I haven’t heard much on this topic within the last couple of months, but I want to express my thoughts about it and get that out of the way, before I hear about it again. (Sigh–I really should stop showing up to the party so tardy.)

For those of you not (yet) in the know, rewilding is defined as an attempt to return the landscape to its original state–the one that existed before human intervention. At first blush, this doesn’t sound very problematic–who wouldn’t want to see more green space, or wildlife outside of zoos? But, like so much else, rewilding in practice does have its dark side.

The first–and most obvious–criticism of rewilding to make is the vast majority of people alive today wouldn’t last very long in a wilderness environment, simply because the advancements we have taken for granted for so long have made wilderness survival skills unnecessary. Only people living in remote, next-to-impossible-to-access areas of the world need to hunt, fish, and forage for food, create ways of disposing of waste, etc., whereas the vast majority of us in the First World have grocery stores, refrigerators, indoor plumbing, etc. Expanding on this subject, civilization has also rendered preventable diseases people would have died from in the wild, by way of medicine, and ever-evolving advances therein.

Also, rewilding, if taken too far, could potentially be anti-vegan; how would vegans get everything we need in a wilderness environment? Civilization, and science, have made veganism possible, as we can now get all the nutrients we need without harming other species of animals.

In short, advocates for rewilding may also be advocating for genocide, whether they realize it or not.

And even if rewilding advocates aren’t calling for civilized areas to be rewilded, there is a question of how far the rewilding is supposed to go. Are we to do away with agriculture? If so, this too falls under the category of unwittingly calling for genocide, as the vast majority of us won’t be able to live if we have to hunt, fish, or forage for our food. And not all of us have the skills to distinguish between edible plants and those which would harm us. I personally am fine with wanting to keep natural areas wild, and changing laws to, at the very least, keep so-called ‘sport’ and ‘trophy’ hunting to the barest possible minimum. But if rewilding advocates are calling for the end of civilization and even agriculture, we’ve got problems.

I’m not calling for progress for the sake of progress; as I’ve said in a previous post, the progress I’m for is the kind of progress that benefits humanity as a whole. And as much as I balk at the idea of unbridled progress and development–especially for their own sake and/or just to make someone a buck or two–I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a segment of fanatics turn back the clock to the days when people did nothing but try to survive, with most failing, especially when most of us don’t have the skills necessary to survive in an uncivilized environment. As Yvette D’Entremont, a.k.a. ‘The Science Babe,’ pointed out in this blog post, nature doesn’t give a fuck about any of us. And for those of you who think I’m misrepresenting the idea of rewilding, why don’t you be clearer and more specific about what rewilding is about, and what it’s supposed to accomplish?