Discuss: Pleistocene Dreams

I love this vision.  But I can’t help placing its fulfillment in the far future after the demise of industrial civilization and a die-off of human populations due to resource shortages (oil and gas, fresh water, fertile soils, metals, forests, etc.).  These, my friends, are the preoccupations and obstacles that we are likely to face for the next seven generations and more. 

Maybe the megafauna can help restore the damaged ecosystems in North America and elsewhere, IF there are any megafauna left after the ravages of this century.  That’s a big ‘if,’ given climate change and the current rate of extinctions. 

In the Ecozoic Era that will follow the end of Cenozoic Era that humans are now bringing to a close, it is likely that the only human survivors will be those with some ecological sense - those humans who have learned the lessons and understand the value to the commons of the megafauna, as our indigenous ancestors did.  But we have a long way to go before we get there.

In short, I think that any conservation and restoration strategies have to connect the dots of Peak Oil, economic meltdown, climate chaos, food shortages, and the political pathologies that we will have to wade through on our way to a sustainable future.  Let’s hope that some viable human and nonhuman gene pools survive all that.

The idea of rewilding is actually older than Michael Soule and Reed Noss’s suggestion which appeared in the fall 1998 edition of Wild Earth. William Stolezenburg traces its development in Chapter 10 [‘Dead Creatures Walking’] of his brand new book WHERE THE WILD THINGS WERE (Bloomsbury USA, 2008). 

I think the origins of ‘rewilding’ go back to 1989 with the suggestion by urban planner Frank Popper and his Anthropologist wife Deborah that the High Plains (which are still depopulating at an alarming rate: 3% of the U.S. pop in 1989; 1% today) be returned to their pre-columbian state as a ‘Buffalo Commmons’, a wild grassland frontier preserved in perpetuity for North American grazing animals. Their wonderfully readable article ‘The Great Plains From Dust to Dust’ is now available on the Internet at this site:
http://www.planning.org/25anniversary/planning/1987dec.htm

The intellectual provenance of this idea is important since the Popper’s suggestion was first welcomed with all the warmth of people walking into a bank with handguns. Since then, however, it has entered the intellectual mainstream and is being seriously considered today. There is already a prototype park in southern Sasketchewan in the area where Sitting Bull crossed over the 49th parallel into ‘the grandmother’s country’. It is called ‘Grasslands National Park’ and is as successful as a small, limited range can be.

Rewilding may yet take place throughout North America. I don’t know if we will get elephants and camels as proxy replacements of their post ice age forebears, but many people I speak to are amenable to ecological restoration and understand its role in sustaining human habitability across the boards. Let’s see what happens in 10-20 years. I don’t think rewilding will appear quite so wild by then.

Meanwhile, am I wrong or is Orion becoming a little bit more radical and active? Rewilding is a riskier subject than what I am used to in this mag… I don’t mind that a bit. These are desperate times and we will need committed, respected leadership that is willing to put a hard-earned reputation on the line in order to light the most sensible path. Don’t know if Hal himself is responsible for this slight change, but believe me it looks very good on you and on your beautifully readable mag. Keep it up. I’ll keep reading and telling all my friends.

Great comments thus far on Josh’s fine little piece.  I’d just like to post a few links for folks to be able to go deeper into this issue.  First, everyone should know about the Rewilding Insitute (Dave Foreman is a big part of it).

I have posted a whole webpage that is an annotated list of online articles and news reports related to assisted migration and to rewilding (scroll toward the bottom for the rewilding links):

http://www.torreyaguardians.org/assisted-migration.html

For wildness and deep-time eyes,
Connie Barlow

Quite a bold vision.  To restore humanity’s connection to wild megafauna and re-member ourselves as equal players in the Earth’s natural history will require sweeping psychological shifts. 

As Suzanne stated in the previous post, those humans who have learned to honor the shared commons and have honed the location specific knowledge of how to live in their native bioregion will be the ones who reap the benefits of any proposed rewilding efforts.

For the past eight years I have been immersing teenagers in the Canadian wilderness on 10-15 day canoe trips.  Without question these experiences have impacted these young people, and though they may not realize it, they start to see the world around them through an ecopsychological lens. I am a firm believer that without immersion in the wild young people do not know HOW or WHY to care about vanishing species and ecosystems.  Viewing these dynamics via DVD or video is often quite ineffective. A firm and healthy connection with the natural world must be directly experienced.

Josh Donlan’s proposal to bring back North America’s charismatic megafauna is a wonderful idea.  I couldn’t agree more with the principles of the proposal and greatly admire the energy with which the argument is made.  (Kudos also to Dave Foreman and others who advocate rewilding).  Yet I would like to offer a mild suggestion if I may.  Instead of bringing in elephants, lions, camels and the like, why don’t we restore the megafauna that until relatively recently, vibrantly inhabited North America?  We have perfectly adapted, available, and to some extent politically acceptable megafauna right here at home.  By this I mean bison, antelope, elk, moose, wolves, grizzlies, cougars, badgers, wolverines, and the like.  These are magnificent candidates for the beautiful dream that is rewilding. 

And yet why should we focus solely on megafauna?  A healthy ecosystem teeming with biodiversity needs all the various elements.  The prairie dog, the ultimate varmint in the eyes of some, has a place and role in the rewilding process, as do the sage grouse, the blue gamma, buffalo grass, little bluestem, the jumping mouse, even the soil.  The focus on megafauna is certainly attractive, but likely too restricted.  True rewilding requires a revitalization of the whole picture from the apex to the broad base of the food chain and across the entire spectrum of life that inhabited North America in abundance just a few generations ago.  Without the base and support elements of the wild ecosystem, megafauna will not thrive.  Let’s focus on rewilding the area from Glacier National Park south through Yellowstone-Jackson and east into the Powder, Yellowstone and Missouri River basins to establish a High Plains-Rockies area.  For starters. 

Rewilding is a great idea and there would be many beneficiaries including local communities who would likely reap tourist dollars.  Rewilding is certainly within reach, especially if we make efforts to bring back the native fauna and flora.  They’re still out there, in limited numbers in some sad cases, but rewilding of large swaths of North America is viable.  Perhaps it’s ultimately necessary to preserve the wild and allow it to preserve us in return.