me Just got back from a walk in Hyde Park, headphones on, Max Richter playing, after a sweltering 30°C day in London. I stopped halfway to take off my shoes and put my feet on the grass. This is where I usually go when I need to breathe and not think.
I’ve been a nature nerd since the days of making mud pies (and grass aside), quarrying rocks for worms and mealybugs, and foraging for blackberries with the other kids in town, often to make some kind of unhealthy meal. edible. fruit soup
When I think of this special moment in my childhood, I feel a visceral tug, like I miss someone. I discovered, at the age of five, that we were moving from the city to rural Herefordshire, somewhere on the border of Wales and England. I remember hating the idea. But it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me.
My background has been described many times as “humble”, and it was. I often escaped from my house for the calm of the green that surrounded it. My friend Niall and I would walk for hours, hoping to get lost, and as the buses rarely showed up, we ended up finding shortcuts through every field and hedge. The way Kerry and Kurtan are usually hanging around a field in [the BBC comedy] This country sounds with me
While I don’t come from a “privileged” upbringing, knowing the landscape so well gave me a connection that is a kind of richness. From a very young age, I instinctively knew that my destiny on this planet is inextricably intertwined with that of nature, with the destiny of flora, fauna and fungi.
Fast guide
Reconstruction: what is it?
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What is rewilding?
Rewilding is the restoration of nature in places altered by human activity. From releasing predators like jaguars and wolves to creating space for native grasslands in urban areas, rebuilding can happen on a small or large scale.
While there are conflicting definitions, most focus on rebuilding sustainable ecological health, be it the return of kelp forests on England’s Sussex coast or the reintroduction of mockingbirds to the Galapagos Islands.
Why has the term become so popular?
Rewilding has captured the public imagination by being an environmental movement and a science-based process at the same time. With visions of a wilder planet, high–environmentalists like David Attenborough and George Monbiot inspired millions with pathways to a more biodiverse and ecologically healthy future. The success of reconstruction pioneers around the world has shown what is possible: from the restoration of the Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique after the civil war to the Knepp estate in the south of England.
Does Rewilding have universal support?
No. Critics of rewilding fear that the term is being used to justify the removal of humans from the landscape, especially farmers and indigenous communities. In the UK, some have dismissed the concept as a fad for “small” and high-income landowners, while others fear it is being used to target farming communities that have farmed areas for hundreds of years.
Can you go back to wild?
While the boldest rebuilding initiatives take place at the landscape scale, small changes can have a big impact. Millions of people changing the way they mow their lawns or let nature into their gardens, balconies and window frames can add up, providing more room for biodiversity to recover.
I felt it in my bones, and surely the era of the “tree-hugger” or “eco-warrior” has now passed because we are all in this ecological mess together, whether we feel a connection to nature or not. We depend 100% on these incredible natural systems provided in this biosphere. We know that to have clean water you need healthy forests; to balance carbon, healthy seas and peatlands, mangroves and seagrasses are needed. Nature is not just a nice landscape. Us are nature, and we depend on it.
It seemed natural to start talking about the destruction of nature, and more generally about my fears and hopes for this amazing planet: asking questions, holding people to account, trying to open up the conversation. I gave the crisis a name out loud: the climate and nature crisis, as many others were doing, but in my industry no one was talking about it. The greatest threat to humanity… and business as usual! It was totally weird.
I just wanted them to be the headlines, like they always should have been. Now, we’re in a pretty terrible place.
I realized that anything I said related to nature or the weather had repercussions for me. Apparently saying out loud that I was scared for our future was a big deal. Pleading with us to keep the forests intact, for example, was treated as if I had made a grand political statement, and I quickly began to lose social media followers. To really engage young people (rather than scare them), I had to change the narrative from panic and anger to ambition and optimism. Hopelessness was getting me nowhere. My followers have been up again recently. Since I haven’t released music in a while, maybe something is catching on!
In 2017, I became environment ambassador to the UN, which means I had to go to scary conferences and give speeches to scientists and world leaders. Horrible. As someone with a phobia of public speaking and chronic impostor syndrome, this was not a fun process.
If I hadn’t had such a strong connection with nature, I don’t think I would have been able to do it. My passion also stems from how much he has saved me and been there for me when poor mental health was taking me to a dark place. That alone gave me a kind of legitimacy to speak out and force my way into discussions, largely among the politicians who are deciding our future and the future of our children.
I traveled with WWF (I have since become a WWF ambassador) to the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland. Witnessing the size and enormity of the glaciers and hearing the ice break was a major sensory overload and soberly attuned me to the climate crisis.
Essentially, what we’re doing to the planet is the equivalent of pointing a hair dryer at an ice cube sitting in warm water. But such analogies don’t seem to fit people. As a songwriter and performer, I change the emotion and the feeling, so I get it. Telling stories is everything; how we connect, intertwine, relate, empathize.
I was lucky enough to meet the scientists, who only have the science and the data and nothing else, no metaphors or puns, just facts, and I really felt their exasperation. They are on the front lines, providing evidence to our politicians, who then try to negotiate with it, instead of actually acting.
My tactic now is to show up as often as possible armed with posts from scientists and opinions and questions from people who follow me on social media. I am always aware of who is not in the room as much as who is. For us nature nerds, things are finally changing for the better. The official climate process has stopped treating nature and climate as two different problems.
A cop26 in glasgow Last year I had the opportunity to speak and meet a network of amazing environment ministers from around the world, from Kenya, Costa Rica and Ecuador, who are turning the tide of destruction, sometimes under very dangerous circumstances. They are supporting nature in a way that we have not seen before. Canada’s Environment Minister, Steven Guilbeault, he’s been in and out of jail for ecoactivism. A lovely boy! I’m not saying this is happening everywhere, but we shouldn’t rule out committed and talented politicians who can move the system from supporting the destruction of the natural world to protecting it.
As uncomfortable as I feel, that is nothing compared to the risks being taken by indigenous communities who do most of the work and bear most of the risk. Every time I go to a summit or conference, I try to catch up with young activists from around the world. A Stockholm+50, I met young climate and environmental leaders who had fled from war zones and persecution to get to these meetings. They included people from the rainforest regions who had traveled for days, even by canoe, just to be heard. That level of risk and sacrifice is mind-boggling.
These are my heroes and allies. They are the people I want to represent me. It breaks my heart to think that young people, a demographic that includes my one-year-old son, could grow up without the kind of relationship with nature that I was lucky enough to have. It is for this reason that I am so relieved to see that rewilding is back on the radar. The idea that we can reverse biodiversity loss, provide the ecological functions we all depend on, and create resilient local economies for ourselves and our children, just by letting it all take its natural course from time to time, is great.
Nature really can heal itself, if we let it. At the same time, if we really commit to immersing ourselves in it, it can do wonders for mental health.
I would tell anyone that from supporting Global Witness, WWF, Unep and ambitious goals for rebuild Europe by 2030 and protecting 30% at least of the seasthere is a yourEcho-shaped hole in ecological activism. It is not separate from you, it is part of you. You really do have a lot more power than you think, and there’s no better time to take advantage of it.
Be mindful in your daily actions about how you can be as Earth friendly as possible. Talk to your friends, form groups, join local environmental communities, plan nature walks, get stuck in. But, above all, stay in active hope.
There is still much we can change. We just have to keep fighting and defend this amazing planet that we can call home.
