The Once and Future World — Rewilding Nature and Us (314)

pm314_640“Today we’re looking at a ten percent world,” says J.B. MacKinnon, author of The Once and Future World: Nature as It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be. “What we think of as nature today has been depleted by 90% in many cases.” Diaries of explorers reveal an abundance of sea life, birds, and animals like bison in numbers far beyond our imaginations: “It’s almost like visiting a different planet.” Our urbanized population has become disconnected from our roots in nature. MacKinnon advocates rewilding by actively building the wild back into our living spaces. We also need to regain the cultural understandings necessary to live alongside the natural world. He asserts, “We NEED the natural world…Not only is it good for us, but it’s good in ways nothing else can provide.” To rewild ourselves, we can start small: sit down and actively see nature again. “Once I began paying attention, what I experienced was so wonderful, that it was easy to keep doing it. It’s so easy to fall back in love with the natural world.”  [jbmackinnon.com]

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