Author: Sydney Perry

As December approaches and we pass the American imported holiday of Black Friday, it’s a challenging time all around for fans of rewilding. With bare trees and an often conspicuous lack of winter berries, migrant birds, and, more frequently, unseasonal weather, it can be a disheartening time of year. 

The gulf between our expectations of what the countryside should or might look like at this time of year and what it more frequently does brings up important questions about the relationships of humans with nature and our ideas of wilderness. But here at Rewild At Heart, we do still believe in the positive power of humans on the environment, and that there are ways we can meet our own needs whilst also giving back to nature. 

How Did We Get Here? 

It may sometimes seem like all is lost when it comes to humanity’s impact on the environment, but it’s easy to forget that the many of the biggest changes have only ever taken place in a very recent amount of time - evolutionarily speaking. Many people have heard of how, if the landscape had a timeline the length of a human arm, humanity’s existence could be wiped off the end of this by simply clipping or filing the fingernails at the end of it. 

In turn, the post-industrial world and conspicuous consumption we often see around this time of year is too only a fraction of humanity’s existence. For years, humans have been able to live in a greater harmony with nature via sustainable use of local resources and land based practices such as coppicing that positively influenced habitats around us. 

Rewilding Our Knowledge 

So, if you’re a nature lover who doesn’t always like the thought of the big supply chains and disposable products around this time of year, take heart that hope is not all lost. Rewilding our knowledge of how we do and don’t influence the landscape is the first step to getting back to a world that lives more in harmony with nature. 

Shifting baseline syndrome is a difficult psychological challenge for rewilding, one which describes how we may get used to the lack of species within our landscapes. Yet the flipside of this is when we become too focussed on the damage we have caused that we find ourselves unable to take practical action. In the same way as species have disappeared from our landscapes, the skills of quiet observation and natural knowledge we would have had in previous generations have frequently been lost, meaning we often feel helpless as to what we can actually do to help wildlife. This is something we are trying to do here at Rewild at Heart - raise awareness of the species that used to be present in our countryside, and discuss what it might be like if they returned. 

Humans Can Be Part Of Wilderness Too!

For years, our natural practices such as scything, leaving stubble fields, maintaining water meadows and traditional orchards, and venturing into the outdoors for natural resources set us as a crucial part of the ecosystem. 

We don’t always have to be a destructive influence on nature - whether it’s studies that have shown how our movement can help mimic the natural predators of deer, enabling tree regrowth, to a simple cottage garden or the maintenance of bird boxes and bug hotels, we can influence nature positively too. 

In the past, our farming practices maintained habitat for a plethora of different bird species, while our grazing animals influenced the soil ecology and shook up the mycorrhizal hyphae, helping seeds germinate, mushrooms sprout, and creating habitat for insects which go on to become part of the food chain. 

Final Thoughts 

So, if commercialism is ever getting you down, remember that supporting ethical businesses and understanding human impact on the ecosystem goes a long way to helping rewild even the local landscapes around you. And if you know anyone who is fed up on material stuff this Christmas, why not buy them something that will give back to nature instead? 

Raising awareness about the species missing from the British countryside such as lynx and beavers, or simply getting the conversation going about rewilding, can plant the seeds of future actions. Even in your back garden, providing simple shelter like our frog log and toad abode can create crucial wildlife corridors. In fact, although we may have disrupted the natural rhythms of the countryside, our own land is becoming more important than ever - so get outside, and as you observe, you may soon realise that all is not lost.