Bats have been typecast as scary, blood-sucking creatures that spread disease – but they are actually incredibly beneficial pollinators that support biodiversity. In fact, bats play a key role in shaping ecosystems. Without bats, we’d be plagued with pests eating our crops and would be forced to use pesticides more frequently. One 2015 study estimated that bats eat enough pests to save more than $1 billion per year in crop damage and pesticide costs in the United States corn industry alone. “Bats are important. They eat millions of insects at night, including mosquitoes, agricultural and fore ..read more

This is an excerpt from new book From Wasteland to Wonder by Basil Camu, which is available for free in its ebook format. “I wrote this book because traditional landscape management practices harm life and exacerbate serious environmental issues,” he says. “In short, we spend time and money to cause harm. This book offers alternative practices that work with natural systems instead of against them. These approaches are cheaper, easier, help heal life, alleviate serious environmental issues, and can be performed by anyone regardless of knowledge or expertise.” There are all sorts of fun and ea ..read more

You're not slacking. You're embracing biodiversity If you – or your friends – still need a reason to embrace biodiversity in the garden this spring, here’s a good one: You can be lazy.  “Most gardeners try to maintain these clean, sterile environments that are the exact opposite of what wildlife wants,” says ecological horticulturalist (and friend of Rewilding Magazine) Rebecca McMackin in her newly posted TED Talk. “The more we can stop being tidy, the more wildness we can bring into our gardens and landscapes, the better habitat we provide. Wherever possible, we should stop mowing.” An ..read more

How do you get someone to think about rewilding? And how do you get them to care? At Heal Rewilding’s first rewilding site, Heal Somerset, the UK charity is connecting with the British public through sound. For 10 nights in March and April 2024, visitors to the 460-acre property can go deep into nature to sit around a roaring bonfire and enjoy a 40-minute immersive audio installation. Entitled Out of the Darkness, it features the sounds of wolves, bears, cuckoo birds and many more animals that are native to the area. The soundscape performance – compiled from audio archives from places like t ..read more

This article was originally published by The Narwhal and has been reproduced here with permission. Many old farm fields in Canada’s southern Ontario look a lot like this one, which last November was a vast expanse of waist-high grasses the colour of washed-out gold, rippling in the breeze.  On a sunny, mild late fall day, a few green leaves persisted close to the not-yet frozen ground. Dried-out stems crunched underfoot. Birds called out from the trees surrounding the field while grazing horses looked on from the property next door. Over the fence and down the road were more fields ..read more

Once in 2020 and again in January 2024, I had the opportunity to join an International Animal Rescue (IAR) team as they released rehabilitated Javan slow lorises back into their rainforest home in Gunung Halimun Salak National Park, a conservation area in Indonesia’s West Java province. With a total area of 87,699 hectares, it is the largest terrestrially protected habitat for wildlife on the island of Java. This area has become the predominant habitat for various key species, including the Javan slow loris (Nycticebus javanicus). Most of the lorises being released were surrendered by members ..read more

Trees and shrubs are magical things. They provide sustenance and shelter to birds, mammals and invertebrates, all while using photosynthesis to create their own food almost literally out of thin air. And they play a vital role in the planet’s carbon cycle, sequestering carbon in their bodies and the soil as they release oxygen back into the atmosphere. When it comes to human communities, their role becomes even more complex—and essential. They offer privacy and shade, filter pollution from the air, reduce surrounding temperatures and help to block sound, says Janet McKay, founder and executiv ..read more

Several years ago, Shruti Tharayil was running a nonprofit in rural Telangana when she came across Chennamma, a Dalit farmer who made a living by growing organic vegetables on her less-than-one-acre farm. Untouched by chemical pesticides or herbicides, Chennamma’s land supported a host of uncultivated greens, which she occasionally picked and cooked. Tharayil’s interest was piqued. “That was the first time I noticed somebody collecting and consuming plants that I always thought were unwanted or weeds,” she says. Soon, she began accompanying local women on trips to nearby forests to learn ..read more

This story was originally published by IndigiNews, which aims to provide digital journalism driven by Indigenous communities’ needs while contributing to the long-term sustainability of independent Indigenous-centred media. English ivy (Hedera helix) is a fast-growing evergreen vine that will flourish nearly anywhere. It thrives in multiple soil types and under most weather conditions, with dark, waxy leaves that rampantly weave through forest networks, up walls and along buildings, fences and tree trunks. Sarah Jim is W̱SÁNEĆ from the village of W̱S͸ḴEM (Place of Clay), the territory a ..read more

My wife Won-ok and I bought our dream house in 2021 with a vision of putting our environmental ethics into action: Grab the outdated notion of maintaining a green grass lawn and yank it out by its roots. It was time to rewild. Time to join the movement of people who are converting boring, earth-taxing yards into wild micro-havens that aid all kinds of creatures great and small – and help combat climate change. But how would we start transforming our four-tenths of an acre in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Silver Spring, Maryland? Like many people, we first asked a company how much it would c ..read more