{"id":458922,"date":"2010-03-22T15:16:11","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T19:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dirt.asla.org\/?p=4116"},"modified":"2010-03-22T15:16:11","modified_gmt":"2010-03-22T19:16:11","slug":"rewilding-a-model-for-sustainable-conservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/458922","title":{"rendered":"Rewilding: A Model for Sustainable Conservation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nWhile climate change\u00a0gets\u00a0most\u00a0of the ink in environmental news sections, biodiversity is at a “point of no return” says Hilary Benn,\u00a0the UK environment secretary.\u00a0If\u00a0ecosystems fail, their ability to sequester carbon or provide flood control diminishes. These ecosystems\u00a0then\u00a0also fail to\u00a0provide the habitat\u00a0necessary to\u00a0preserve\u00a0diverse species that rely on complex interactions with one another to survive. One possible solution is “rewilding,” a\u00a0model\u00a0that can be implemented piecemeal across landscapes to promote the reconnection of isolated habitats, form\u00a0bridging corridors that help revive complex natural systems, and reintroduce predators. The approach is designed to restore biodiversity in places where it has been lost.<\/p>\n

According to Carolyn Fraser, a noted environmental writer who recently discussed rewilding in Yale University’s Environment 360,<\/em> the idea is also\u00a0known as “cores, corridors and carnivores,” and was originally developed by Michael Soule and Reed Noss, two leading conservation biologists.\u00a0Since conception, it has been picked up at the grassroots level across the world. The\u00a0Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y<\/a>) is\u00a0using these ideas to connect ecosystems in the Rocky\u00a0Mountains.\u00a0\u00a0The idea has spread as conservationists have “grown bolder in the size of their conservation programs.”<\/p>\n

Fraser says the model has\u00a0proven\u00a0adaptable because it can function outside of structured park systems. In Kenya, “eleven group ranches have since joined the Northern Rangelands Trust, with eight of those creating their own conservancies, setting aside a percentage of their grazing land for wildlife and planning eco-lodges. Those with lodges have already dedicated revenue for community improvements, such as schools and medical clinics. A million-and-a-half acres of northern Kenya have thus been set aside for wildlife management, and security for people and wildlife has improved.” The model has also been successfully tested in Nepal where a community forestry program is restoring corridors for Asian tigers, rhinoceri, and elephants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The model was successfully\u00a0applied in the\u00a0American Southwest\u00a0in part because incentives were used\u00a0to keep predators alive.\u00a0In many range areas,\u00a0ranchers kill predator species\u00a0that prey on their livestock. Instead,\u00a0in one program, the ranchers\u00a0were paid to demonstrate they had kept\u00a0them alive, preserving their role in a wider ecosystem.\u00a0”In the American Southwest, galvanized by surprise sightings of jaguars, conservationists have banded together to buy private land in northern Mexico, establishing a core wilderness area to keep that species \u2014 and a host of other unique wildlife \u2014 viable. They have also reached out to the reserve\u2019s neighbors: Mexican ranchers, like American ones, have always shot big predators on sight, but biologists with Defenders of Wildlife designed a clever contest, equipping ranches with remote camera traps. For every picture of a live jaguar, mountain lion, or other cat, participating ranchers who promised to leave the animals unmolested were paid a handsome sum \u2014 $500 for a jaguar, $100 for a mountain lion.”<\/p>\n

In South\u00a0Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, a\u00a0failure in the model occurred when the Peace Parks Foundation (PPF)\u00a0attempted to reconnect ecosystems, but failed to alert\u00a0local communities to the new elephants, lions and other potentially dangerous animals that had been released into the zone.\u00a0Community involvement in roll-out\u00a0is critical.<\/p>\n

Fraser contends that even if there are hiccups in implementation the model’s\u00a0core strength lies in the fact that it presents a model for “sustainable conservation” that will put people to work and also\u00a0mitigate climate change. As Fraser describes,\u00a0a few\u00a0key\u00a0components can be fit together\u00a0to form a\u00a0new, more practical sustainable conservation model:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Create\u00a0endowments that can support reconnecting ecosystems and rewilding private or community-owned land<\/strong>. As an example, she points to\u00a0Dan Janzen, an innovative conservationist:\u00a0”University of Pennsylvania biologist Daniel Janzen<\/a> has been instrumental in the phenomenal success of the Area de Conservaci\u00f3n Guanacaste (ACG)<\/a> in northwestern Costa Rica, which accomplished what was once thought impossible by restoring former cattle ranches to dry tropical forest and rainforest. ACG thrives on the interest from its $30 million endowment. Janzen is now seeking a half-billion dollars to endow the entire Costa Rican park system in perpetuity.”<\/p>\n

Use\u00a0rewilding programs to create new\u00a0green jobs<\/strong>. Local people can take “bioliteracy” courses so they develop conservation job skills and aid trained conservationists in their taxonomy work. Through taxonomy work, conservationists and local communities can catalog a region’s biodiversity and map out where ecosystems can best be connected. (The green jobs\u00a0component is particularly crucial\u00a0given huge\u00a0increases in population are expected in many developing countries with key natural resources.)<\/p>\n

Link climate change mitigation (through\u00a0bio-carbon sequestration) with native habitat conservation<\/strong>.\u00a0”The Baviaanskloof Mega-reserve Project in South Africa has created hundreds of jobs in ecotourism and restoration, training workers to remove invasives and plant native bush in a delicate Cape habitat overgrazed by goats. In Australia, ecological restoration of salt-damaged wheat farms conducted by the Gondwana Link project has provided carbon sequestration while regrowing native bush.”<\/p>\n

Fraser\u00a0concludes that\u00a0the\u00a0Puget Sound Partnership<\/a>\u00a0demonstrates the\u00a0great potential\u00a0of the model: “In the United States, the restoration of wetlands is generating jobs, from Chesapeake Bay in the east to Puget Sound in the west. The Puget Sound Partnership, a network of environmental groups and state agencies \u2014 tasked with cleaning up decades of pollutants \u2014 represents one of the most massive ecological restoration projects in the nation\u2019s history: The partnership recently identified a half-a-billion dollars worth of \u201cshovel-ready\u201d stimulus projects, from removing tons of fishing nets and other debris to restoring tidal salt marsh habitat, itself a powerfully-effective means of sequestering carbon.”<\/p>\n

Read the article<\/a> and check out Fraser’s book, “Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution<\/a>“<\/p>\n

Image credit: Africa Conservation Centre<\/em><\/p>\n

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While climate change\u00a0gets\u00a0most\u00a0of the ink in environmental news sections, biodiversity is at a “point of no return” says Hilary Benn,\u00a0the UK environment secretary.\u00a0If\u00a0ecosystems fail, their ability to sequester carbon or provide flood control diminishes. These ecosystems\u00a0then\u00a0also fail to\u00a0provide the habitat\u00a0necessary to\u00a0preserve\u00a0diverse species that rely on complex interactions with one another to survive. One possible solution […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-458922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}