WILD

WILD10: Save the date!

WILD10, The 10th World Wilderness Congress , Salamanca, Spain, 4-10 October 2013! The WILD10 process is well underway in Europe. The Spanish Ministry of Agriculture and Environment (newly reconstituted) is the national host,  having provided some of the start-up funds allowing the WILD10 Executive Committee to continue  the collaborative process  that started in 2011 to identify practical objectives, create partnerships and design a process to achieve them, and implement a program for the Congress itself. Read More

CAT in WATER

“CAT in WATER” – our multimedia initiative focused on the shy and threatened fishing cat -- is literally coping with too much water!  The CAT team, Morgan and Joanna,  arrived in Thailand last week in the midst of the worst flooding in a century.  A simple two day journey to the field site in Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park --  where they will join field biologist Namfon Cutter and her Fishing Cat Research and Conservation Project – turned into a week of detours around flooded areas, plus a trip to the hospital for Morgan.  Her GI tract is back ... Read More

Big Bend/Rio Bravo, USA-Mexico conservation success

Good things often take awhile, and are worth waiting for… In late 2008 we were planning practical outcomes for WILD9 (the 9th World Wilderness Congress),  with The WILD Foundation and our partners trying to create better wilderness awareness in Mexico and better cooperation for wilderness in North America. Patricio Robles Gil -- the great Mexican conservation photographer and artist, and our partner in creating WILD9  --  suggested to me that we visit with our colleague Juan Elvira Quesada, Mexico’s Secretary of Environment, and present to him the long-dormant plan for a transboundary park along the USA/Mexico border in the region of ... Read More

A Bison Blog—From Yellowstone to Haarlem

In a recent, three-day period I had wild encounters of a similar sort on two continents. Both encounters tell a story of past and current “re-wilding,” enabled through the vision and dedication of people and organizations that understand the essential role of wildness in a healthy and sane planet earth.  We need these positive stories as much as we need the return of wildness that they chronicle. Read More

KAZA – A Major Step for Transboundary Conservation in Africa

A major step for wild nature and people in Southern Africa occurred on 18 August 2011 at the summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). At the closing session, the presidents of Angola, Zambia, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana signed the treaty that officially recognizes the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA). In planning since the concept was agreed in 2003, KAZA is now officially the world’s largest conservation area involving a mosaic of different resource protection areas, including National Parks, Game Reserves, Forest Reserves, Conservancies, Game/Wildlife, Management Areas and Communal lands. Read More

Exploring Wilderness, Reflections on Body Painting

The landscape of the human body is a “wilderness” in its own right. For longer than anything else created by wild nature, the bodyscape has been a place of exploration and a source of continuous experiential revelation, as well as an object of adornment, abuse, and worship. Yet it remains a mystery…no amount of exploring the body has yet satisfied us that we finally know it. We always return to it, to ponder and pod, caress and consider. Maybe this is because each body is distinctly unique, and therefore just like wilderness…always a mystery, always ... Read More

Futi Corridor Protected!

Connections are everything, both in the human and natural worlds. A superb new wild connection was announced this week by Peace Parks Foundation (PPF) and the Government of Mozambique. The Futi Corridor is a historic wildlife migration route between South Africa and Mozambique, for which WILD and many others working in the region have advocated for many years. The dream is now a reality. Read More

South Dakota’s Badlands National Park

I went to the Dakotas to see how Nature Needs Half can be approached through a mosaic of different land protection types—public, private, communal, etc – encompassing wilderness, national parks, working landscapes, recreational areas, and more. What’s more, HALF is as cultural and personal as it is scientific and practical. I started in South Dakota…. The Badlands landscape felt mystical, and I was unprepared for the impact it would have on me when we visited South Dakota’s Badlands National Park and wilderness area.  In hindsight it was a mixture of numerous aspects that converged to form ... Read More

The Food

Part 4 of our wilderness journey Simphiwe told us to catch some grasshoppers for dinner, but not the colorful ones because they were noxious tasting and poisonous. He explained that he ate the insects since he was a child…very tasty, raw or grilled. Try it, you’ll like it…sort of thing. He could not keep a straight face for long. With a giggle he said he might fix something else for dinner even though what he said was true, that the non-colorful grasshoppers were very edible, he enjoys them, and they were eaten throughout Africa. Read More

The Wildlife

Part 2 of our wilderness journey I had just drifted into sleep, breathing the incense smell of iNthomboti smoke from the fire, when I was suddenly awoken by Simphiwe, our “trail officer” -- “The elephants are coming…we need to move quickly, now. NOW” As the others in our group scrambled towards the “retreat” location downhill on a rocky ledge, Simphiwe and I headed quietly towards the elephants with a powerful light to see what was up. Read More