Currently, less than 15% of terrestrial land exists in some form of protected area, the percentage of marine protected areas is significantly lower. It’s undeniable that protecting some of the last vestiges of wild places from industrial decimation is a critical and worthy cause. However, large-scale land conservation projects have also historically displaced many populations and distressed communities that have relied upon pasture and forest for their livelihoods because of previous colonial impositions. In this episode, we explore the complex world of large-scale land conservation and wildlife restoration with guest Tom Butler.

Largely focusing on the work of Tompkins Conservation in Chile and Argentina, Tom shares how the Chacabuco Valley has successfully been rewilded from overgrazed ranching lands to a thriving ecosystem through the utilization of privately protected areas. Additionally, we explore the differences between restoration and rewilding, given that Tompkins Conservations efforts to rewild are some of the most ambitious conservation efforts in the America’s; as they seek to revive populations of giant anteaters, pampas deer, red-and-green macaws, and predators like pumas and jaguars back into the ecosystem. This conversation encourages us to think about the ways that wildlands philanthropy coalesces the power of private ownership and government control to rewild precarious places as an important stepping stone amidst the greater project of rewilding ourselves, dismantling extractive systems, and moving into eco-centric ways of being.

A writer and conservation activist, Tom Butler is author, volume editor, or co-editor of more than a dozen books including Wildlands Philanthropy, Plundering Appalachia, and Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot, and ENERGY: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth. Formerly the Vice President for Conservation Advocacy at Tompkins Conservation, he now serves as a board member of that NGO and has just assumed the new role of Senior Fellow at Northeast Wilderness Trust, a regional land trust.

♫ Music featured in this episode includes “Long Arc” and “Ain’t It Time” by Jeffrey Silverstein and “You are the Sea” by Galen Hefferman.

Episode References

Tompkins Conservation

Keeping The Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth

Restoration, Reintroduction, and Rewilding in a Changing World

Northeast Wilderness Trust

Reading Recommendations

Global Charter for Rewilding the Earth 

Protecting the Wild

Abundant Earth by Eileen Crist 

On Beauty: Douglas R. Tompkins—Aesthetics and Activism 

Wildlands Philanthropy: The Great American Tradition
(Earth Aware Editions)

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