I definitely say, if you're just going to throw seed wherever- you absolutely NEED to double & triple check that the plant is actually supposed to be in your home region. Even in the US, which is a huge place with wildly different ecosystems, there is a tendency to legally label any plant that grows within the continental US a Native species everywhere in the US, so long as it won't cause some imminent environmental disaster & there are several actual native species that are considered high risk because they can cause local economic harm by spreading fatal or permanently crippling diseases to food crops or trees we tend to use for lumber. There are regional subspecies- we have plants that are technically the exact same species as ones in Europe or Asia, but that billionth of a percent in genetic difference causes one to turn into an environmental disaster while the other is perfectly fine in the wild. People have created domesticated variants of wild plants to sell for home gardens, not the woods. Some companies that offer native plants don't always exclusively offer natives. You can go on & on with this stuff. Also, trying to always do your searches with the scientific names, as some common names are shared by several different species.
You see so many seed packets labeled "Wildflower Seed Mixes" etc., taking advantage of the new wildlife gardening trend in the UK that aren't even naturalised let alone native species. I think most people fairly assume "wild" = "native" including local amateur conservation groups. I'd really love to see small scale native plant nurseries being established all over the place, sourcing seeds, cuttings etc. from their local area.
Yes local sourcing is a must in native gardening, botanical gene pools can vary even over short distances. More Nurseries are needed in the absence of that that one has to learn propagation themselves. I am fortunate as my local council runs a volunteer local native nursery. A good point to bother local authorities on if they don't have one. I do realize that the latter can be difficult. 🌱😎
Floristic surveys of local nature preserved are a great place to start if you can access them. It’s how I’m planning a native plant garden, by only using plants found there. Also consider just exploring around where you live - small remnants of the historical ecosystem can hang on in roadsides and wooded areas squished between different land uses.
Spread native seeds around your towns and unloved spaces. Save tree seedlings/saplings in pavements by replanting them in green spaces with a post and tie to look officially been planted there by the council. Little things make a big difference hey
I'll second the "make it look official". It's impressive how much you can get away with if you make it look like it's already been signed off on and how willing people are to let things slide that they'd otherwise be NIMBY about if it looks like it belongs.
Great vid. I am a retired geoscientist and disaster risk reduction consultant and used to own a permaculture farm in the middle of a National forest in the USA. I come down on the side of educated guerrilla rewilding. By educated, I mean that if you are going to do GR, you need to take the time to really educate yourself with regards to the consequences of introducing and not introducing species so that you can make the best decision possible and feel good about doing it. Education need not be and should not be restricted to formal academic education, it can and should come from a combination of hands on, a critical review of available data and accumulated knowledge, small scale experimentation, and a healthy degree of suspicion and skepticism of the motives and methods of the establishment. You can't learn everything before you start. The goal is to learn enough to feel like you did the right thing and the best that you could. understand that you will make mistakes and you will have failures but, if you have done your homework, on the balance you will have more successes than failures and you will avoid making huge catastrophic mistakes. Also, be prepared to face the consequences for any of your illegal actions. Always ask yourself this question, "Am I more willing to face the consequences of action or am I more willing to face the consequences of inaction." Think it over carefully then let your answer be your guide.
Hi there! About the beaver matter, here in Spain the species was brought to extinction by hunters around 250 years ago, but a group of them mysteriously appeared at a tributary of the Ebro river (the biggest of the country) during the early 2000's. It was then discovered that it was an illegal reintroduction, but despite the efforts of authorities to eliminate them all, they kept growing in population and conquering most of the basin in the last 2 decades. Not only that, but they've already done the jump to other 2 major basins crossing lower mountain ranges: the Tajo and Duero basins, but also the Guadalquivir river in southern Spain last year through another obvious guerilla release, as that group is hundreds of kilometres away from the nearest population to the north. As beavers are within the catalogue of European native protected species, the EU Parliament said that Spain has to carry on with it and they have to let the animals live and also protect them even thought they weren't legally reintroduced in the wilde. Just another example of how much more effective regular people was on taking action by themselves after getting tired of waiting for the government to do what they were supposed to due to the pressure of hunting and farming lobbies. Now is forbidden to kill them as they're officially considered an endangered species and they're a very common sight in cities like Zaragoza or Pamplona thanks to that illegal, but not so unethical release that took place in 2003 PD: loved the video
@@Isaac-ho8gh link to the video? I'm skeptical of the claim that Joey is a transphobe but I want to take your claim at face value and peep the offending video
I started “guerrilla plantings” over 55 years ago. I ALWAYS have plants in my greenhouse and hardening area for planting out. I ALWAYS carry seeds and nuts for “wild planting” when I walk and ramble. My inspiration was the shepherd who solo regrew the forests in France that were clear felled to supply timber for WW1. It is rather easy to do. I can now sit under a walnut tree I planted, eat it’s nuts and collect more to plant elsewhere, ditto Chestnuts, ditto Hazel nuts. Ditto various species of trees that are useful for so many purposes. Plants make habitat, create the habitat and the animals follow.
First of all: love your content, it is so close to my perspective but well articulated. Gotta get on writing in a similar spirit. As for the topic and question in the end: I am all for guerilla reintroduction IF people who do it know what they are doing. More often than not in history we had guerilla INTRODUCTION of invasive species and you have plenty of examples in the UK alone. People who "love animals" often do not care about the wider ecological impact of their favourite exotic species being let loose. So embracing guerilla reintroduction could easily lead to more non-natives being brought, bred, and released. If not for that - I am all for it, under careful monitoring of NGOs who know what the hell they are doing.
I don't honestly think anyone is gonna raise a wild animal, outside of small rodents or amphibians, for guerilla rewilding without at least knowing that they should be using an appropriate species for their chosen area. Even if it's mildly incorrect it will at least bolster the gene pool of said correct species, like in dog breeding.
@@solarpunkalana There's a certain irony in animal rights activists here in the US performed an action of setting free captive minks being bred for fur. The rub is they were European monks wo now we have invasive European minks running around in some places. It's one of those examples of good intentions leading to bad outcomes.
@@Lunarl4ndr people did it all the time, that's why you have like tropical antelopes in Texas, wallabies in a number of places, not to mention house cats running everywhere. People don't care.
Love this!!! this video actually showed up after I had seeded some native plants near a housing development. It all used to be forest, they tore it all down and are in the process of building expensive townhomes. They left a tiny area of woodland along the creek that is overrun with invasive species such as honeysuckle and stiltgrass. Its not easy work removing and planting! But Im seeing progress, many of the plants are establishing. It may never be as vast as it was and may take years to mature, but some forest is better than none.
Greetings from across the pond, What has fascinated me, is how large private land owners, such as farmers, ranchers, homesteaders, etc. have been champions in conservation of native plants, animals, and habitat. Although in many instances these contributors have only recently joined the fray, there are those who’ve been doing so for seventy years or more. All that to say, working with private land owners/managers, presents a way forward that’s not reliant on big gov or other organizations.
This type of content is so so so much better than the sadly more popular by numbers “nothing can be done if we don’t overthrow everything” shock channels. No flashy infographics or stock footage, just data on what is working and what isn’t. I think already do some of these things without even realizing that there was a term to describe it, mostly by seedbombing the sides of local highways in my state with native wildflower seeds. Really good video.
I've been doing this for very many years. (I'm 77). Moving native plants from places where they have no chance of surviving to local fields, hedgerows, roadside verges, etc. In an attempt to increase local biodiversity. It's made little difference. Places Where I've moved them to are now Industrial and residential estates with mown grass and ornamental shrubs. Haven't stopped though, these estates now contain wild flowers and young native trees and shrubs. The fight goes on.
17:10 such an important point, and seriously encompasses my frustration with researching more about conservation and being a nature lover. I am someone who works 9-5, rents an apartment and doesn't have a nature oriented career or degree, and so much of what you read about this ecological crisis always leaves you with a feeling of powerlessness, because you don't have the influence to affect public policy, and you didn't have the circumstances to run the education gauntlet to land a conservation job, so oh well, the environment is crumbling around you, but you are not allowed to touch ANYTHING. Like I get introducing invasive species, but if I'm planting something I've been researching for months is native to my area, why do I need a permit to chip in?
And then the people who did all that education to be able to do conservation work cant get jobs, have to do tonnes of unpaid volunteering, all to get tied up in redtape and write paper after paper saying we should rewild with no opportunities to act on it through official means.
Anarchism and rewilding belong togeter, but we must start rewilding ourselves too. Urbanism is domestication of humanity. We are animals in captivity. We can not build an anarchist society while domesticated.
Nice video! I know beavers in western Washington have been translocated on the down-low. One of the islands in the Puget sound has a pair that are thriving. It is illegal to move beavers because they are classified as a pest species, but they are actually awesome to have around and that community loves them. For species that just need help across the landscape to good habitats, this type of thing is pretty benign and even good. For species with much small populations, they have to be carefully managed and monitored for success (thinking of kakapo, takahe, tieke, and certain skinks and geckos). I more-than understand the problems with unsanctioned introductions though, which ties in with the acclimatization societies of the 19 and 20th centuries, and the role that wildlife trafficking and captive breeding play in population reductions and genetic weirdness. There's also the suitable habitat problem, in which the best gorrilla conservation actions might be to plant high quality native plants with high habitat value.
@@DrSmooth2000 Developers have a big part to play in that I think. Developers build suburbs, channel streams, dry up wetlands and the wildlife have lot their habitat. The beavers were already there and continue to do what they do, which ends up clogging up the drains and ditches, leading to flooding. The blame is placed on the beaver for being a nuisance, and they are removed in one way or another.
@@Scriven42 Where is the joke? Anarchy is the prerequisite for authoritarnism to take hold, it always is. If society is too stable, the authoritarians create a bit of anarchy so they can scare people into acquiescing to the increased control of their lives that is supposedly required to restore order. Anarchy is always taken advantage of by those who can wield power, and your fantasy only works if all of human nature somehow becomes inherently good and enlightened.
Only real example of wildlife activism I've heard of locally was people breaking into mink farms and releasing the minks in the 90's. They aren't native here.
@damionkeeling3103 yup, and regrettably often groups are paid by corperations or private people who want to make them look bad, and push them to be more extreme, so it can also be paved with the enemy's coin
i mean i technically agree with wildlife rewilding being more difficult but endangered plants? my issue there is really that not enough information is out there for specific areas. I personally wouldnt know where to look which endangered plants are supposed to be in my area and where i could get seeds from to rewild them
You raise a good point. A federated approach to guerrilla gardening best practices could help address that. I'm picturing a community that shares common rewilding goals and shares information, with an emphasis on the specifics of each represented area.
I use iNat to find plants, it also tells you which species are native, invasive, naturalised etc. (to the country as a whole I think). There's also organisations that have recordings from further back, in the UK there's BSBI which displays the recordings on a map, showing which years species have been present in certain areas.
Accidentally introduced species have wreaked absolute havoc on the ecosystem where I grew up. If anyone engages in guerrilla rewilding they should be extremely careful.
@megapixies You may wait for beavers to cross a sea, the island won't. Also, as long humans have the slightest influence on anything invasives will spread, unless being actively pushed against.
Rewilding needs to be less bureaucratic by not being bureaucratic at all, and by that I mean, completely devoid of the human element. Unless you're doing something like reintroducing ecosystem architects or apex predators, the best way to rewild a space is to actually let it go wild. There needs to be more legislation, not less, but the legislation needs to be that it's prohibited to go into, live on, farm, log, etc. as much of your country's land as you possibly can and only permit a few surveyors to monitor and document the area or police it of other people or operations.
I live with the consequences of people releasing fish into every new amphibian pond. This dramatically increases the cost of amphibian conservation. You have to make every pond drainable. You can't do without these artificial ponds. That's the sad reality of the guerrilla approach in Switzerland. And that's not the only problem with this tactic.
@@MarengiOmnisystems These are not bad ideas. They are just different regulations. Depending on the situation, the use of such means would cause less collateral damage than draining a pond. But you can't change that, no politician would stand up for it.
I would live to recommend Wildlife Aid Foundation and Mossy Earth. If you feel unable to take action yourself, maybe you can support those two organizations in their rewilding and wildlife protection efforts.
We could very well be Dinosaurs 2.0. What people don't realize is that mass extinction (and the Dinosaurs extinction) was not a sudden event. The Dinosaurs went extinct because the climate they evolved to live in, never returned post impact. It may have taken 1000 years.
Officially, in the US northeast, specifically, Pennsylvania, mountain lions (also called pumas and cougars) are in the state. However there are enough sightings that I think they are around. As for wolves, well, they interbred with coyotes and the coywolves are a fascinating story and can be found in Central Park, NYC. If the plants, hell yeah, monoculture lawns are of the devil.
Great video, just discovered your channel about solarpunk. We're fellow solarpunk here on youtube trying to apply solarpunk, we are trying self-sufficiency in the wild. If you'd want to talk, we'd love too ❤
Great video, very illuminating. 9:57 see I've always seen this as an example of the opposite. The whole point of the oostvaardersplassen was to prove that large herbivore populations are regulated through food availability, they expand steadily until carrying capacity reached but cannot over populate because one bad winter or summer heat wave will cull the population back to a sustainable number. Our current system however sees the reintroduce populations in the area not as wild animals but as livestock, no one goes out to feed hay to the impala in the masai mara when there's a drought because they're wild animals, but in this case because people see horses and cows starving the want to protect them which defeats the whole point of letting the environmental carrying capacity dictate the popuation, same with the orders to clean up the corpses of the starved animals, no one goes around cleaning up the dead animals from the masai mara but in the oostvaardersplassen it's seen as neglect and a health hazard, removing an important part of any healthy natural environment (we do the same with trees in the UK dead trees are felled for public safety or because they're ugly removing an important habitat), an environment with no carrion is not a natural one. To be glib, in western europe we no longer recognise a natural environment behaving naturally, since we have none left. All that asside it's a devilishly difficult line to walk species reintroduction (or introduction) many an environmental disaster has been done in good faith and with the best intentions, mink releases comes to mind but it's also accurate that neoliberal capitalists are terrible for the environment with their religious dogma of the free market and the beurocrats that demand never ending reviews and studies and follow ups on even the most basic of environmental restoration.
As a quite successfull guerilla gardener I'm boosting since many years plant diversity in German monoculture forests and starting unofficial reforestation projects in Spain. Due to my experiences I would suggest, that guerilla rewilders should have a solid ecological education. Since I studied ecology and work since 20 years as self-employed ecosystem designer I know exactly, what I'm doing and how to do it professionally. So none of my guerilla gardening projects failed or caused damage so far. But I know quite a lot of failing guerilla gardening projects due to their realizacion by amateurs who introduced the wrong plant species and seriously harmed already damaged ecosystems. So better know what you are doing!
First of all, kudos for the sick thumbnail. I don't wanna pretend to explain to you anything, because it's clear that you know much and more about the subject, but I do have a couple of objections to your points. We can both agree that action is often painfully slow. That owes both to how difficult it can be to conduct a properly researched reintroduction, how painful (albeit necessary) it can be to engage with local communities (which often feel ignored by conservationists), but also how ineffective and uninterested government bureaucracy is. That being said, as a young rebellious person concerned with conservation myself, I think it can be very risky to encourage well-intentioned but scientifically untrained people to act on their own to release wild animals. A single wrong release could have enormous negative consequences, overshadowing the rest, even if most of them were positive or innocuous. Moreover, it would only exacerbate the feeling of neglect that many communities feel towards us conservationists. And even if it feels frustrating to be slowed down by those community debates, they are paramount to decrease the resistance against reintroduced species and keep public opinion on our side. Lastly, I know that it's frustrating to see action slowed down when so much biodiversity is being lost. But we can't lie to ourselves: almost all of that biodiversity loss is happening in the oceans and developing countries, where biodiversity is extremely high and population growth and western demand for products are driving deforestation and pollution. As you said, most of biodiversity in the UK and Europe in general is incredibly depleted and has been so for centuries. That doesn't mean losses aren't still happening or that nothing should be done, but rewilding isn't (for the most part) the most effective strategy to reduce biodiversity loss. Reintroducing lost species, especially keystone species, is important to recover some of that lost biodiversity, but the truth is that most of these species have been gone for so long that there's not as big of an urgency to see them return other than the desire to see our ecosystems wilder. The lynx will be better reintroduced today rather than tomorrow, because that would accelerate the recovery of British forest ecosystems, but most of the land that could be overflowed by deer has already been. If we aren't careful, anarchist rewilding could be counterproductive and cause even more reticence from the public and government. I'd say, if you are going to do it, make sure you deeply understand its risks and impacts, and ideally limit yourself to species that have gone locally extinct. Even then, we must remove the factors that caused their extinction in the first place before reintroduction.
I'm here from Dave's post. I keep thinking about a paper I read about Pleistocene Rewilding (and how bad an idea it is), but overall let's go with restoring nature as it exists/existed now.
That’s definitely also a contested point. Usually in the UK I think it’s if a species was here since the last ice age then we could potentially bring it back. If it was lost before the last ice age, potentially not native anymore
@@solarpunkalanaI think the other important consideration is if the missing Pleistocene species filled an important niche that is no longer occupied. The replacement might not be an exact match of the old species, but its presence could do a lot to benefit the larger ecosystem.
Early this year I build a small underground fox den tucked away in my local woods, didn't ask for permission, just got on with it. Not that foxes are endangered 😂 but I felt compelled to build them a refuge from the elements. I intend to build a mini pond up there aswell at some point Lovely video as always, keep it up please 👍🏻
@@solarpunkalana thanks, to be honest Ive kept away so as not to disturb any potential residents but there was a fox watching me install it so I believe so 😁🦊 guerrilla rewilding ftw ✊🏻
@@Emiliapocalypse it was inspired by Mike Oehlers book 'The $50 and up Underground House', basically a wooden box wrapped in polyethylene and sunk into the earth, I also used an old chimney pot as an entrance tunnel 😁
Great video of a topic with a lot of nuances, i don't really know about guerrilla rewulding project in italy where i am from but there has been a similar resurrence of small poket of beaver population in tho North-west, even tough from what i've read is probably due to a spontaneous repopulation originating from france border population, at least from the genetic clues. Something that i personallt really struggle is that is true that in a dire situation the measure needed should be way more radical but political decison and shift could ruin years of hard work from conservationist and rewilders guerilla or not. We are seeing some of this shift for example with the alpine population of the brown bera that are now on the risk of being hunted for "population control" and there are rumors about the shift of conservation policies the italian wolf that just now reclaimed most of it's historical unrange because unfortunately in this country we are currently ran by damn fascist that are not really ecologicaly educated (they are really not educated in nothing too be fair) and they have instrumentalized farmers and rural population for their belief and this is deeply dangerous for any conservation efforts.
Where abouts in Italy are you from? That sucks about the brown bear hunting, I also saw similar things about wolf and bear population control in Scandinavia.
@@solarpunkalana I am originally from the south of Italy, but i am planning to move to the north as many young people are forced to for work related issues, when it comes to my birthplace well there's the most polluted italian river in about ten kilometer away from me (my zoologist professor even did eels sampling in that river), and in the same region there are highly damaged and polluted ecosistem , also urban agri-system that are renown for having buried toxic waste that was put there by the mob. At the same time we have high rates of biodiverity in Key specific area and specifically where i was born there are small pocket of mediterranean biomes and even a neo artic tropical forest that survived in this small pocket. I would say we are one of the most biodiverse dense country in Europe and we are one that Is the be most vulnerable to climate change (togehter with most southern eu) and Indeed out governament recently approved an act that would jail climate protesters up to two years. I still have hope but the fight Is becoming more and more difficult...
@@solarpunkalana I've shared it on Mastodon with all of my... 33 followers. It's quite a small place and takes some getting used to, but think you would like it on there.
'Tis almost as if we were only understanding the workings of our environment, the _logos_ of our _Oikos_ almost. As if lifeforms had overcome things we still haven't logged or noticed.
I think that my fellow anarchists have a higher opinion of some of their methods than they should. While the capitalist system we live under is often actively hostile to conservationist ideas and rewilding, IE with wolves in the USA, we should be very wary of how we reintroduce species for some of the reasons outlined in this video. Critical support.
The issue with getting Lynx back into the UK reminds me of the recent fell through of getting the boreal lynx back into Spain (both iberian and boreal lynx used to live there)
It would be interesting to explore the relationship between rewilding/guerrilla gardening/etc in communities in the core of the empire versus those directly oppressed under white supremacist capitalist colonialist ableist patriarchy. Thanks for talking about this in regard to the UK! Also good to know that statistic about indigenous folks maintaining 80% of the world's biodiversity is false, but I still think we should take it with a grain of salt!
Just makes me think of all the fur farms that were broken into leading to ecological disaster. That said, LOVE that pine Martins are back in the new forest and beavers and wild boar are not waiting for government approval. I think lynx could also be released first questions later, but let’s see haha.
Great content and thanks for your work. But isn't talking about rewilding without takling the issue of WHY the species are gone in the first place is like putting the cart before the horse? I know nobody wants to talk about the number one issue of habitat loss.. Because we know nobody wants to change their habits but come-on, we all know why species are driven to extinction, in the UK or otherwise.. Until somebody actually have the courage to bring the issue, the rest is just make beliefs and feels good chit chat imo
I see no reason why rewinding needs to be done under stodgy “official” auspices. However, I do see some dangers in how the rewinding approaches were presented here. One is that it seems these acts are being done without acquiring the buy-in of local farmers and others who will have the opportunity to undo the good that was done. Why not include them as stake holders? The other is that I so no reason to believe the people doing these acts are knowledgeable enough to do them correctly. Lots of talk of beavers, but no talk about how they mate for life and need to be moved as mating pairs. You don’t need to be a wildlife biologist to know that or do it correctly, but it helps.
ahh, both - more government AND more anarchy. Also under communism there wasn't better outcomes for wildlife in Europe - source: i am from an ex soviet block country. Also as someone who works for an institution now GOD DAMN ITS SLOW. My old lecturer told me to go rouge. You have his blessing everyone. Like the other day I forked out money from my own pocket to buy a god damn water filter at work for some orchids that have been getting crap water for SIX YEARS. But that kind of 'if no ones doing it I WILL' attitude I learnt from running my own garden business. At this point i'm writing 'how many academics does it take to screw in a light bulb' jokes. The answer is zero. But you need at least 4 - to write reports, study the cost benefit ratios and potential risk analysis. Then you need people like me who are just like JUST DO IT AND SEE. Anything on a small scale is worth testing IN SITU. You get way more data from one test than a million pages of theory in my humble experience. Of course being a complete tool doesn't help and a grounding in theory is well worth having.
Something that's really worrying me is how so many youth are being brought up with "leave no trace" principles. I know on the surface, these are a great idea, and can be a good introduction to outside space use, when you are leaving the city going into a natural space to do an activity and leaving it when you're done. However, it is also isolating people from nature, making them feel separate and alien in what is actually their natural habitat. Who can love a space that they are constantly being told is not actually for them to love? Who can learn to live with other organisms that they are constantly being told are not a part of their community but a display to viewed from the other side of a metaphorical glass pane?
Ohhh I didn't know that boars are back in the UK, that's really exciting! I think experts saying "it's screwing up the data" is such a weak argument if all they do is observe without taking action. Sometimes lessons just need to be learned the hard way, by throwing things into the wild and seeing what sticks. I would love to go on a beaverhunt some day, I'll need to find out where they are locally. And sign me up if there is a lynx to be spotted, they've always fascinated me!
Honestly, they should have introduced wolves first. Wild boars tear everything apart and breed like crazy. I think this will hurt conservationist ideas as it will lead to people hating animals.
But wolves are also very likely to aggrevate farmers by killing lifestock. I would love to have wolves roaming around but I'm not sure if we currently have territories big enough for that. I do hope we get there some day though. And that's probably why lynx are being considered as the most serious option as they're quite shy
I know of four reintroduced animals on the Island of Newfoundland that "they" don't know how they got here. Only one do I think could have gotten here on it's own. I, personally, know the person that reintroduced one of the animals.
@@eyetukafatshet6246 Red Backed Vole Coyote American Toad Wolf I'm surprised it took the wolf so long to find it's way back. The rest I think needed human help. Moose was a deliberate introduction by the government.
Most guerilla introductions and reintroductions are carried out by landowners. Working in land management in Scotland I know landowners who've done this, I know nobody outside the landowning community who has. It's a lot easier for landowners to acquire species and keep/breed them and then release them and have the satisfaction of seeing them on their land than it is for a non landowner to trap individuals in one area and transport them to another. Landowners have been doing it for hundreds of years in Britain.
I would do guerilla rewilding if I can figure out what to do, how and how to get away with it! But I live in Canada... We're screwing up the environment and ecosystems here too just we're a lot less further along than most places. A lot of land for few people. There's still a lot of nature here. Any suggestions of something I could plant or introduce in Manitoba, Canada?
I think the dwindling bobwhite quail population in the US could be a good thing to talk about and could offer unique perspectives maybe not thought about. The bobwhite quail was once a very prolific game bird that lived in many states. Here in my state, Indiana, they are nearly impossible to hunt wild due to how low the population got. Many bird lovers have tried just simply hatching them out and releasing them hoping for the best. Some people even going great lengths to teach the bobwhite to fear predators/what to eat in the wild/how to act in the wild/etc. These hatches and release though have extremely low survival rates. Nearly no survival rate. This is most likely due to the root cause of why we don't see many of these birds any more. Big Ag farming and housing additions are being implemented across the state at an alarming rate. This takes the birds habitats and makes it more of a favorable habitat for predators. Feral cats, red tailed hawks, anything that would want to eat a slow moving (as far as birds go) heavy game bird make it very hard for a quail to survive in habitat without the necessary cover. And on top of that, they need various type of cover. Adults can live in thick cover, but when they nest and hatch out the littles, they need a cover that has almost an understory effect that the littles can walk under. I am not anti rewild by any means but morally we should treat the cause of why a species isn't around before trying to repopulate the area with them.
‘’Some are even saying we are in a 6th mass extinction event’’ ‘’some’’ blimey it’s basically common knowledge among any activists and even many in the general public. Also I would say we have now left ‘’the midst’’ and entered the beginning of the latter stage of the 6th mass extinction ✊🏽🌎✊🏽🌻
Removing humans from an environment and then keeping them out is arguably one of the best things we can do to restore biodiversity. Also, rewild the cities, rewild ourselves. And feed the pigeons, whose fate it so wrapped up in our own, and who like us, can never fully return to the wild. Against His-story, Against Leviathan..
We dont need to do anything. We just have too stop doing things. The problem is tho, an island with 70million people on it and more and more coming every day is that even to be sustainable the land simply cant produce what people need to survive foodwise.
Here in the US. It's all farmlands and agriculture. Colonization destroyed a lot in the western hemisphere, and the removal of native americans from their lands.
Important point to bring to the discussion of "rewilding" in the US. Traditional ecological knowledge will help save us all if anyone is willing to listen. 👍
Yeah, my first step was just to get dead wood and brush piles back on my property... then a tornado came through and thrashed the whole area, so I got my materials easily lol
This approach almlst certainly does more harm than good. For one - most people will have no idea what they are doing - this is how we got 'environmental tree planting' of confiers on valuable peatland areas. Secondly, think of the legislation this xould introduce - if you poorly introduce beavers to a farming area, you may have a lot of farmers suddenly rallied AGAINST ANY legal & careful reintroduction. We need more support for rewulding, not to dig our own graves by saying it should he done willy nilly.
The last time the Earth had the current 427ppm of atmospheric CO2 the Seas were approx 80 feet higher so we are only at the beginning of what 427ppm will do, also there is a 20 year time lag between increased atmospheric CO2 and it’s impacts on the climate. So the apocalyptic climate events we are now witnessing are from atmospheric CO2 levels of approx 20 years ago. All this means that we don’t have 10-20 years for enough people to go Vegan/Plant Based to free up enough land for reforestation and for the forests to mature enough to sequester the excess atmospheric CO2. In my estimation we have 5 years to reduce atmospheric CO2 down to a climate stable level of min 300ppm just to avert total extinction but we will still witness the extinction of most life!. The only way we can (in theory at least) avert the worst case scenario of total extinction is by 2 rapid transitions, 1) move to a plant based food system 2) a rapid transition to Decentralised Carbon Neg (Non Fossilised) Algae Based Economies. Algae is the only organism that has the ability to draw down vast quantities of atmospheric CO2 by using it to clean our waste water, landfill runoff and industrial gasses. Algae can be made into numerous Eco friendly Carbon Neg, Compostable products. ruclips.net/video/ExOXF1x3N1g/видео.htmlsi=ZezinaSdLBl27ebL
I think this subject is way too sensitive for any one individual to govern. We need lots of machines to calculate the outcomes. But I totally get the sense of power and self fulfillment that this idea would give a person. Are you really doing it for the planet or for yourself?
Environmentalism and Anarchism used to be good pals but then the Green Scare happened. Thats a global trend of repression and recooperation of the green movement. In the US post 9/11, Green groups were stigmatized and marginalized and activists were increasingly targeted by law enforcement. Meanwhile, "greenwashing" started becoming commonplace where companies would start slapping a superficial "eco-friendly" lable on things.
Yeah! He collaborated with me on my video 'Why Education for Nature Lovers Sucks'. He really helped my channel go from like a few hundred views to regularly 10k+ views!! :)
![Gunna - HIM ALL ALONG [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/w7Wf0h1Q8a4/mqdefault.jpg)
Alana: The UK is running out of native wildlife.
British Museum: We'll just go get some from other places.
Lol
😂😂😂
So business as usual then
☠️🤣
Native species mysteriously reappearing here and there made me think that "the revolution won't be televised"...
Indeed, but there’ll still be those sitting around waiting to watch it.
@@davidmgilbreathplease, it's been being televised since before I was born
Maybe, but even so, there are those still sitting around waiting to watch it.
All about perception. 🙂
this quote is more about how the revolution starts in your mind not so much how media works :)
@@MarbleIsOnline indeed, hence my initial comment.
I definitely say, if you're just going to throw seed wherever- you absolutely NEED to double & triple check that the plant is actually supposed to be in your home region. Even in the US, which is a huge place with wildly different ecosystems, there is a tendency to legally label any plant that grows within the continental US a Native species everywhere in the US, so long as it won't cause some imminent environmental disaster & there are several actual native species that are considered high risk because they can cause local economic harm by spreading fatal or permanently crippling diseases to food crops or trees we tend to use for lumber. There are regional subspecies- we have plants that are technically the exact same species as ones in Europe or Asia, but that billionth of a percent in genetic difference causes one to turn into an environmental disaster while the other is perfectly fine in the wild. People have created domesticated variants of wild plants to sell for home gardens, not the woods. Some companies that offer native plants don't always exclusively offer natives. You can go on & on with this stuff. Also, trying to always do your searches with the scientific names, as some common names are shared by several different species.
1000% we have a lot of problems with invasive species in the UK too
You see so many seed packets labeled "Wildflower Seed Mixes" etc., taking advantage of the new wildlife gardening trend in the UK that aren't even naturalised let alone native species. I think most people fairly assume "wild" = "native" including local amateur conservation groups. I'd really love to see small scale native plant nurseries being established all over the place, sourcing seeds, cuttings etc. from their local area.
Yes local sourcing is a must in native gardening, botanical gene pools can vary even over short distances. More Nurseries are needed in the absence of that that one has to learn propagation themselves. I am fortunate as my local council runs a volunteer local native nursery. A good point to bother local authorities on if they don't have one. I do realize that the latter can be difficult. 🌱😎
Native vs endemic.
Floristic surveys of local nature preserved are a great place to start if you can access them. It’s how I’m planning a native plant garden, by only using plants found there. Also consider just exploring around where you live - small remnants of the historical ecosystem can hang on in roadsides and wooded areas squished between different land uses.
Spread native seeds around your towns and unloved spaces. Save tree seedlings/saplings in pavements by replanting them in green spaces with a post and tie to look officially been planted there by the council. Little things make a big difference hey
I'll second the "make it look official". It's impressive how much you can get away with if you make it look like it's already been signed off on and how willing people are to let things slide that they'd otherwise be NIMBY about if it looks like it belongs.
Great vid. I am a retired geoscientist and disaster risk reduction consultant and used to own a permaculture farm in the middle of a National forest in the USA. I come down on the side of educated guerrilla rewilding. By educated, I mean that if you are going to do GR, you need to take the time to really educate yourself with regards to the consequences of introducing and not introducing species so that you can make the best decision possible and feel good about doing it. Education need not be and should not be restricted to formal academic education, it can and should come from a combination of hands on, a critical review of available data and accumulated knowledge, small scale experimentation, and a healthy degree of suspicion and skepticism of the motives and methods of the establishment. You can't learn everything before you start. The goal is to learn enough to feel like you did the right thing and the best that you could. understand that you will make mistakes and you will have failures but, if you have done your homework, on the balance you will have more successes than failures and you will avoid making huge catastrophic mistakes. Also, be prepared to face the consequences for any of your illegal actions. Always ask yourself this question, "Am I more willing to face the consequences of action or am I more willing to face the consequences of inaction." Think it over carefully then let your answer be your guide.
Hi there! About the beaver matter, here in Spain the species was brought to extinction by hunters around 250 years ago, but a group of them mysteriously appeared at a tributary of the Ebro river (the biggest of the country) during the early 2000's. It was then discovered that it was an illegal reintroduction, but despite the efforts of authorities to eliminate them all, they kept growing in population and conquering most of the basin in the last 2 decades. Not only that, but they've already done the jump to other 2 major basins crossing lower mountain ranges: the Tajo and Duero basins, but also the Guadalquivir river in southern Spain last year through another obvious guerilla release, as that group is hundreds of kilometres away from the nearest population to the north. As beavers are within the catalogue of European native protected species, the EU Parliament said that Spain has to carry on with it and they have to let the animals live and also protect them even thought they weren't legally reintroduced in the wilde. Just another example of how much more effective regular people was on taking action by themselves after getting tired of waiting for the government to do what they were supposed to due to the pressure of hunting and farming lobbies. Now is forbidden to kill them as they're officially considered an endangered species and they're a very common sight in cities like Zaragoza or Pamplona thanks to that illegal, but not so unethical release that took place in 2003
PD: loved the video
I think the biggest RUclipsr doing this stuff is Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't.
Thanks for the rec!
in to also give a mad shout to Joey @CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt who is all about killing your lawn and planting locally endemic plants
Joey has a video on this very topic, strong language warning. 😊
That's true but he's likely a transphobe though. He made a fucked up anti-trans joke once on one of his videos which made me not like him anymore.
@@Isaac-ho8gh link to the video? I'm skeptical of the claim that Joey is a transphobe but I want to take your claim at face value and peep the offending video
I started “guerrilla plantings” over 55 years ago. I ALWAYS have plants in my greenhouse and hardening area for planting out. I ALWAYS carry seeds and nuts for “wild planting” when I walk and ramble. My inspiration was the shepherd who solo regrew the forests in France that were clear felled to supply timber for WW1. It is rather easy to do. I can now sit under a walnut tree I planted, eat it’s nuts and collect more to plant elsewhere, ditto Chestnuts, ditto Hazel nuts. Ditto various species of trees that are useful for so many purposes. Plants make habitat, create the habitat and the animals follow.
First of all: love your content, it is so close to my perspective but well articulated. Gotta get on writing in a similar spirit. As for the topic and question in the end: I am all for guerilla reintroduction IF people who do it know what they are doing. More often than not in history we had guerilla INTRODUCTION of invasive species and you have plenty of examples in the UK alone. People who "love animals" often do not care about the wider ecological impact of their favourite exotic species being let loose. So embracing guerilla reintroduction could easily lead to more non-natives being brought, bred, and released. If not for that - I am all for it, under careful monitoring of NGOs who know what the hell they are doing.
Thank you! I think I agree with your conclusion for the most part. For sure we have a lot of invasive species in this country, like the American mink.
I don't honestly think anyone is gonna raise a wild animal, outside of small rodents or amphibians, for guerilla rewilding without at least knowing that they should be using an appropriate species for their chosen area. Even if it's mildly incorrect it will at least bolster the gene pool of said correct species, like in dog breeding.
@@solarpunkalana There's a certain irony in animal rights activists here in the US performed an action of setting free captive minks being bred for fur. The rub is they were European monks wo now we have invasive European minks running around in some places. It's one of those examples of good intentions leading to bad outcomes.
@@Lunarl4ndr people did it all the time, that's why you have like tropical antelopes in Texas, wallabies in a number of places, not to mention house cats running everywhere. People don't care.
@@gedelgo3242 not if this leap will bring more bad than good
Love this!!! this video actually showed up after I had seeded some native plants near a housing development. It all used to be forest, they tore it all down and are in the process of building expensive townhomes. They left a tiny area of woodland along the creek that is overrun with invasive species such as honeysuckle and stiltgrass. Its not easy work removing and planting! But Im seeing progress, many of the plants are establishing. It may never be as vast as it was and may take years to mature, but some forest is better than none.
That sounds amazing!
13:42 I forgot that pine martins were a stoat type and not a bird type martin and was so confused for a moment lol
Mononoke Hime and solarpunk, great vibes. :D
yeahhh studio ghibli vibes are the best vibes
You're everywhere, Dave.
You're doing great! Thank you for helping to generate a vision for a better future! -Sonoran Desert guerrilla gardener/permaculturist
Thank you! 💚 best of luck with your permaculture project/s
Greetings from across the pond,
What has fascinated me, is how large private land owners, such as farmers, ranchers, homesteaders, etc. have been champions in conservation of native plants, animals, and habitat.
Although in many instances these contributors have only recently joined the fray, there are those who’ve been doing so for seventy years or more.
All that to say, working with private land owners/managers, presents a way forward that’s not reliant on big gov or other organizations.
I agree people tend to focus only on bad practice farming and are not aware just how much positive change is happening within the industry.
This type of content is so so so much better than the sadly more popular by numbers “nothing can be done if we don’t overthrow everything” shock channels. No flashy infographics or stock footage, just data on what is working and what isn’t.
I think already do some of these things without even realizing that there was a term to describe it, mostly by seedbombing the sides of local highways in my state with native wildflower seeds.
Really good video.
I've been doing this for very many years. (I'm 77). Moving native plants from places where they have no chance of surviving to local fields, hedgerows, roadside verges, etc. In an attempt to increase local biodiversity. It's made little difference. Places Where I've moved them to are now Industrial and residential estates with mown grass and ornamental shrubs. Haven't stopped though, these estates now contain wild flowers and young native trees and shrubs. The fight goes on.
17:10 such an important point, and seriously encompasses my frustration with researching more about conservation and being a nature lover. I am someone who works 9-5, rents an apartment and doesn't have a nature oriented career or degree, and so much of what you read about this ecological crisis always leaves you with a feeling of powerlessness, because you don't have the influence to affect public policy, and you didn't have the circumstances to run the education gauntlet to land a conservation job, so oh well, the environment is crumbling around you, but you are not allowed to touch ANYTHING. Like I get introducing invasive species, but if I'm planting something I've been researching for months is native to my area, why do I need a permit to chip in?
Yeah. All these regulations really restrict what the average person can do, it sucks! That's why prefiguration is so important.
And then the people who did all that education to be able to do conservation work cant get jobs, have to do tonnes of unpaid volunteering, all to get tied up in redtape and write paper after paper saying we should rewild with no opportunities to act on it through official means.
You don't need a permit if they don't know!
Anarchism and rewilding belong togeter, but we must start rewilding ourselves too.
Urbanism is domestication of humanity. We are animals in captivity.
We can not build an anarchist society while domesticated.
100% But that’ll mean destroying the captivity of which we reside.
The pine martens make me so happy. I work for someone who was heavyily involved on bringing back the beaver to Kent.
Nice video! I know beavers in western Washington have been translocated on the down-low. One of the islands in the Puget sound has a pair that are thriving. It is illegal to move beavers because they are classified as a pest species, but they are actually awesome to have around and that community loves them. For species that just need help across the landscape to good habitats, this type of thing is pretty benign and even good. For species with much small populations, they have to be carefully managed and monitored for success (thinking of kakapo, takahe, tieke, and certain skinks and geckos).
I more-than understand the problems with unsanctioned introductions though, which ties in with the acclimatization societies of the 19 and 20th centuries, and the role that wildlife trafficking and captive breeding play in population reductions and genetic weirdness. There's also the suitable habitat problem, in which the best gorrilla conservation actions might be to plant high quality native plants with high habitat value.
Imagine call beavers 🦫 a Pest ¡
@@DrSmooth2000 Developers have a big part to play in that I think. Developers build suburbs, channel streams, dry up wetlands and the wildlife have lot their habitat. The beavers were already there and continue to do what they do, which ends up clogging up the drains and ditches, leading to flooding. The blame is placed on the beaver for being a nuisance, and they are removed in one way or another.
There are entire youtube channels dedicated to blowing up beaver dams :(
@@thimblebarry ☹ doesn't help GW but glad they are settling Arctic and away from bad ppl
Everything should be more anarchist! ✊
anarchy enables authoritarianism.
@@davidgreenwood6029 LOLOLOLOLLOLOLOL!
@@Scriven42 Where is the joke? Anarchy is the prerequisite for authoritarnism to take hold, it always is. If society is too stable, the authoritarians create a bit of anarchy so they can scare people into acquiescing to the increased control of their lives that is supposedly required to restore order. Anarchy is always taken advantage of by those who can wield power, and your fantasy only works if all of human nature somehow becomes inherently good and enlightened.
Thanks for the video! The best thing a person who is seriously interested in the topic can do is educate yourself first. ✌️
Only real example of wildlife activism I've heard of locally was people breaking into mink farms and releasing the minks in the 90's. They aren't native here.
That's animal rights activism not eco-activism, the 2 groups can be very much at odds
@@ConstantChaos1 The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
@damionkeeling3103 yup, and regrettably often groups are paid by corperations or private people who want to make them look bad, and push them to be more extreme, so it can also be paved with the enemy's coin
i mean i technically agree with wildlife rewilding being more difficult but endangered plants? my issue there is really that not enough information is out there for specific areas. I personally wouldnt know where to look which endangered plants are supposed to be in my area and where i could get seeds from to rewild them
You raise a good point. A federated approach to guerrilla gardening best practices could help address that. I'm picturing a community that shares common rewilding goals and shares information, with an emphasis on the specifics of each represented area.
I use iNat to find plants, it also tells you which species are native, invasive, naturalised etc. (to the country as a whole I think). There's also organisations that have recordings from further back, in the UK there's BSBI which displays the recordings on a map, showing which years species have been present in certain areas.
Accidentally introduced species have wreaked absolute havoc on the ecosystem where I grew up. If anyone engages in guerrilla rewilding they should be extremely careful.
Key word: accidentally. This is intentional. They are being careful. Also theyre reintroducing endemic species, not invasive ones.
Providing the species is native and should be present in the habitat.
Rewildng is easy…. Let the land rest, nature will restore balance.
@megapixies You may wait for beavers to cross a sea, the island won't. Also, as long humans have the slightest influence on anything invasives will spread, unless being actively pushed against.
My boy Teddy K was right. that’s all i’m saying 🌲💥
Rewilding needs to be less bureaucratic by not being bureaucratic at all, and by that I mean, completely devoid of the human element. Unless you're doing something like reintroducing ecosystem architects or apex predators, the best way to rewild a space is to actually let it go wild. There needs to be more legislation, not less, but the legislation needs to be that it's prohibited to go into, live on, farm, log, etc. as much of your country's land as you possibly can and only permit a few surveyors to monitor and document the area or police it of other people or operations.
I live with the consequences of people releasing fish into every new amphibian pond. This dramatically increases the cost of amphibian conservation. You have to make every pond drainable. You can't do without these artificial ponds. That's the sad reality of the guerrilla approach in Switzerland. And that's not the only problem with this tactic.
@@MarengiOmnisystems The use of poison is strictly forbidden in Switzerland (it is forbidden in most European countries).
Well, it is not a poison, but point taken. I removed my comment so I wouldn't be spreading bad ideas around.
@@MarengiOmnisystems These are not bad ideas. They are just different regulations. Depending on the situation, the use of such means would cause less collateral damage than draining a pond. But you can't change that, no politician would stand up for it.
I would live to recommend Wildlife Aid Foundation and Mossy Earth. If you feel unable to take action yourself, maybe you can support those two organizations in their rewilding and wildlife protection efforts.
We could very well be Dinosaurs 2.0.
What people don't realize is that mass extinction (and the Dinosaurs extinction) was not a sudden event.
The Dinosaurs went extinct because the climate they evolved to live in, never returned post impact. It may have taken 1000 years.
there have been unofficial beaver releases in Spain at the Ebro river which spread then towards Portugal border and Italy. amazing work!
Officially, in the US northeast, specifically, Pennsylvania, mountain lions (also called pumas and cougars) are in the state. However there are enough sightings that I think they are around.
As for wolves, well, they interbred with coyotes and the coywolves are a fascinating story and can be found in Central Park, NYC. If the plants, hell yeah, monoculture lawns are of the devil.
This isn’t really related to the video but I just started watching it and noticed that your blouse is so pretty🤩
Great video, just discovered your channel about solarpunk. We're fellow solarpunk here on youtube trying to apply solarpunk, we are trying self-sufficiency in the wild. If you'd want to talk, we'd love too ❤
Thanks for this. Fascinating as always
Hi Alana. Regenerative agriculture is key. People taking these matters in to their own hands is radical.
Great video, very illuminating.
9:57 see I've always seen this as an example of the opposite. The whole point of the oostvaardersplassen was to prove that large herbivore populations are regulated through food availability, they expand steadily until carrying capacity reached but cannot over populate because one bad winter or summer heat wave will cull the population back to a sustainable number.
Our current system however sees the reintroduce populations in the area not as wild animals but as livestock, no one goes out to feed hay to the impala in the masai mara when there's a drought because they're wild animals, but in this case because people see horses and cows starving the want to protect them which defeats the whole point of letting the environmental carrying capacity dictate the popuation, same with the orders to clean up the corpses of the starved animals, no one goes around cleaning up the dead animals from the masai mara but in the oostvaardersplassen it's seen as neglect and a health hazard, removing an important part of any healthy natural environment (we do the same with trees in the UK dead trees are felled for public safety or because they're ugly removing an important habitat), an environment with no carrion is not a natural one.
To be glib, in western europe we no longer recognise a natural environment behaving naturally, since we have none left.
All that asside it's a devilishly difficult line to walk species reintroduction (or introduction) many an environmental disaster has been done in good faith and with the best intentions, mink releases comes to mind but it's also accurate that neoliberal capitalists are terrible for the environment with their religious dogma of the free market and the beurocrats that demand never ending reviews and studies and follow ups on even the most basic of environmental restoration.
Thank you for this lovely video ❤ let’s gooooo everyone!!!
Thank you for watching!
@@solarpunkalana my pleasure 💕 don’t stop creating!
As a quite successfull guerilla gardener I'm boosting since many years plant diversity in German monoculture forests and starting unofficial reforestation projects in Spain. Due to my experiences I would suggest, that guerilla rewilders should have a solid ecological education. Since I studied ecology and work since 20 years as self-employed ecosystem designer I know exactly, what I'm doing and how to do it professionally. So none of my guerilla gardening projects failed or caused damage so far. But I know quite a lot of failing guerilla gardening projects due to their realizacion by amateurs who introduced the wrong plant species and seriously harmed already damaged ecosystems. So better know what you are doing!
First of all, kudos for the sick thumbnail. I don't wanna pretend to explain to you anything, because it's clear that you know much and more about the subject, but I do have a couple of objections to your points. We can both agree that action is often painfully slow. That owes both to how difficult it can be to conduct a properly researched reintroduction, how painful (albeit necessary) it can be to engage with local communities (which often feel ignored by conservationists), but also how ineffective and uninterested government bureaucracy is.
That being said, as a young rebellious person concerned with conservation myself, I think it can be very risky to encourage well-intentioned but scientifically untrained people to act on their own to release wild animals. A single wrong release could have enormous negative consequences, overshadowing the rest, even if most of them were positive or innocuous. Moreover, it would only exacerbate the feeling of neglect that many communities feel towards us conservationists. And even if it feels frustrating to be slowed down by those community debates, they are paramount to decrease the resistance against reintroduced species and keep public opinion on our side.
Lastly, I know that it's frustrating to see action slowed down when so much biodiversity is being lost. But we can't lie to ourselves: almost all of that biodiversity loss is happening in the oceans and developing countries, where biodiversity is extremely high and population growth and western demand for products are driving deforestation and pollution. As you said, most of biodiversity in the UK and Europe in general is incredibly depleted and has been so for centuries. That doesn't mean losses aren't still happening or that nothing should be done, but rewilding isn't (for the most part) the most effective strategy to reduce biodiversity loss. Reintroducing lost species, especially keystone species, is important to recover some of that lost biodiversity, but the truth is that most of these species have been gone for so long that there's not as big of an urgency to see them return other than the desire to see our ecosystems wilder. The lynx will be better reintroduced today rather than tomorrow, because that would accelerate the recovery of British forest ecosystems, but most of the land that could be overflowed by deer has already been. If we aren't careful, anarchist rewilding could be counterproductive and cause even more reticence from the public and government. I'd say, if you are going to do it, make sure you deeply understand its risks and impacts, and ideally limit yourself to species that have gone locally extinct. Even then, we must remove the factors that caused their extinction in the first place before reintroduction.
I'm here from Dave's post. I keep thinking about a paper I read about Pleistocene Rewilding (and how bad an idea it is), but overall let's go with restoring nature as it exists/existed now.
How far back of 'existed' is the question
That’s definitely also a contested point. Usually in the UK I think it’s if a species was here since the last ice age then we could potentially bring it back. If it was lost before the last ice age, potentially not native anymore
@@solarpunkalanaI think the other important consideration is if the missing Pleistocene species filled an important niche that is no longer occupied. The replacement might not be an exact match of the old species, but its presence could do a lot to benefit the larger ecosystem.
Gardeners have an opportunity to help this cause by choosing to grow native plants & trees. I’m doing this in Maine.
great vid, drooping truth bombs and beaver bombs
🦫🦫🦫💣💣💣
Early this year I build a small underground fox den tucked away in my local woods, didn't ask for permission, just got on with it. Not that foxes are endangered 😂 but I felt compelled to build them a refuge from the elements. I intend to build a mini pond up there aswell at some point
Lovely video as always, keep it up please 👍🏻
@@georgeasgautr aww that sounds so cool! Have any foxes used it?
@@solarpunkalana thanks, to be honest Ive kept away so as not to disturb any potential residents but there was a fox watching me install it so I believe so 😁🦊 guerrilla rewilding ftw ✊🏻
Wow! Any tutorials on this?
@@Emiliapocalypse it was inspired by Mike Oehlers book 'The $50 and up Underground House', basically a wooden box wrapped in polyethylene and sunk into the earth, I also used an old chimney pot as an entrance tunnel 😁
Gotta balance what is careful and what is necessary! Good video!
Thanks!
We can change the way we live.
Great video of a topic with a lot of nuances, i don't really know about guerrilla rewulding project in italy where i am from but there has been a similar resurrence of small poket of beaver population in tho North-west, even tough from what i've read is probably due to a spontaneous repopulation originating from france border population, at least from the genetic clues. Something that i personallt really struggle is that is true that in a dire situation the measure needed should be way more radical but political decison and shift could ruin years of hard work from conservationist and rewilders guerilla or not. We are seeing some of this shift for example with the alpine population of the brown bera that are now on the risk of being hunted for "population control" and there are rumors about the shift of conservation policies the italian wolf that just now reclaimed most of it's historical unrange because unfortunately in this country we are currently ran by damn fascist that are not really ecologicaly educated (they are really not educated in nothing too be fair) and they have instrumentalized farmers and rural population for their belief and this is deeply dangerous for any conservation efforts.
Where abouts in Italy are you from? That sucks about the brown bear hunting, I also saw similar things about wolf and bear population control in Scandinavia.
@@solarpunkalana
I am originally from the south of Italy, but i am planning to move to the north as many young people are forced to for work related issues, when it comes to my birthplace well there's the most polluted italian river in about ten kilometer away from me (my zoologist professor even did eels sampling in that river), and in the same region there are highly damaged and polluted ecosistem , also urban agri-system that are renown for having buried toxic waste that was put there by the mob. At the same time we have high rates of biodiverity in Key specific area and specifically where i was born there are small pocket of mediterranean biomes and even a neo artic tropical forest that survived in this small pocket. I would say we are one of the most biodiverse dense country in Europe and we are one that Is the be most vulnerable to climate change (togehter with most southern eu) and Indeed out governament recently approved an act that would jail climate protesters up to two years. I still have hope but the fight Is becoming more and more difficult...
Thank you. Good luck and be carerful.
Love your videos!!!!!!
Thank you! ☺️
Nice video Alana!
@@ChielOnRUclips thanks!
@@solarpunkalana I've shared it on Mastodon with all of my... 33 followers. It's quite a small place and takes some getting used to, but think you would like it on there.
maybe I'll try it one day! atm I have no energy for other social channels lol
10/10 thumbnail.
'Tis almost as if we were only understanding the workings of our environment, the _logos_ of our _Oikos_ almost. As if lifeforms had overcome things we still haven't logged or noticed.
very well spoken, when you running for pm?
With a title like that I was worried it was going in the "let's introduce rhinos into Australia" type beat.
showing up for same-name solidarity
yeah another Alana, a rare event
I think that my fellow anarchists have a higher opinion of some of their methods than they should. While the capitalist system we live under is often actively hostile to conservationist ideas and rewilding, IE with wolves in the USA, we should be very wary of how we reintroduce species for some of the reasons outlined in this video. Critical support.
The issue with getting Lynx back into the UK reminds me of the recent fell through of getting the boreal lynx back into Spain (both iberian and boreal lynx used to live there)
It would be interesting to explore the relationship between rewilding/guerrilla gardening/etc in communities in the core of the empire versus those directly oppressed under white supremacist capitalist colonialist ableist patriarchy. Thanks for talking about this in regard to the UK! Also good to know that statistic about indigenous folks maintaining 80% of the world's biodiversity is false, but I still think we should take it with a grain of salt!
Oh yes I'm really into rewilding.... A lot of anarchist are there.. or at least they were back in the 2000s and 90s
Just makes me think of all the fur farms that were broken into leading to ecological disaster. That said, LOVE that pine Martins are back in the new forest and beavers and wild boar are not waiting for government approval. I think lynx could also be released first questions later, but let’s see haha.
Where can i find a group of people to purchase land for rewilding with?
Check out Mossy Earth
Check out Mossy Earth
Great content and thanks for your work.
But isn't talking about rewilding without takling the issue of WHY the species are gone in the first place is like putting the cart before the horse?
I know nobody wants to talk about the number one issue of habitat loss.. Because we know nobody wants to change their habits but come-on, we all know why species are driven to extinction, in the UK or otherwise..
Until somebody actually have the courage to bring the issue, the rest is just make beliefs and feels good chit chat imo
This was absolutely fantastic
I see no reason why rewinding needs to be done under stodgy “official” auspices. However, I do see some dangers in how the rewinding approaches were presented here. One is that it seems these acts are being done without acquiring the buy-in of local farmers and others who will have the opportunity to undo the good that was done. Why not include them as stake holders? The other is that I so no reason to believe the people doing these acts are knowledgeable enough to do them correctly. Lots of talk of beavers, but no talk about how they mate for life and need to be moved as mating pairs. You don’t need to be a wildlife biologist to know that or do it correctly, but it helps.
ahh, both - more government AND more anarchy. Also under communism there wasn't better outcomes for wildlife in Europe - source: i am from an ex soviet block country. Also as someone who works for an institution now GOD DAMN ITS SLOW. My old lecturer told me to go rouge. You have his blessing everyone. Like the other day I forked out money from my own pocket to buy a god damn water filter at work for some orchids that have been getting crap water for SIX YEARS. But that kind of 'if no ones doing it I WILL' attitude I learnt from running my own garden business.
At this point i'm writing 'how many academics does it take to screw in a light bulb' jokes. The answer is zero. But you need at least 4 - to write reports, study the cost benefit ratios and potential risk analysis. Then you need people like me who are just like JUST DO IT AND SEE. Anything on a small scale is worth testing IN SITU. You get way more data from one test than a million pages of theory in my humble experience. Of course being a complete tool doesn't help and a grounding in theory is well worth having.
We're toast
I like U tho
Agreed
Something that's really worrying me is how so many youth are being brought up with "leave no trace" principles. I know on the surface, these are a great idea, and can be a good introduction to outside space use, when you are leaving the city going into a natural space to do an activity and leaving it when you're done. However, it is also isolating people from nature, making them feel separate and alien in what is actually their natural habitat. Who can love a space that they are constantly being told is not actually for them to love? Who can learn to live with other organisms that they are constantly being told are not a part of their community but a display to viewed from the other side of a metaphorical glass pane?
Hippity hoppity, spread native seeds on others property
Always be extremely cautious about what seeds you are spreading. It’s so easy to unintentionally spread invasive species
Remember, actions of an anarchist started WWI, so if you are going down the anarchist route you need to be prepared to face the consequences 😮
Ohhh I didn't know that boars are back in the UK, that's really exciting! I think experts saying "it's screwing up the data" is such a weak argument if all they do is observe without taking action. Sometimes lessons just need to be learned the hard way, by throwing things into the wild and seeing what sticks. I would love to go on a beaverhunt some day, I'll need to find out where they are locally. And sign me up if there is a lynx to be spotted, they've always fascinated me!
Honestly, they should have introduced wolves first. Wild boars tear everything apart and breed like crazy. I think this will hurt conservationist ideas as it will lead to people hating animals.
But wolves are also very likely to aggrevate farmers by killing lifestock. I would love to have wolves roaming around but I'm not sure if we currently have territories big enough for that. I do hope we get there some day though. And that's probably why lynx are being considered as the most serious option as they're quite shy
it is indeed odd that the red varnish woodconk (Ganoderma pfeifferii) is having quite a resurgence here😉
we gotta save the animals no matter what it takes!!! the government doesn't have to know
I know of four reintroduced animals on the Island of Newfoundland that "they" don't know how they got here. Only one do I think could have gotten here on it's own.
I, personally, know the person that reintroduced one of the animals.
Newfie here! What species are they??? This is so fascinating!!!
@@eyetukafatshet6246
Red Backed Vole
Coyote
American Toad
Wolf
I'm surprised it took the wolf so long to find it's way back. The rest I think needed human help.
Moose was a deliberate introduction by the government.
Most guerilla introductions and reintroductions are carried out by landowners. Working in land management in Scotland I know landowners who've done this, I know nobody outside the landowning community who has. It's a lot easier for landowners to acquire species and keep/breed them and then release them and have the satisfaction of seeing them on their land than it is for a non landowner to trap individuals in one area and transport them to another. Landowners have been doing it for hundreds of years in Britain.
I would do guerilla rewilding if I can figure out what to do, how and how to get away with it! But I live in Canada... We're screwing up the environment and ecosystems here too just we're a lot less further along than most places. A lot of land for few people. There's still a lot of nature here. Any suggestions of something I could plant or introduce in Manitoba, Canada?
I look for important, local insect plants in the areas where i try to rewild. tryna build little steppingstones for insect
Thankyou for sharing this, I've felt nothing is being done, due to all the men who sit around in suits holding all the money and do nothing useful
What do we think about the European Bison reintroduced in Kent?!
I think the dwindling bobwhite quail population in the US could be a good thing to talk about and could offer unique perspectives maybe not thought about.
The bobwhite quail was once a very prolific game bird that lived in many states. Here in my state, Indiana, they are nearly impossible to hunt wild due to how low the population got. Many bird lovers have tried just simply hatching them out and releasing them hoping for the best. Some people even going great lengths to teach the bobwhite to fear predators/what to eat in the wild/how to act in the wild/etc. These hatches and release though have extremely low survival rates. Nearly no survival rate. This is most likely due to the root cause of why we don't see many of these birds any more. Big Ag farming and housing additions are being implemented across the state at an alarming rate. This takes the birds habitats and makes it more of a favorable habitat for predators. Feral cats, red tailed hawks, anything that would want to eat a slow moving (as far as birds go) heavy game bird make it very hard for a quail to survive in habitat without the necessary cover. And on top of that, they need various type of cover. Adults can live in thick cover, but when they nest and hatch out the littles, they need a cover that has almost an understory effect that the littles can walk under.
I am not anti rewild by any means but morally we should treat the cause of why a species isn't around before trying to repopulate the area with them.
Just having fun picturing British people driving up to Wales and rollin' up on some pine martens like "Get in, losers we're going rewilding".
‘’Some are even saying we are in a 6th mass extinction event’’ ‘’some’’ blimey it’s basically common knowledge among any activists and even many in the general public. Also I would say we have now left ‘’the midst’’ and entered the beginning of the latter stage of the 6th mass extinction ✊🏽🌎✊🏽🌻
Removing humans from an environment and then keeping them out is arguably one of the best things we can do to restore biodiversity.
Also, rewild the cities, rewild ourselves.
And feed the pigeons, whose fate it so wrapped up in our own, and who like us, can never fully return to the wild.
Against His-story, Against Leviathan..
Kind of crazy that there's a man in a small island nation rearing wild animal species and the government is, maybe, incapable of locating him.
I like the anime in thumbnail Princess mononoke
We dont need to do anything. We just have too stop doing things. The problem is tho, an island with 70million people on it and more and more coming every day is that even to be sustainable the land simply cant produce what people need to survive foodwise.
Here in the US. It's all farmlands and agriculture. Colonization destroyed a lot in the western hemisphere, and the removal of native americans from their lands.
Important point to bring to the discussion of "rewilding" in the US. Traditional ecological knowledge will help save us all if anyone is willing to listen. 👍
Yeah, my first step was just to get dead wood and brush piles back on my property... then a tornado came through and thrashed the whole area, so I got my materials easily lol
This approach almlst certainly does more harm than good.
For one - most people will have no idea what they are doing - this is how we got 'environmental tree planting' of confiers on valuable peatland areas.
Secondly, think of the legislation this xould introduce - if you poorly introduce beavers to a farming area, you may have a lot of farmers suddenly rallied AGAINST ANY legal & careful reintroduction. We need more support for rewulding, not to dig our own graves by saying it should he done willy nilly.
Its always hard on an island.
Somehow i got unsubbed, so I'm only now seeing this, but this is a fantastic breakdown
Thank you! :)
The last time the Earth had the current 427ppm of atmospheric CO2 the Seas were approx 80 feet higher so we are only at the beginning of what 427ppm will do, also there is a 20 year time lag between increased atmospheric CO2 and it’s impacts on the climate. So the apocalyptic climate events we are now witnessing are from atmospheric CO2 levels of approx 20 years ago. All this means that we don’t have 10-20 years for enough people to go Vegan/Plant Based to free up enough land for reforestation and for the forests to mature enough to sequester the excess atmospheric CO2. In my estimation we have 5 years to reduce atmospheric CO2 down to a climate stable level of min 300ppm just to avert total extinction but we will still witness the extinction of most life!. The only way we can (in theory at least) avert the worst case scenario of total extinction is by 2 rapid transitions, 1) move to a plant based food system 2) a rapid transition to Decentralised Carbon Neg (Non Fossilised) Algae Based Economies. Algae is the only organism that has the ability to draw down vast quantities of atmospheric CO2 by using it to clean our waste water, landfill runoff and industrial gasses. Algae can be made into numerous Eco friendly Carbon Neg, Compostable products. ruclips.net/video/ExOXF1x3N1g/видео.htmlsi=ZezinaSdLBl27ebL
The Right to bear arms and rewilding shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. Hell, they should be means to an end
We just need to follow traffic laws and we'll make it through this
Dont fret. We will eventually be hit by a CME large enough to put us all in the the "natural areas" foraging for food.
New Amazonia, New Eden 🌎
I think this subject is way too sensitive for any one individual to govern. We need lots of machines to calculate the outcomes.
But I totally get the sense of power and self fulfillment that this idea would give a person. Are you really doing it for the planet or for yourself?
Do it. Definitely
Environmentalism and Anarchism used to be good pals but then the Green Scare happened. Thats a global trend of repression and recooperation of the green movement. In the US post 9/11, Green groups were stigmatized and marginalized and activists were increasingly targeted by law enforcement. Meanwhile, "greenwashing" started becoming commonplace where companies would start slapping a superficial "eco-friendly" lable on things.
Dave sent me
Have you ever collaborated with Andrewism?
Amazing video btw!
Yeah! He collaborated with me on my video 'Why Education for Nature Lovers Sucks'. He really helped my channel go from like a few hundred views to regularly 10k+ views!! :)