The WWF’s new Living Planet report highlights a 58% decline in the abundance of 3,706 animal species since 1970, reinforcing the fear that humanity is bringing about a sixth mass extinction. The roots of this fear stretch back more than a century, when a series of well-publicised extinctions provided incontrovertible evidence that human actions could
Photo: Paul Jepson This is the text of a lecture I delivered in the Valuing Nature Keynote lecture series in London on 22 September 2016 ---------------------------------------------------- Helen Meach, CEO of Rewilding Britain started a recent article in Ecos with the statement: “Britain is one of the most ecologically depleted nations on Earth”. Given
Originally published on the Freshwaterblog on 24 June 2016 Back in May I presented a policy brief authored by Frans Schepers of Rewiding Europe and myself to aRewilding Dorset meeting organised by Adrian Newton and Arjan Gosal of the University of Bournemouth. The county of Dorset is located on the South coast of Britain and
Originally published by Rewilding Britain, 7 June 2016 Paul Jepson makes the case for an enabling policy space for rewilding as a new and complementary conservation approach in Europe Rewilding is the biggest, most exciting idea to emerge in conservation since the 1970s. The challenge now is to create the spaces within conservation policy and
Originally posted at Geographical on 24 May 2016 Rewilding needs to be positioned as a forward looking and complimentary approach to the existing model of conservation In the conservation world everybody seems to be talking rewilding. The last year has seen publication of 45 academic articles (including two major reviews) and over 200 media articles
Originally posted to Geographical in Opinions 24 Nov 2015 When the histories of 21st century conservation are written 2015 might, just might, be identified as a pivotal year: the year when the focus of conservation shifted from a defence of past natures to the active creation of a wilder anthropocene This year rewilding has moved
Originally published in Rewidling Britain Magazine on 3 Nov 2015 Or, as Oxford academic Paul Jepson puts it, nature conservation badly needs an upgrade. Here he presents the case for experimental rewilding Originally posted to Rewilding Britain 03 Nov 2015 In the 1700s, Lord Cobham’s experimental landscape garden at Stowe blew the mind of cultured
First published in The Conversation on 15 July 2015 The restoration of natural ecosystems – “rewilding” – ought to be a chance to create inspiring new habitats. However the movement around it risks becoming trapped by its own reverence of the past; an overly nostalgic position that makes rewilding less realistic and harder to achieve.
Originally published in The Conversation on 1 Oct 2014 Full marks to colleagues at the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London for the Living Planet Report 2014 and its headline message which one hopes ought to shock the world out of its complacency: a 52% decline of wildlife populations in the past
