2013 / Environmental Generational Amnesia, Health and well-being

The Rediscovery of the Wild

Citation

Kahn, P. H., & Hasbach, P. H. (2013). The Rediscovery of the Wild. MIT Press.

People often find comfort and joy in nearby, domesticated nature like a city park, a backyard garden. This book, however, makes a bolder case: that humans also need wild nature, the untamed kind that is not managed and not contained. Wildness can inspire love and it can inspire fear, and in both ways it strengthens and nurtures people. As a species, humans came of age in a natural world far wilder than today’s, and the authors argue that much of the need for wildness still lives within us, in body and mind. The Rediscovery of the Wild explores how people might engage with the wild, protect it, and recover it — for the sake of psychological and physical well-being, and for the chance to flourish as a species.

The contributors offer many perspectives on the wild. They examine the evolutionary roots of the human need for wildness; the wild within, including primal passions like sexuality and aggression; birding as a doorway into wild experience; children’s fascination with wild animals; the role of wildness in psychological healing; the shifting baseline of what people even consider wild; and the true work of conservation.

The books makes a compelling case for connecting with the wild, for our psychological and physical well-being and to flourish as a species.

Abstract

A compelling case for connecting with the wild, for our psychological and physical well-being and to flourish as a species.

We often enjoy the benefits of connecting with nearby, domesticated nature—a city park, a backyard garden. But this book makes the provocative case for the necessity of connecting with wild nature—untamed, unmanaged, not encompassed, self-organizing, and unencumbered and unmediated by technological artifice. We can love the wild. We can fear it. We are strengthened and nurtured by it. As a species, we came of age in a natural world far wilder than today’s, and much of the need for wildness still exists within us, body and mind. The Rediscovery of the Wild considers ways to engage with the wild, protect it, and recover it—for our psychological and physical well-being and to flourish as a species.

The contributors offer a range of perspectives on the wild, discussing such topics as the evolutionary underpinnings of our need for the wild; the wild within, including the primal passions of sexuality and aggression; birding as a portal to wildness; children’s fascination with wild animals; wildness and psychological healing; the shifting baseline of what we consider wild; and the true work of conservation.