Rewilding: Earth Day Update

I’m passionate about the natural world and the many ways a moment spent in nature improves our mood, restores our sense of well-being, and connects us with our inner selves. Walking beneath trees in a forest, sitting by running water gurgling over rocks or walking barefoot in wet sand along the ocean connects our bodies to Mother Earth with its negative ions and electrical charge. A moment in nature fills our hearts with peacefulness by reducing stress, charging our bodies with electrons, and balancing our hormone production while fighting free radicals.

But the natural world is under threat everywhere in every country on our planet. We humans, have wrought a lot of environmental destruction, but we can also be incredibly helpful to nature. Humans working in partnership with the environment to restore a healthy ecosystem is called Rewilding.

Since I first started writing about rewilding during the pandemic, the movement has grown stronger and spread around the world. Rewilding has already changed people’s lives for the better while helping endangered species survive.

Rewilding reverses extinction

Humans have been responsible for reintroducing nearly extinct large animals or protecting the habitats of sea mammals, all of whom play an essential role in reestablishing a healthy ecosystem. In a world so full of suffering and destruction from war, hope can be kindled in our hearts by learning about these successful rewilding campaigns all over the world.

I’m going to share some snapshots of rewilding projects that you can read more about by following the links provided. You’ll be touched by the devotion volunteers and scientists alike bring to these campaigns to save and restore a piece of nature. It is miraculous what can occur in a short period of time when nature is given a chance to rebalance and replenish!

Rewilding Europe

This group is one of the major leading voices in promoting rewilding projects. Rewilding Europe covers all of Western & Eastern Europe, including the UK. With a stunningly beautiful website featuring a dozen rewilding initiatives on their homepage, you can explore and learn about a wide variety of natural habitat restoration campaigns. 

I was touched deeply by a Ukrainian project to restore water buffalo to the Danube Delta. Despite intense suffering under the conditions of war, they brought veterans and groups of young traditional dancers to be healed of their traumas by nature. I highly recommend watching a short documentary film, The Danube Delta and The Healing Power of Nature (worth some patience for the non-English parts!). It ends with young female dancers dancing in their traditional clothing on behalf of protecting wilderness. So moving!

In case you’re looking for an interesting tour of Europe, there are rewilding trips that take you into the natural world to witness its renewal. This is a way to see Europe without being overwhelmed by crowds of tourists. Inspiring!

World Wildlife Fund

The World Wildlife Fund supports rewilding projects and has an informative page defining rewilding and educating people about its purpose and some of the problems it faces. It is UK based, where many rewilding projects flourish. Here is a project to bring back seagrass in Scotland:

• Restoration Forth: This group is restoring sea grass meadows which support over 80,000 fish and 100,000 invertebrates within a football field-sized area. 92% of seagrass meadows have been lost in the UK. This reminds me of the 95% of kelp forests we have lost along our Pacific coast. Restoration Forth is researching how to successfully replant sea grass and to grow European oysters that once flourished in the Firth of Forth but have been eradicated due to overfishing and industrialization. Nearly 3,000 people have participated in replanting sea grass plugs and seeds as well as the first 60,000 oysters. It shows the success we can have if we all work together to support nature! Watch their documentary, The Story of Restoration Forth So Far.
  
  

Rewilding: The Global Alliance

For a look at rewilding on the international stage, visit the informative website of this international rewilding group. With 290 partners across 151 countries, you’ll find inspiring stories, beautiful photos, and videos of diverse projects. Here are two of them.

One of my favorites is a group in Cambodia called Marine Conservation Cambodia that has been protecting their southern coastal ecosystem since 2008. From a small island in the Kep archipelago, they have attracted the help of both local and international volunteers to stop illegal trawling with CANTS (anti-trawling structures), protect rare species of dolphins, and empower fishing communities. By working with the Cambodian government to create a policy that established the first Marine Fisheries Management area, they have impacted the entire coast of Cambodia as the government continues to scale this first management area to many more sites.


In Canada, the Olson family decided to dedicate their land and convince other private landowners to join them in restoring bison under the Olson Bison Rewilding Project. Encompassing two large parks in Manitoba and Alberta–5,000 “wild-type” bison (with DNA and behavior close to their wild ancestors) now roam free and protect the prairie from the encroachment of trees. Sometimes, reforestation is not desirable, as grasslands too sequester tons of carbon and support a different array of flora and fauna.

The Fish Reef Project

One of the non-profit groups we support on our Teeccino tea box lids, is our local Santa Barbara hero, Chris Goldblatt of Fish Reef Project, who developed cement “sea caves” that support the reestablishment of kelp forests which then harbor a broad diversity of sea life. 

If I could wave my magic wand, government permission for these sea caves would be granted to spread them up and down our Pacific coast. Snorkeling in a kelp forest is one of the most breathtaking things I’ve ever done. Our lost kelp once grew 1 kilometer wide from Vancouver to Baja – imagine that! Watch Chris’s beautiful and educational videos to see how quickly kelp can be reestablished with lobsters, urchins and fish quickly moving in and tons of carbon being sequestered!

Rewilding our bodies

But rewilding doesn't stop at the water's edge or the forest boundary. It can extend all the way to what we put in our bodies. The wild plants thriving in restored habitats around the world are the same ones our ancestors relied on — and the ones our bodies still recognize and respond to today. Their phytonutrients are different than the typical fruits and vegetables we eat now. The same biodiversity that scientists are working to restore in prairies, seagrass meadows, and kelp forests is the biodiversity our gut microbiomes depend on for optimal health. I invite you to read a blog I wrote about it:
Rewilding Your Body.

My hope for all of us is that we will leave the natural world stronger and more diverse for the next generations to come. 

Protecting and restoring wild habitat brings health to everyone including ourselves, animals, plants, fungi and the entire planet!