Rewilding North America

REWILDING NORTH AMERICAIf biology, particularly conservation biology, has taught us just one thing, it is the knowledge and importance of how flora and fauna are interconnected. It has also taught us one painful lesson; we humans have made a mess of it. If it is true that our species has evolved to only have the capacity to care for no more than 100 individuals, as we evolved in small tribes, then maybe the development of the Internet in some obtuse way will remedy that. It has forced us to see on a larger scale, and it has helped to back up scientific data, that we are indeed one big living interconnected ecosystem. Trying to juggle or wrap our heads around global is difficult at best. When it comes to conservation or to halting the destruction of our living support system, it is on a par with pondering the infinite universe, daunting; non-the less it must be undertaken. And indeed it is, so take heart; we have visionaries in our mist. There is hope, as a stunning project is in the works to re-connect what we have so haphazardly disconnected.In a wildly bold, gargantuan and radical vision to work towards arresting what is being seen as the 6th extinction, Earth First founder Dave Foreman brain storming with Michael Soule professor emeritus at the University of California-Santa Cruz, and one of the founding fathers of Conservation Biology, merged data from both activism and science to propose Rewilding North America. The project is Wildland Network, formally the Wildland Project, its website is The Rewilding Institute or TRI, and it is projected to be finished in 100 years. It has been in progress now for fifteen years. A completion goal of one hundred years can only be described as a broad and sweeping mission whose time has come. What Rewilding has proposed and has begun implementing is reconnecting corridors for keystone species to cross, which will allow the travels of big carnivores bringing with them the biodiversity they haul behind them. The four corridors or Megalinks to be developed and encompass are:1. The Rocky Mountain spine of the continent from Alaska to Mexico 2. Across the Artic/boreal from Alaska to Labrador3. Along the Atlantic via the Appalachians4. Along the Pacific via the Sierra Nevada into the Baja Peninsula Others are the Terai Arc in Asia; Gondwana Link in southwest Australia; the Transboundary Peace Parks in Africa Building these four corridors is a grand effort to save Earth’s living membrane, to try to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Up until this breath taking idea came into being most environmental efforts have been ecosystem management and community based, separated and isolated from the big picture that is Mother Nature. . Even in these conservative times, good science eventually prevails, even with arduous setbacks and battering. Hope springs from the strength of numbers and the word is taking root. Rather than work at odds or compartmentally, many environmental groups have joined forces to lean together and make this a reality. Environmental heavy weights the likes of Defenders of Wildlife, Naturalia in Mexico, Grand Canyon Wildlands Council and the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project to name a few are on board. Joining them are governmental agencies, National Parks and Recreation, as well as many private landowners, ranchers and farmers. One concrete step that is being developed now is building land masses above, below and along side some roads and freeways that fracture wild life’s migrations, as well as vehicular deaths. Because of so many insurance claims from auto and animal collisions some Insurance companies have come on board. E.O. Wilson calls it “mainstream conservation writ large for future generations. Only megapreserves, modeled on a deep scientific understanding of continent wide ecosystems needs hold that promise.” Each megalinkage, connects, or will connect public and private lands, providing safe passage for wildlife to travel freely. To Quote from Julia Whitty in her article Who Will Survive, where I first read about the Project, she has this to say, “At its heart, rewilding is based on living with the monster under the bed, since the big scary animals that frightened us in childhood, and still do, are the fierce guardians of biodiversity. Without wolves, wolverines, grizzlies, black bears, mountain lions and jaguars, (here I would add beavers for waterways and other animals that help balance out the insect population), wild populations shift toward the herbivores, who proceed to eat plants into extinction, taking birds, bees, reptiles, amphibians, and rodents with them.” Which then affects soils, topsoil’s, seed dispersements, migration and breeding sites, waterways, etc. Taking an aerial view our wild lands appear more like bombing sites from a war zone then the lush interconnected ecosystems necessary for sustainability. Land is fractured from ski resorts, logging, mining, strip mining, farming, oil and gas development and urban sprawl. No wonder it’s founders set a 100-year goal, something when completed our great grand children will benefit from. So if this project seems more than a little challenging, take heart and sleep well at night knowing something grand and good is going on under foot. Of course it is still important to continue to do conservation work anyway we can, bringing solutions to what is now a global phenomenon. With most issues it is best to start in our own back yard, one back yard is the Wildlife Way Station, taking that work and knowledge and bringing that to bare on a larger scale.To give an overview of what scale Rewilding is talking about I quote at length from Caroline Fraser’s book ReWilding the World. Here she is talking about how rewilding is being implemented in Africa. “The original proponents of rewilding were careful to propose it as a “complementary” method to those being implemented by nongovernmental organizations like the WWF. Some of those methods are similar to rewilding in their focus on large-scale conservation. “Representation,” for example, is one large-scale strategy, focused on preserving representative areas of every identifiable ecosystem, such as savannah, tropical moist forest, tundra, desert, and coral reef. The WWF’s “ecoregions” program favors representation. Another model, “Hotspots” is designed to save unique areas of high endemism, places like the Galapagos Islands, where many species of plants and animals found nowhere else in the world have evolved. The large-scale continental reserves envisioned by rewilding might neglect island hotspots like Madagascar or Java. Likewise, a single-minded focus on hotspots might shortchange areas life African savannah, which is low in endemic species but enables mass migration.”“But rewilding’s unique triple focus on protecting and restoring cores, connectivity, and carnivores (or keystones) sets it apart from other large-scale conservation methods and projects. The goals of reintroducing carnivores where extirpated and restoring connectivity even if it means replanting or re-growing bush land or forest between reserves- makes rewilding more ambitious than even the most visionary conservation plans of the past.” Transboundary’s and Peace Parks work to link war torn areas that have prevented large wildlife from roaming or migrating. Separated for years, poached or diminished through attrition due to habitat loss or bush meat, these links work to bring the local villages into the process of saving their own wildlife. Eco-tourism is a big part of the plan but comes with its own set of contradictions.QUESTIONS TO ADDRESS WHEN PLANNING FOR CONNECTIVITYIn two of life’s human ironies, where nature is left to do what it does best with out human interaction I urge you to watch on the Nature Channel, The Radio Active Wolves of Chernobyl. And to investigate what is happening on the DMZ between the S. and N. Korea. Life comes back in balance and heals itself, even under the worst scenarios. So imagine what is possible when we develop large sections of land, corridors and buffer zones, a healing of sorts that we cant’ yet even measure.For anyone working in a facility that houses and protects wildlife, you are the Noah’s Arch’s of our planet. This is no minor undertaking. While many animals will never, nor are able to be re-released into the wild, preserving and caring for the rich and magnificent animals is a worthy purpose, one, that one day may make possible through DNA or yet undiscovered ways to preserve them and ensure their continued existence. This so they make it to the final conclusion of the rewilding project, where their offspring may roam where they deserve to roam and flourish, in wide open grand and large vistas.What has been suggested in particular is this.If you're a ZOO or AQUARIUM, or a Sanctuary; as the Wildlife Way Station most certainly is: consider these possibilities:• Educating visitors about Wildlands Network's conservation vision• Host a Wildlands Network fundraiser week with donor, member, media and employee dinners, educational presentations etc.• Tying in your North American species to Wildlands Network's vision. Our keystone species include: jaguars, cougars, grizzlies, lynx, wolverines, wolves, martins, thick-billed parrots and more!• Creating a Carnivores are Cool education programAdvocating for wildlands habit protection programs that conserve species in your collections.We are here in very large numbers and don’t appear to be going away any time soon. We have changed our living landscape unwittingly in the blink of a few decades. Always the optimist, I believe with every step no matter how small along with ones as lofty as the Wildlands Network we just might save our big carnivores and perhaps ourselves in the process. We must all dare to be wild, and help rewild.For more information go to EcoWild working group/The ReWilding Institute and The Wildlands Network and (Creating Linkages QG-Web-1.pdfThe ReWilding Institute website has a wealth of information, and updates often, Also go to Uncle Dave’s section for a list of readings that will boggle your mind.Thank You Sandra Cruze