WEBVTT - How Rewilding Works 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:14.080 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Kirk. 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:21.880 There's Chuck Bryant. Whoa, And this is stuff you should have. 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:25.319 You've been working on your Chewbacca friend. No, no, it 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.440 did sound like Chewbacca, especially that last bit. Now, I 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:30.680 haven't been working on at all. It's all natural talent. 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.479 Never had a lesson, as Ferris Bueler said, do you 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:38.279 remember Ferris Bueler. They came out fifty sixty years ago, 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:40.839 back when we were cool. I was supposed to do 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:43.000 that on the movie Crush, and then my guests couldn't 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:45.879 make it, and so I have like this great document 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:49.519 of notes prepared all about Ferris Spueler's sitting there going 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.559 to waste. Oh you should just read them, read through them. 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:56.400 On one of the notes, Yeah, Ferris Bueler sociopath or 0:00:56.440 --> 0:01:00.840 cool teenager? Would you come up with? Well? Udgment always 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:05.720 has this sort of rant that, uh, Ferris's associopath. Upon 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:10.319 looking back, M yeah, there's like, come on, man, there 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:12.640 used to be like a whole blog for a little 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:16.480 while about about that. They would like analyze film, like 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.039 famous films like Top Gun. They basically pointed out how 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:22.160 Maverick was like this terrible person who got his friend 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:28.399 killed and felt like no, no responsibility for it and everything. People. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:31.480 it's pretty eye opening. It's paradigm shifting, I guess you 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:34.000 could say, and I think that's appropriate that we're talking 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:38.840 about paradigm shifting blogs because there's a lot of paradigm 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:42.000 shift involved it today's topic, and there's a lot of 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:46.640 blogs too, it turns out about rewilding. Yeah, it's all 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:49.480 over the place. Uh, it is, And we need to 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.400 thank our old pal Julia Layton makes an appearance here 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:54.720 for the first time in a while. Yeah, welcome back 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.760 Lates helping us with this one. And um, I thought 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.200 it was interesting because think you and I both I'm 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:03.600 gonna go ahead and speak for you. I think we 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:07.440 both agree that rewilding the concept of rewilding is pretty awesome. 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:12.840 Pretty awesome, yes, But as evidence from even some of 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:16.120 the stuff that Julia sent us, like there are some 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:20.880 negative examples of like rewilding that didn't go well, but 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:24.800 I would argue, like, that's not even rewilding, and calling 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:28.680 it that is just hurts the cause. And then you 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:31.200 sent me a thing that where a guy said, Hey, 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.919 calling things that that aren't rewolding hurts the cause. Yeah. Yeah, 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.360 I was like, I need to back chuck up today. 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:39.600 I know he's thinking about something. I'm gonna send him 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:43.120 something that backs it up. And I did. But rewilding, 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:46.400 I guess we should just define so people are not 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:48.560 angry at us for rolling that out twenty minutes in. 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:52.600 But it is a term. When was it coined here? 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:57.120 I've seen all over the place. Somebody claims eighty five. 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.560 Another dude claims that he coined in nine two, but 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:03.000 I think the first time it appeared in the scientific 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:07.160 literature was some old hippie said that she coined it 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:11.440 in sixty seven. Mm hmm, yeah, the same hippie that 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:15.680 claimed to have coined will turn it up. Man. Uh. 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:17.520 But here's the deal, and you know, we can get 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:21.320 into the particulars, which we will, but generally, rewild ng 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:25.160 is and its simplest form kind of returning nature back, 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:29.200 turning it back over to nature to take care of itself, because, 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:32.880 as Julia points out very aptly, like nature didn't need 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.360 humans to come in and like all the things that 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.920 you see human humans do for nature, it's because we 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.160 had messed something up with nature. It's not because nature 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.200 was like, oh, we need you to step in. Like 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.720 if humans had never been around, nature would be just fine. Yeah. 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:50.280 So the point of rewilding is to designate huge swaths 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.800 of earth all over the earth, huge tracts of land. Yeah, 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:57.800 to to basically remove ourselves from and just let nature 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:00.840 do its thing, because we just we through everything up, 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.320 even when we try not to, we screw everything up. 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.480 We can overmanage, we can undermanage, we can mismanage. There 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.960 are very few things that we properly manage. And that's 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:13.800 kind of like what's given the idea, the concept of 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:17.839 rewilding like such a like such great cachet, like in 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:21.719 the ecological community, both the scientific part of it and 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:24.680 also like this the popular part of it. It's it's 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:26.760 saying like, well, then let's just get humans out of 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.279 the out of the management business and let nature do 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.880 its thing. I think it's wonderful idea, it is. And 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:36.920 you know, it can uh, it can encompass you know, 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.080 like plant growth and just kind of simple things like that, 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.800 like where that things were once mowed down and mulched 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.599 and like you know, quote unquote cared for by humans, 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:50.760 letting that kind of run wild again all the way 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:54.280 to the most extreme examples, which is something we touched 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.560 on in the National Park episode that Julia brought up 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:59.919 here was like reintroducing a carnivore to the scene that 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.440 had long been gone, like the wolves of Yellowstone and 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.800 letting them do their thing. And that's actually kind of 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.160 a big part of one part of rewilding. Yeah, so 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.320 you bring up something that you kind of reference what 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:17.640 I sent you earlier about UM misusing the term like 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:20.400 it does encompass all of those things. But the only 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.920 reason rewilding encompasses all of those things because the scientific 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.840 community is still trying to figure out exactly what rewilding is. 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:30.520 They're trying to figure out the definition, they're trying to 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:34.640 figure out what is not rewild ing UM. They're trying 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:37.080 to figure out like what the best practices and best 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:41.800 steps forward are for rewilding UM. And because they're still 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:44.520 figuring it out, and because it's such a buzzword, anybody 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:48.760 who's doing anything that has to do with restoration, whether 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:53.000 it's like, you know, reintroducing some voles into a place 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:56.880 where there's already voles um or you know, yeah, like 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:59.800 you were saying, like adding like some kind of g 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.520 asid raising the mower height in a park to let 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:10.200 more more of like the groundcover flower. Like Currently that's 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:14.120 technically rewilding, but really that's that's If you give it 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.680 five more years, probably those things will not be considered rewilding, 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:20.400 will have a much more coherent definition of it, and 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.640 hopefully a lot more data to back up the claims 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.160 that rewilding makes. Because the big problem with it is 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.080 it's a really great idea that we just need to 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:32.560 know more about. Uh we're jumping in feet first, and 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:36.760 that that can be It could be dangerous, as we'll see, 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:38.400 but I think more often than not it could just 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.360 be a failure and it could lose popular support. It'll 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:43.719 it'll make people think it just doesn't work if we 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:45.440 do it the wrong way a bunch of times to 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:49.200 start right, and there are some really bad examples for 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:52.159 free wilding. Well again, I don't even like calling it 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:56.280 rewilding because like one example that well you might as 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:58.520 well talk a little bit about a bad example is 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.600 uh South Georgia, not Georgia that we live in, but 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.840 Georgia and Europe. There's the reindeer in South Georgia where 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.159 there were whalers on this uh. I think it was 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:11.840 on an island, and they're like, well, you know, we 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:14.760 love to eat reindeer, and so we're just gonna put 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:17.000 a bunch of reindeer on this kind of smallish island 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:19.600 so we can hunt them as whalers and have something 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:23.240 to eat. And it went terribly and you know, years later, 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:24.840 I think they had to just go in and like 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:28.840 slaughter five thousand reindeer. That's not rewilding, that's just that's 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.800 a dumb idea, which is like bringing in an invasive 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:35.720 species and plunking it down there. That's not rewolding at all. 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:38.160 But it gets thrown in there as like there's a 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.240 bad example of rewilding. It's like it's not rewilding, right, 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:43.880 and it wasn't ever intended to be rewilding. It took 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:45.800 place at the turn of the century, and I think 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.280 South Georgia island is down by the Falklands if I 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:51.640 remember correctly, like below South America. So they brought it 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:53.680 in as like a like a food source because like 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:57.560 these these Swedes or Norwegians were like, there's nothing down 0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:59.840 here that we've ever eaten before we need some reindeer 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.520 in this place. And they managed it just fine, Like 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:07.000 they hunted the reindeer and the reindeer apparently we're well 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.160 checked or well managed. But then when they stopped hunting 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.960 the reindeer and let nature take over, basically what we 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:18.480 would do with rewilding, the reindeer ran wild, and uh, 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.520 things just went out of hand really really quickly. So 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.040 it was not an example of rewilding by anyone's definition, 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:27.720 but it still serves as a cautionary tale about what 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.920 can happen when you do something like just back out 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.120 of the picture. That we do need to know more 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.400 about what our role is to set up an ecosystem 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:38.640 before we take our hands off of it, you know 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:42.840 what I'm saying. Yeah, And also Julia points out, um 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.200 again very aptly, that like when something like this hits 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.880 the news, then you're going to have animal activists and 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:53.760 environmentalists when they hear the word rewilding projects say we 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:55.920 can't do that. That led to the death the slaughter 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.720 of five thousand reindeer. Uh So it just gives it 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:02.240 all a bad name. So hopefully we'll try and give 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.079 it a better name. Yeah, because again I think it's 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:07.199 a really great idea. We just need to know more 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:09.880 about it. We need more science, everybody, So we talk 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:14.400 about bio diversity. Yeah, I think we should, because, um, 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:16.720 that's pretty much the basis of this whole thing, the 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.120 whole idea behind rewilding, the whole reason it has so 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:24.120 much supporters because it's become painfully clear that the damage 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:27.160 that we've done to the Earth is altering ecosystems, and 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:32.240 pretty much unfavorable ways. I don't think there's any way 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:34.520 that we've damaged an ecosystem where we're like, oh, that 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:38.959 actually worked out for the better, maybe for humans and conveniences, 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.360 but yeah, but even still, now we've reached Yeah, maybe 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.200 that was true like thirty forty years ago. Now we've 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:47.440 reached the time where it's it's time to pay the piper. 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.080 And now even for us, we're suffering the consequences of 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.960 damaging and altering ecosystems so dramatically that they can no 0:09:55.040 --> 0:10:00.240 longer function. And the point behind rewilding is to re 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:04.120 established biodiversity in large parts so that humans and other 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:08.160 animals can survive on planet Earth in the next hundred years. Right, 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:10.960 And then you know, when you look into the more 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:15.880 I guess level headed descriptors of what rewilding can be 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:18.000 and sort of the tenants of them, which we can 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:21.600 get too later and full it's not hey, let's let's 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:25.559 dump a bunch of mountain lions into Central Park. It's 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.200 it's got to it has to work with humans as well. 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:31.960 But as we'll see, there's there's a lot of places 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:34.440 is where there are not humans and this is mainly 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:36.800 what they're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, and then then in 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:38.959 those places where there are some humans or whatever, it's 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.959 like we'll just we'll get them out all the way. Yeah, 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.600 but it has to work together. Like unfortunately, you know, 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:48.319 like it or not, humans are part of the ecosystem 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:52.040 now and it has to work for everyone. But right 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:54.040 now humans are just making it work for them in 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.400 many cases. Yeah. And then so even beyond also you 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.400 raise a good point, even beyond also the the fact 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.760 that it's got to work for us, that we can't 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:07.120 just coexist with mountain lions in Central Park. Um. It 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:09.679 it has to to work for us in the sense 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:12.560 that like a lot of the places that are being 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:18.080 like pointed to is like prime areas to be rewilded 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.200 if you like, if you look over to the right 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.400 a little bit. There's some like sheepherder. They're saying, Um, 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:26.839 this is my land that I use my sheep to 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.560 graze on, and sheep herds grazing is pretty much the 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.680 antithesis of rewilding, So what are we going to do 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:35.679 with that guy? So there's also one of the one 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:38.439 of the things that they're figuring out with rewilding is 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:42.840 how to evolve from a at least like um and 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:45.840 equally involved the community or the people who are going 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:48.400 to be most affected by this, if not from a 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.720 bottom up. Everyone's saying do not do top down, don't 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:53.959 don't figure this out in the city and then come 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:56.600 and tell the sheep farmers what to do. Like, that's 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.199 not going to work. I think I saw somebody say, 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.520 especially in Scotland, that is not going to work. Yeah, 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:04.680 and I was like, yeah, in a Scotland, I know 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.880 that's true. Yeah. Oh boy, I had like this long 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:10.240 string of Scottish obscenities. I was about ready to belt 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:15.080 out and my worst accent earned brew. Um. So, as 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:18.680 far as biodiversity goes, Julia put it away that I 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:20.160 think it really kind of hits it on the nose 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:23.840 it is. It's not just the quantity and variety of 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:28.880 species and individuals. It's really the interactions within the ecosystem 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:31.640 and how they all work together. That's what bio diversity is. 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:35.400 And ecosystems and bio diversity, they're meant to fluctuate like 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:40.360 things happen in nature naturally, and species may dwindle here 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.800 and there when resources are a little more scarce, and 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.640 sometimes they're not thriving like they should, but they're still 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.760 built for that. What they're not built for is human 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:53.000 triggered biodiversity loss. And this is what we've seen humans 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.840 do over and over in time and time again, and 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.400 that just makes ecosystems kind of crumble under pressure to 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.679 deliver and then do their thing. Yeah, and there's just 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:07.760 it's unequivocal that, um that we have are facing terrible 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:12.040 a loss of biodiversity all over Earth. The Living Plant 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.760 Index said that between nineteen seventy and two thousand and twelve, 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:19.199 fifty eight percent of the world's fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.760 and mammals all disappeared, like just gone goodbye, all of 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:28.959 those species. Yeah, so um like that when that happens, 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.880 like you're saying these these The way that that that 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:35.840 UM ecosystems have like evolved over time is that like 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:38.320 they function as a as a net, as a web, 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:42.640 as like a bunch of interconnected parts that create something 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:47.080 greater as a whole, and then that whole works together 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:49.280 with other similar holes to create something greater, and it 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:51.720 keeps going on to this macro scale until you reach 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.360 like planet level. So you're going from like you know, 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.959 dormouse to planet level, all following basically the same path. 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:03.640 And when you lose biodiversity, you're bound to lose species 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:08.480 that are performing really important, really valuable functions that affect 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:12.079 UM and support a bunch of other different kinds of species. 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:14.480 So you lose those other species, but then you also 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:18.000 lose what are called the services that that ecosystem provides, 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:24.320 everything from preventing floods and erosion to preventing forest fires wildfires, 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:30.600 um um speeding up the carbon sequestions sequestration, um speeding 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.800 up oxygen production, like all these things that that the 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.040 planet needs to live. We evolved on planet Earth, so 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:40.720 we need those two and we've also, whether we realize 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:45.400 it or not, built our economy taking those things for granted. 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:51.000 UM and so fortunately the UM Office of Economic Development 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:57.800 UM put together a paper that cited a hundred and 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:02.280 twenty five to hundred and forty trillion dollars worth of 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.920 these services are produced by Nature per year. They put 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.320 a number on it, which, on its face it sounds 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:12.440 like a lot of money, right. It is the global 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.840 gross domestic product all of the money produced by all 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:21.640 the goods and services produced on planet Earth in only 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.880 equal eight five trillion. So on the high end, Nature 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.760 produces services that are worth nearly twice of global GDP 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:32.120 in a whole year. And so now you're starting to 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.120 bring in the conservatives. They're like, okay, I hadn't consider that. 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.400 Let's talk about that too. So there's there's basically no 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:44.720 one who wouldn't benefit from a healthier, more bio diverse planet. 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.280 And I feel like we've reached the point for a break. 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:50.960 What do you think right after I say one quick 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:54.440 soapboxy thing, it's sort of echoes back to what I 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:57.800 pointed out in the Yellowstone episode. Is this this wonderful 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:03.280 macro long view of the world that you embrace and 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:08.440 I embrace. That's uh, that's the problem because in the 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:12.520 short term, people like sure but what about this one 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:15.800 thing I can do? Now? What about all this crypto 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:19.480 I can mind today? Uh? Nuts getting into all that. 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:23.920 Good lord, but um, people need to take a longer 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.280 view of things, and I think humans are just unfortunately 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:29.960 want to look at the the five bucks right in 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.240 front of their face that they can make, you know, chuck. 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:36.880 It feels a lot like we're waking up, you and me, Yes, 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:39.000 But I think I think that's a big point. I 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.640 think you and I are very mainstream people, and I 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.840 think we're waking up even more than we had before. 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.640 And I think that that's usually reflective of people in general. 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.520 I think that people are starting to wake up more 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.080 as a group, as a collective, and you just see 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:59.400 so much less like greenwashing and PRBs, like people don't 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:02.200 buy it any more. People. I think people are starting 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.399 to understand on the whole it's how important this is. 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:10.080 I think younger generations continually do that through through time, 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:13.760 and it's uh, it's happening. So that's a good thing. 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:17.080 And I agree, g Z, we should we should take 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.240 that break. Go gen Z and whatever follows you. I 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.399 don't even know what my daughter is. I don't either. 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:25.840 I'm not sure if they've named that generation yet, because 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:30.320 right now it's Generation very selfish, but that's very young 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:36.080 six years old. Yeah, generation temper tantrum. She's not much 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:40.320 of a tantrumber. But anyway, uh, let's take that break 0:17:40.359 --> 0:18:05.920 and we'll be right back. Okay, Hey, before we get going, 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.920 can I say one quick thing, and this is I 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.600 am always very sad when I see that, like Jogger 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:16.520 in California, Southern California has attacked in Mall by mountain lion, 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.640 Like that is a tragedy for that family. Um, but 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:23.840 my favorite thing is when those stories end with and 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:26.600 that's what happened, and that's too bad, and that's a 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.480 mountain lion doing what a mountain lion does and not 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:34.240 and they hunted it down and killed it. Yeah yeah, 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.680 you know. Yeah, speaking of releasing mountainins into Central Park, 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.000 which I doubt if they were over there anyway, Well, 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:42.200 I think that's that's one of the big tenants of 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:45.520 rewild ng is is like there there's a push that 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.639 of converting. So I was talking about those sheep sheep 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.680 herders in Scotland and what are they gonna do? Well, 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:54.240 some people say, well, you can actually there's stuff called 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:56.840 nature based economies, and you can change what you do 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:00.760 to make money. UM, if you are getting into rewilding 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:05.760 your land, you could start basically holding safari's and that's UM. 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.520 That's that. That illustrates two things. One, there's a lot 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:10.960 of money to be made. I've seen, UM, I've seen 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.199 that some farmers have reported making as much, if not 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:16.679 more than they did farming that they do now that 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:18.919 they're doing like eco tourism on their old on their 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:23.359 land that's been rewild And it's interesting sure. But but 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:27.160 then also it also shows you the role of humans 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.080 in this like we're meant to be like guided on 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:36.720 a tour in a very like um arranged visit to 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.720 these areas. It's not like this area is wild, just 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:44.919 do whatever you want in it. It's extremely well managed. 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:48.000 But what you're managing in this case is the humans, 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:51.159 not the wildlife, not the floora of the fall on it. 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:55.440 You're keeping people out, no hunting, no farming, no grazing 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:59.159 your livestock, no just like going camping there. I'm not 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:01.760 sure about that part, but I get the impression that 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:04.639 humans are meant to just be kept out of it 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:08.520 rather than the animal populations are are managed, it's the 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:11.200 humans that are Yeah. I think I don't know how 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:13.280 wilders feel about it, but as a camper, I think 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:16.879 if you do it right, then you shouldn't be harming 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:21.600 the ecosystems that you're in. But someone might argue that like, hey, man, 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:26.639 just setting a tent up like on the ground harms 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:30.440 the ground. Yeah. I mean I guess if you zoom 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.560 in far enough with a microscope you could probably back 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:36.840 that up. Yeah. Like I crushed a worm with my 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:40.600 big body, so then I slept in a hammock. And 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:44.680 what are you going to give that worms family? Now? Uh? 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:48.159 A small sum of money there, maybe some dirt. They 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:51.160 would probably prefer dirt, especially if it was really good dirt, 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:56.720 soil or soil from my body. Yep. Just take off 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:58.640 your clothes and roll on the ground and say I'm 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.560 sorry worm. And then they said, well, and he just 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:06.440 killed two more of us. Uh. Let's humans have to 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:12.000 remove themselves from the wilderness. Let's move on, please. Uh. 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:15.359 We should talk about the three CS because this was 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:20.000 sort of an early descriptor on rewilding, which is cores, corridors, 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:25.680 and carnivores, and the idea is that. And this has 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:28.600 a lot to do with like reintroducing wolves the Yellowstone carnivores. 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:33.720 Having an apex predator in an area is awesome and 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:37.439 super healthy for that area. Uh. They control and they 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:41.080 regulate that food chain like a champ. And they need 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:44.120 a lot of room though, and so uh it's called 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:46.960 a core reserve like their area. If they're gonna thrive 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:50.360 a lot, and when that core reserve shrinks, then all 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:53.399 of a sudden they're isolated. That's gonna harm them. And 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:55.399 then that's gonna have that trickle down effect that we 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:58.440 talk a lot about. Uh. Here on planet Earth, now, 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:01.280 there are a lot of cores that are too small. 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:04.360 So the ideas, all right, why don't we connect these 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:09.040 cores with corridors to allow them to keep moving? And 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:12.320 this can look anything like I sit you that one 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:14.440 thing I know that we've talked about these before. It's 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:17.399 the coolest thing when they make like a a land 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:22.639 bridge for animals to cross a highway without getting killed 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:25.840 or go under like an overpass or an underpass like 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:28.040 that could be a corridor at its most sort of 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:32.879 fundamental or like literally sort of rejoining land that was 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:37.199 not joined before because of human interaction. Yeah, there's a 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:39.560 big there's a big push for that because yeah, there's 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:43.639 plenty of cores around, but if they're disconnected, then there's 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:46.399 not going to be enough um to support like a 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:50.240 healthy ecosystem, and those like apex predators are going to 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:52.719 get stressed and it's going to stress out the whole ecosystem. 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:55.000 They don't have anywhere to go. But if you connect 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:57.960 two small ones through a corridor, all of a sudden 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:00.280 they can kind of go back and forth and you know, 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:03.920 the one, this one small place regenerates in their absence, 0:23:03.960 --> 0:23:05.359 and then they go to the other one, and then 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:07.399 they go back to the first one, and the second 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:10.359 one regenerates while they're gone like that. That's a really 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:13.800 great idea because it also kind of shows that spirit 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:15.760 of like not giving ups, like, oh, the cores are 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:18.080 so small, what are we gonna do? I guess nothing. 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:20.119 It's like no, you connect the course and then you 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:22.280