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A review by mrs_bonaventure
Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding by George Monbiot
5.0
I loved this. The writing is very rich and descriptive but the polemic is a call to arms.
I had no idea that so many of our megafauna in Britain had disappeared as a result of hunting - that is, I knew about wolves and bears and so on, but not the rhino, elephant and wild horses further back. The hypothesis makes sense, give or take a mini ice age or two.
The main conclusion is that grazing animals - which humans placed in the landscape - are the reason we have hardy any forest any more, and if you remove the sheep (and deer), forests will naturally come back.
I’m all for this... it’s another powerful case for being vegetarian.. and letting some of nature’s processes take us back to where we need to be (replacing someone barren heath, and some lowland, with crops - animals take an awful lot of land).
This book is ten years old... I’m going to read more of his work that is more up to date.
I had no idea that so many of our megafauna in Britain had disappeared as a result of hunting - that is, I knew about wolves and bears and so on, but not the rhino, elephant and wild horses further back. The hypothesis makes sense, give or take a mini ice age or two.
The main conclusion is that grazing animals - which humans placed in the landscape - are the reason we have hardy any forest any more, and if you remove the sheep (and deer), forests will naturally come back.
I’m all for this... it’s another powerful case for being vegetarian.. and letting some of nature’s processes take us back to where we need to be (replacing someone barren heath, and some lowland, with crops - animals take an awful lot of land).
This book is ten years old... I’m going to read more of his work that is more up to date.