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Ireland has little left of its original natural habitats. Many species, like the curlew, are under pressure due to intensive practices such as farming, forestry and fisheries and some are threatened with extinction. But given a little help from us, nature has the innate capacity to restore itself.
Nature restoration is the positive management of the environment for the benefit of wildlife and people. It looks to the future, by steering natural habitats and wildlife in a better and more sustainable direction.
In Future Wild: Nature Restoration in Ireland, Richard Nairn explores numerous active restoration projects around Ireland which show how natural habitats and native species can be restored sustainably for the benefit of everyone. From individual landowners and voluntary organisations to state bodies such as Bord na Mona, he meets the people who are dedicated to nature restoration.
By turns shocking, hopeful and finally positive, Future Wild shows that the damage we have done to nature can also be undone by us, and that, with nature restoration, we can create a richer and more diverse environment for generations to come.
Introduction
- In search of wilderness
- Has nature conservation failed?
- Restoring the woods
- Reimagining the hills
- Farming with nature
- Rivers running free
- Peatland rehab
- Rediscovering the sea
- Losers and winners
- Bringing them back
- Restoring the future - a noble goal
Acknowledgements
References
Index
Richard Nairn is an ecologist and writer who has published seven previous books including a recent trilogy on nature in Ireland. He holds a Master's Degree in Zoology and has published many scientific papers. During his long career, he worked as a nature reserve warden and was the first National Director of BirdWatch Ireland. He lives on a small farm in County Wicklow which is dedicated to nature restoration.
"Beautiful. Lulls you in, nourishes your soul and gently but unequivocally delivers an urgent message straight to the heart, like a seanchaí of old."
– Senator Pippa Hackett, Minister of State for Land Use and Biodiversity
"Richard Nairn has written a book that makes you smarter with every page you turn. Nairn has scientific and historic perspective, philosophical insight, and he is politically sharp. He was the only man for this job. The job? To find a path through the forest of vested interests and competing claims on the land. To arrive at a blueprint for how farm and nature can coexist. He is no dewy-eyed, nostalgia merchant. He knows that there are too many legitimate claims on land to ever return substantial parts of Ireland to wilderness. But he is surgical and dogged in pursuing ways to create space for nature to live alongside people. Not unlike its author, Future Wild is charming and informative and wise."
– Phillip Boucher Hayes
