Nature conservation in the 21st century has taken a radical new turn.
Instead of conserving particular species in nature reserves as 'museum
pieces', frozen in time, the thinking now is that we should allow
landscape-sized areas to 'rewild' according to their own self-determined
processes. By fencing off large areas and introducing large herbivores,
along with apex predators such as wolves, dynamic new habitats are
already being created.
These 'self-willed' areas will develop in ways that cannot always be
predicted, and they may not conform to our traditional ideas of wildlife
habitats, but they will form a robust and rich ecology which will be
strong enough to withstand future climate changes and species shifts.
In this highly topical book, the first popular account of rewilding,
practising ecologists Paul Jepson and Cain Blythe explore the ongoing
scientific discoveries that are emerging from this fascinating field.