In late 2022, I became very active with The Rewilding Institute (TRI) and began working with the editors of Rewilding Earth to serialize some of my writings on the ambiguity of ‘rewilding’ and its ecological and ethical correlates (especially “On Rewilding (Whatever That Is)”). These were published under the heading Take Back Rewilding at the urging of Executive Director John Davis — an allusion to founder Dave Foreman’s Take Back Conservation. In retrospect, I believe that this framing misrepresented both my project and my personality, but in the context I was seduced by power and money. (I am actually epistemically modest; I like to learn and think and am willing to change my mind. I am not a dogmatist or a moralizer. When I wrote “On Rewilding,” I had only wanted to generate discussion and — even more importantly — wash my hands of complicity in the ignorance of semantic ambiguity. I had never wanted to “save” the rewilding movement; I had only wanted to dissociate myself from the movement’s lack of focus and principle. But modesty has its price, and from late 2022 through early 2023, TRI paid that price.)
Self-Published Posts
• In Memory of Anholt as I Never Knew Her (31 July 2022): not a critique of European rewilding per se, but a critique of a case study in the European speciality of conserving degraded landscapes; develops my first pass at an ecological ethic based on respect for landscape autonomy.
• On Rewilding (Whatever That Is): Thoughts of a Faux-Expat (5 October 2022): a long piece containing the argument for transatlantic semantic ambiguity, plus background on my interest in the North American rewilding movement, and initial reflections on ethical and ecological concerns with “rewilding” (naturalistic grazing) in Europe.
• A Follow-Up Regarding So-Called “Agricultural Rewilding” (20 October 2022): a detailed critique of one particular book chapter (Thomas et al, “Domesticating rewilding…”) but also contains some generalisable points about (e.g.) the need to consider the restoration of self-willed land as an intrinsically desired goal.
• American Rewilders Should Worry about Europe (Take Two) (16 November 2022): written after being added to the Board of TRI, a more direct and fine-tuned call on North American rewilders to acknowledge the situation in Europe, plus a deeper dive into an apparent moral dilemma for European rewilding and its equivocation between agrarian and Pleistocene baselines.
• Why Intrinsic Value? A Defence of Being Honest (29 January 2023): making the should-be obvious point that if we believe wild nature is intrinsically valuable, we shouldn’t try to give an instrumental justification for saying as much.
• Rewilding Day, Climate Change, and Why We Rewild (10 March 2023): criticism of the anthropocentrism and resourcism embedded in the idea of “animating the carbon cycle” currently popular in rewilding circles; why rewilding should not be framed as a climate solution.
Moral Foundations of Rewilding
See the tab Ecological Ethics