Mostly a description of places, what they are and what they could be. Centered in Wales. Wales has been desertified by eons of sheep grazing. No trees, dwindling wildlife, fewer birds than are in the suburbs of London. Monbiot hates sheep in Britain like I hate cows on public lands in the U.S. West. The sterile, unwild state of Wales makes me realize more than ever that grazing continues to degrade the land, not just holding it in a state of normalized degredation.

In the first chapter Monbiot paints the beginning of a vision he has for rewilding, both for the land and for people. He establishes that people desire it, the land and wildlife need it, and that it is ecologically feasible. I wish he had ended with a similar chapter of where we could get to and how we could get there. ( )

A call to action. Took a while to pick up, but was worth it. Doesn't overwhelm you with facts but gradually builds up a picture of a landscape Monbiot obviously knows and loves, painfully degraded by humans. The descriptions felt overly long in places (why use one sentence when you can use a paragraph?) but you end up feeling like you know Britain like an old friend. That's invaluable.

He loves nature. The way he talks about it makes this clear. He can't get enough of it, and that's an essential quality if you're going to communicate its value effectively. His many descriptions of the sea open up an environment that is likely a mystery to many. The wilderness has a quality hard to communicate, but he often manages it.

The way he talks about the human element of rewilding is particularly impressive to me (especially in "The Hushing"), striking a delicate balance between the urgency of saving the natural world and the need to not trample all over communities who have already been treated so shoddily over and over that they're often barely clinging on to their ways of life. There's no glossing over the past, no pretense about our present or future - he engages with the social dimension in a way that I think all scientists should (actually going out and talking to the people whose lives are affected and listening, participating).

The picture he paints of the possible futures is quite seductive (at least to me) with wild boar, lynx, wolves etc. roaming beautiful British rainforests (yes rainforests), and marine protected zones allowing sealife to come back and thrive. I do foresee many obstacles (especially in landowners) but surely capturing the public imagination won't prove that hard? If there's one thing this book does well it's reignite my love of the wild.

It also (for me) inspires further reading, with plenty of references and ideas. As a paradigm shift in conservation, rewilding seems pretty reasonable to me. It certainly captured my imagination the first time I encountered it (but that was the slightly different definition where you attempt to recreate prehistoric ecosystems with equivalent or even revived megafauna etc.) as his description of some traditional conservation starting to resemble "gardening" does feel pretty accurate. It leads to a fantasy of control, and limits on attention/time/resources I'd imagine. Reading the examples in the book it looks like that's exactly what happens. The approach used by Trees For Life sounds very successful precisely because they understand the limits of control, and leverage what they have effectively.

Overall I did love the book, though it took me longer than expected to read it because I found the style a little verbose. The important thing is the way it leaves you with a clear feeling and understanding of how things are now and what should come next as well as an appreciation of nature. It's not a barrage of facts, but it does give you many key ones (and they're often horrifying). I'll be recommending it to others. ( )

The landscape of the UK has been tamed by man and domestic animal for millennia, so much so that vast parts of it are almost monocultures now. This legacy is one of the human desire to control and dominate their environment, and biodiversity has suffered as a result. In this book Monbiot is advocating us to re-engage with nature and considers bold and daring options to re-wild the countryside.

Possibly the bravest of his suggestions is to reintroduce wolves. First hearing this, most people will raise their hands in horror because of the danger, but as has been proven in America, and other parts of Europe, the reintroduction of a top level predator can shake the natural environment completely. For example, having wolves back in Scotland will mean that the deer population can be controlled naturally, less deer will mean that the vegetation can grow and recover, and all these have a massive effect on the animals and plants up and down the food chain. The planned and accidental introduction of beavers seems to have worked, with the changes that they make to the river systems hopefully will have a knock on effect by reducing flooding.

He isn’t a huge fan of sheep either... These simple, harmless animals cause massive devastation to the landscape, almost to the point where there is more life in a desert that on the Welsh uplands. Areas that have had sheep excluded, within a handful of years will have a rich variety of flora and fauna. The same principle applies to oceans; the modern way of trawling with dragnets wreaks utter devastation to the ocean floor. Simply banning that type of fishing in certain areas, and limiting activity in the margin of the zone will have a similar effect fairly soon too.

But as ever change is never straightforward.

Monbiot is normally a political writer, and as you’d expect there is a political element to this book. He considers the effects that the common agricultural policy has on our landscape, in particular that very little land can be left to go wild and must always be managed to be able to claim subsidies. There is a part on the failed re-wilding undertaken by the Germans, and also the evidence that our present native trees had evolved to cope with the mega fauna such as elephants and rhino that used to live here.

There is at the moment precious political will to change things, coupled with powerful (and frequently absent) landowners with little desire for change, things are not going to happen soon. For change as bold as this there needs to be full commitment from all stakeholders and parties involved, and I for one would like to see the reintroduction of the top level predators and the return of proper wilderness to parts of Britain.

It is a well written and passionate plea for the necessary revolution that is needed in our natural world. Well worth reading. ( )

This is a horribly disappointing book. There is no science, just biographical anecdotes of the over glorified and egotistical boy scout George Monbiot.

Both, "[b:Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators|2288031|Where the Wild Things Were Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators|William Stolzenburg|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1429137230s/2288031.jpg|2294238] and [b:Once & Future Giants: What Ice Age Extinctions Tell Us about the Fate of Earth's Largest Animals|9866998|Once & Future Giants What Ice Age Extinctions Tell Us about the Fate of Earth's Largest Animals|Sharon Levy|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347251266s/9866998.jpg|14758526] are much better books on rewilding.

[b:Feral Cities: Adventures with Animals in the Urban Jungle|23281013|Feral Cities Adventures with Animals in the Urban Jungle|Tristan Donovan|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1414559187s/23281013.jpg|42819116] takes a look at how wildlife adapts to human created environments.

( )

I am, first of all, so thankful that George Monbiot broke his mold and spent a book writing about something with more hopeful overtones than the end of the world. Not that the end of the world isn't a worthy subject for a life's work, but as a change of pace, was it ever nice not to read about death and destruction on every single page. Thank you, George.

Feral is about rewilding. Not conservation, which he equates to a "prison" in which well-intentioned folks try to arrest ecosystems in artificial stages, whether it's good for them or not. Rewilding is about people letting go of the reigns and allowing nature to do whatever it is that it's going to do, and as it turns out, in every place it's been tried so far (whether intentionally or no), it's led to something good. Go figure. Nature knows what to do without people bossing it around.

Feral is, too, an awful lot about George pulling an Ernest Hemingway, although in wilderness or its closest counterparts rather than in bull-rings or war zones. He gets himself nearly dashed to pieces at sea in a kayak at least a couple of times and goes tramping around in various inhospitable places, looking for danger, and sometimes he finds it. In this, it has tones of a mid-life crisis, but at least it's directed at something of possible benefit to the biosphere, which was thoughtful.

The one considerable downside of the book was the several chapters George spends (as other reviewers put it) muttering about how much he hates sheep. No doubt, over-grazing by sheep has been enormously destructive everywhere it's been tried, and it is stupid beyond belief to expend precious conservation dollars preserving landscapes that are the result of sheep eating everything not actively poisonous to them. I really don't think it deserves the amount of space George gives it in this book, and it certainly reduces the interest and impact considerably for anyone not living in a place dominated by a sheep economy. This is a shame.

Still. Rewilding is a lovely and important idea with emotional appeal for everyone who cares about nature and, when George isn't balefully staring down sheep, Feral explores it well. ( )