What a great venue for it!
1 Like
There is a similar range of extremes in the US, everything from “we should try to restore Pleistocene-style ecosystems by importing the Serengeti into all that empty space in the middle of the country” to “exterminate all predators”. A major challenge is deciding what are we trying to restore to. Even over a few decades, there are major changes in what is perceived as “natural” conditions. Conservation paleoecology can help to give a picture of what conditions were like before good records.
2 Likes
For me when I think of rewinding I think of it in stages and sections. We don’t want a safari in our backyards but we also want more than just turf and exotics.
So for residential and commercial properties rewinding to me is cutting down on exotic plants, eliminating invasive plants, and only using turf for pathways and small play areas. We should look at the area and artistically reimagine and create it as a natural space based on its archetypal patterns. We should make beautiful and functional yards with a ecological layer to it that considers the need of local wildlife as well. Something to blur the edges of civilization and wilderness. A little of both without being to far in either direction. So native plants, toad homes, leaving some patches of soil for ground bees, letting flower heads snd seed heads be left alone for overwintering in, and being ok with that random snake, spider, or opossum that shows up. Learning how to handle something you don’t want there like a pit viper lurking under a kids wooden castle.
For larger area like public land , nature preserves, and privately owned but not managed large areas of land like what you often see for miles and miles off of interstate roads allow ecologist and conservationists to work hand and hand with urban developers and city maintenance.
Where i live, in the southeastern part of USA in the coastal dune are we have a wide range of lands. We have the botanical gardens and private gardens that often have a native plant drive to them. Very feed the pollinator type mentalities. Some of the more rural areas like farm lands and people who own dozens of acres often only manage a small section, like 1-5 acres out of 20 and the rest is left for snakes, smaller coyote packs, occasional stray black bear cub, and foxes. Eagles tend to dominate this area and other predatory birds. This tends to be where the most hunting takes place for deer and so on. The wetlands and swamps have alligators and rivers and creeks have eels and snapping turtles in less passed places.
Then you have the areas where hundreds of acres of privately owned land left alone, sometimes by one owner and sometimes multiple owners and large portions of public forest not being demolished for resources or overran with trails is where more and more larger packs of coyotes, adult black bears, occasional Jaguar and ect… shows up. Theee are places where even as someone who enjoys hiking 3 miles out just to get out there to hike another 10 miles off trail and through swamps I may see another person once every 10 hours worth of hiking.
I think urban and suburban areas need to do more to keep their landscaping more ecologically based. I think rural areas need to have stricter guidelines on how to manage the land and I think we really need to revamp everything about the public lands that mostly go unused. Even our fire ecology is off.
1 Like