Rewilding is the process of re-instating the role of keystone species to human society where the expression of this role appears lacking. The term originates in conservation biology in which "rewilding" stands for the re-introduction of keystone species into areas where such species appear locally extinct. Rewilding in the anarchist context applies this concept to initiating and regenerating human culture that embodies the role of a keystone species.
In green anarchism and anarcho-primitivism, humans are said to be "civilized" or "domesticated" by civilization. Supporters of such human rewilding argue that through the process of domestication, human wildness has been altered by force.[1]
Rewilding is about overcoming human domestication and returning to behavior inherent in human wildness. Though often associated with primitive skills and learning knowledge of wild plants and animals, it emphasizes the development of the senses and fostering deepening personal relationships with members of other species and the natural world. Rewilding intends to create permanently wild human cultures beyond domestication.[2]
Rewilding is considered a holistic approach to living, as opposed to skills, practices or a specific set of knowledge.
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Rewilding is most associated with green anarchy and anarcho-primitivism or anti-civilization and post-civilization anarchism in general,[3] though there is a large primitive living contingent who come at it from a more authoritarian direction.[4]
Within a modern and scientific social context, rewilding entails both experiential and "book knowledge" to produce a community that is both respectful of individual liberties and beneficial to all involved, including all non-human species. Participants in such events and communities directly reap the benefits of the communities' actions and efforts. Instead of seeking to "return" to an earlier state of human existence or go "back to the land", rewilding seeks to take the experiences and time spent here in civilization and combine the lessons that have been learned from both the past and the present to create a more ideal society.