Great Misconceptions: Rewilding Myths and Misunderstandings

The term rewilding has become part of the common vernacular and with it has come a lot of misunderstanding and even misuse. This has led to a great many misconceptions about what the word actually means. Great Misconceptions brings together different writers, with different experiences, exploring some of those misconceptions, misunderstandings and myths when it comes to what rewilding means to them.

Rewilding is a word that has been used and misused by virtually everyone, from school children to politicians, site volunteers to CEOs of conservation organisations and from local village notice boards to mainstream media outlets. It is used in positive and negative terms, to unite and divide, to engender enthusiasm and create fear, to celebrate good decisions and justify bad decisions. Rewilding is a term used to both label and libel.

The book boasts an impressive team of writers: a mix of published authors, seasoned campaigners, active conservationists, academics, a politician, a businessman and a farmer, all of whom write about a particular aspect of rewilding that is important to them. Each chapter has been independently written from the author’s own perspective. Topics include land management at large and smaller scales, mass tree planting, community involvement, reintroductions, both broadly and more specifically with the case of the Lynx. It also considers how rewilding could and perhaps should change politics, how we can run a business in line with rewilding principles, and also, how these principles can be applied to both the countryside and urban areas, and we also ask the question, can we rewild whilst producing food? From the thought of Aurochs rampaging through the House of Commons to recovering temperate rainforests on the west coast of Ireland, this is a book that covers a wide range of topics that all fall within the term of rewilding. It is a book to inform, provoke thought and debate and to stimulate conversation about rewilding conservation.

Contents: Contents: Rewilding is not land abandonment: In fact, it’s the very opposite (Eoghan Daltun); A helping hand: Rewilding’s foresters (Ian Parsons); Recreate while we re-create (James Chubb); Change is the only constant (Matt Merritt); Too small and crowded an island? (Steve Carver); Beyond rural rewilding: Why rewilding is right for cities too (Sian Moxon); Rewilding and feeding the world? (Chris Richards); Shh – let’s create a rewilding project, but don’t tell anyone (Chris Sperring); Rewilding politics – applying ecological knowledge to human animals (Natalie Bennett); Is it possible to rewild your business? (Sam Varney); Species translocations: rewilding or dewilding our ecosystems (Ian Carter and Alex Lees); No place for lynx? (Hugh Webster); A look back from the future… (Mark Avery)