Where horses run free? Autonomy, temporality and rewilding in the Côa Valley, Portugal

Abstract

This paper builds on work about rewilding and human-animal relations by focusing inquiry on Portugal's Côa Valley, where a concentration of prehistoric rock art animal figures shares a landscape with a rewilding pilot which seeks to reestablish a population of wild horses. In response to recent geographical debates, the paper offers a sustained, situated analysis of the temporalities of rewilding and related claims to non-human autonomy. In the Côa Valley, ancient images of animal others are enrolled in efforts to return "wild" horses to the landscape, but conceptions of wildness and domesticity, and autonomy and temporality, remain fluid and unfixedeven as they are implicated in the production of bounded spaces and invoked in present-day management imperatives. To conclude, we argue for an appreciation of degrees of animal autonomy in rewilding contexts, moving beyond the binaries that often seem to be the focus of rewilding debates.Understanding of these degrees of autonomy, we argue, must be grounded in histories of landscape co-habitation and co-production, and consider the intersection of past cultural tradition and conceptions of desired future natures. K E Y W O R D Scultural geography, heritage, landscape, nature conservation, rewilding, rock art

Where to rewild? A conceptual framework to spatially optimize ecological function

“…With rewilding projects increasing around the world [77,78], Spore is the first framework to combine habitat suitability for the reintroduction of species with the spatial distribution of ecological function at very fine spatial scales. Such a tool can improve the ecological outcome of rewilding, by maximizing the overlap between where the function is provided and where it is needed.…”

Tourism and rewilding: an introduction – definition, issues and review

“…Despite the crucial role of tourism in providing an economic justification for rewilding (Feldman, 2011;Hall, 2015;Tanasescu, 2017) and de-extinction (Richmond, Sinding, & Gilbert, 2016;Whittle et al, 2015), usually via the reintroduction of charismatic megafauna (DeSilvey & Bartolini, 2019;Donlan et al, 2006;Jepson, Schepers, & Helmer, 2018;Vasile, 2018;Wolf & Ripple, 2018;Zamboni, Di Martino, & Jiménez-Pérez, 2017), there is surprisingly little directly written about tourism and rewilding with ecotourism and nature-based tourism usually being regarded as a surrogate for tourism to rewilded areas (Brown et al, 2011;Prior & Ward, 2016;Procter, 2014). Indeed, Cloyd (2016) makes the significant observation that rather than the human presence being dismissed within sites of rewilding, tourism reveals just how embedded humans are shaping 'wild' places.…”

Reality effects of conflict avoidance in rewilding and ecotourism practices – the case of Western Iberia

“…Where rewilding is commonly known as a conservation discourse that aims at increasing or maintaining wilder landscapes, its recent introduction as an alternative and more progressive biodiversity conservation strategy has led to heated public and scientific discussions in Europe (Lorimer et al, 2015). These discussions are primarily based on (potential) contradictions that rewilding may present to other forms of land-use like agriculture, pastoralism or hunting (Bulkens, Muzaini, & Minca, 2016;DeSilvey & Bartolini, 2018;Navarro & Pereira, 2012;Wynne-Jones, Strouts, & Holmes, 2018). As proponents describe rewilding as a more 'progressive' biodiversity conservation discourse in Europe, rewilding is discussed as a form of 'kick-starting' restoration by which natural processes are selectively recovered to allow 'nature' to gain control again (Jørgensen, 2015;Keulartz, 2012;Monbiot, 2013).…”

“…(Fraser, 2009, p. 203) With this proposal to transform cultural landscapes into more natural ones, proponents present rewilding as a bold alternative in comparison to more conservative biodiversity conservation policies in Europe (Jepson, 2016). However, on a local scale, rewilding may also fuel potential conflicts (DeSilvey & Bartolini, 2018;Lorimer et al, 2015), which are expected to emerge due to: competing claims between biodiversity conservation and other forms of development (Redpath et al, 2013;Young et al, 2016); tensions between progressive and conservative forms of conservation policies (Corlett, 2016;Jepson, 2016;Lorimer et al, 2015); or competition between reintroduced 'authentic' wildlife populations and locally established populations (Rubenstein, Rubenstein, Sherman, & Gavin, 2006). Furthermore, especially in Europe, rewilding is prone to clash with more 'traditional biocultural landscapes that are valued for both their cultural significance and the biodiversity they support' (Corlett, 2016, p. 130).…”