Room for wilderness

Wild nature versus tamed nature, and large herbivores

The discussion between "wild nature" (wilderness) versus "tamed nature" (habitats) is an upcoming issue. Habitat or maybe better "tamed" nature is often still the remnant of agricultural management practices from the past centuries. It is expensive, difficult to organise on a large scale, it demands huge, permanent subsidies, and is therefore not sustainable. Besides that, it will be very difficult to keep the different habitats, as a kind of post stamps, over decades and centuries in a good shape. Habitats can't stay on it self; they were part of large ecosystems. Large ecosystems, that can be influenced by (wild) natural, a-biotic processes, such as storms, the power and dynamics of water, fire etc.

Large herbivores are extremely important as food for vultures

Interesting developments are:

• On 3 February 2009 the European Parliament adopted texts on wilderness in Europe. For more information, see European Parliament resolution
• Rewilding Europe: bringing back the variety of life to Europe's abandoned lands
• Pleistocene Rewilding: promoting the reintroduction of descendants of Pleistocene megafauna, or their close ecological equivalents
• The Rewilding Institute: "To develop and promote the ideas and strategies to advance continental-scale conservation in North America, particularly the need for large carnivores and a permeable landscape for their movement, and to offer a bold, scientifically credible, practically achievable, and hopeful vision for the future of wild Nature and human civilization in North America"
• Wild10: A new conservation vision for Europe: a new Europe with green ‘highways’ for wildlife and people linking regional wilderness areas, providing local communities with essential income & services, generating 21stcentury jobs and enhancing the quality of life (planned: Spain 2013)

Natural ecological processes are (both true for wilderness and wild areas): ·         A-biotic o    Wind (soil transport, blowing down trees: making open spots in the forest and holes and heaps) o    Water: streams, waves, flooding, minerals and salt, avalanches, ice as a mowing machine, soil transport o    Fire: taking away vegetation, manure effect ·         Biotic o    Wilde life §  Large herbivores ·         As food for carnivores, carrion eaters / scavengers, dung eaters, etc. ·         Seasonal migration and population dynamics ·         As nature manager o    Grazing and browsing o    Manuring o    Bark eating ~ cutting trees o    Dam building ~ nature development (beaver) o    Digging (rabbits, wild boar, bulls of bovines and horses) ~ rare arable weeds, hole making insects o    Etc. §  Large carnivores ·         Population management ·         Moving species §  Tree eating insects o    Large trees §  That need a long period of development (centuries old before they fulfil their ecological role) §  As a steering source for many species §   A base for local / micro climate ·         Spatial scale o    So large that all relevant ecological processes can happen §  A-biotic: room for the water, fire and wind processes §  Biotic: especially on the level of metapopulations of the “key (steering) species” §