Can we design a better world? Or should the question be, can we rewild a better world?
Last week, I went to the London Design Biennale. The theme was ‘Can we design a better world?’ The star of the show was the Forest for Change, the 400 trees temporarily planted in the grand courtyard of Somerset House. The dawn redwood, silver-leaved birch, hazel and cherry trees were to me a reminder that the best way we can design a better world is to get out of the way of nature. It was also a reminder of the lack of any projects on show based on biomimicry. There were a number of projects that used AI in, my view, not particularly useful or inspiring ways. But how about using the power of nature to design a better world?
Linked to the idea of how can we get out of the way of nature is the concept and practice of rewilding. Rewilding is often presented as requiring humans to plant trees and other plants in order to restore that particular piece of land. But what if we simply applied the principle of getting out of the way of nature? Two stories that I’ve come across recently demonstrate the power of doing just that.
The first is a piece of research that has recently been published. It found that more than half the trees in two new woodlands had not been planted by humans, but by jays. After nearly 60 years, a former barley field had become a mature woodland, with 390 trees per hectare, nearly half of which were oaks. And after 24 years, a grassland area had grown into a young wood with 132 trees per hectare, over half of which were oaks.
Tony Juniper, chair of Natural England, is quoted in the Guardian article as saying:
“In meeting our most welcome national ambition to expand woodland there is every good reason to harness the power of nature. The natural woodland regeneration at Monks Wood presents a fantastic example of what is possible — with trees planting themselves, with the assistance of the wind, birds and mammals. The feathered and furry foresters doing their work means there’s no need for the usual invasive digging, plastic tubes or imported saplings.”
The second story was recounted by Tim Smit, chair of the Eden Project, in a recent 5 x 15 talk. It’s worth listening to him telling the story (it starts at 32:45), but the short version is as follows. He was asked if the Eden Project would be interested in taking over the management of a parcel of rainforest in Costa Rica. Thirty years ago, it was degraded farmland. It was then bought by the former owner who said, “I want the birds to shit it back to life” and fenced off the 10,000 acres for 20 years. The birds did their job and the land is now burgeoning with diverse plant and animal life, including ocelots, puma and jaguars. And what was once an arid region, with people fighting over water rights, now has four rivers running through it, 365 days a year. The local people also now have the opportunity to create livelihoods in the rainforest, growing cacao in the shade of the trees. Tim Smit makes the point of how this is an example of how:
“our job is to give nature a helping hand, not to actually replace nature or think we know better.”
These two stories powerfully demonstrate for me how our focus should, wherever possible, be on this natural form of rewilding.
It also makes me think about parallels with our own lives. How can we create the space for what wants to emerge to take to seed and to grow, rather than thinking that we need to manage our lives to the nth degree and believing that this will give us a better result? How can we allow room for a co-arising to take place, where we don’t have to be in control? Or, to ask the question a different way, how can we allow the birds to shit us back to life?
