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Civilisation, artifice, domination, autonomy – divining a moral ethic for wild nature |
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Whenever I see praise for the knowledge of indigenous people, the assertion that they are the best guardians of the world's biodiversity 1) that they hold the key to natural cures and remedies (2) I feel that the people behind this praise must wallow in a warm bath of ambiguity and contradiction, whereas I feel unengaged by the animist force that appears to drive these cultures, and which just doesn’t have widespread purchase on an increasingly humanist Anthropocene. That animists believe the spiritual idea that the universe, and all natural objects within the universe, have souls or spirits is immaterial when all human cultures have the capacity to do damage to wild nature because of their own self-interest. The healing forests of Peru exemplify this in the contradiction of the incompatibility between the open landscapes of the swiddens, the shifting cultivation through slash and burn that is practiced, and the need now for regeneration of forest to create the shady conditions that are required for many of the fungi and vines with healing properties to grow (2). The ambiguity in virtue comes from knowledge clearly being used as power and currency, the influence of shamans in holding that knowledge, the alleged “maestros” being provided with a source of income from these regenerating healing forests, and the self-interest in not sharing the accumulated knowledge of these healing forests - “This isn’t a book for non-Matsés to see. Don’t let non-indigenous people see it” (3). It is also the usual story of indigenous people railing at exclusion of their extractive activities like swiddens from protected areas (3). Isn’t anyone going to stick up for the wild nature from which this land was appropriated when people first settled into the area, their presence there a drop in the ocean compared to the time that the indigenous wild nature had been there? Doesn’t anybody recognise that the dispersal of modern humans out of southern Africa was a massive land grab from wild nature? That which is in itself, and is conceived through itself
The 17th century Dutch philosopher Benedict De
Spinoza (1632—1677) recognised this essential self-interestedness of the human
species in his philosophical treatise Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical
Order written between 1664 and 1665 and posthumously published in 1677. In
each part, Spinoza puts forward some definitions and axioms from which he
attempts to derive numerous propositions and outcomes that are a metaphysical
exploration of the human condition, and especially our emotions and whether we
act with free will – “That thing is called free, which exists solely by the
necessity of its own nature, and of which the action is determined by itself
alone” (4). Spinoza ventured that human motivation was driven by what was
useful to it, without necessarily pondering how it came into existence:
Spinosa wasn’t against human self-interest per
se as the “human body is composed of very numerous parts, of diverse nature,
which continually stand in need of fresh and varied nourishment”, but he was
clear that there were limits, recognising that monetisation of the value of
necessities raised up coinage to be the arbiter of pleasure:
Spinoza noted the arrogance of the human species
in seeing itself above nature, so that man “disturbs rather than follows
nature's order, that he has absolute control over his actions, and that he is
determined solely by himself”. Moreover, Spinoza reflects that man regards his
own actions as without imperfection, and which thus separates him from natural
phenomena guided by the hand of his ruler (Spinoza as a pantheist believed his
deity was nature, that it was everything). So, when the human species beheld
something in nature that did not conform to its preconception, Spinoza was
critical of their reaction - “Nature has fallen short or has blundered, and
has left her work incomplete. Thus we see that men are wont to style natural
phenomena perfect or imperfect rather from their own prejudices, than from
true knowledge of what they pronounce upon”. Nevertheless, Spinoza considered
that humans were part of nature, and could not ignore its basic laws, thus
denying that they had free will: I was looking for something else when I came to Spinoza, but found these insights as compelling as the one I was seeking. References to nature, natural objects and natural phenomenon recur throughout Spinosa’s ethical treatise, sometimes in ways uncomplimentary to the human species – “many actions are observed in the lower animals, which far transcend human sagacity”. However, more telling was his understanding that nature is self-determining, by necessity existing without being dependent on any other being. He termed this as “natura naturans”, which translates from the Latin as naturing nature or nature making nature – “I wish here to explain, what we should understand by nature viewed as active (natura naturans)…. that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself” Pathology of natural resource management
Spinoza recognised the self-will of nature some
300 years before Jay West deduced it from an etymological analysis of the word
wilderness, albeit perhaps Spinoza’s analysis owing more to philosophy than
direct observation (5). Either way, the unfettered action of wild nature is
always risked on the assumption that humans can be, and still are, a part of
nature. This at least was a flaw in Spinoza’s reasoning because, from the age
of agriculture, a duality has existed, the human species increasingly
withdrawing itself from basic natural laws. Instead, the civilising of the
human species made it become increasingly the exceptional species,
predominantly free of predation and master of the natural world around it –
“People lived in a world mostly of their making, fostering a duality that had
not been present for pre-agricultural people” (6). The transition to
domestication of plant and animal species, or even just the manipulation of
landscapes to ensure maximisation of natural resource harvest, was an agrarian
ethos that broke the relationship between the human species and the natural
world. Thus it has been the over-riding instinct of agrarianism to move human
or ecosystem behaviours to a predetermined, predictable state in order to
harvest its products, reduce its threats, and establish highly predictable
outcomes for the short-term benefit of humanity (7). This has been described
as the “pathology of natural resource management” since a command and control
approach to nature reduces the range of natural variation through modifying
and simplifying, and which ultimately reduces the resilience of natural
ecosystems (7): There is a strong argument that the natural resource management of the human species should strive to retain critical types and ranges of natural variation in ecosystems by facilitating existing processes and variabilities rather than changing or controlling them (7) but this is just the limitation the human species should put on itself in terms of its needs for its own existence. Is that adequate or in any way good enough in meeting the needs of wild nature to ensure its existence? Does it allow the true genius of wild nature to be revealed? Where duality once meant the divergence of the human species from basic natural laws, it has now become a pejorative term thrown against those that see the necessity of completely removing the influence of human extractive activities from wild and protected areas (8,9). Swiss political geographer Prof. Juliet Fall quotes the late David Given, known for his work on indigenous plant conservation (10) in the principles he set out endorsing the idea that local populations should remain within designated protected areas and be part of the management process, implying that the boundaries of the protected areas should take account of the existence and livelihood of these people (11). One of these principles was that the protected area should be sufficiently large enough to accommodate its dual function – a reserve for nature with lands for indigenous people, and that the protected area planning must accommodate population increase and cultural change. However, Fall saw in this "a strong undertone of insider/outsider, with the [indigenous people] being seen as a ‘legitimate’ partner in the process, implicitly ‘more natural’ than outsiders, and deserving ‘protection’ and ‘non-contamination’". Fall believes that "traditional societies must not systematically be mistaken for an idyllic Garden of Eden, with ‘primitive’ humans living in symbiosis with nature". She notes the warning that “Indigenous societies probably were and are neither significantly better nor worse than European societies at preserving their environments” and "rejects the environmental determinism of a simplistic nature-culture causal linkage, and its romanticized representation of "traditional" indigenous cultures living in harmony with the environment". Why do we need to manage the autonomous natural world? American environmental ethicist Eric Katz was less interested in Fall’s distinction of insiders/outsiders, than in taking - in his collection of essays written between 1979 and 1996 - the straightforward view that it was inadequate to base environmental ethics on human interests (12). Instead, he defends a non-anthropocentric, holistic, and communal environmental philosophy that addresses the human domination of nature that he believes oppresses and denies it autonomy – “As with any autonomous subject, nature thus has a value that can be subverted and destroyed by the process of human domination”. He explains that complex holistic natural systems and communities exhibit autonomy, in that they are independent from external design, purpose, and control, making the distinction between human-made objects and naturally evolving entities – “The crucial distinction is that artifacts are always the result of a human plan or design, while natural entities are not…..Natural entities, processes, and systems can be truly autonomous, while artifacts cannot. Once we plan or control natural processes, we turn Nature into an artifact, an entity that is no longer subject to its own development”. He notes that animals have intrinsic or inherent value based on some aspect of their existence, and not simply an instrumental value for humans. He criticises the individualistic environmental ethic that considers natural entities as inherently valuable because of some utilitarian property they possess, because the essential elements of utilitarianism only provide a justification for the satisfaction of human need. Thus he argues that if the natural world is valued merely for the maximization of human satisfaction or goods, it will only be preserved conditionally upon it continuing to satisfy those needs, and which is an insufficient basis for a sustained existence of that wild nature. His focus on autonomy and domination leads him to conclude that humanity has a moral obligation to the natural world to preserve its integrity, identity, and free development. Katz was not without his detractors, even amongst fellow American environmental ethicists/philosophers. Ned Hettinger and Wayne Ouderkirk were critical of the messages in his essay collection, both claiming that Katz distinction between artefacts and natural entities made impossible all restoration efforts in the natural world, that he seemed to lack a positive vision of an interdependent community of humanity and nature, and that he failed to articulate or to explain the positive role for human beings in the natural world (13,14). Ouderkirk claimed that Katz used the fact of human intentionality – our engagement with nature so that we understand it well enough to meet our needs - to separate both humans and their artefacts from the natural world. Hettinger criticized Katz for seeming to claim that that all human interference in the natural world was bad, when he should be differentiating between different kinds of restoration projects, as Hettinger believed some were open to benign interference with nature, especially when they sought to rehabilitate natural processes and areas. In addition, Hettinger wanted a standard of environmental ethics that was less absolute so that we were free to intervene in the natural world for good purposes. It is in his responses to these criticisms that Katz laid out a fundamentally cautious approach to wild nature, that until we know what we can justifiably do to intervene, we should as much as possible leave nature alone – “To “let it be” seems to me to be the highest form of respect we can muster. And while I leave it alone, I try to learn as much as possible about it, so that knowledge, respect, and love can all grow together” (15). Katz admitted that he places human artefacts outside of the natural world, but he thought it an illegitimate jump to say that he therefore placed humans outside of the natural world. He insisted that the things humans create, build, make, imagine, are all artefactual, and thus outside of the realm of naturally occurring entities, processes, and systems –“Our artifacts, our culture, would not exist if we humans had not intentionally interfered with and molded the natural world. Nature alone could not create the world in which we now find ourselves”. Katz does believe that the remediation of damaged ecosystems is a better policy than letting the blighted landscape remain as is, but he also says that that we should never have damaged the natural ecosystem in the first place, and then cautions that “once we begin to adopt a general policy of remediation and restoration, we may come to feel omnipotent in the manipulation and management of nature. And thus we will create for ourselves a totally artifactual world”.
It’s a question for Katz of the development of
an adequate criterion of intervention to know when it is morally justifiable
to intervene in the development of an autonomous natural entity or system. He
didn’t think that there had been much progress on elucidating that criterion
of intervention, likely thinking it improbable anyway, but he was clear that
until we came closer to determining it, then he claimed it was dangerous to
articulate a positive vision of the human role for intervention in the natural
world because it would endorse an environmental philosophy that is essentially
an ethic of management – “I do not offer a positive vision of the human role
in the management of nature—I am not interested in developing an environmental
ethic that is a management ethic”. Katz goal, he asserts, was to accentuate
the difference between the natural world and the world of human culture and artefacts, a dualism that he says we must learn from so that we treat
autonomous nature in a different way from the way we treat our artefacts (15): The collapse of civilisation
I find myself in agreement with Katz, as he
articulates my instincts and ethic for wild nature, of a self-willed land
where I tread lightly without reimagining or managing. The artefactual in that
space is glaringly obvious to me, and is a sure sign of human reimagining and
management (a bugbear is the pointless act of brutalising trees in woodlands
by inexpertly removing branches when they pose little inconvenience to
passage). There are other strands of environmental ethic that see wildness
matters enough for its loss to provoke a moral condemnation of civilisation,
its agriculture and industry. It is a recognition that civilisation has
alienated humans from nature, so making us blind to its destruction. For some,
the belief is that learning primitive skills that enable self-reliance is a
way to isolate themselves from civilisation and reacquaint themselves with the
natural world (16). However, this primitivism is characterised by personal
development in aspiring to emulate indigenous peoples, and less about the
autonomy of ecosystems. In contrast, a precocious information science and
journalism student, John Jacobi, at the University of North Carolina (17)
writes about Wildism, which is less concerned with this reskilling, what he
caustically describes as the “noble savage narrative”, but in understanding
the tensions between civilisation and nature (18). Its primary concern is the
autonomy of nature, recognising that a wild will through "release of human control" is the "first step towards increasing the naturalness of the world": In essence, Wildism is an ethical philosophy that asserts that wildness matters enough that production at the level of industry and civilized agriculture is morally unjustifiable, while simultaneously recognizing practical limits. The tenet is that industry is almost certainly incompatible with wild nature, leaving the collapse of industry as the only viable solution to our moral problems – as Jacobi notes, the "collapses of civilizations have historically been beneficial to nature". He asserts that the collapse of the artificialness of industry would make way for smaller-scale cultivation that would reduce nature’s domination, but valuing nature and nature’s autonomy in this smaller-scale cultivation would require "a benchmark of production from before civilized agriculture". This is not the same as Katz criterion of intervention (see above) since that was about a possible allowable intervention in wild nature. The intention of Wildism's re-evaluation of human intervention and resource use is to lessen the domination of nature, not make intervention fit for a presence in wild nature. Wildism views the Material World as a spectrum, with human Artifice at one end, and Wild Nature at the other (see Fig. 1 in (18)). The important concept of this spectrum is that Artifice is shown as not being any part of nature, but that the space in between that and Wild Nature is shown as Dominated Nature. Wild Nature and Dominated Nature are thus bracketed together as nature in this spectrum. The implication of the spectrum is that the human species must move the world closer to naturalness by passing out of the Artifice of civilisation, transform its (agri)culture so that there is less and less domination of nature, and thus ultimately preserving and giving more autonomy back to nature. The extent of transformation depends on the scale of phasedown – current restoration focuses on localised removal of human influence and technologies, much larger scale restoration would require the removal of civilization from large regions.
Wildism comes across as political advocacy of
strategies for a new world through spreading an ethical philosophy of Wildism
to challenge the industrial destruction of wild nature, rather than just being
about a personal development in primitivistic reskilling. Another difference
is that wildlands conservation is a major aim, and which seeks to directly protect that which Wildists are most concerned about (18). I don’t believe giving back
autonomy to nature is a dichotomy, a duality too far to have spaces entirely
left for wild nature. I also believe that it is impossible to separate the
ethical issues of wild nature from the civilisation that surrounds it. While I
know that technological advance is as much a factor as population increase in
the evolving pressure on wild nature – as is suggested by the Ehrlich or IPAT
equation in (19,20) – but the fact that world population has nearly trebled in
my lifetime of 64 years (21) makes it hard for me to resile from a fear of its
impact. American conservation biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich, along with
John Holdren, devised the IPAT equation, and have a track record of
articulating concerns about population rise (22). They recently questioned
whether the collapse of global civilisation could be avoided, given the
historical knowledge that many past local or regional civilizations eventually
underwent collapse, a loss of socio-political-economic complexity usually
accompanied by a dramatic decline in population size (23). Their motivation
for asking the question was that they believed for the first time, humanity’s
technological and highly interconnected global civilization was threatened
with collapse by an array of environmental problems, including climate
disruption, overpopulation, and overconsumption of natural resources, as well
as the use of unnecessarily environmentally damaging technologies. They
illustrated the overconsumption by an estimate, based on how far current human
population was above the planet’s long-term carrying capacity, that humans
"would require roughly half an additional planet". After reviewing many factors,
such as the scientific community repeatedly warning humanity in the past of
its peril, like that from the Union of Concerned Scientists in 1992 (24) and
the earlier warnings about the risks of population expansion and the ‘limits
to growth’, their conclusion was that dramatic social and political change was
needed to avert the collapse (23): World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity
I do not lie awake, fearful of the collapse of
civilisation. My upbringing in the 1950-60s was an outdoor life that equipped
me with skills of self-reliance, and so I would have a better chance of
survival than most if it did collapse (25). I never set out not to have any
have children, but that is how it has worked out. There have been, though
elements of conscientiousness: I have been composting my vegetable waste for
over 30 years, grew a lot of my own food for a long time, and gave up eating
sheep meat some 14 years ago. It was land use and the impact of it, contrasted
with places I visited where this use was excluded and nature had autonomy,
which set me on this course of wildland advocacy. I do have a self-limiting
ordinance where I try not to stray from my central message – to reuse a phrase
“it’s the ecology, stupid!” – and thus steer clear of issues like technology,
population or climate disruption. However, in early September, I was alerted
by a colleague in Hungary to a call for the world’s scientists to sign up to a
second Scientists’ Warning to Humanity, 25 years after that first warning (see above). The
second Scientists’ Warning was articulated in a draft Viewpoint
paper that looked back to 1992
to see if there had been any sufficient progress in solving the environmental
challenges identified. The Viewpoint paper is now published and, other than the
decline in ozone-depleting substances, every other indicator had got worse,
including deforestation, rise in the numbers of livestock and people, drop in
vertebrate species numbers, and a drop in freshwater resources (26): As well as being alerted to the Scientists’ Warning, I was given evidence that Paul Jepson, he of the candyfloss-spun towers of nonsense about “rewilding”, and a board member of “Rewilding" Europe (27) had sought to have the wording changed in the draft Viewpoint paper in relation to the need for “rewilding”, taking away the reference to apex predators, and replacing it with “functional species” to restore “socio-ecological processes” - for functional species, think domestic species as surrogates for wild herbivores (28,29). His contention was that the concepts of naturalness and wildness were becoming increasingly blurred and contentious, given the cultural landscapes of Europe. This is pretty much the disingenuous but typical reframing of reality that “Rewilding” Europe use to suit and pursue its own agenda – it should really be called REFARMING Europe (30). In response to this attempt by Jepson, my colleague and I corresponded with two of the draft Viewpoint paper's authors about not changing the sentence on “rewilding”. We explained that there was a concern over a dilution in the meaning of “rewilding” that particularly de-emphasised the role of large carnivores, even to the extent of ignoring them, which was being pushed to become the norm in Europe by a minority interest that did not represent an overall view of European experts. I told them that this was amongst the concerns that had led to a decision to set-up a science-based movement for “rewilding” and which had now been mandated by IUCN to set up a Rewilding Task Force, of which I am a member (31). As importantly, my colleague objected to the notion that the process of “rewilding” should be inclusive of people and their economy, as this was the antithesis of giving autonomy back to nature, and so he responded that he could not see the point of mixing social processes with ecological ones within the “rewilding” process and - at the same time - leaving the reference to predators out.
I signed up to the Scientists’ Warning, as did my colleague
at the Wildland Research Institute Steve Carver (but Jepson did not) along
with 15,362 other scientists from 184 countries (32) and waited for its
publication as a Viewpoint in the journal BioScience. I doubt I needed to influence the
outcome, but the sentence was not changed, nestled amongst a list of examples
of steps that humanity can take to transition in reducing its impact, not
least further reducing fertility rates and estimating a scientifically
defensible human population size for the long term, coupled with other
examples like restoring native plant communities at large scales, particularly
forest landscapes; and the one I absolutely endorse (26):
Whereas the Ehrlich’s hoped for the public
demanding action through popular awareness and pressure on political and
economic influences (see above) the Scientists’ Warning suggests a wider constituency as
being effective, noting that because most political leaders respond to
pressure, then scientists, media influencers, and lay citizens must insist
that their governments take immediate action as a moral imperative to current
and future generations of human and other life (26). Being a signatory to the
Scientists’ Warning, I was enrolled into an Alliance of World Scientists, an independent,
grass-roots organization comprised of scientists from around the world
committed to being a collective international voice for the well-being of the
planet (33). We are being encouraged to spread the message directly to
politicians and business leaders. As it is, the Scientists’ Warning has already had an
astonishing reach, having been featured in 129 news outlets so far, and is
trending to be one of the most discussed papers of 2017 (34). Perhaps we should
also learn a lesson from Japan's Basic Policy on Conservation of the Natural Environment from 1978 in
which civil society is encouraged from an early age to engage with the natural world (35): I will bring news of this Alliance and the IUCN Task Force as and when there is something to report. First, though, I really must not delay any further in laying out next how that all important example from the Scientists’ Warning, on restoration of ecological processes and dynamics, has natural potential in Britain. Mark Fisher 18 December 2017 (1) ‘Indigenous peoples are the best guardians of world's biodiversity’, David Hill, Guardian 9 August 2017 (2) Volume II of Traditional Medicine Encyclopedia Completed! Christopher Herndon and William Park, November 2017 Field Update, Acaté Amazon Conservation November 17, 2017 https://acateamazon.org/field-updates/november-2017-field-update/ (3) Amazon tribe saves plant lore with ‘healing forests’ and encyclopedia, David Hill, Guardian 24 November 2017 (4) Spinoza, B. D. (16xx) The Ethics (Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata)”, translated by RHM Elwes http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm (5) Wild Park, Brighton - not so wild now, Self-willed land December 2013 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/wild_park.htm (6) Krall, L. (2007). Between wilderness and the middle landscape: A rocky road. In: Watson, Alan; Sproull, Janet; Dean, Liese, comps. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Eighth World Wilderness Congress symposium; September 30-October 6, 2005; Anchorage, AK. Proceedings RMRS-P-49. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 134-140 https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_p049/rmrs_p049_134_140.pdf (7) Holling, C. S., & Meffe, G. K. (1996). Command and control and the pathology of natural resource management. Conservation biology, 10(2), 328-337 (8) Cronon, W. (1996). The trouble with wilderness: or, getting back to the wrong nature. Environmental History, 1(1), 7-28. (9) Fall, J. (2002). Divide and rule: Constructing human boundaries in ‘boundless nature’. GeoJournal, 58(4), 243-251 https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/files/downloads/0/0/0/0/0/6/6/6/unige_666_attachment01.pdf (10) Given, D. R. (1994) Principles and Practice of Plant Conservation, London: Chapman and Hall https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/6919 (11) Fall, Juliet Jane (2005) Drawing The Line: Nature, Hybridity And Politics In Transboundary Spaces. Ashgate Publishing Limited https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/files/downloads/0/0/0/4/2/0/5/0/unige_42050_attachment01.pdf (12) Katz, E. (1997).Nature as subject: Human obligation and natural community. Rowman & Littlefield. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dtksC4M5gukC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false (13) Ouderkirk, W. (2002). Katz's problematic dualism and its" seismic" effects on his theory. Ethics & the Environment, 7(1), 124-137. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/11217 (14) Hettinger, N. (2002). The problem of finding a positive role for humans in the natural world. Ethics & the Environment, 7(1), 109-123. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/11214/summary (15) Katz, E. (2002). Understanding moral limits in the duality of artifacts and nature: A reply to critics. Ethics & the Environment, 7(1): 138-146 http://depts.washington.edu/lab362/Katz%20response.pdf (16) Rewild.com (17) John Jacobi, University of North Carolina (18) Jacobi, J. (2016). The foundations of wildist ethics. Hunter/Gatherer, 1(1), 6-55. https://www.wildwill.net/blog/2016/07/12/the-foundations-of-wildist-ethics/ (19) Human Population Growth, The Rewilding Institute http://rewilding.org/rewildit/our-programs/population-growth/ (20) The IPAT Equation, The Sustainable Scale Project (21) World Population by Year, worldometers http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/ (22) Ehrlich, P. R., & Ehrlich, A. H. (2009). The population bomb revisited. The electronic journal of sustainable development, 1(3), 63-71 (23) Ehrlich PR, Ehrlich AH. (2013) Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided? Proceedings of the Royal Society 280: 20122845. http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royprsb/280/1754/20122845.full.pdf (24) 1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, Union of Concerned Scientists http://www.ucsusa.org/about/1992-world-scientists.html#.WjaOt99l-Uk (25) About the author and articles, Self-willed land November 2012 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/author.htm (26) Ripple, W.J., Wolf, C., Newsome, T.M., Galetti, M., Alamgir, M., Crist, E., Mahmoud, M.I., Laurance, W.F. and 15,364 scientist signatories from 184 countries (2017) World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice. BioScience 67(12): 1026-1028 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/67/12/1026/4605229 (27) Moving past process to outcome – the manifestation of wild land, Self-willed land September 2017 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/process_outcomes.htm (28) A challenge to Rewilding Britain, Self-willed land August 2015 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/challenge_RB.htm (29) Bison habitat preference becomes a pawn in the disputed natural vegetation cover of Europe, November 2015 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/bison_habitat.htm (30) What is rewilding?, Self-willed land September 2013 http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/what_rewilding.htm (31) Task Force on Rewilding, IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management https://www.iucn.org/commissions/commission-ecosystem-management/our-work/cems-task-forces/rewilding (32) Signatories, Alliance of World Scientists (Signed before October 23, 2017) http://scientists.forestry.oregonstate.edu/signatories (33) World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice, Alliance of World Scientists 2017 http://scientists.forestry.oregonstate.edu/ (34) World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice. Overview of attention for article published in BioScience, November 2017 OUP - Altmetric https://oxfordjournals.altmetric.com/details/28854048 (35) Basic policy on conservation of natural environment, Prime minister's notice 30 issue, Date of promulgation: November 6, 1978, Laws, notices, notifications, Ministry of the Environment, Japan (in Japanese) http://www.env.go.jp/hourei/18/000125.html url:www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/env_ethic.htm www.self-willed-land.org.uk mark.fisher@self-willed-land.org.uk |
