Category: Plants

Coexistence, Forests, Plants, Rewilding ourselves

Rewilding a temperate rainforest [Northern Europe]

Isabella Clarke writes: “‘We have nine different species of bat here,’ says Merlin Hanbury-Tenison as we walk through the wooded valley on his family farm in Cornwall. ‘Including rare greater horseshoe bats.’ The woodland is temperate rainforest, a globally rare habitat (just 1% of land cover). In the UK, as much as 20% of the land may have been temperate rainforest; only 1% of that total remains…” Continue reading Rewilding a temperate rainforest [Northern Europe]

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Birds, Forests, Keystone species, Mammals, Plants, Reintroductions, Reptiles

Rewilding Rio: The story of Tijuca NP [South America]

Lara Norberto Renzeti writes: “At the heart of Rio de Janeiro, one of the most iconic cities in the world, lies a 3958-hectare expanse of imposing, green-covered hills. The Tijuca Forest has witnessed a history of devastation followed by a slow, though unsteady, process of restoration. By the 19th century, what was once a fragment of the Atlantic Forest had become a patchwork of areas dedicated to timber…” Continue reading Rewilding Rio: The story of Tijuca NP [South America]

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Forests, Grasslands, Mammals, Plants, Wetlands

Woodland regeneration in Scotland [Northern Europe]

Rory Richardson writes: “NatureScot’s Creag Meagaidh National Nature Reserve (NNR) is a spectacular upland site covering nearly 4000 hectares and straddling the east and west Highlands of Scotland. A mosaic of habitats stretches from the shores of Loch Laggan to the high summit plateau. Ecological restoration has changed the landscape of Creag Meagaidh over the last 35 years, and the reserve…” Continue reading Woodland regeneration in Scotland [Northern Europe]

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Birds, Grasslands, Mammals, Plants

Hobart’s grassy woodland restoration [Australia]

Erica Nathan writes: “Hobart, Tasmania, is a small city recessed into nearby river and mountain. At its urban edge is the Domain—some two hundred hectares that, in colonial times, served as grazing paddock for Government House. Walking from the centre of the city, or from the harbour’s edge, it takes ten minutes to reach the Domain’s southern boundary, a further thirty minutes to get to the summit, and…” Continue reading Hobart’s grassy woodland restoration [Australia]

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Forests, Plants

Torrey pines: Mistakes and progress [Western USA]

Wayne Tyson writes: “I’ll begin with a case of Torrey pine (Pinus torreyana) restoration by the City of San Diego that started over half a century ago. As a new park construction inspector for the city, I was assigned an already-designed project for native plant revegetation, which consisted of the “hydroseeding” of the cut slope and fills along a highway known as Torrey Pines Road (hydroseeding involves…” Continue reading Torrey pines: Mistakes and progress [Western USA]

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Amphibians, Birds, Grasslands, Mammals, Plants, Rewilding ourselves, Wetlands

Rewilding ourselves: A project of hope [Midwest USA]

Laurie Lawlor writes: “The eight-acre lot in the small, rural town of Eagle, Wisconsin, appeared anything but promising. Over the years, the dumping ground of rusty cans, bottles, and old tires had become so choked with buckthorn and other invasive plants that nobody knew what was inside the municipally owned property between the local elementary school and the public library. Students traveling on foot…” Continue reading Rewilding ourselves: A project of hope [Midwest USA]

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Birds, Connectivity, Fish, Mammals, Plants, Rivers, Wetlands

Rewilding itself: the Union Canal [Northeast USA]

Sally Zaino writes: “Connecting the Susquehanna River to the Schuylkill River with a canal was William Penn’s idea, before 1700—but construction was not begun for another hundred years. The canal was to be known as the “Golden Link”. However, construction suffered many stops and starts, while engineers struggled to create a canal that, from west to east, would rise 92 feet and fall 311 feet, that was prone…” Continue reading Rewilding itself: the Union Canal [Northeast USA]

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Forests, Plants

Rewilding the piney woods [Southern USA]

Tony Hiss writes: “Some years ago, E. O. Wilson, the great conservation biologist, took me on a rewilding field trip to meet M. C. Davis, a friend of his who was growing a forest in the Florida Panhandle. Davis, a multimillionaire commodities trader, grew up there in a trailer and raised his first stake playing poker. Like Wilson, Davis was tireless and an elaborately courteous southern charmer (Wilson…” Continue reading Rewilding the piney woods [Southern USA]

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Forests, Plants

Restoring an Irish Atlantic rainforest [Northern Europe]

Eoghan Daltun writes: “In May 2009 I sold my small house in Dublin and moved with my family to Beara, one of the peninsulas that extend, finger-like, from southwest Ireland into the Atlantic Ocean. There we bought a 73-acre farm that had long been left unused agriculturally for around a century, allowing wild habitats, especially native temperate rainforest, to develop naturally over most of the land…” Continue reading Restoring an Irish Atlantic rainforest [Northern Europe]

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Forests, Plants, Rivers

Beginnings: Nick and Margaret’s Place [Southern USA]

Tom Horton writes: “If I were the Choptank River, it’s on Nick and Margaret Carter’s place I’d want to be born, to meander some 70 miles toward Chesapeake Bay, swelling from a sweetwater trickle old Nick can hop across, to my salty mouth, five miles wide down by Tilghman Island. From the Carters’, above the reach of tides and salt, the river seeps cold and clear and steady from beneath the mossy roots…” Continue reading Beginnings: Nick and Margaret’s Place [Southern USA]

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