Abstract

landscapes, Vol. 15 No. 1, June, 2014, 77–81 Eddie Procter Feral: Rewilding the Land, Sea, and Human Life.By GEORGE MONBIOT, 2013. Allen Lane, 336 pages, ISBN: 9781846147487 Hardback £20. George Monbiot has become well-known in recent years as a writer, political activist and Guardian columnist who has challenged orthodoxy in a number of environmental fields. His latest book, Feral, is a characteristically thought-provoking and well-crafted work of polemic, designed to advocate and provide momentum for the ‘rewilding’ movement in Britain. It is hard to deny that the prospect of the return of the wolf, lynx, beaver and other predators and large herbivores to the hill country and wilder parts of the British Isles and Europe is seductively exciting territory (Procter 2013b). Rewilding is not a new idea, of course, although its status as an established environmental approach is somewhat down- played in the promotional drive for Feral. The term was coined in the early 1990s, and the principles of restoring large-scale ‘wilderness’ areas, wildlife corridors and species reintroduction have even longer antecedents (Fraser 2009), with rewilding becoming a reality since the 1980s through a number of projects in North America, mainland Europe and beyond, supported and promoted by organisations