Beyond the Rewilding Buzz

The terms "re-wilding" and restoration pop up all over, but what does it really mean for Cape Cod?

What is rewilding?

01 April 2024 - ORLEANS, MA - The concept of "re-wilding" has become a buzzword across the country. Here on the Cape, as years of development drove out native habitats and natural beauty on this fragile peninsula, projects began embracing the concept. But what does it really mean?

In this video report kicking off Earth month 2024, Lyra Brennan from Mass Audubon and Mark Robinson, executive director of The Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts talk with Lower Cape TV about the importance of keeping open spaces in a fragile ecosystem. They describe the process somewhat like peeling off the overlay of human development to reshow the nature below. Goals incorporate both preserving as well returning land and water to its prior state, and through those actions developing a stronger link to the world around us, thus creating well-being on all levels.

What does rewilding look like?

Cape Cod experts say rewilding is an adaptable and scalable term, one that can happen at many levels and one which takes into account factors including climate change, ecosystem use by different species, and both land and water elements.  Instead of a developed mono-culture, rewilding reconnects the many parts and pieces together. Some examples include coastal restoration, marsh restoration, and returning cultivated cranberry bogs back into freshwater wetlands.

On the Cape, water systems lie at the center of the rewilding conversation. In Cape Cod's ecosystem every land use impacts water - drinking water, bays, estuaries, streams, and ponds. Land and water rewilding become inextricably linked.

Can individuals be part of rewilding?

Individuals can take part in rewilding in small localized ways, even in one's own yard. Experts says that on a small scale basis, individuals can work to return residential yards to something that represents a native Cape Cod forest or meadows. The process can happen in small steps and increments.

At most basic, rewilding encourages people to become good stewards for habitats and our planet. It helps support environmental resilience. It lies within the decisions we make as a society on what we do with land and represents an understanding that one local decision impacts not only one person and their property, but  ripples into everyone's land as well.   Proponents say that by acting as a good citizen of the earth and making room for all species to co-exist we support all and if not, we may be diminishing the world.