Call of the Rewild: Restoring Ecological Health to the Emerald Isle
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/world/europe/ireland-rewilding-deforestation-ecology.html
By Ed O’Loughlin, The New York Times.
Excerpt: Centuries of overgrazing and deforestation have eliminated most native flora in Ireland, creating what ecologists see as a man-made desert in places. A growing “rewilding” push aims to change that. ...Rewilding, the practice of bringing ravaged landscapes back to their original states, is well established in Britain, where numerous projects are underway. For Ireland, this would mean the re-creation of temperate forests of oak, birch, hazel and yew that once covered 80 percent of the land but now — after centuries of timber extraction, overgrazing and intensive farming — have been reduced to only 1 percent....