Talk:Rewilding

Meaning
I am losing track here since the previous discussion on rewilding seems to have disappeared, but the meaning of rewilding must not be sidetracked down a road that only leads to a project on releasing tigers. It has much, much wider implications than that, as is reflected in this version of the article - or wikipedia just becomes propaganda for one view. 11:41, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

More reliable references
It seems that there is a misunderstand from a particular user regarding Wikipedia's policies. Wikipedia is trying to become a more reliable site, with its articles having more support from reliable references.

It seems that the previous edit of the Rewilding page based on Rewilding of Endangered Carnivores and Tigers seem to be the most updated rewilding issue everyone is talking about. Furthermore, if one were to really look through the references, we can see that the previous article seems much more supported.

It may seem more one-sided to some, however at least it has good support for its statements and more relevant to today's "rewilding" process.

LeoGard (talk) 16:33, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Support for Dr Caroline Fraser
Dr Fraser is the author of the book entitled Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution, published late last year. It would seem that Dr Fraser is sufficiently informed on the current trends in rewidling for her entry to Wikipedia about this subject to have considerable merit. I urge people to think carefully (and do their research) before making any changes. Dr Mark Fisher, Wildlands Research institute, University of Leeds Self willed (talk) 14:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Articles_for_deletion/Rewilding_(Carnivores)
Wikipedians researching this article's topic may be interested in the above AfD. Note also that an account which edited this article and related articles, User:LeoGard, was indefinitely banned as a suspected sockpuppet in February of 2011 in a related investigation: Sockpuppet investigations/China's Tiger/Archive. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 05:27, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Rewilding in Europe
It it fascinating how the current text of this article (Rewilding (conservation biology)) makes it a sort of American invention. The truth is that these ideas were alive in Europe much earlier. Actually in 1990 such ideas were the basis of the Dutch governmental policy nl:Ecologische hoofdstructuur. This means that years before that people started thinking about the issue and lobbying for their proposals. As far as I am aware of the first ideas can be found in the nl:Stichting Kritisch Bosbeheer which was founded in 1977 (under a a slightly different name). The most influential rewilding project from the early days is probably the Oostvaardersplassen. Another example from the Netherlands is nl:Plan Ooievaar from 1986.


 * So while in the USA the term wasn't even coined, in the Netherlands concrete plans were implemented by the government. Taka (talk) 06:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid rewilding did originate as a concept in America. The Oostvaardersplassen has never been about rewilding, it is about Nature Development - see De Vires, M. F. (1995). Large herbivores and the design of large‐scale nature reserves in western Europe. Conservation biology, 9(1), 25-33 - as is also the case of Plan Ooievaar where you will find the word "natuurontwikkeling" in the text. Unfortunately, this misinterpretation of nature development as rewilding has caused a significant drift in the meaning of rewilding across Europe, and which works only to the benefit of the agenda of a small minority. The recently formed IUCN Task Force on Rewilding aims to rectify this, and rehabilitate the meaning of rewilding. Self willed (talk) 17:42, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Proposed Changes
I mainly want to reorganize this article so that it follows easier and makes more sense. There are several non commensurate categories I want to get rid of. There are also some categories like "Bison Introduction" that don't seem to belong in this article, as it doesn't answer any questions are rewilding in general and seems out of place. It could make sense to add a category that's something like "rewilding different species" or "case studies on rewilding" and include it there, but it doesn't seem to belong in the article as is. I also want to add a section about the relationships between climate change and rewilding, and how rewilding can help remedy climate change.

Neon.Frogs (talk) 18:01, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Which article are you evaluating?

Rewilding (conservation biology)

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

I chose to evaluate this article because it directly relates to the biology course I am currently taking, Biology 201, which is a course that focuses on the foundations of biology, mainly biodiversity and the conservation of species. Furthermore, I believe that conservation biology is an important topic that is sometimes overlooked or not generally thought of when the subject of biology is brought up, and thus I wanted to look more into this topic and make myself more knowledgable on it so that I can inform others on it. The world is currently going through a sixth mass extinction, largely caused by humans, and many ecosystems are being destroyed, species are losing their habitats, and becoming extinct. Thus, I wanted to see if this article included foundational information on this important topic as well as addressed many of the issues that have occurred in the past as well as those that are still going on today. Just at first glance, the article seemed to include a fair amount of information and was separated into various categories that all seemed prevalent to the topic of conservation biology. There are also a good number of references listed at the bottom of the article, which I thought was a good sign.

Article evaluation
Lead Section:

defines essential vocabulary, effectively lays out what the article is about, maybe goes into too much detail in last paragraph (about United Nations)

Content:

content is in good chronological order, includes a variety of subsets (such as different locations, different species, etc.), includes both sides of the argument (the criticism to conservations and the pros), provides strong and clear definitions for scientific terminology

Tone and Balance:

article is mostly neutral, stating mostly facts instead of simply promoting conservation, however, it can be a little one-sided (towards conservation) at some points, includes the points of view from those who oppose it, provides many strong examples to back up the facts

Sources and References:

lots of sources/good range, the links to the sources work, many of the sources are from published scientific papers/articles that have been reviewed

Organization and Writing Quality:

writing is broken down into logical and chronological sections, pretty easy to read (anything that gets "very scientific" is either defined clearly or dumbed down), use of language, spelling, and grammar is proper

Images and Media:

the article does include some images that are properly captioned, however, the images are sort of random, I feel as if there could be more images or more logical images could have been chosen

Talk Page Discussion:

the article is part of four WikiProjects all having to do with ecology and the environment, many of the talk page comments are commenting on the fact that the article seems on-sided (towards conservation), talk page is not that large/developed in general

Overall Impressions:

Overall, this is a good/strong article that has reliable information on its topic. It has many good definitions and term, and although may be a little one-sided at points, does offer the viewpoint of both sides of the argument. It has many reliable sources, but could use more images. It is easy to read and comprehend and its categories are well split up.

Ird003 (talk) 01:42, 8 September 2022 (UTC)IDiaz
 * I disagree with removing mention of UN support for rewilding from the lede as that's good globally applicable information.Otherwise, thanks for taking the time to give us this good and coherent review. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:47, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Expert revision
Hi everyone, just to note that I plan to work on this article over the next few months in collaboration with rewilding expert Dr Virginia Thomas. Will continue to post here about larger edits. TatjanaBaleta (talk) 15:47, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi, this is great news! I'm not sure many active editors are still watching this page, I'd not say you'd need to flag larger edits on talk beforehand unless you want to. It probably goes without saying, but for NPOV the article needs to reflect all significant perspectives about rewilding, so at least some of the criticism needs to remain. But generally I'd not exspect opposition to any changes the good Dr wants to make, even if they are major rewrites. FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:47, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the message @FeydHuxtable! Based on our discussion so far, we're planning to add to the sections on Rewilding elements and Criticism and add more information about the different types of rewilding. Happy to discuss further as we go if needed. TatjanaBaleta (talk) 07:40, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I look forward to seeing improvements in this wikipedia page. Take a look at the edits I made today (April 3) in the "History" tab. Know that I am one of the early advocates for "rewilding." I added the "Rewilding Plants" section in this wikipedia page awhile ago. And there you will see I reference my own 1999 essay in Wild Earth magazine. It is titled "Rewilding for Evolution." I don't need it referenced anywhere else, but please do put the late Dave Foreman in there more prominently. I have his "Rewilding North America" book sitting right alongside me now. I looked through the Table of Contents again. It covers so much — and unlike Soule and Noss 1998, Dave and I and the late Paul Schultz Martin all hugely emphasize the role of rewilding for ensuring the FUTURE evolution of plants and animals carrying forward — whether our species survives much longer or not. Cbarlow (talk) 14:50, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @Cbarlow, thanks for your message. Will confer with the expert and hope to start making some edits later this month! TatjanaBaleta (talk) 13:55, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I did a lot more work on Paul Schultz Martin's page today that directly influence his overall contributions, including the Rewilding section in it. The references may be useful for you to see in context. And given that I am the "expert" on "Rewilding plants" section of this rewilding wikipedia page, you can count on me to eventually look at that section again. I did a lot of work on the "Evolutionary anachronisms" wikipedia page over the past 2 days. I have added good images to both. I took a quick look-see of my photos file and didn't immediately see any images specific to the Rewilding wikipedia page that I could contribute there. But eventually I will add an image to the "Rewilding plants" sections. I find it immensely tedious, but very satisfying, to work on wikipedia pages. It is easy for me to contribute entirely new sections. But trying to edit text that is already there — and especially if it is long an more like an essay instead of wiki-style encyclopedia — often is just too frustrating for me. So I give up and go to a topic more important for me to help with. So I have compassion for you agreeing to actually take on this controversial and North American v. European perspectives. Whew! Best wishes, Connie Barlow (author of the 2001 book, "The Ghosts of Evolution.") Cbarlow (talk) 23:39, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

PAPER TO INCLUDE AS REWILDING SUPPORT: I've continued to add text and references to the Paul Schultz Martin wikipedia page, and found that in a ref I added today, the Discussion section included this: "Perhaps there are moral arguments that could be relevant. There might be more obligation to try to slow present extinction rates or re-introduce extirpated species (or close relatives and ecological surrogates, such as elephants, camelids and cheetahs to North America) to former habitats if humans caused the extinctions in the first place [14,49–51]." So make sure you take a look at that paper to see if you want to include it in this wikipedia topic. It is 2005, Burney and Flannery, in Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Importantly, it is REVIEW paper, and wikipedia prefers those, as they are less singularly opinionated, so be sure to put Review: as the first word in the title, which is "Fifty millennia of catastrophic extinctions after human contact" PDF is freely available. Cbarlow (talk) 13:25, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Rewilding plants
The Rewilding Plants section is really expanding and has a lot of excellent detail. At the moment it's under 'Types of Rewilding' where I don't think it quite fits - is there a way we can incorporate it more seamlessly into the page or is it getting to the point where it warrants its own page? HomoLudere (talk) 19:03, 30 May 2023 (UTC)


 * It is me who pretty much wrote the "Rewilding Plants" section, and I am fine with somebody turning that into a self-standing page, so long as it is one of the options posted right at the top. I have never created a wikipedia page from scratch, so I can't do it. For a long time I have felt that really important sections are inappropriately "hidden" from the table of contents first-order viewing, but I couldn't figure out a solution. If you do move "Rewilding Plants" to its own page, then you could make "Types of Rewilding" have as its entire text a single para that combines what is now Passive Rewilding, Active Rewilding, and Trophic rewilding. Simply bold each of those 3 terms within the single para. Then Pleistocene Rewilding could be moved into a section title of equal rank to "Types of Rewilding" — which means that it will show up in the Table of Contents without the viewer having to click the within-arrow.
 * A problem that cannot be solved is the this article's "Pleistocene Rewilding" section has to point to the stand-alone page by that title — which has some problems. I felt that the role of Paul Schultz Martin had been unfairly overlooked in both this page and in the stand-alone "Pleistocene Rewilding" page. But the only thing I felt capable of doing was that I added "Pleistocene rewilding" as a section within the Paul Schultz Martin wikipedia page (which I significantly rewrote and expanded overall earlier this year): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Schultz_Martin#Rewilding Paul was my mentor, and he wrote the Foreword to my 2001 book, "The Ghosts of Evolution" (published by Basic Books). You will see there that I include some very early papers and essays he wrote advocating for bringing back ecological/taxonomic equivalents of some of the ecologically significant megafauna that went extinct at the end of the Pleistocene. So even though he doesn't use the term "Pleistocene rewilding", those early writings are essentially that. Cbarlow (talk) 22:44, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I've also never made a page from scratch (or done anything like as much editing from you). I'll look into how the 'disambiguation' headings are created. I like your idea on how to format types of rewilding and I actually think that Pleistocene Rewilding could still fit into that, especially as it has its own page which could be linked to. I love what you've said about the way the history of rewilding can be traced - I think this is really important (i.e., tracing rewilding's progenitors even though they didn't use the term).
 * Looking again at the rewilding plants section again has also made me think that the rewilding page might benefit from a 'seed disperal' section under 'elements' of rewilding section - some of the rewilding plants material could be discussed there. Also perhaps a 'habitat creation' section could be added to 'elements' to enable a broader discussion of projects such as the Pittsburgh Pawpaw Pathways for Zebra Swallowtail Trails which you give as an example. (There may be a better term than habitat creation to acknowledge the kind of specilaism you discuss in the zebra swallow tail / pawpaw relationship but I can't think what it is.) HomoLudere (talk) 17:48, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Introduction on overpopulation
￼introduction on overpopulation 106.213.86.125 (talk) 13:49, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Landscape Restoration
— Assignment last updated by WishDragon (talk) 22:35, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 4 March 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:47, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Rewilding (conservation biology) → Rewilding – This article is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for rewilding. Most readers will be looking for the term as used in conservation biology. The rewilding disambiguation page lists several topics, including a racehorse, a couple of organizations with rewilding in their names, and the term as used in anarchist thought. Out of those, Rewilding (anarchism) receives the next most page views, but it is only a fraction of those received by this article. gobonobo + c 13:55, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Animals has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 15:09, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Climate change has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 15:09, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Ecology has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 15:09, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Environment has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 15:09, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Support per proposal. QuincyMorgan (talk) 21:00, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Support Move to Rewilding as WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Also, a concept now so widely known, and growing, that the qualifier serves only to confuse. Ex nihil (talk) 16:02, 4 March 2024 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support per nom, moving the current page to Rewilding (disambiguation). It's the clear primary topic. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 19:37, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 22:00, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Support as clear primary topic AusLondonder (talk) 13:00, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2024
— Assignment last updated by Warmedforbs (talk) 01:26, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Cultural references
There isn't yet (2024-6-27) a "cultural references" or similar section. Rather than create one, I thought it would be rather fun to add Ambridge to the list of sites (under Britain); I hope that's acceptable! (I've certainly only encountered the term rewilding in that context, until this morning.) If someone were to create a cultural references section, it could be moved there. I have said that it's fictional!

If someone really objects, it'd be nice if they were to contact me first before just deleting it.

G6JPG (talk) 10:38, 27 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia articles shouldn't include bait-and-switch fictional entries in lists of notable sites for "fun".
 * I've removed your WP:OR speculation about the show's influence on rewilding in the UK and just given it a sentence at the end of the section. This does still need a source. Belbury (talk) 10:47, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Citations for Ambridge added, at least one of which is of unimpeachable quality.
 * Sorry my humour wasn't to your taste - "bait-and-switch" was not my intention, if by that you mean I was attempting to increase clicks on Ambridge or The Archers.
 * I accept your removal of my speculation, though still think it's valid - I bet more people listen to The Archers than are involved with rewilding! However, fair enough, I can't prove that. G6JPG (talk) 20:23, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I just mean it's needlessly disorientating to the reader to have a list of rewilding sites where one is revealed to be fictional halfway through its description. That somebody who skims the article and sees there are five notable rewilding sites in the UK is being misled, etc.
 * Your speculation about Archers plotlines maybe being familiar to more of the British public than many other sites is an interesting question, but not something a Wikipedia article should be raising in article text without a source. Belbury (talk) 08:30, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * There already is a human-related wikipedia page for rewilding: Rewilding (anarchism) It was created long ago in order to make a clear distinction between cultural rewilding and species/ecological rewilding.Cbarlow (talk) 13:04, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'd spotted that. The Ambridge rewilding is most definitely species/ecological rather than anarchic/cultural: it is meant to be a serious land use. I accept Belbury's separation from real sites. G6JPG (talk) 20:29, 27 June 2024 (UTC)