Adam Frank: Wildness→

NPR:

Chris Winsor/Getty Images

“For [Gary] Snyder, the answer is about inclusiveness:

”So we can say that New York City and Tokyo are ‘natural’ but not ‘wild.’ They do not deviate from the laws of nature, but they are habitat so exclusive in the matter of who and what they give shelter to, and so intolerant of other creatures, as to be truly odd. Wilderness is a place where the wild potential is fully expressed, a diversity of living and nonliving beings flourishing according to their own sorts of order.”

Thus, for Snyder, the wild is not about pristine landscapes. Instead, it’s about landscapes that are rich and diverse enough to be interesting for everybody, human and non-human alike. He writes: “When an ecosystem is fully functioning, all the members are present at the assembly. To speak of wilderness is to speak of wholeness.””

Gary Snyder noted that many folks are alienated from their place and that they "don't even know that they don't know the plants" of their environment. I've asked lakeshore residents and the only plants they know are the ones that the government has blacklisted (Eurasian milfoil, curly-leaf pondweed, etc.). I find it sad that folks only know the ones that the government has labeled 'bad/evil' and they don't appreciate the beauty of those plants and those that are indigenous to their area or lake.

AAAS: Getting Rid of Humans Benefits Wildlife Even if a Radiation Tragedy is Involved→

“In 1986, after a fire and explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant released radioactive particles into the air, thousands of people left the area, never to return. Now, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on October 5 have found that the Chernobyl site looks less like a disaster zone and more like a nature preserve, teeming with elk, roe deer, red deer, wild boar, and wolves.

The findings are a reminder of the resilience of wildlife. They may also hold important lessons for understanding the potential long-term impact of the more recent Fukushima disaster in Japan.

”It’s very likely that wildlife numbers at Chernobyl are much higher than they were before the accident,” says Jim Smith of the University of Portsmouth in the UK. “This doesn’t mean radiation is good for wildlife, just that the effects of human habitation, including hunting, farming, and forestry, are a lot worse.””

Abstract: Following the 1986 Chernobyl accident, 116,000 people were permanently evacuated from the 4,200 km2 Chernobyl exclusion zone [1] . There is continuing scientific and public debate surrounding the fate of wildlife that remained in the abandoned area. Several previous studies of the Chernobyl exclusion zone (e.g. [2,3] ) indicated major radiation effects and pronounced reductions in wildlife populations at dose rates well below those thought [4,5] to cause significant impacts. In contrast, our long-term empirical data showed no evidence of a negative influence of radiation on mammal abundance. Relative abundances of elk, roe deer, red deer and wild boar within the Chernobyl exclusion zone are similar to those in four (uncontaminated) nature reserves in the region and wolf abundance is more than 7 times higher. Additionally, our earlier helicopter survey data show rising trends in elk, roe deer and wild boar abundances from one to ten years post-accident. These results demonstrate for the first time that, regardless of potential radiation effects on individual animals, the Chernobyl exclusion zone supports an abundant mammal community after nearly three decades of chronic radiation exposures.

Rewilding: Feral→

Brandom Keim reviews George Monbiot’s Feral, for Conservation Magazine:

“Monbiot’s rewilding encompasses these, but with differences. He emphasizes the richness of ecological interactions, the flow of energy and nutrients across time and form, and also—crucially—the essence of wildness itself. “Rewilding, to me, is about resisting the urge to control nature and allowing it to find its own way,” Monbiot writes. “The ecosystems that result are best described not as wilderness, but self-willed.”

Add a few species, pull down the fences, step back: this is not a fussy sort of conservation, then, bearing lists of favored species and blacklists of invasives, struggling to produce a historical snapshot. The past is inspiration, not blueprint. Neither is it a domineering conservation, managing nature to meet our demands. Services might result, but they’re not the point. The ethos is not of human primacy, but a muscular, can-do humility. Things will fix themselves if we let them.”

Looking? Found nature you have, eh? It needs not us.

Rewilding Europe: reconstructing ecosystems by looking mostly forward→

Elizabeth Kolbert, writing for The New Yorker:

“The newest land in Europe could be used to create a Paleolithic landscape. The biologists set about stocking the Oostvaardersplassen with the sorts of animals that would have inhabited the region in prehistoric times—had it not at that point been underwater. In many cases, the animals had been exterminated, so they had to settle for the next best thing. For example, in place of the aurochs, a large and now extinct bovine, they brought in Heck cattle...

Perhaps it’s true that genuine wildernesses can only be destroyed, but new “wilderness,” what the Dutch call “new nature,” can be created. Every year, tens of thousands of acres of economically marginal farmland in Europe are taken out of production. Why not use this land to produce “new nature” to replace what’s been lost? The same basic idea could, of course, be applied outside of Europe—it’s been proposed, for example, that depopulated expanses of the American Midwest are also candidates for rewinding....

As more aurochs remains have been unearthed and more sophisticated research has been done on them, it’s become clear that the Heck brothers’ creation is a far cry from the original—Heck cattle are too small, their horns have the wrong shape, and the proportions of their bodies are off. All of which has led to a new, de-Nazified effort to back-breed the aurochs. This project is based in the Dutch city of Nijmegen, about fifty miles southeast of Amsterdam, and is entirely independent of the Oostvaardersplassen. Still, it reflects much the same can-do, “what is lost is not lost forever” approach to conservation. ”

We should increase the biodiversity of our domesticated places and conserve species diversity in our wild places. With regard to 'New Nature', we can admire the beauty of organisms regardless how they arrived in the dynamic, very changing world we also live in.

May you be with Nature. May Nature be with you.