Tag: Rewilding

Bookmarked Rewilding Cities – Clive Thompson – Medium (Medium)

We’ve monocropped streets — so they’re used almost exclusively for cars. Time to rewild

Inspired by Thalia Verkade and Marco te Brömmelstroet’s discussion of banning cars in cities, Clive Thompson thinks about the idea of monocropping and the impact of rewilding beyond just nature.

In the same way that monocropping corn creates weaker, less resilient land, monocropping our streets with cars creates cities that aren’t as vibrant as they ought to be. We often don’t notice it, because we’ve trained ourselves to think of streets as “almost exclusively for cars”. But if you think of all the things you could do with streets, you realize how weird it is that we have, for decades now, used them mostly only for vehicles.

This reminds me of a piece that I wrote a few years ago about ‘rewilding education‘. Also, the suggestion of replacing roads had me thinking about the scene in Babakiueria where they propose replacing the freeway, a ‘baron wasteland’, with bushland. Of course, this is really a comical reference to the tendency to build on top of existing sacred sites.

Bookmarked “Rewilding,” analog-style by Rob Walker (The Art of Noticing)

TAoN No. 90: Six ways to escape algorithmic attention patterns by engaging with, you know, reality. Plus: A new icebreaker, and more

Responding to Clive Thompson’s discussion of rewilding your feeds, Rob Walker suggests some analog strategies, including engaging the senses, look out the window, keep a sound diary and appreciate a random person. This reminds me of something I wrote about PLN a few years ago.

The other day my wife and I went and visited her grandparents. As is the usual, I ended up chatting with her grandfather about anything and everything. I love these conversations as no matter how many chats we have, for I always learn something new from him about such topics as farming, fire fighting and the family history. Whether it be about communicating during a fire or the way that the various properties were divided. Although many of these situations do not impact me directly, the problem solving and reasoning behind them does. Solutions for today can so often be found in adapting and extending ideas from the past.

Bookmarked Rewilding: four tips to let nature thrive (The Conversation)

By studying where rewilding has worked well around the world, we’ve worked out the dos and don’ts.

Sophie Wynne-Jones, Ian Convery and Steve Carver published a set of guiding principles which specify what rewilding should involve and how it should be done.

  1. Don’t (always) start with wolves
  2. Do reconnect people with nature
  3. Don’t alienate rural communities
  4. Do think about the future

In addition to this, Future Tense provide a two part series (one and two) exploring the debate about dingos and the impact of forests in Europe. While Louise Johns explores the complexities associated with re-introducing bison in North America

This got me thinking about my discussion of rewilding education and how these principles might be re-imagined?

  1. Don’t (always) start with self-detemination
  2. Do reconnect people with learning
  3. Don’t alienate educational systems and bodies
  4. Do think about the future

It is interesting to think about the consequences of reintroducing ‘learning’ and the impact this has on other facets of education. With Bison, there is the danger of disease.

Bookmarked When the bison come back, will the ecosystem follow? (Ars Technica)

Bring wild bison to the Great Plains, restore one of the world’s most endangered ecosystems.

Louise Johns discusses the re-introduction of bison in America. What I had never considered about rewilding is the spread of disease. My thoughts were always around the impact to the land and other animals, but I had never really thought about other side effects.