Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Is it too late to save biodiversity and the living Earth? In this article I’ll argue that only a collective effort to put wild nature at the center of our priorities will prevent its devastation and the possible disappearance of our own species, among countless others.
In the west of Ireland I find there has been less industrialisation of agriculture with many farming in a more traditional manner keeping small mixed holdings with off farm incomes – very often in construction where I meet them.
Preserving biodiversity is among the most urgent issues of our time, and it needs to be addressed regionally to succeed.
At present, we can only try to shape the emergence of resilient livelihood communities as best we can and speak up for agrarianism and against the industrial food system and its processes of corporate enclosure.
All relevant institutions [must] actively promote wilderness policy that acknowledges that nature is multi-dimensional, transcending the material and physical realms; and use language that honors the rights and roles of Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Knowledge and Wisdom Systems, natural and customary law.” —Hé Sapa Resolution, 2024
Gathering in the last week of August in the Black Hills of South Dakota, or Hé Sapa in Lakota, speakers and organizers of the 12th convening of the World Wilderness Congress say the extinction crisis is intrinsically tied to both the dispossession of Indigenous peoples and the rising heat generated by the burning of fossil fuels.
This ‘keystone species’ can play a role in healing broken relationships—with nature and between people.
And though this remains true for farmers and shepherds in areas like the Carneddau today, this need-to-know and name-your-environment according to its natural features and function within the rural economy held much more broadly across pre-industrial Wales.
One day, when a new world rises from the ashes of this chemically-infused and churned and oil-burned wasteland, the basement of history, we may all work together to rebuild, to try again, and, most importantly, to love and to have better memories.
Building new reciprocal relations to landscapes, where humans reconcile food production and biodiversity, represents a true alternative to environmental degradation.
The “lungs of North America,” the Tongass National Forest is the Earth’s largest intact temperate rainforest. Protecting it means protecting the entire planet.
Enrolling local tribal experts as science advisers, partners, and co-managers in addressing biodiversity loss, climate change, legacy pollutants, and other pernicious issues not only makes sense, but is the only way to effectively turn things around.
