The Beast Within (Or How Not to Rewild) - Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life - page 208

produce a cow whose coat roughly resembled that of its wild ancestor,
but which was a good deal smaller, had different proportions and
would not breed true. 35 This disappointing creature, which bore as
much resemblance to the giant aurochs as Himmler did to the 'Aryan'
beauty he exalted, would, they proclaimed, help to restore the true
German ecosystems degraded by the assaults of civilization. Ludwig
Heck released some of these ersatz aurochs into the Białowieza Forest
Göring had seized.
The descendants of these animals are now being used in a rewilding
project in the Netherlands, on a large polder at Oostvaardersplassen,
which has none of those political connotations. There they range
freely within a reserve of 5,000 hectares, without veterinary treat-
ment, shelter or feed, reprising the role the aurochs might once have
played (though with the crucial differences that its predators and
some of its competitors are missing, and that it cannot migrate). 36 The
man who founded the project, Frans Vera, chose Heck cattle partly
for their hardiness and partly, it seems, because of the public interest
their unusual appearance would generate. 37
Simon Schama rightly warns us against making 'an obscene syllo-
gism: to imply in any way that modern environmentalism has any kind
of historical kinship with totalitarianism'. Nevertheless, the forced
rewildings which have taken place elsewhere offer a pungent warning
of how this project could go badly wrong if we are not mindful of its
hazards and antecedents. Rewilding must not be an imposition. If it
happens, it should be done with the consent and active engagement of
the people who live on and benefit from the land. Governments must
not create, as they have done in East Africa and Botswana, a paradise
for the rich from the lands of the poor. If a rewilding scheme requires
forced dispossession, it should not go ahead.
There is no need for coercion. Through the proposals I have sug-
gested and the changes that are likely to take place anyway, in the
uplands of Britain and Europe, some other parts of North America
and some other regions of the world , the large-scale restoration of
living systems and natural processes can take place without harming
anyone's interests. This will, I believe, enhance our civilization, enrich
and rewild our own lives, introduce us to wonders which, in these
bleak lands, now seem scarcely imaginable.