The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be Hardcover – September 24, 2013

J. B. MacKinnon grew up on the edge of a Canadian prairie. “I knew the prairie in the hands-in-every-crevice detail that only a child can, and it was, for me, a place of magic.” He developed a healthy relationship with the living ecosystem, an experience that is no longer ordinary. Years later, as an adult, he returned to visit home, and his sacred prairie had been erased by the Royal Heights subdivision. He could find no trace of the red foxes that he had loved so much. It hurt.By and by, curiosity inspired him to spend some time studying books about the days of yesteryear. To his surprise, he learned that the foxes of his region were not indigenous, nor was much of the prairie vegetation. His childhood home bore little resemblance to the wild prairie that existed several centuries earlier. Before he was born, the land was home to caribou, elk, wolves, and buffalo, all absent in his lifetime. What happened? Could the damage be repaired? MacKinnon explored these questions in The Once and Future World.The world we experience in childhood is typically perceived as being the normal, unspoiled state. We can comprehend the damage that has occurred during our lifetime, but not all that has been lost since grandma was little, or grandma’s grandma. This ecological amnesia is called shifting baseline syndrome. It whites out the past.Thank goodness for the venerable grandmothers of the temple of history. They can take us to sacred mountains offering views of eons past, and help us remember who we are, where we came from, and how much has been lost. We can see the Pleistocene cave paintings, aglow with reverence and respect for the family of life, created by a culture in which humans were “just another species on the landscape.” Later Greek paintings illustrate a culture of total disconnection — human gods, goddesses, warriors, lion killers — starring the one and only species that mattered (as does our culture).Like MacKinnon, the world of my childhood has been erased. Three hundred years earlier, it had been a paradise of forests dotted with many pristine lakes, home to unimaginable numbers of fish, turtles, waterfowl, and assorted woodland critters. Thousands of years earlier, in the wake of the melting glaciers, Pleistocene Michigan had been home to giant beavers, walruses, whales, mastodons, mammoths, peccaries, elk, moose, caribou, musk oxen, and bison.* I had been completely unaware that they belonged in this ecosystem, and that their absence was abnormal. I did not dream of their return, since I didn’t know they were missing.MacKinnon says that we have inherited a 10 percent world, because 90 percent of the planet’s wildness is largely gone. We can’t begin to comprehend all that has been lost in the last century or three. But the tragedy can also be medicinal. “The history of nature is not always a lament. It is also an invitation to envision another world.” Indeed! Our current vision is suicidal. His mantra is remember, reconnect, and rewild. “We need to remember what nature can be; reconnect to it as something meaningful in our lives; and start to remake a wilder world.” Great!The rewilding bandwagon is picking up momentum now. Twenty years ago, it meant reintroducing missing species, like elephants, mountain lions, and wolves, acts that would spark firestorms of opposition. Lately, it has expanded to include smaller, doable tweaks that can be done right now, around the neighborhood, to make the ecosystem a bit more wild — reconnection. Tiny successes are likely to feed the soul, and inspire bolder acts of healing. It all adds up.Importantly, rewilding directs some of our attention to the ecosystem that we inhabit, a form of awareness that’s getting close to extinction in consumer societies. MacKinnon doesn’t fetch his paddle to spank capitalism, greedy corporations, corrupt politicians, incompetent activists, or the consumer hordes that live high impact lives whilst dishonestly denying all responsibility. Instead, he suggests that most people simply don’t get it. Industrial strength cultural programming makes it difficult or impossible for most people to wander beyond the mall parking lot. Listen to this:“Standing on the globe as we know it today, among people who are predominantly urban, who often spend more time in virtual landscapes than in natural ones, and who in large part have never known — do not have a single personal memory — of anything approaching nature in its full potential, it is hard to even wrap one’s head around where to begin.”Most people are focused on short-term human interests, and nothing else. They have been taught to inhabit a world of pure fantasy. On the walls of their caves are paintings of trophy homes, SUVs, smart phones, tablet computers, big TVs, and on and on. Most of them will never find their way home.The tiny minority of folks who have found the power to think outside-the-box, like biologist Michael Soulé, feel “profoundly alienated from mainstream society.” Communication is nearly impossible. He says, “We are different. We’re wired to love different things than other people are.” I know what he means. We don’t feel at home in this society. Maybe we’re pioneers, scouting a new and safer path.Mark Fisher is one of the different ones, an advocate for rewilding. He works with the Wildland Research Institute in northern England, a devastated nation where people sometimes strongly oppose even the reintroduction of trees (let alone vicious man-eating beavers). On a visit to America, he was overcome with emotion when he saw wolves running wild in Yellowstone. When he stood on an overlook at White Mountain National Forest, and observed 800,000 acres of woodland, “I just cried my eyes out.” Ancestral memories returned with great beauty.Once upon a time, MacKinnon met a mother and daughter who had lived for 30 years in a remote region of British Columbia, in grizzly bear country. The mother had had two brushes with the bears, and perceived them as “highly spiritual experiences.” Being reminded that humans were not the Master Species helped her remember who she was. “It was just like coming home.” The daughter had no notion that living near grizzlies was unusual. MacKinnon found hope in this, “We are always only a single generation away from a new sense of what is normal.”Finally, I was fascinated to learn about our olive baboon relatives of Ghana. Like us, their diet is omnivorous. Like us, they evolved in a tropical climate, where they needed no clothes or shelter. Like us, they can inhabit rainforests, deserts, and savannahs, but prefer savannah. On average, males weigh 53 pounds (24 kg), and females weigh 32 pounds (14.5 kg). Despite their size, they have been able to survive for millions of years in a world of powerful carnivores — without tools — without becoming hopelessly stuck in the toxic tar baby of innovation and technology, and its enormous bloody costs.Instead of chasing large herbivores with spears, baboons hunt a wide variety of small critters with their bare hands and teamwork. Hunting provides a third of their food. Unlike us, they never migrated out of Africa, into chilly climates where they could not survive without techno-crutches. Unlike us, they didn’t exterminate the predators that kept their numbers in balance. They have never had any need for fire, psych meds, or cell phones. Might there be a lesson here?* Wilson, Richard Leland, The Pleistocene Vertebrates of Michigan, Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters, Vol. LII, 1967.

I loved this book because it at once celebrate the natural world we're losing, reveals the world we've already lost, and puts the entire ecological disaster we're facing into perspective. For once there are also novel solutions, and new ways of thinking about the natural world. I'll read this book again, and have already begun reading its sources.

Informative. Really hard to comprehend that there were ever elephants on the British isles and in North America. When we contemplate 'rewilding' what is our benchmark?

This is a great book for anyone interested in endangered animals and humans' impact on the environment around us. It's written at a level that's perfect for the average person. This is by no means an in-depth doctoral thesis. Instead, the basic issues associated with extinction, endangerment, and conservation are discussed.At a little under 300 pages, MacKinnon clearly doesn't get into the story of every species we've wiped out, nor does he necessarily account for every possible factor that could be at play. But there are plenty of specific stories, and the information is presented in an interesting, readable way. Invasive species, the complexity of the food chain, the difficulties involved in figuring out baselines populations, and "rewilding" are big topics within.Definitely recommended.

I used this book for a discussion seminar course, paired with Elizabeth Kolbert's sixth extinction, and I thought it worked quite well. Kolbert's book is more focused on the science, where this one is more philosophical about what sorts of nature we want and are willing to live with. The book is quite captivating and generates imagery that will stick with you. It's also full of great examples that make for lively discussion.

What an eye opener to the human impact on nature over time. The author’s words paint vivid pictures and make you think about the role you play in the evolving state of the earth.

I guess for the price, I should have expected the book to have some issues. I was a little disappointed when I opened the package and saw the cover all marked up with black and the cover corners and some of the pages damaged. I bought this edition because I thought the cover was so beautiful and it was meant to be a gift, so I may end up returning it.

Read this book- It will open your eyes to how far down the path we have gone to radical diminishment of the world around us. While not at all hyperbolic, this book will inform, shock, and hopefully radicalize you to take part in trying to slow, and possibly cease, the myriad unnecessary ways we are participating in the 6th great annihilation.

This is a book that truly should be required reading! For the record, I've read a ton of environmental books. I've been a pretty intensive environmentalist / naturalist type for a lot of years. That being said there is always a problem with some many of the books in this genre. 1) They point out all of the problems, but generally offer few solutions. 2) They are often preaching to the converted. Most of the people who buy / read them already know about what's going on in the world.For me the main issue when suggesting an environmental book is that it really explains to the majority of the world why a connection with nature is important, the differences it makes, and the history leading up to where we are now. Without such a foundation it doesn't always make much sense to a person who does not already have a solid connection with nature. And lets face it, most people don't. So you need to speak to those people. This book does that. Very very very well! I have suggested to many of my friends already to buy this book. Not all my friends are like me, so I think carefully before suggesting so they actually get something out of it. Every one of them has.This is one of those rare books I support to the point that IF I had the funds in our small environmental grassroots group I help run, I'd buy boxes of these books and disperse them. Seriously....I would. We are trying very hard to save a remaining natural space soon to be fully taken over by development.So what do you have to lose by reading this? Nothing! Seasoned naturalists will find it beautiful and well crafted even if they already know most of the information in it. People with no connection with the natural world, might actually consider making that connection after reading this. And I think that's what the author was going for. So good on him. This is real work of value and substance to the world, amidst a lot of chaos and mindless drivel.

Challenges convenient eco-concepts while still embracing the need for significant change and action. The rewinding movement if front and center. Thoughtfully presented. Well written.

Thought provoking and comes at you from a different and unexpected perspective.

Hands down the best non fiction book I've stumbled upon. An eye opening and necessary read for environmentalists and nature enthusiasts alike.

Everyone should read this one. Information about species extinctions and changes to our environment that we can only deal with if we know and understand what is happening.