THE NEED TO RESTORE DAMAGED ECOSYSTEMS HAS NEVER BEEN GREATER
It’s easy to lose hope when we think of the sheer magnitude of the challenges we face and the avalanche of bad news that we wake up to every morning.
But just as we caused the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis and the pollution crisis, we can reverse the damage that we’ve done; we can be the first generation to reimagine, to recreate and to restore nature to kickstart action for a better world.
The benefits of rewilding are many – and exactly why we started Save Our Woodlands.
A 2021 report from the United Nations estimates that rewilding 350 million hectares of degraded terrestrial and aquatic habitats could generate $9 trillion in ecosystem services and remove 26 gigatons of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
This potential greenhouse gas reduction number is slightly less than the 33 gigatons of carbon dioxide emitted by the world in 2019.
In essence, rewilding 350 million hectares would help lock away about one year of global emissions.
The ultimate aim of rewilding is to step back and let nature recreate self-sustaining ecosystems that ultimately serve humanity by providing clean air and water, carbon sequestration, the prevention of soil erosion, pollinators for our food and dozens of other essential services.
Rewilding can allow nature to recharge and help provide these critical resources — on which many businesses directly and indirectly depend.
Rewilding is not a new idea, but it is one just starting to get more attention as issues of biodiversity become more a part of the climate change conversation.
Investors and companies that can find ways to support real and meaningful rewilding that is shown to address both biodiversity loss and climate change may be able to both improve their operations while getting a little goodwill from the public.
Humans are really good at making commitments to the environment, like the Paris Climate Accord, we are much worse at actually keeping them.
The UN is now asking us to make good on our promises. Not only for farmlands and forests but also for rivers and oceans – we cannot delay any longer.
Degradation is undermining hard-won development gains and threatening the well-being of today’s youth and future generations while making national commitments increasingly more difficult and costly to reach
With each day, our poor stewardship of the planet costs the world biodiversity, water and food security, economic stability and solutions for the climate crisis.
Fixing this involves more than simply planting trees.
Rewilding is the restoration of ecosystem function and includes things like changing the way we farm to restore soil health, restoring nature to urban areas, and protecting marine environments.
It involves everyone from governments to businesses and citizens.
Here is one of our favourite parts of the report:
“The beauty of ecosystem restoration is that it can happen at any scale – and everyone has a role to play.”
YOU may think that there is not anything significant you, as an individual can do, but that takes us back to one of the reasons we started Save Our Woodlands…
We recognized that together we can pool our resources – that something that may seem insignificant to an individual, for example – $10 per month – when combined with the same from others suddenly becomes very significant and is bringing about real change.
Save Our Woodlands is an environmentally conscious group of volunteers dedicated to preserving threatened birds, animals and ecosystems in the woodlands of New South Wales, Australia.
Only 15% of our woodlands remain, the rest has been cleared for agriculture.
Save Our Woodlands Inc. secures and protects woodlands in NSW and pays landholders, in perpetuity, to conserve, enhance and re-establish native woodlands on THEIR land, and to manage these woodlands, so they are maintained.
BUT we need YOUR help. Together we can bring about change. Please consider donating.
People tend to think that woodlands are “just bush,” consequently, over 85% of the native woodlands in New South Wales, Australia have been replaced by agriculture.
Donate $10 per month & help protect critical habitats. By doing so YOU will prevent further species from extinction.
Our work is only possible with your support.
