scale in ecology - and thus rewilding - really does matter. So does scope. My wife and I are 'rewilding' our garden to help local pollinators.
Young committed people such as your self give this (now) old codger and professional ecologist at the end of his working life, hope for a better future.
The deserts were green once there's a lot more wild out there than people think it wants and needs help with it the bit down the road from the housing estates aren't the best idea sometimes because modern humans like to be dry cool and warm unfortunately nature is the opposite about half the time 🤔✌️
Here in Switzerland spots of branches, stones and debris are left on the brinks of fields to increase habitat for small animals. In cities patches of green get seeded with various grasses and flowers to help insects and in managed forests some spots are left untouched as nature reserves
Sometimes flat roofs of factories get green
this is the kind of small scale stuff im talking about. it adds up.
Got to introduce more sheep and plant less potatoes. agriculture is killing our landscape with pesticide, weedicide, fertilizer run off and over digging the soil, releasing trapped CO2. sheep are natural and allow wild flowers and insects to live amongst the fodder.
"Got to introduce more sheep and plant less potatoes. agriculture is killing our landscape with ..." Actually, raising livestock (especially cattle and sheep) has been THE #1 most eco-destructive human activity for land ecosystems. They just take up too much land that should be wilderness. If everyone adopted a vegan diet tomorrow, we could feed the world using 75% less land and could re-wild and reforest the rest.
@@karlwheatley1244 wrong. In. Prehistoric times all of Europe was covered in huge herds of animals. Similar to the African plains. Do you think mammoths, bison and wild horses lived in the woods? Of course not.
You are confusing land management with rewilding. If you want to rewild Britain then enormous wild herds of sheep must be reintroduced everywhere. The natural ecosystem of the UK is endless herds of herbavores. Now stop regurgitating vegan propaganda from the USA and actually think for yourself.
When I think of rewilding I think of:
Диви цветя
The villa has a nice Spring bloom of (Mak) or as they are know here Red Field Poppies.
Great definition Rob. If only the countryside alliance, main stream media, etc would listen and even agree with you!
I'm afraid it may well be a slow incremental change over many years to gradually change public perception. And a similarly long period to get some movement from public bodies such as councils, water companies, etc. Like you say,we just need to keep doing our best and peacefully promoting our point of view and hope the voice gets stronger over time.
I'm not sure if I'm rewinding..but I'm trying to buy 3 acres of bare arable land to plant perennial wildflower
meadows..replanting 100 trees and recreating a habitat for bees insects and birds.. minimum human management..to leave to my children to enjoy
You dumped in a huge question, right in the first words. "This is just another form of land management." In otherwords, more "business as usual." Life is river. It flows. We are chucking rocks in that river. One thing I learned, building dams as a kid, the water will always build up till it washes our dam away. So, we've been through "conservation", now we are into "rewilding" . . . but sooner or later we are going to have to arrive at the end game. If we want this planet to carry on supporting us, we need to let go of at least half of it, and allow "life" to get on with doing it's thing, even if one day, that does not involve "us" - well, the surest way to go extinct, is to carry on ripping up the planet for cash. At this point, people will howl at me. But I leave them with one last question. There are gut worms that live up the chicken's bottom. Surely the chicken would be happier without them, but it is warm and wet, and there is food up there, and life evolved a creature to live in that. Rewilding may be a nice "management" tool, but we need to start asking what life is doing on this planet, or we will fail. What do we do about the gut worms up the chicken's bottom? Why did "life" put them there? Discuss . . . soon.
I find the more citified people are the less they care about nature, just due to lack of exposure or experience. Far too many people do not get to experience the wild as it is, instead they only see manicured versions of it. Even when they go to places like Yellowstone, they never leave the main roads.
Sounds a lot like terraforming, which is precisely how we got in this mess in the first place.
If it involves 50,000 Welsh agricultural jobs going to the wall in favour of acres of brambles and stinging nettles...