Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life

by George Monbiot Narrated by Julian Elfer

Overview

To be an environmentalist early in the twenty-first century is always to be defending, arguing, acknowledging the hurdles we face in our efforts to protect wild places and fight climate change. But let's be honest: hedging has never inspired anyone.



So what if we stopped hedging? What if we grounded our efforts to solve environmental problems in hope instead, and let nature make our case for us? That's what George Monbiot does in Feral, a lyrical, unabashedly romantic vision of how, by inviting nature back into our lives, we can simultaneously cure our "ecological boredom" and begin repairing centuries of environmental damage. Monbiot takes listeners on an enchanting journey around the world to explore ecosystems that have been "rewilded": freed from human intervention and allowed-in some cases for the first time in millennia-to resume their natural ecological processes. We share his awe, and wonder, as he kayaks among dolphins and seabirds off the coast of Wales and wanders the forests of Eastern Europe, where lynx and wolf packs are reclaiming their ancient hunting grounds. Through his eyes, we see environmental success-and begin to envision a future world where humans and nature are no longer separate and antagonistic, but are together part of a single, healing world.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 08/11/2014
Investigative journalist, Guardian columnist, and visionary Monbiot (Bring on the Apocalypse: Six Arguments for Global Justice) offers a gorgeous, passionate defense of “rewilding”: a conservation approach that primes unproductive land to develop a stable mix of plant and animal species without additional human intervention. Monbiot sees rewilding as the cure for our civilization’s “ecological boredom,” rejecting dour, short-sighted conservation efforts which statically preserve depleted lands like sheep-grazing meadows instead of offering the hope of wild places’ potential to return primal amazement and danger to the human experience. Traveling from the Amazonian rainforest to Romania’s Carpathians to the rivers and uplands of Wales, Monbiot blends convincing data about successes and failures in returning large animal species to the land with vibrant recollections of his experiences—both delightful and depressing—engaging with these places today and the people charged with caring for them. He insists that we are creatures of nature, not outside of it; that places left to their own devices will thrive; and that reengaging with wildness enthralls the human soul. Monbiot infuses a desperately-needed, almost Romantic optimism into an environmental movement so often grounded in blame and despair. (Oct.)

The Economist Intelligent Life

"Monbiot is at his lyrical best sharing his own very private encounters with the natural world. Then his craving for a 'richer, rawer life' becomes not just compelling but irresistible."

Brian Eno

"George Monbiot is always original—both in the intelligence of his opinions and the depth and rigour of his research. In this unusual book he presents a persuasive argument for a new future for the planet, one in which we consciously progress from just conserving nature to actively rebuilding it."

Thom Yorke

"Feral has really opened my mind to the history and possibilities of our landscape. It reflects a very real need in us all right now to be released from our claustrophobic monoculture and sense of powerlessness. To break the straight lines into endless branches. To free our land from its absent administrators. To rewild both the landscape and ourselves. It is the most positive and daring environmental book I have read. In order to change our world you have to be able to see a better one. I think George has done that."

Science

"Monbiot challenges the reader to think more deeply on the subject of rewilding. . . . Throughout the book, Monbiot's lyrical and provocative tales of his efforts to reengage with the wild stimulate the senses and arouse an innate urge to affiliate with nature. . . . Monbiot takes you on an emotional roller coaster, at times plunging you into troughs of despair as he discusses the bleak plight of much of our wildlife and, at others, raising you up on peaks of hope as he discusses how much of the degradation can be reversed. . . . Part personal journal, part restoration ecology primer, Feral popularizes the concept of rewilding and will likely prompt wildlife managers, landowners, policy-makers, and the general public to question their perception of the natural world and its role in our lives."

Sunday Telegraph, Book of the Week - Philip Hoare

As a passionate polemic, Feral could not be more rigorously researched, more elegantly delivered, or more timely. We need such big thinking for our own sakes and those of our children. Bring on the wolves and whales, I say, and, in the words of Maurice Sendak, let the wild rumpus start.

Bill McKibben

"The world knows George Monbiot mostly from his powerful and perceptive journalism. But this is a whole different order of writing and thinking, a primal account of an unstifled world."

Science

"Monbiot challenges the reader to think more deeply on the subject of rewilding. . . . Throughout the book, Monbiot's lyrical and provocative tales of his efforts to reengage with the wild stimulate the senses and arouse an innate urge to affiliate with nature. . . . Monbiot takes you on an emotional roller coaster, at times plunging you into troughs of despair as he discusses the bleak plight of much of our wildlife and, at others, raising you up on peaks of hope as he discusses how much of the degradation can be reversed. . . . Part personal journal, part restoration ecology primer, Feral popularizes the concept of rewilding and will likely prompt wildlife managers, landowners, policy-makers, and the general public to question their perception of the natural world and its role in our lives."

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170349074
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	08/20/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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