A call to 'rewild' our hearts
Humanity needs to bridge the distance from our animal nature
Ethologist Marc Bekoff is known for his long-running column on animal emotions in Psychology Today and his 22 books, many of which uphold the validity of arguments for animal intelligence and emotion. In his latest book, Bekoff argues for a revolution in human thought that involves “minding” animals and the Earth. From the book Rewilding Our Hearts © Copyright 2014 by Marc Bekoff. Reprinted with permission from New World Library. www.NewWorldLibrary.com
It is impossible, or should be impossible, to be neutral on issues of animal well-being, environmental protection, and the effects of climate change. Many scientists like to think science is objective and that they themselves don’t have an agenda. Many also think they have no obligation to interact with the public. But scientists are subjective. They are thinking, feeling humans with particular viewpoints and a stake in the world, which is how it should be. In his wonderful book A World of Wounds, biologist Paul Ehrlich wrote: “Many of the students who have crossed my path in the last decade or so have wanted to do much, much more. They were drawn to ecology because they were brought up in a ‘world of wounds,’ and want to help heal it. But the current structure of ecology tends to dissuade them.” The concept of rewilding is grounded in the premise that caring is okay. In fact, it is more than okay; it is essential. People who care about animals and nature are often made to feel they must apologize for their views. They are disparaged for “romanticizing” animals or being sentimental. I once told environmental scientist Haydn Washington that I was sick and tired of people who cared about animals having to apologize for their compassion and empathy. He said something that really moved me: “People should not have to apologize for their sense of wonder.” Amen. A long time ago I developed the notion of “minding animals.” I still like this phrase and use it in two main ways. First, “minding animals” refers to caring for nonhuman animals, respecting them for who they are, appreciating their own world views, and wondering what and how they are feeling and why. But the phrase also acknowledges and honors the well-established fact that many animals have very active minds. We may never know everything that they think and feel, but they see and react to the world with awareness and emotion. In the same way, we can also “mind Earth.” We must care for her and appreciate, respect, protect, and love her. To do this, we must imagine the Earth’s perspective, which is to say, the collective perspective and well-being of all her inhabitants. Minding animals and minding Earth in this way increases our wisdom by helping us make wiser choices about our actions in the world. Rewilding is a call to action, but primarily to action within our own lives. The roots of rewilding: ecological repair
The word “rewilding” became an essential part of the dialogue among conservationists in the late 1990s, when conservation biologists Michael Soulé and Reed Noss wrote a now-classic paper called “Rewilding and Biodiversity: Complementary Goals for Continental Conservation.” In her book Rewilding the World, conservationist Caroline Fraser noted that rewilding basically could be boiled down to cores, corridors, and carnivores. Th at is, according to Dave Foreman, director of the Rewilding Institute in Albuquerque, rewilding is a conservation strategy based on three premises: “(1) healthy ecosystems need large carnivores, (2) large carnivores need big, wild roadless areas, and (3) most roadless areas are small and thus need to be linked.” Conservation biologists see rewilding as a large-scale process involving multiple projects of different sizes that may focus on carnivores but ultimately include the panoply of wildlife. Obviously, ecological rewilding efforts center on the difficult question, “What is wild?” It can mean unchanged, untamed, unexplored, and unfamiliar, but in ecological terms, few places on Earth still qualify. Wild can also mean uncontrolled. But by definition, conservation biologists deliberately alter an environment through rewilding; they don’t simply let whatever happens happen. The rewilding process must include control or management of humans because we have radically changed naturally evolved checks and balances in the behavior of many animals and ecosystems across the globe. Further, reintroducing wildlife— rebuilding the biodiversity of animal and plant life in an ecosystem— will never fully or exactly replicate what an environment was like before. So, contrary to what the term implies, rewilding projects can’t, and don’t, re-create what was before in a manner that is unmanaged by humans. What they do is to make room for much more diverse, healthy, and sustainable ecosystems that are as natural as they can be, given our omnipresence. They adjust human impacts so that this wilderness community can thrive even though constricted by human communities. For large-scale rewilding projects, success always comes down to the core word corridor. Projects must establish connections or links among diverse geographical areas so that animals can roam as freely as possible, with few disruptions. Ecosystems must be connected so that their integrity is maintained. Regardless of scale, reconnecting a wider variety of habitats, and protecting these corridors and core spaces, helps ecosystems heal and find a less fragile balance. Interestingly, these rewilding projects inevitably reconnect diverse and sometimes fragmented human communities as well. Rewilding: a silent, spiritual revolution
Ultimately, rewilding is an expression of love. It is our response to the unspeakable wonder and amazement of creation itself. The new social revolution that centers on rewilding our hearts is a silent and spiritual movement that honors simplicity. In The Great Work, the late theologian Thomas Berry stressed that our relationship with nature should be one of awe, not one of use. Individuals have inherent or intrinsic value because they exist, and this alone mandates that we coexist with them. Others call this perspective “deep ethology,” which balances our studies of animal minds with respect for their hearts. Leslie Sponsel, an anthropologist at the University of Hawaii, describes this as “spiritual ecology.” Through simple activities like taking a morning walk in nature, he proposes we can restore our “ecosanity.” In a similar way, Michael Tobias, an ecologist and award-winning filmmaker, rocked a 2012 symposium on biodiversity and conservation when he asked, “How hard is it to give a crumb to a bird or a child?” Given the severity of the problems facing us, it may seem crazy to suggest that simple, tiny acts of caring could lead us out of our troubles. But this is what I have come to after thinking about the nature of human-animal interactions for decades. Every act matters, and every act reflects the deeper attitudes behind it. This is why I say that rewilding is not a program; it is an intuitive feeling of connection that continues to grow and become more inclusive. I ache when I feel nature’s wisdom being compromised and forced out of balance. Rewilding is the sheer joy we feel when nature is healthy and we are embedded in her mysterious ways, when the distance collapses and we feel at one with nature and all her creatures.
Rewildling as life strategy and personal journey
By proposing that we “rewild our hearts,” I mean just that. Rewilding personalizes what conservation projects try to accomplish in the world by building wildlife bridges and underpasses so that animals can move freely between fragmented areas. I see rewilding our hearts as a dynamic, intimate process that fosters corridors of coexistence and compassion for animals and their homes as it connects our heart and brain, our caring and awareness. Thus, rewilding is a mind-set. It reflects the desire to (re)connect intimately with all animals and landscapes in ways that dissolve borders. Rewilding means appreciating, respecting, and accepting other beings and landscapes for who or what they are, not for who or what we want them to be. Indeed, I see the process as, most of all, a personal journey and transformative exploration that centers on bringing other animals and all ecosystems back into our hearts. If we are going to make the world a better place now and for future generations, personal rewilding is central to the process. Laws and public policy won’t do it. Each of us must undergo a paradigm shift in how we view and live in the world. Conservation biologists Andrew Balmford and Richard Cowling stress that “conservation is primarily not about biology but about people and the choices they make.” As California State University psychologist P. Wesley Schultz notes, “Conservation can only be achieved by changing behavior.”
Marc Bekoff is professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has worked alongside leading writers and activists including Jane Goodall, Peter Singer, and PETA co-founder Ingrid Newkirk. He lives in Boulder, Colo.
