5 ms·

Here is a HN submission (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8448929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8448929) for the How Wolves Change Rivers video that

by dpflan 11y ago

Here is a HN submission (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8448929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8448929) for the How Wolves Change Rivers video that is mentioned in this article. (It was posted exactly a year ago, a coincidental anniversary of the topic here on HN). There are some good discussions and great links to related content including the TED talk on 'rewilding' by George Monbiot who narrates the How Wolves Change Rivers video.

dalke 11y ago
The article goes on to say: > Yet David Mech, a biologist who has worked extensively in Yellowstone, advises that such simple narrative arcs are hard to find in something as messy as an ecosystem. Mech does not discount all of Monbiot's claims, but cautions that as much harm could come to the wolf from being marketed as the poster boy of the environmental movement as it did in the era when it was hated and feared. One of the narratives in a re-wilding context is that human are not part of the "wild." Yet in post-glacial areas like Scotland and Yellowstone, where humans arrived shortly after the ice melted, the ecosystem developed with humans as one of the apex predators. We see this in Australia, for example at http://climatechange.umaine.edu/Research/Contrib/pdf/pdfFiles/contribution%2013.pdf http://climatechange.umaine.edu/Research/Contrib/pdf/pdfFile... : > For thousands of years, desert Aborigines have set fire to the arid savanna, creating an environmental patchwork to which much of the desert plant and animals are specifically adapted. Where Aborigines have been removed from their lands, the desert patchwork has often been obliterated with devastatingly large wildfires. Humans are left out of the rewilding equation because I think it's drawing from a romantic tradition of what the wild is supposed to be.
- JulianMorrison 11y ago
  To be fair, "humans" covers quite different ground when you're talking about on the one hand, spear hunters and shifting-cultivation agriculturists, and on the other, industrial agribusiness, roads and concrete.
  - dalke 11y ago
    You're right. Somewhere in my edits I dropped out the important term "Neolithic". ... Though perhaps 'Stone Age' would be more appropriate given the long time that humans were an apex species.
    - JulianMorrison 11y ago
      It's probably a bit messy, because we started deforestation in the mesolithic I think, and we had an uneasy standoff with megafaunal predators well into the iron age. From Wikipedia: With the advent of agriculture, larger areas began to be deforested, and fire became the prime tool to clear land for crops. In Europe there is little solid evidence before 7000 BC. Mesolithic foragers used fire to create openings for red deer and wild boar. In Great Britain, shade-tolerant species such as oak and ash are replaced in the pollen record by hazels, brambles, grasses and nettles. Removal of the forests led to decreased transpiration, resulting in the formation of upland peat bogs. Widespread decrease in elm pollen across Europe between 8400–8300 BC and 7200–7000 BC, starting in southern Europe and gradually moving north to Great Britain, may represent land clearing by fire at the onset of Neolithic agriculture.
      - dalke 11y ago
        Good quote. Yes, another aspect of this is which wild do we want to have? Which is why Pleistocene rewilding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_rewilding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_rewilding ) is a thing. From that page: > Opponents argue that there has been more than enough time for communities to evolve in the absence of mega-fauna, and thus the reintroduction of large mammals could thwart ecosystem dynamics and possibly cause collapse. Life is messy.
  - e12e 11y ago
    This discussion and the term "rewilding" reminds me of Kim Stanley Robinson's excellent Nebula Award winning novel "2312" - and the "reanimation" project which is part of the complex web of plot lines. One of a few recent books that embody the best part of what I consider "classic science fiction" (whatever that might mean :-). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11830394-2312 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11830394-2312
- arethuza 11y ago
  The complex history of the Highlands doesn't help either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances
  - dalke 11y ago
    I liked the line "typical example... of social engineering which met neither the hopes of the benefactors nor the needs of the beneficiaries, but produced social disaster." In 100 years time, will 'rewilding' create a new version of that quote, replacing 'social' with 'ecosystem'?

by dpflan 11y ago

dalke 11y ago

The article goes on to say: > Yet David Mech, a biologist who has worked extensively in Yellowstone, advises that such simple narrative arcs are hard to find in something as messy as an ecosystem. Mech does not discount all of Monbiot's claims, but cautions that as much harm could come to the wolf from being marketed as the poster boy of the environmental movement as it did in the era when it was hated and feared. One of the narratives in a re-wilding context is that human are not part of the "wild." Yet in post-glacial areas like Scotland and Yellowstone, where humans arrived shortly after the ice melted, the ecosystem developed with humans as one of the apex predators. We see this in Australia, for example at http://climatechange.umaine.edu/Research/Contrib/pdf/pdfFiles/contribution%2013.pdf http://climatechange.umaine.edu/Research/Contrib/pdf/pdfFile... : > For thousands of years, desert Aborigines have set fire to the arid savanna, creating an environmental patchwork to which much of the desert plant and animals are specifically adapted. Where Aborigines have been removed from their lands, the desert patchwork has often been obliterated with devastatingly large wildfires. Humans are left out of the rewilding equation because I think it's drawing from a romantic tradition of what the wild is supposed to be.

JulianMorrison 11y ago
To be fair, "humans" covers quite different ground when you're talking about on the one hand, spear hunters and shifting-cultivation agriculturists, and on the other, industrial agribusiness, roads and concrete.
- dalke 11y ago
  You're right. Somewhere in my edits I dropped out the important term "Neolithic". ... Though perhaps 'Stone Age' would be more appropriate given the long time that humans were an apex species.
  - JulianMorrison 11y ago
    It's probably a bit messy, because we started deforestation in the mesolithic I think, and we had an uneasy standoff with megafaunal predators well into the iron age. From Wikipedia: With the advent of agriculture, larger areas began to be deforested, and fire became the prime tool to clear land for crops. In Europe there is little solid evidence before 7000 BC. Mesolithic foragers used fire to create openings for red deer and wild boar. In Great Britain, shade-tolerant species such as oak and ash are replaced in the pollen record by hazels, brambles, grasses and nettles. Removal of the forests led to decreased transpiration, resulting in the formation of upland peat bogs. Widespread decrease in elm pollen across Europe between 8400–8300 BC and 7200–7000 BC, starting in southern Europe and gradually moving north to Great Britain, may represent land clearing by fire at the onset of Neolithic agriculture.
    - dalke 11y ago
      Good quote. Yes, another aspect of this is which wild do we want to have? Which is why Pleistocene rewilding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_rewilding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_rewilding ) is a thing. From that page: > Opponents argue that there has been more than enough time for communities to evolve in the absence of mega-fauna, and thus the reintroduction of large mammals could thwart ecosystem dynamics and possibly cause collapse. Life is messy.
- e12e 11y ago
  This discussion and the term "rewilding" reminds me of Kim Stanley Robinson's excellent Nebula Award winning novel "2312" - and the "reanimation" project which is part of the complex web of plot lines. One of a few recent books that embody the best part of what I consider "classic science fiction" (whatever that might mean :-). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11830394-2312 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11830394-2312
arethuza 11y ago
The complex history of the Highlands doesn't help either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances
- dalke 11y ago
  I liked the line "typical example... of social engineering which met neither the hopes of the benefactors nor the needs of the beneficiaries, but produced social disaster." In 100 years time, will 'rewilding' create a new version of that quote, replacing 'social' with 'ecosystem'?