Feral Rewilding the land, the sea, and human life

Not your average journalist, Monbiot, coauthor of Heat (CH, Oct'07, 45-0933) and author of The Age of Consent (2003), Captive State (2000), and No Man's Land (1994), belonged to a resistance movement protecting farmland in Brazil when he was in his twenties, before turning to journalism as a way to focus and harness his passions. In Feral, Monbiot takes readers zigzagging across the globe, from Wales to Scotland, Canada to Siberia, and even to the shoreline near his own home. Each time, and in each place, he carefully, and with great clarity of voice and poetry of language, explains either the "un-wilding" or "rewilding" that is happening in these areas. That is to say, either the stripping away of nature from its rightful place or else the conscious allowance of nature to once again enter and flourish. Interspersed with the environmental is the personal, as Monbiot talks about his own life, his own rewilding, and his own growth as a journalist, an environmentalist, a father, and a human on this planet. Supplemented with copious footnotes and a thorough index, Feral is a fascinating piece of writing that tells as much about our planet as it does about the humans that reside on its surface. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. --Susan E. Brazer, Salisbury University

Starred Review. 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 civilizations 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 Romanias 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.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.