Rewilding

Returning the Animals. Restoring the Soul.

Rewilding is a radically new and inspiring approach to conservation that aims to restore the conditions that allow wildlife and ecosystems to thrive, without the need for intensive human management. Across Europe rewilders are removing dams to free up the natural flow of rivers. They are bringing back the bison and wild horses to the landscapes these animals once helped to shape, and allowing the wolves to return. They are opening wildlife corridors for animals to move more freely between what were isolated nature reserves.

Then they step back and allow the wild communities to manage themselves, as they have always done, through the natural rhythms of growth and decay, and the dynamic networks of relationship that sustain and renew the life of nature.

Over the last ten years, a network of “Rewilding” areas has emerged across Europe, stretching from Northern Lapland to the Danube Delta, from Western Spain to the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. One of the founders of this Rewilding Europe project is Staffan Widstrand, a renowned photographer, and passionate conservationist.

Read my conversation with Staffan on the process of Rewilding and the spiritual inspiration that comes from working in harmony with the animals and the dynamic processes of nature:

Download:
Rewilding: A Conversation with Staffan Widstrand (PDF)
(Eleanor O’Hanlon, Parabola Magazine, Summer 2019)

Rewilding Europe:

A presence beyond ordinary physical perception, a presence which cannot be captured in human language, has silently entered the space. It feels as though the molecules of air have been tuned to a higher pitch….I sense the wolves are near us, watching, yet there is no fear: only the sense of extended aliveness that is one with the aliveness in the trees, the radiance of sunlight on the air, the breathing of the wolves. It lasts until the charged beam of the wolves’ attention releases and I exhale the breath I have been holding.
Wild Horses Wild Heart, Spiritual Ecology Anthology.

The wild stallions break smoothly into canter coming towards us. They move as one, and no human word I might call on for the evocation of their beauty could capture what they are in flowing unison, the unfettered impulsion in their stride, the airy freedom lifting black and chestnut manes… I hear the rhythmic fall of their hooves and think: how the earth must love the drum of their strides.
Wild Horses Wild Heart, Spiritual Ecology Anthology.

The bison have been re-introduced to the Carpathian mountains, where they were eliminated some 250 years ago. Part of a larger rewilding initiative working to create one of the largest contiguous wild areas in Europe. Extending across 3 million hectares, this would give the bison space to take their place in a landscape governed by natural processes.
Source: www.rewildingeurope.com

Rewilding in the Americas:

Read about the rewilded horses of the Northern Rockies, who have returned to the orginal place in the wild community of wolves, bears and mountains lions, in this extract from the essay Wild Horses Wild Heart A Story of Hope from the Spiritual Ecology Anthology The Cry of the Earth:

Download:
Ghost Riders: the rewilded horses of the Rockies (PDF)
BBC Wildlife, October 2013

Staffan Widstrand:

One of the founders of the Rewilding Europe network is Staffan Widstrand, a Swedish photographer, author, and dedicated conservationist. I have known Staffan for twenty years. During that time he has won many awards for his photography, published eighteen books, and been recognized as one of the world’s most influential nature photographers. He established the Wild Wonders of Europe initiative, which brought Europe’s wild heritage to more than eight-hundred-million people through photography, with international outdoor exhibitions, books, magazine and news stories, and online galleries. His new project, Wild Wonders of China, aims to do the same for China’s natural heritage and wildlife.

(From Rewilding: A Conversation with Staffan Widstrand (PDF), Eleanor O’Hanlon, Parabola Magazine, Summer 2019)

The images in the body of this page are reproduced by kind permission of Steffan, for use on this website only. To view and purchase his beautiful and powerful photographs, and for details of his books and other work, please see his website:
www.staffanwidstrand.se

Testimonials

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Eleanor O’Hanlon is one of the most inspiring teachers I know. She has a vision of the oneness of Creation, that she has enabled me to see through her embodied, raw, visceral experience of relating to wild animals. She has this way of connecting with the animals on both a physical and a spiritual level… I can’t read her writing without tears streaming down my face because she makes so present that other reality that is moving through the visible, and she teaches you how to relate to that directly. She has been very influential for me.

At a recent retreat I lead in Yelapa, Mexico, I read passages to the group from Eyes of the Wild regarding the direct experience of Unity, the difficulty of staying with that deeper knowledge, and the spiritual guidance provided by nature and animals. I find Eyes of The Wild to be personally engaging, vividly and eloquently written, and a spiritually inspiring book.

Eleanor O’Hanlon goes to the ends of all the Earth - the Bering Strait, Siberia, the Arctic pack ice, the Caucasus mountains - and brings back writing that is full of knowledge, insight and deep emotion, telling you things you never knew, showing you things you would never have noticed, even if you’d been there with her.

Eleanor’s beautiful writing perfectly captures the sense of wonder as she gazes into the lives of the great whales. Without being religious I too recognise that sense of wonder and connectedness through immersion in the natural world where at heart we all belong.

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