I definitely say, if you're just going to throw seed wherever- you absolutely NEED to double & triple check that the plant is actually supposed to be in your home region. Even in the US, which is a huge place with wildly different ecosystems, there is a tendency to legally label any plant that grows within the continental US a Native species everywhere in the US, so long as it won't cause some imminent environmental disaster & there are several actual native species that are considered high risk because they can cause local economic harm by spreading fatal or permanently crippling diseases to food crops or trees we tend to use for lumber. There are regional subspecies- we have plants that are technically the exact same species as ones in Europe or Asia, but that billionth of a percent in genetic difference causes one to turn into an environmental disaster while the other is perfectly fine in the wild. People have created domesticated variants of wild plants to sell for home gardens, not the woods. Some companies that offer native plants don't always exclusively offer natives. You can go on & on with this stuff. Also, trying to always do your searches with the scientific names, as some common names are shared by several different species.
You see so many seed packets labeled "Wildflower Seed Mixes" etc., taking advantage of the new wildlife gardening trend in the UK that aren't even naturalised let alone native species. I think most people fairly assume "wild" = "native" including local amateur conservation groups. I'd really love to see small scale native plant nurseries being established all over the place, sourcing seeds, cuttings etc. from their local area.
First of all: love your content, it is so close to my perspective but well articulated. Gotta get on writing in a similar spirit. As for the topic and question in the end: I am all for guerilla reintroduction IF people who do it know what they are doing. More often than not in history we had guerilla INTRODUCTION of invasive species and you have plenty of examples in the UK alone. People who "love animals" often do not care about the wider ecological impact of their favourite exotic species being let loose. So embracing guerilla reintroduction could easily lead to more non-natives being brought, bred, and released. If not for that - I am all for it, under careful monitoring of NGOs who know what the hell they are doing.
Love this!!! this video actually showed up after I had seeded some native plants near a housing development. It all used to be forest, they tore it all down and are in the process of building expensive townhomes. They left a tiny area of woodland along the creek that is overrun with invasive species such as honeysuckle and stiltgrass. Its not easy work removing and planting! But Im seeing progress, many of the plants are establishing. It may never be as vast as it was and may take years to mature, but some forest is better than none.
i mean i technically agree with wildlife rewilding being more difficult but endangered plants? my issue there is really that not enough information is out there for specific areas. I personally wouldnt know where to look which endangered plants are supposed to be in my area and where i could get seeds from to rewild them
You raise a good point. A federated approach to guerrilla gardening best practices could help address that. I'm picturing a community that shares common rewilding goals and shares information, with an emphasis on the specifics of each represented area.
Nice video! I know beavers in western Washington have been translocated on the down-low. One of the islands in the Puget sound has a pair that are thriving. It is illegal to move beavers because they are classified as a pest species, but they are actually awesome to have around and that community loves them. For species that just need help across the landscape to good habitats, this type of thing is pretty benign and even good. For species with much small populations, they have to be carefully managed and monitored for success (thinking of kakapo, takahe, tieke, and certain skinks and geckos). I more-than understand the problems with unsanctioned introductions though, which ties in with the acclimatization societies of the 19 and 20th centuries, and the role that wildlife trafficking and captive breeding play in population reductions and genetic weirdness. There's also the suitable habitat problem, in which the best gorrilla conservation actions might be to plant high quality native plants with high habitat value.
@@DrSmooth2000 Developers have a big part to play in that I think. Developers build suburbs, channel streams, dry up wetlands and the wildlife have lot their habitat. The beavers were already there and continue to do what they do, which ends up clogging up the drains and ditches, leading to flooding. The blame is placed on the beaver for being a nuisance, and they are removed in one way or another.
Early this year I build a small underground fox den tucked away in my local woods, didn't ask for permission, just got on with it. Not that foxes are endangered 😂 but I felt compelled to build them a refuge from the elements. I intend to build a mini pond up there aswell at some point Lovely video as always, keep it up please 👍🏻
@@solarpunkalana thanks, to be honest Ive kept away so as not to disturb any potential residents but there was a fox watching me install it so I believe so 😁🦊 guerrilla rewilding ftw ✊🏻
I'm here from Dave's post. I keep thinking about a paper I read about Pleistocene Rewilding (and how bad an idea it is), but overall let's go with restoring nature as it exists/existed now.
That’s definitely also a contested point. Usually in the UK I think it’s if a species was here since the last ice age then we could potentially bring it back. If it was lost before the last ice age, potentially not native anymore
@@solarpunkalana I've shared it on Mastodon with all of my... 33 followers. It's quite a small place and takes some getting used to, but think you would like it on there.
17:10 such an important point, and seriously encompasses my frustration with researching more about conservation and being a nature lover. I am someone who works 9-5, rents an apartment and doesn't have a nature oriented career or degree, and so much of what you read about this ecological crisis always leaves you with a feeling of powerlessness, because you don't have the influence to affect public policy, and you didn't have the circumstances to run the education gauntlet to land a conservation job, so oh well, the environment is crumbling around you, but you are not allowed to touch ANYTHING. Like I get introducing invasive species, but if I'm planting something I've been researching for months is native to my area, why do I need a permit to chip in?
Anarchism and rewilding belong togeter, but we must start rewilding ourselves too. Urbanism is domestication of humanity. We are animals in captivity. We can not build an anarchist society while domesticated.
it is kinda weird, isn't it... It makes sense to stop people from releasing invasive species which could harm the native ecosystem, but native species? A bit of a different issue. I guess diseases and genetic diversity still need to be controlled for, but still
The only thing that concerns me with animals is how the heck random people are just getting them & transferring them across national borders. Focus on plants. Obviously, land based animals that are locally extinct will need some professional help to come back in, but birds & insects will come by themselves & smaller populations of animals who are already there will retake the area with more territory becoming available. It's also less legally problematic, usually.
Great video of a topic with a lot of nuances, i don't really know about guerrilla rewulding project in italy where i am from but there has been a similar resurrence of small poket of beaver population in tho North-west, even tough from what i've read is probably due to a spontaneous repopulation originating from france border population, at least from the genetic clues. Something that i personallt really struggle is that is true that in a dire situation the measure needed should be way more radical but political decison and shift could ruin years of hard work from conservationist and rewilders guerilla or not. We are seeing some of this shift for example with the alpine population of the brown bera that are now on the risk of being hunted for "population control" and there are rumors about the shift of conservation policies the italian wolf that just now reclaimed most of it's historical unrange because unfortunately in this country we are currently ran by damn fascist that are not really ecologicaly educated (they are really not educated in nothing too be fair) and they have instrumentalized farmers and rural population for their belief and this is deeply dangerous for any conservation efforts.
Where abouts in Italy are you from? That sucks about the brown bear hunting, I also saw similar things about wolf and bear population control in Scandinavia.
@@solarpunkalana I am originally from the south of Italy, but i am planning to move to the north as many young people are forced to for work related issues, when it comes to my birthplace well there's the most polluted italian river in about ten kilometer away from me (my zoologist professor even did eels sampling in that river), and in the same region there are highly damaged and polluted ecosistem , also urban agri-system that are renown for having buried toxic waste that was put there by the mob. At the same time we have high rates of biodiverity in Key specific area and specifically where i was born there are small pocket of mediterranean biomes and even a neo artic tropical forest that survived in this small pocket. I would say we are one of the most biodiverse dense country in Europe and we are one that Is the be most vulnerable to climate change (togehter with most southern eu) and Indeed out governament recently approved an act that would jail climate protesters up to two years. I still have hope but the fight Is becoming more and more difficult...
This approach almlst certainly does more harm than good. For one - most people will have no idea what they are doing - this is how we got 'environmental tree planting' of confiers on valuable peatland areas. Secondly, think of the legislation this xould introduce - if you poorly introduce beavers to a farming area, you may have a lot of farmers suddenly rallied AGAINST ANY legal & careful reintroduction. We need more support for rewulding, not to dig our own graves by saying it should he done willy nilly.
I don’t know about you but I’m about to get radical. My idea is to breed and release some beavers, they used to be everywhere across the US from Florida to Alaska. We need all the help we can get and those eco engineers slowing water from point a to point be will help. I’m only half joking. Well maybe that’s not the best idea but I’m serious I could be radicalized to become an “eco terrorist” Right here right now, I just need to find or receive a mission. And obviously I don’t condone any harm to humans and I’m not saying stop eating meat or anything like that, just be ethical about it and maybe eat less if you can’t afford to buy ethically that often. Eco terrorist was a filthy term crafted by think tanks for big oil and big polluters for people willing to make a stand against the horrors going on around us on a daily basis. We need anyone who is willing to stand up for the ecosystem and all the beautiful and ugly life around us. Not someone actually funded by big oil to throw oil at a painting and giving eco activists a bad name, but the people who blew up a useless dam to save salmon populations. The people that go out of their way to help an animal trapped in netting, the people speaking up for the destruction of habitat. Get radical. saving even just one species is worth the effort. Become stewards of nature, become defenders against the destruction wrought by your own species. Fight back for those who can’t, the coral the nematodes, down to a spec of lichen and as large as a blue whale. I don’t know if what he did was the right thing but the guy who released iron dust off the coasts of Canada to cause an algae boom to eventually feed the salmon and boost their numbers, did it and it worked. Climate engineering could have terrible consequences but at least he did something. And it was more so a small scale test for how we could go about it in the future. What do I know? I’m just some gen z kid who sees a future on fire and it’s just the half baked 2 am pondering of someone who hasn’t even gotten half way through the video. I think I’ll watch the rest now.
I would do guerilla rewilding if I can figure out what to do, how and how to get away with it! But I live in Canada... We're screwing up the environment and ecosystems here too just we're a lot less further along than most places. A lot of land for few people. There's still a lot of nature here. Any suggestions of something I could plant or introduce in Manitoba, Canada?
Yeah! He collaborated with me on my video 'Why Education for Nature Lovers Sucks'. He really helped my channel go from like a few hundred views to regularly 10k+ views!! :)
I am a fan of spreading native wild flowers and other food sources for animals and humans. However, I don't like the idea of spreading animals to places that they haven't migrated to naturally unless the ramifications have been carefully assessed by the people doing it. All that being said, we won't make any headway against biodiversity loss or climate collapse unless we end animal agriculture now. Farming animals occupies over 80% of the land we use as a species... about 42% of all habitable land on earth... and those farmers are the primary people against reintroducing animals that could compete with their (mostly subsidized) profits.
I don't think the numbers are there for this to make a difference. A forest can be cut down far faster than it takes to grow, even with just the power of the axe. The machines we have now make ecosystem devastation into a smooth efficient air-conditioned cab experience. The degenerative elements in society have to collapse under their own weight for the regenerative efforts to take root. A massive collapse is the necessary next step because it will open up space in people's lives to work on ecosystem regeneration. When the stores empty of food, the incentive to make the soil and water healthy will return because your family will starve or be poisoned otherwise. The global production and distribution machine removes the need for people to give a shit about the soil and water around them. Out of sight, out of mind. Neccesity is the mother of invention, we will fix up this absurd society very quickly when we have to in order to survive. I see permaculture and agroforestry and rewilding projects as seeds. The more people that understand how to workk with ecosystems, the better for when people need to know those skills again. Right now everyone is too busy running on the hamster wheel, staying afloat. All the major power structures of the world are designed with incentives that naturally attract the worst greediest sociopaths from the population and makes it easy for them to acquire power. Give those incentives time and corruption naturally grows and the system eventually collapses because of bad design from short-sighted greedy people. That's the stage we're in now. All the power systems are packed with horrible people and lobbyingnhas removed all sensible regulations and we are only accelerating degenerative patterns as a whole. It's inherent within the way our systems scale, each bigger level requires more resources from all the levels below, it's impossible to make a truly sustainable mass-distribution product. Our system is actually quite insane and doomed to fail.
