Sunday book review – Great Misconceptions edited by Ian Parsons

This is a collection of essays about rewilding. I wrote what has been placed as the last chapter so I am reviewing this book without considering the last chapter. I hadn’t seen any of the other dozen chapters until the book arrived in the post last week.

The chapters have been brought together by Ian Parsons who also writes a chapter on forestry and the introduction. The authors, predominantly men, cover a range of perspectives on rewilding from academics to practitioners and from business, agriculture, forestry and a member of the House of Lords (and Baronesses, in this case Natalie Bennett). The book has a predominantly positive view of the place that rewilding can and should play in nature conservation and land use policies in the UK without have the messianic flavour that some writing on the subject possesses. I’d guess that most of the authors would describe themselves as mildly critical but true friends of rewilding although rewilding comes in many shapes and sizes.

Here is a simple list of chapters and authors: Rewilding is not land abandonment: In fact, it’s the very opposite (Eoghan Daltun); A helping hand: Rewilding’s foresters (Ian Parsons); Recreate while we re-create (James Chubb); Change is the only constant (Matt Merritt); Too small and crowded an island? (Steve Carver); Beyond rural rewilding: Why rewilding is right for cities too (Siân Moxon); Rewilding and feeding the world? (Chris Richards); Shh – let’s create a rewilding project, but don’t tell anyone (Chris Sperring); Rewilding politics – applying ecological knowledge to human animals (Natalie Bennett); Is it possible to rewild your business? (Sam Varney); Species translocations: rewilding or dewilding our ecosystems (Ian Carter and Alex Lees); No place for lynx? (Hugh Webster); A look back from the future… (Mark Avery).

This is a thoughtful volume and I recommend it to those who have heard of rewilding and want to know more about it, whatever it is in its many guises,  from a variety of perspectives. I wonder what the rewilding zealots and the conservative opponents will make of it.

The cover? I’m not greatly enamoured by it as it doesn’t conjure up anything about the content and it’s simply not one that would make me pick up the book in a bookshop – remember bookshops? I’ll give it 5/10.

Great Misconceptions: rewilding myths and misunderstandings edited by Ian Parsons is published by Whittles.

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