Hello everyone and welcome to the first episode of Global Rewilding News where we bring you uplifting, practical and hopeful stories from rewilders all around the world.
Prefer to read about Rewilding news and success stories rather than watch? Here’s the transcript for this episode:
Thank you for joining us today, and for being part of the beautiful, hopeful, global rewilding movement. I’m Alister from the Global Rewilding Alliance – let’s get to it.
Starting off with our new member of the week:
We warmly welcome Ferncliffe Forest Wilding to the Alliance. Based in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, their team is rewilding a beautiful area on the outskirts of the city of Pieter Maritzburg, they are rewilding an area of mistbelt forest which is a rare and very rich habitat. With a high rainfall in a largely dry country, this is a magical tangle of vegetation at the edge of a city, that harbours unexpected, often secretive creatures that dwell in and depend on the profusion of indigenous plants that grow here. But a tide of alien species is threatening the ecosystem’s survival.
Through our alliance, they are already connected with another new member; Operation Songamanzi youth movement who are university students involved in water conservation, river restoration and rewilding. And who are going to come and help them to get rid of the invasive species.
We also welcome this week The Adam Foundation, another youth movement that is working with communities in Cameroon to restore forests and other ecosystems to the benefit of local people.
Hi, I’m May and I am here to bring you some wonderful rewilding success stories.
First up, we have the herd of ancient Taurus cattle that have been rewilded in Spain, and are already preventing wildfire and bringing back biodiversity and healthy soils. This magnificent species is part of the wider Europe-based Tauros Programme that is working to bring back this keystone species, in the hope of replicating the central role of the extinct Auroch. These wild cattle share 94% of their genetics with the Auroch, so are large, powerful and very resilient. They trample and graze the landscape, and as ecosystem engineers, are already having a visible, positive impact.
There are three of them: firstly, their high resilience to parasites means there is no need for medication, resulting in chemical-free, nutrient-rich dung that is promoting soil health. This links to the second positive impact, where the rewilders who are researching the herd have noticed that other species in the area, such as the Iberian Ibex, have been lingering close to the herd as the soils are healthier, vegetation more plentiful and easier to access. Lastly, and even more remarkably, a local farmer reported a large lightning strike recently to a big tree, that would usually have started a devastating wildfire but instead, as the ground had been trampled and grazed by the herd, no fire was started and the landscape remained resilient.
Wonderful! So I’m Alienor and here’s another rewilding success story for you:
Wildlife is bouncing back in Caribbean islands after invasive mice were removed: The island of Sombrero in the Caribbean, which is part of Anguilla, has seen a huge resurgence of wildlife in recent months after European mice, an invasive species, were removed from the island. The seabirds that used to nest there were not adapted to the mice, and when they took over the island they started eating their eggs, killing local reptiles and basically damaging local biodiversity. Now that the mice have been removed, species of native birds have started to return and reptiles are now thriving and breeding once again in large numbers. In two years the number of ground lizards has gone up from just 100 animals to over 900 now. Caribbean islands, as a collective, are a wildlife hotspot which rank in the top 3 globally even though they only accumulate (half of) one percent of the global landmass. This is part of a programme run by Flora and Fauna International and by GRA member Re.Wild.
Next up, NASA becomes beaver believers
Populations of beavers are being brought back to Idaho and Utah, in America, where rewilders have now teamed up with NASA to monitor and measure their impact on local ecosystems with the new Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool.
Having been hunted for decades, populations dwindled and were entirely wiped out in certain areas – it is believed that up to 400 million beavers were hunted by Europeans as they moved East to West across America. Now, rewilders are bringing back the species and in doing so are building drought resiliency. And with the help of NASA, we can see their impact on rivers, streams and other watersheds.
When beavers are reintroduced, they dam riverways meaning that water lingers in the environment for longer throughout the seasons, enriching bird, plant, insect, and amphibian life all along the water. It also replenishes aquifers and keeps the soil, grass, and trees wetter for longer. NASA’s Earth Observatory is already revealing images that show a vast beige landscape with dense green pockets in the area of reintroduced beavers.
One of the scientists involved says that “the real value of using satellite data for monitoring is the support to the people on the ground working hard to increase water availability, fish populations and species habitat”. He says, “The more support we can give them, the more broadly these practices can proliferate.” NASA has made a great short film – see the shownotes for a link.
Next up, a rare migratory bird called the Corncrake is starting to recover from near extinction thanks to British rewilders
These ground-nesting birds get their Latin name Krex Krex from the mating sound that the male birds make to attract females during the nesting season. So, they sing all night long and actually used to keep Alister awake at night, because they used to breed near the house in Western Ireland growing up. Unfortunately, the introduction of silage making led populations to crash, as young birds were not able to get away from the machines quickly enough. Now, working in partnership with local communities and farmers, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has seen the number of breeding pairs starting to recover – which is mostly the case in remote Scottish islands. Nevertheless this is a good start, and brings hope that young birds will spread out again and start to re-occupy the territory that they used to live in.
Next up the Indonesian government has recognised community claims to ancestral forests in the Sumatran province in Indonesia
For the first time in history, covering an area that is over 22,500 hectares. These forests are managed by eight traditional communities, locally known as mukim. This recognition will give the local communities legal protection to manage their forests in a more sustainable way.
Although this is a grand feat, the agreed area covers only 15% of the forests proposed by the communities, so this is the just beginning of the Mukim’s hopes to gain ancestral forest rights.
A step in the right direction, some of the chiefs said the legal recognition could work to embolden the indigenous peoples’ efforts to manage these dense, biodiverse forests sustainably.
Science has demonstrated that forests and other biomes are healthier when these communities are in charge, even though their customary rights aren’t always recognized.
So, one hope is that Indigenous and local communities could participate in the carbon trading market, by conserving their forests and gaining income from carbon trading. However, work must be made to directly include these communities into the market, with positive action towards making these tools accessible, such as training and education.
Lastly, here is the quotation of the week
“What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make.”
Jane Goodall.
In other, more local news, just by coincidence on the filming of our first Global Rewilding News episode a White Tailed Eagle was seen flying over my village in the South-East of England. Having been reintroduced to the Isle of Wight, which is 70 miles away, three years ago. So it is lovely and hopeful! A nice sign for the upcoming episodes!
The White-Tailed Eagle with a huge wingspan of over 3 metres, that’s like a barn door, is a fish-hunting species that was hunted to extinction in England, so it is good to have them back.
So that’s it for now, folks, Thank you for joining us on global rewilding news and thank you for helping us build the global rewilding movement.
If you like the content, don’t forget to give the video a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel and hit the bell to receive notifications. See you soon for the next time for more uplifting Global Rewilding News!
News Sources This Episode
New members:
Ferncliffe Wilding Forest: https://ferncliffe.org/
Songamanzi youth movement: https://www.facebook.com/ossosakzn/
The Adam Foundation
The World: Rewilding in Spain brings back ancient bovine
The Good News Network: Native Wildlife Flourishing Again After Another Caribbean Island Banishes Invading Rodents
The Good News Network: NASA Became “Beaver Believers” After Using Satellites To Measure Their Impact On US Rivers
The Guardian: Hope endangered corncrake can be saved as numbers increase in Scotland
Mongabay: For 1st time, Indonesia government recognizes ancestral forests in Aceh — but only some
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