BOOK REPORT: FERAL: REWILDING THE LAND, THE SEA AND HUMAN LIFE, BY GEORGE MONBIOT

THERE ARE MANY THINGS TO BE SAID FOR George Monbiot’s compelling examination of the wild world around us, and how we must preserve and expand the “feral” lands and waters of our planet. In his introduction, the British author begins with a discussion of Canada’s natural environment, which was a surprise for me because I had expected him to discuss over-fishing in the North Sea or the denuded highlands of Scotland or Wales. His 2016 book points out the ironies and tensions (and perhaps a better word would be either tragedy or travesty) surrounding current Canadian environmentalism. One of his biggest concerns is the rapid growth of the Alberta Tar Sands along with the frantic efforts in pipeline development, and the disquieting feeling that in the process we are losing something precious, and that it will only get worse over time.

He says Canada is turning into a “…thuggish petro-state. The oil curse which has blighted so many weaker nations has now struck in a place which seemed to epitomize solidity and sense.” (xi)

And his analysis hits home. He describes the oil industry and other extractive and manufacturing interests, lobbyists and politicians, and how they have increasing made a Faustian bargain to achieve their ends by taking from the earth more than it can give, and in the process destroying great swaths of the natural environment. From the collapse of the cod fisheries in the 1980s where seals were blamed, not over-fishing, or with the shrinking northern Caribou herds, where wolf predation is said to be the cause, not the human impacts of road, oil industry infrastructure and timber clearings, Monbiot underscores the modern industrial dilemma. He comments that the growing power of the petroleum lobby distorts Canadian priorities, as more and more sectors of the economy accede to its demands and other industries adjust their priorities accordingly. He notes environmental accords that were gutted, such as the Navigable Waters Protection Act or the Environmental Assessment Act*, and warns Canada that its “ecosystems are being reduced to near-deserts of the kind with which we are familiar in Europe.” (xiv)

George Monbiot

In subsequent chapters, he relates adventures where he engages with the wilder world, for example while kayaking off the Welsh coast, hiking its hillsides, or walking through remnant “rainforest” tracts in the Scottish highlands, or as a younger man, when participating in the life of a traditional Kenyan village.

His stories are rich with descriptive detail and written with a genuine passion and need to understand how environments and local landscapes used to be, why they are the way they are today, and how the indigenous flora and fauna might be restored and maintained. One way, he says, is to reintroduce their original apex predators, based on the ecological principle of  “trophic cascades”,   which is a process whereby ”the animals at the top of the food chain—the top predators—change the numbers not just of their prey, but also of species with which they have no direct connection [Italics mine]. Their impacts cascade down the food chain, in some cases radically changing the ecosystem, the landscape and even the chemical composition of the soil and the atmosphere.” (84) In addition, Monbiot points out the need to understand the impacts of introduced species on ecosystems, such as sheep and cattle on the Welsh highlands and red deer in Scotland, where as a consequence, forests after centuries of grazing have been turned into “deserts” of heather, scrub and mosses**.

He discusses how, given time, such barren and depleted landscapes can be restored through top down (animal) and bottom up (plant life) interventions. I do like Monbiot’s call to give nature a ‘nudge’ in the right direction, and then letting it to do its own thing. We tend to intervene too regularly in nature's affairs, and are too often unaware of the full impact of our actions.  

Allan Savory

One such example of this is what biologist Allan Savory says was the greatest mistake he ever made when, as a young government researcher in Africa in the 1950s, he assessed the problem of desertification in Zimbabwe's grasslands. He reached the conclusion that it was due to the impacts of elephant herds. His solution, one we would find horrific today, and one he says he will “carry to my grave”, was to cull some 40,000 elephants! This did not solve the problem. Some years later he concluded that elephants and grazing animals actually prevented desertification, by disturbing soils, adding nutrients, clearing spaces in woodlands for new growth, and so on. His findings are controversial and, personally, I am not 100% sold on his theory, but he makes a compelling argument. 

David Bamberger

A different rewilding project, the decades-long greening of desert land by the American millionaire David Bamberger on his private nature preserve in central Texas, uses the planting of grasses as a way to amend soils, capture scarce rainfall and prevent erosion. The transformation of the land he so lovingly stewards is wonderful to behold.

Thus, Monbiot in his book cautions us that we must look at a broad range of characteristics and processes within the ecosystems and biomes we wish to preserve, to understand how plants, animals, climate, landscape, soils and other factors interact and influence each other, so that we may help and not hinder the restoration of the land (and seas). He argues that "rewilding" can occur on projects large and small around the globe. And I find the idea of leaving the planet alone for a while to be a comforting, but also a humbling, thought. In the end, I'm sure Mam Gaia will be able to figure out just what She needs to do in order to make things right again. Whether we will continue in Her plans is another matter.

*This month, the EAA was amended, ostensibly to provide further environmental guidelines and controls for natural resource development projects that had been gutted by the previous Conservative government’s legislation in 2012. Changes were made to ensure, for example, more extensive First Nation’s consultation on development projects occurring on their lands. Some First Nation leaders have raised objections and concerns that the legislation does not go far enough, while some are opposed to the pipeline altogether. Of course the mining and oil sectors say it goes too far. And the current Liberal government touts its legislation as “striking a balance between the environment and economic growth.” A pipeline (that, last year, had been purchased by the Federal government) from the Alberta Tar Sands to tidewater in British Colombia  has just been green-lighted for completion. Ironically (as least from my perspective), the EAA legislation, including the green light for the Trans-Mountain pipeline project was returned to the House of Commons from the Senate the day after Parliament passed a resolution declaring Canada was in a “climate emergency”:

      The motion, put forward by Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna, calls on the House to recognize that "climate change is a real and urgent crisis, driven by human activity" and to "declare that Canada is in a national climate emergency which requires, as a response, that Canada commit to meeting its national emissions target under the Paris Agreement and to making deeper reductions in line with the Agreement's objective of holding global warming below two degrees Celsius and pursuing efforts to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius." (CBC News, 06/18/19)

The only comment I'll make is that building pipelines to increase the extraction of oil from the Tar Sands strikes me as the antithesis of caring for our environment and being good stewards of our land. All the parliamentary hoop-la, the smoke and mirrors around pipelines and oil field expansion AND protecting the environment, blah-blah-blah, doesn’t allow us to escape the fact that these policies and practices will not only contribute to the “climate emergency” the Environment Minister speaks so passionately about, but will also destroy hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of hectares of our land. It seems only the future is able to understand and judge how truly short-sighted and self-absorbed our society has become.

   

**Monbiot makes the very important point that most people today do not understand how much we have lost, how nature’s complexity is being farmed, grazed, clear cut and so on into vast monocultures, lacking the diversity and complexity of past ages. He says one reason is the ‘Shifting Baseline Syndrome’ whereby, "people of every generation perceive the state of the ecosystems they encountered in their childhood as normal." [Italics mine]. "[T]hey often appear to be unaware that what they considered normal when they were children was in fact a state of extreme depletion.” (69)


I am reminded of the words of Rachel Carson in the introduction to her seminal and ground-breaking, 1963 book, Silent Spring, as she envisions a community ravaged by the irresponsible and misguided use of the chemical pesticide, DDT:
     "The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation as though swept by fire. These, too, were silent, deserted by all living things. Even the streams were now lifeless. Anglers no longer visited them, for all the fish had died.
     In the gutters under the eaves and between the shingles of the roofs, a white granular powder still showed a few patches; some weeks before it had fallen like snow upon the roofs and the lawns, the fields and streams.
     No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves."

 

Sadly, it is quite possible that, along with the chemical pollution Rachel Carson wrote about in the early 1960s, the effects of a host of other man-made assaults upon the environment (including industrial farming, urban sprawl, deforestation, fossil fuel use, plastic pollution, over-fishing, over-population, etc.) will so degrade our biosphere that future generations will no longer recognize the bounty that was lost nor appreciate what treasures have been denied them. 

Cheers