Rewilding + Conservation

Question 1

Lovelock = Gaia Hypothesis

Answer 1

holistic planetary systems -> reinforced with Anthropocene = earth as an integrated system (Mahli, 2019)

Question 2

HIPPO = sixth mass extinction

Answer 2

biodiversity crisis as background extinctions > current extinction rates

Question 3

land-use change

Answer 3

• Agricultural expansion = decrease biodiversity
• Homogenisation of diets = sugarcane, maize, rice, wheat, and potatoes -> drop in crops like legumes.
• Plantations -> sites where diseases proliferate due to little genetic resistance from monoculture (Tsing, 2019)

Question 4

climate change

Answer 4

• Deforestation = co2 emissions
• Ocean acidification
• Species shifting northwards -> need to adapt to climate change and therefore weather patterns, seasonality, and precipitation.
• Criticism -> may increased biological diversity = extend some niches due to warming temperatures -> new anthropogenic habitats (Thomas, 2013)

Question 5

invasive species

Answer 5

• Globalisation and agriculture -> species able to move out natal range -> enhanced during Colombian Exchange.
   Ballast water -> movement of marine biology
• Not all introduced species are invasive.
• World is used -> production of Anthromes has emerged as an idea within the Anthropocene (Ellis et al., 2013).
• Ring necked parakeet -> 30%/year increase in populations across London (Butler, 2003) -> interference competition as they disturb native birds (Cresswell, 2008) -> can be killed in the UK but needs to have proof that the birds are doing harm = 6 month and £5,000 fine and was introduced in 2009.
• Criticism -> are all introduced species inherently bad? (Thomas, 2013)

Question 6

traditional conservation

Answer 6

traditional conservation = protecting specific habitats and species -> not an effective strategy (Adams, 2003) = Fortress Conservation e.g. Matapos National Park (Adams, 2003).
o Tied into colonialism e.g. plants translocated from Kew Gardens to colonies -> altered flora patterns (Adams, 2003).
o Land violently dispossessed from indigenous communities
o Species, space and land -> named as a form of colonial control -> then taught about through the education system (Adams, 2003).
o Wild -> place devoid of humanity (Gammon, 2018).

Question 7

new conservation

Answer 7

focus on ecosystem services and biodiversity -> that economic development will facilitate wider growth (Soulé, 2013)

Question 8

convicial conservation

Answer 8

increased human-environment interactions to produce nature based on post-capitalism (Büscher and Fletcher, 2019)

Question 9

renaturalisation as problematic

Answer 9

-> focuses on restoring nature back to its pre-human involvement state (Lorimer, 2015) -> current conservation focuses too much on these ‘novel ecosystems’ which is leading to ineffective policy -> issue as to whether rewilding should recreate past environments or new ones e.g. closed canopy forest or patchwork of shrubs landscape (Gammon, 2018)

Question 10

multinatural geographies -> -> likely that there will not be a single nature in the future but instead a multitude of different possibilities (Lorimer, 2012) -> focuses on the more-than-human geographies approach

Answer 10

Cosmoscence = increased interspecies interactions = reorientation of focus non-anthropocentric (Lorimer, 2012)
focuses on the idea that nature is not static and is ever changing e.g. Chernobyl recolonized despite high radiation (Kareiva et al., 2011)/ nature is an assemblage of interactions between the human and nonhuman -> challenged the modern scientific-political understandings and therefore techniques (Lormier, 2012)

Question 11

Rewilding has multiple definitions -> ecological restoration in a manner which provides nature agency to grow without human influence (Lorimer, 2015)

Answer 11

two core themes are species agency and within everyday life (Monbiot, 2013)

Question 12

primitive rewilding -> emphasising the importance of the nonhuman and therefore need for protection

Answer 12

North Carolina, Wild Abundance = Firefly Gathering -> understanding interactions with the nonhuman (Gammon, 2018)

Question 13

rewilding and keystone species as a way to increase landscape resilience

Answer 13

problematic e.g. introduction of Heck Cows into Europe as a keystone herbivore -> thrown out as the cows were too aggressive and had negative associations to the Nazi party (Lorimer and Driessen, 2016)

Question 14

rewilding as a technique e.g. Wolves in Yellowstone

Answer 14

presences altered the behaviour of other animals e.g. elk -> flora consumption patterns shifted -> trophic cascade effect (Svenning et al., 2016) -> trophic cascades = unsure how rewilding should be conducted due to these impacts no research conducted outside Asia and Africa for this.

Question 15

Rewilding Britain = 952 completed projects

Answer 15

over 506km^2

Question 16

Rewilding -> places compassion at the core of the policy -> aims to provide nature agency

Answer 16

ecological corridors to permit the movement of species through the landscape e.g. ecoduct over the M4 -> overcome the Eurocentric idea that animals should be secured across land

Question 17

‘ecosystem engineers’ in California - Beavers

Answer 17

manage the landscape as zoogeomorphic engineers -> can slow floods by creating dams and manage sediment deposition -> keystone species to succession -> sees them as labourers -> to an extent still is an anthropocentric positioning (Welden, 2023)

Question 18

Rewilding North America

Answer 18

Translocating species back into the region -> keystone herbivores -> not likely to happen.

Question 19

Rewilding Siberia

Answer 19

De-extinction project to bring back the mammoth as their trampling of snow will prevent permafrost melt = tool to fight global warming.

Question 19

Oostvaardersplassen

Answer 19

o Radical rewilding project in Netherlands -> controversial as they wanted a hands off approach but limitations in the size of the region and fact that animals had been domesticated = animals starved.
o Eye of the wolf -> now take weak animals out the experiment

Question 20

Nature-based solutions

Answer 20

aim to address biological concerns while producing societal developments -> long term ecological protection with strategies like agroforestry, mangroves, and coastal reefs to reduce vulnerability but increase biodiversity and carbon sequestration = increase in crop yields and maintain biodiversity (Seddon et al., 2019) -> aims to be effective in the long term (Nature Based Solutions Initiative)

Question 21

designing nature-based solutions

Answer 21

identifying and framing the problem, designing a solution/method, cost/benefit analysis, proposed solutions fitting with aims, sustainable considerations, everyone been involved in the process been reflected (Nesshöver et al., 2017)

Question 22

Climate Paris Summit

Answer 22

emphasised nature-based solutions are very important (Seddon et al., 2019)

Question 23

Eco-modernism

Answer 23

Nature needs to be sold to save it (McAfee, 1999) -> neoliberalisation of nature through market-based incentives e.g. ecosystem services, carbon trading, ecotourism…
‘New Conservation’ = furthering economic development to reduce environmental impacts (Soulé, 2013)

Question 24

eco-modernism

Answer 24

Nature needs to be sold to save it (McAfee, 1999) -> neoliberalisation of nature through market-based incentives e.g. ecosystem services, carbon trading, ecotourism…
‘New Conservation’ = furthering economic development to reduce environmental impacts (Soulé, 2013)

Question 25

Nature -> fight global warming

Answer 25

 Forests -> sequester carbon -> worldwide projects
->Interests of carbon and conservation do not always align -> planting nonnative woodland instead of natural species = better at sequestration.
 Regenerative agriculture -> make cattle more important.
 Shock collars -> stimulate the effects of herbivore grazing by controlling animal movement -> part of this environmentalist biopolitics -> also present in consumer-decisions = environmentality (Lorimer, 2015).
 ‘End of Nature’ -> end the nature/culture binary (McKibben, 1989).
 Feral Atlas -> draw together different sections of the environment within the Anthropocene = how this influences the nonhuman.

Question 26

resurgence

Answer 26

the need for multispecies assemblages -> need to allow species to emerge as doing this will lead to wider positive ecological change -> in favour of introduced species (Tsing, 2019)
o E.g. Meratus indigenous population in Indonesia = Southern Kalimantan Mountains -> cut down regions of the rainforest for crop production -> allowed sections of the land to regrow as resurgence

Question 27

ruination

Answer 27

 Focuses on survival strategies within living in the ruins of the Anthropocene -> e.g. hotspots for the emergence of disease along globalisation networks (Tsing, 2017) e.g. ash die back.
 COVID-19 -> increased interaction with nature due to habitat fragmentation.
 Biosecurity -> ecological corridors for disease spread -> can these be halted.
 Ontopolitics -> idea that nature is more powerful than humans -> we cannot control enact planetary scale geoengineering as geomorphic powers are too powerful