Photo credit: Reduce Reuse Grow
Rewilding is happening now all over the world, both on land and at sea, bringing back key species and restoring entire ecosystems at all scales. We are now an alliance of over 200 organisations that are restoring nature around the world. This week we introduce three rewilding organisations that show that everyone has a role to play in nature restoration, each of which are holistic, community-oriented and inspiring. We are part of a growing, global and hopeful movement!
In this article, we introduce you to three rewilding organisations from our network so that you can hear about some of the exciting success stories, challenges and ambitious aims.
We warmly welcome three new Alliance Partners: The Forktree Project, Reduce Reuse Grow and Rewild New Jersey Community Cooperative.
“Rewilding. It’s in our nature.” The project proving that everyone has a role to play in nature recovery.
Partner Organisation: The Forktree Project
Location: The Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia
Everyone has a role to play in restoring nature, says Tim Jarvis, founder of this South Australian project, and it is critical both for its own sake but also for people’s physical and mental wellbeing. Tim is a remarkable Antarctic explorer, environmental scientist, filmmaker, and founder of Forktree in Australia who has been recognised globally for his leadership in rewilding and nature restoration.
Forktree is bringing back rare and endangered, pre-European native habitat with a goal to return a degraded 133-acre former pastoral property in South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula back to nature. To achieve this, they are actively restoring habitat by re-establishing native trees and shrubs and expanding their impact by running a seed orchard for rare native plants combined with educational programmes.
Photo credit: The Forktree Project
Over the past 4 growing seasons, over 20,000 native trees, shrubs and grasses have been planted. Habitat is therefore returning; approximately 30 different plant species are growing including a 2,000 tree Sheoak habitat, restored together with Conservation Volunteers Australia, for the endangered Glossy Black Cockatoo and Manna Gums for Koala habitat longer term. The returning habitat will also help sequester tens of thousands of tonnes of carbon, as well as being home to increasing biodiversity. A recent study revealed a total of 105 fauna species on site already including the iconic and rare Elegant Parrot and three butterfly species: the Chequered Copper, Rayed Blue and White-banded Grass-dart.
All plantings are established in their natural place in the landscape with their survival being left to nature. At this initial stage, birds, insects and wallabies/kangaroos are the main ecosystem engineers and crucial pollinators, and once the critical habitat is further established other fauna can be introduced onto the site. The focus on holistic and aboriginal land management practices has resulted in a survival rate of all plantings over 90% and the beginning of self-seeding. Nature is healing itself with a little help from some humans! Tim explained to us that although he would have preferred not to plant trees, like most rewilders, the area was so devoid of natural habitat that it was necessary to give things the equivalent of some resuscitation.
Photo Credit: The Forktree Project
Forktree has set up a large scale native nursery and rare seed orchard (RSO) to help combat biodiversity loss of rare native flora and fauna and those of significance to aboriginal people, thereby scaling its influence. It is intended that First Nations land managers (The Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna people) will be trained to help run these facilities as part of an educational outreach program. Involvement of Aboriginal people is crucial to restore the land; for instance, learning the use of fire (e.g. ‘cool burns’ technique) as a technique to reduce fuel load and activate the Acacia species in the landscape whose seeds are fire-activated.
Forktree is showing what is possible in terms of habitat restoration, regenerative agriculture and improved land and water management with the ultimate goal of restoring nature; both habitats and native wildlife all the while including local knowledge and consideration of climate change.
Scaling grassroots ecosystem restoration
Partner Organisation: Reduce Reuse Grow
Location: Global: Malawi, Tanzania and the Philippines
Reduce Reuse Grow is a Sustainability-as-a-service company that helps businesses improve overall Corporate Social Responsibility impact by implementing 1-for-1 Forest Landscape Restoration programs that help grassroots organizations scale their capacity for ecosystem restoration. With three current flagship projects in Malawi, Tanzania, and the Philippines, Reduce Reuse Grow is helping to restore habitats for the iconic Philippine Eagle, the freshwater Philippine Crocodile and the bright-yellow Isabela Oriole (all critically endangered and endemic to the Philippines. In Malawi, they are working to combat illegal charcoal production and preserve old-growth forests that serve as an essential water catchment for over 1 million people and surrounding wildlife. In Tanzania, they are restoring sections of the Usambara Mountains, a recognized biodiversity hotspot that has lost over half of its original coverage due to agricultural encroachment and wildfires from slash-and-burn practices; invasive ferns are being cleared and native trees are being planted in Forest Reserves to restore what has been lost and make the surrounding communities more resilient to drought and extreme weather events.
Photo Credit: Reduce Reuse Grow
They have already had much success with their 40+ project sites; more than 450 species have been restored, including more than 17 million native trees planted, 79 million native plants planted, more than 3 million megatonnes of carbon captured, all over an area of more than 12,000 hectares.
As a landscape restoration organization that embraces, and now demands, a holistic ecosystem restoration approach to their projects, we are delighted to welcome them as the newest Alliance Partner of the Global Rewilding Alliance. They work hand in hand in collaboration with the on-the-ground partners and Indigenous communities, working to not only increase their capacity for FLR projects but to scale their impacts to other areas that contribute to UN SDGs.
It feels apt that our newest Alliance Partner works to help restore the Philippine Crocodile habitat, a species that was thought to be extinct at the turn of the millenium: in pre-colonial times, crocodiles (both C. mindorensis and C. porosus) were both feared and revered. On arrival in the 16th century, the Spanish recorded rivers and lakes filled with crocodiles and, to their astonishment, people living side by side harmoniously within their shared ecosystem. “Some communities put up small bamboo fences to keep crocodiles out from certain areas and people avoided provoking them, but in general, they didn’t take many specific precautions against them. There was an unspoken “peace pact” between crocodiles and people.” Indeed, an ethos, and perhaps a way of life, that many of us aspire to.
Ecosystem restoration is nurturing this deep-rooted relationship between our wild species and people, once again welcoming space for peaceful coexistence, while also contributing to biodiversity increase and climate stability.
Photo Credit: Reduce Reuse Grow
Pioneering statewide community rewilding
Partner Organisation: Rewild New Jersey Community Cooperative (RNJCC)
Location: New Jersey, USA
More often than not, we can directly feel, see, touch and connect with the results that blossom from rewilding. Rewilding is an action that we can feel real gratification from. When we rewild, we can directly see the change that we are creating and entire communities can benefit. The ripple effects are often felt as transformation in our own daily lives.
This is what Francesca Mundrick, Founder of new alliance partner “Rewild New Jersey Community Cooperative” (RNJCC), has set out to share with others, through her shared ambitions for New Jersey to be an example of statewide community rewilding.
The Rewild NJ Movement is a statewide community of citizens who support rewilding in New Jersey. The Rewild Your Land, Rewild Yourself Concept is the centerpiece of the movement that helps to provide accessibility, helpful resources, and active networks for communities to rewild. These elements work to support citizens with the goal of increasing successful rewilding results.
Autumn at Swartswood Lake State Park, Stillwater, New Jersey. Photo Credit: Frank DeBonis from Getty Images Pro.
Looking through a community lens, RNJCC hopes to make rewilding accessible to entire communities, so that people can participate and connect to their local environment, to feel, see and benefit from the return of nature in their area.
The movement is powered by grassroots community outreach, using a town-by-town campaign to build a movement of community rewilding throughout New Jersey. The building of the movement hopes to achieve key goals focused on citizen activism, social change, and policy advocacy including influencing state, county and local government for stronger social, legislative and economic pathways that enable community rewilding.
RNJCC highlights the interconnection between the health and stability of local lands and the people that live there. In reconnecting the two, nature, communities, and people can thrive, providing a clear pathway for real sustainability, resiliency, and sovereignty in our complicated modern world.
We hope that you enjoyed getting to know a handful of our Alliance Partners. More to come!
See their websites here: