John Davis is executive director of The Rewilding Institute and editor of Rewilding Earth. For Rewilding, he serves as a wildways scout, editor, interviewer, and writer. He rounds out his living with conservation field work, particularly within New York’s Adirondack Park, where he lives. John serves on boards of RESTORE: The North Woods, Eddy Foundation, Champlain Area Trails, Cougar Rewilding Foundation, and Algonquin to Adirondack Conservation Collaborative.

You can read more about John’s background and work at Rewilding.org, starting with his latest article “Rewilding Distilled” which takes you through the fundamentals of Rewilding. And… that’s where we’re starting today, with John’s definition of Rewilding…

In this episode:

* What is Rewilding?

* Split Rock Wildway, Adirondack Park

* Aspect of rewilding you don’t hear about often: Deadbeat dams

* Return of atlantic salmon.

* Local rewilding.

* Road removal – hundreds of thousands of miles of roads that were used to get

timber, not used now, can be removed.

* Economic impact of rewilding – dam removal, road obliterating, studies for

crossings, reintroduction of missing species. Thousands of jobs.

* Resurgence of interest in wildlife watching, benefits to humans of being near

unfragmented intact natural communities.

* A modern Civilian Conservation Corps

* Natural infrastructure and human infrastructure upgrades work together to prepare

for the future of climate chaos.

* John’s call for the American Eel as a possible aquatic counterpart (flagship

species) to Eastern Cougar reintroduction.

* Plants: American Chestnut, blight resistant, keystone species, possible

contributor to the demise of passenger pigeon when their food source was removed.

* Continental Wildways important, especially so as broad swaths relatively intact

wildways.

* Sue Morse, Keeping Track

* Wolves, pumas, eels, and chestnuts.

Read more about John’s work in his series on the Split Rock Wildway.

John Davis is executive director of The Rewilding Institute and editor of Rewilding Earth. For Rewilding, he serves as a wildways scout, editor, interviewer, and writer. He rounds out his living with conservation field work, particularly within New York’s Adirondack Park, where he lives. John serves on boards of RESTORE: The North Woods, Eddy Foundation, Champlain Area Trails, Cougar Rewilding Foundation, and Algonquin to Adirondack Conservation Collaborative.

You can read more about John’s background and work at Rewilding.org, starting with his latest article “Rewilding Distilled” which takes you through the fundamentals of Rewilding. And… that’s where we’re starting today, with John’s definition of Rewilding…

In this episode:

* What is Rewilding?

* Split Rock Wildway, Adirondack Park

* Aspect of rewilding you don’t hear about often: Deadbeat dams

* Return of atlantic salmon.

* Local rewilding.

* Road removal – hundreds of thousands of miles of roads that were used to get

timber, not used now, can be removed.

* Economic impact of rewilding – dam removal, road obliterating, studies for

crossings, reintroduction of missing species. Thousands of jobs.

* Resurgence of interest in wildlife watching, benefits to humans of being near

unfragmented intact natural communities.

* A modern Civilian Conservation Corps

* Natural infrastructure and human infrastructure upgrades work together to prepare

for the future of climate chaos.

* John’s call for the American Eel as a possible aquatic counterpart (flagship