Can we help make the land hospitable once more to wolf, cougar (catamount), lynx, wolverine, caribou, and salmon? Can we allow the land to have a will of its own; can we welcome self-willed wildlife? This audacious, but possible, rewilding vision is the aim of The Wildlands Project in North America. We will discuss the biodiversity crisis and what the new applied science of conservation biology is telling us about the ecological need for wolves and cougars in the landscape and how to design better conservation areas in the Northeast.
The Wildlands Project is an organization that combines the long-range vision of conservation biology with the passion of activism. Its job is to look hundreds of years into the future, where it sees the grand vision of a connected wilderness area that extends from the Adirondacks to Northern Maine. The Wildlands Project and Wild Earth magazine have now merged, having a central office in Richmond, Vermont. We hope you will join Dave Foreman, conservation biologists, leaders of the New Conservation Movement, and members of the Wildlands staff in our fifth retreat at Rowe since 1988. Help us plan for the future of the wilderness in the Northeast.
Dave Foreman is one of the most experienced and controversial conservation leaders of the modern age. The Audubon Society identified him as one of the 100 most influential conservationists of the 20th Century. In the 1970s he worked for The Wilderness Society, ending as their chief lobbyist in Washington, DC. In 1980, he co-founded Earth First!, and since 1991, he's been publisher of Wild Earth and chairman of The Wildlands Project. He's written several books, including Confessions of an Eco-Warrior, The Big Outside, The Lobo Outback Funeral Home (a novel), and the forthcoming The War On Nature. We're honored to welcome Dave and the other visionaries back to Rowe.