Holistic Restoration
Reintegrating Keystone People with Wild Landscapes
REGRETTABLY ALL TALKS POSTPONED DUE TO CORONAVIRUS.
IN THE MEANTIME WHY NOT CHECK OUT THE PODCAST HERE
IN THE MEANTIME WHY NOT CHECK OUT THE PODCAST HERE
The Goal
Holistic Restoration exists to investigate how best to restore whole landscapes and to educate and support people to engage in our ecological roles of Keystone Omnivore and Ecosystem Engineer alongside the rest of life.
Please Contact Me for further information or attend a Talk or Course
Please Contact Me for further information or attend a Talk or Course
Restoration - Rewilding, Regenerative Agriculture and Natural Climate Solutions
Sunset over the Welsh hills
There is currently a great shift underway. For the last 50 years we have been striving for sustainability but now we are aiming to surpass that, we are aiming for restoration instead. This expresses itself in both conservation, as rewilding, and in agriculture, as regenerative agriculture, Permaculture, Holistic Management and Agroecology among others. Climate change and the accelerated rate of species extinctions that we are currently experiencing have propelled this shift forwards and have prompted both conservationists and farmers to reflect on their practises in a global context.
Rewilding is primarily directed at allowing natural systems 'self will' to carry out their processes unhindered in the hope that the earth can stabilise wildlife populations and regulate its climate when given enough room to do so.
''Rewilding allows ecosystems space and time to carry out natural processes to stabilise themselves''
The various restorative agricultural practises also share a common core belief that farmed systems will function with more ease if they mimic the native ecosystems around them.
''Regenerative agriculture seeks to mimic stable, native ecosystems''
Rewilding and regenerative agriculture share another common foundation, that by carrying out these practises we can lock away a vast quantity of carbon from the atmosphere and simultaneously make our ecosystems and food production systems more resilient to climate destabilization. Natures toolkit for doing this is referred to as Natural Climate Solutions.
Natural climate solutions, rewilding and regenerative agriculture are all massively progressive within their own areas but there is hesitation when it comes to combining them, especially when it comes to merging rewilding with farming, and it is the role that people play in ecosystems on which this hesitancy hinges. There is a, largely unchallenged, belief in the existence of a scientific basis for separating people from the 'wild' but what is it? What does our hesitancy for allowing ourselves into ecosystems rest on?
Rewilding is primarily directed at allowing natural systems 'self will' to carry out their processes unhindered in the hope that the earth can stabilise wildlife populations and regulate its climate when given enough room to do so.
''Rewilding allows ecosystems space and time to carry out natural processes to stabilise themselves''
The various restorative agricultural practises also share a common core belief that farmed systems will function with more ease if they mimic the native ecosystems around them.
''Regenerative agriculture seeks to mimic stable, native ecosystems''
Rewilding and regenerative agriculture share another common foundation, that by carrying out these practises we can lock away a vast quantity of carbon from the atmosphere and simultaneously make our ecosystems and food production systems more resilient to climate destabilization. Natures toolkit for doing this is referred to as Natural Climate Solutions.
Natural climate solutions, rewilding and regenerative agriculture are all massively progressive within their own areas but there is hesitation when it comes to combining them, especially when it comes to merging rewilding with farming, and it is the role that people play in ecosystems on which this hesitancy hinges. There is a, largely unchallenged, belief in the existence of a scientific basis for separating people from the 'wild' but what is it? What does our hesitancy for allowing ourselves into ecosystems rest on?
An example of human ecosystem engineers at work
Using the underpinning science that rewilders use when assessing which species from the past to include in the present, people have just as strong a claim to being here as wolves, lynx or beavers. We even have as strong a claim as elephants and mammoths, species most rewilders feel come from too long ago to be suited to British rewilding today.
If the hesitancy does not stem from modern science then where does it come from? I suggest that it stems from or before the 1600's, from Descartes separation of mind from matter and cultured from wild. Hundreds of years later our deep seated feeling of separation from the natural world still divides us from the rest of life. If we accept that this divide is of our own making and that there is a role for people, and farmers, within the wild then an array of opportunities open up. In the absence of this divide there is the potential for Holistic Restoration; of our climate, our wildlife, our food systems and ourselves.
''People are just as native to Britain as wolves, lynx or mammoths but our feeling of separation from the natural world acts as a barrier to our incorporation into the wild''
How we, as people, see ourselves within our world will ultimately dictate our shared fates. We have a massive potential to benefit our world but only when we see ourselves as a part of it, when we engage with it and enter into the relationships that hold our biosphere together. The restoration of everything will benefit if merged and it is in the hope that this is possible that we are proposing the practise of Holistic Restoration.
If the hesitancy does not stem from modern science then where does it come from? I suggest that it stems from or before the 1600's, from Descartes separation of mind from matter and cultured from wild. Hundreds of years later our deep seated feeling of separation from the natural world still divides us from the rest of life. If we accept that this divide is of our own making and that there is a role for people, and farmers, within the wild then an array of opportunities open up. In the absence of this divide there is the potential for Holistic Restoration; of our climate, our wildlife, our food systems and ourselves.
''People are just as native to Britain as wolves, lynx or mammoths but our feeling of separation from the natural world acts as a barrier to our incorporation into the wild''
How we, as people, see ourselves within our world will ultimately dictate our shared fates. We have a massive potential to benefit our world but only when we see ourselves as a part of it, when we engage with it and enter into the relationships that hold our biosphere together. The restoration of everything will benefit if merged and it is in the hope that this is possible that we are proposing the practise of Holistic Restoration.
