Rewilding and cultural transformation

Abstract

Here, as a group of practitioners, the authors advance the case for rewilding as a broad church of initiatives both great and small, pioneered in Britain at grass-roots level involving local communities and containing the potential to address what they see as the main issue facing a humanity in crisis—the need to change consciousness. The authors caution that as conservation seeks to incorporate rewilding into practice and policy it may miss this greater potential for change. The authors argue that the current scientific and economic paradigm lies at the heart of the problem and that we can learn from indigenous peoples how to reconnect to nature in less exploitative and damaging ways. The authors would like to see each nation create a large area as a Natural Sanctuary where nature is freed to shape the landscape, not simply for biodiversity and habitat needs, but rather to reflect a change in consciousness itself. The authors highlight work that shows the potential for contact with nature to rewild the human and where indigenous ways of connecting to nature bring forth the shift in consciousness they feel is required in response to a global crisis.