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When Two Hemispheres Collide: Where to Now for Rewilding in Ireland?

(worldsensorium.com)
81 points dnetesn | 1 comments | 18 Dec 24 12:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.312s | source
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Stevvo ◴[21 Dec 24 17:58 UTC] No.42481093[source]▶
"We may well have to live side by side with our subtropical southern hemisphere gardens and see them for what they are, as relics of a 19th-century gardening obsession"

I find this perspective more compelling than calling it "rewilding". The word is somewhat novel and loosely defined.

replies(1): >>42485744 #
1. Litost ◴[22 Dec 24 11:33 UTC] No.42485744[source]▶
The Rewilding term is definitely mercurial, Isabella Tree (Knepp) in this talk [1] sums this quite poetically by saying it's a term that "rewilds itself".

Alastair Driver (Director of Rewilding Britain) in the same talk summarises it as "The large scale restoration of ecosystems to the point where nature is allowed to take care of itself" though there's obviously many other definitions and perspectives.

I think part of the charm of the term, is the ability to apply it in many contexts, e.g. Rewilding people which would be harder if we narrowed the scope to say just natural habitats and landscapes.

This would also allow me to drag in one of my favourite short pieces on Rewilding - Thinking Like a Mountain by Aldo Leopold. "The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolfs job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea." [2]

[1] - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-is-rewilding-with... original source (which didn't work for me) https://www.buzzsprout.com/2156617/episodes/13299588

[2] - https://ia600707.us.archive.org/6/items/ThinkingLikeAMountai...