Dung Beetles and Porcupine Quills
A Case Study in Sicilian Rewilding
“I think this bone is from a different animal”, Georg said to Toni, “it doesn’t match.”
I had nothing to comment on this, but Toni seemed to agree. They collected several of the other bones scattered in the dirt, pausing to examine a skull. We continued up the hill towards the sound of cattle bells, crossing fence stiles, and kicking up dirt, until we came to Eremo di San Felice, a former church. For the next five days, Toni and Georg would be running a training week for Collettivo Rewild Sicily, aimed at training nature guides in tracking, as well as using the cybertracker app, a Citizen Science tool. I had kindly been allowed to join the group on their first evening here.
I first stumbled across this group while reading online about the wildfires that had blazed across Palermo this summer. The fires came much closer to the city than usual, scorching the highways and airport and burning through one of the city’s dumps. On our journey up to the hills that morning, I asked Hanna, one of the group directors, about the wildfires. She described how, Palermo was encircled by flames for several days as the fires raged on the hills surrounding the city. Emergency services were stretched and many landowners had no choice but to try and put out the flames themselves to try to save their properties. In response, Collettivo Rewild Sicily had organised training for landowners so that they could fight the fires as safely and effectively as possible.
Wildfires are a huge problem facing Sicily, and several social factors exacerbate this effect of a warming planet. Hanna pointed out that even if some of the burnt forests begin to grow back, they will most likely burn again before they reach maturity. However, rather than getting bogged down in the many reasons for the fires, the group is focusing on finding solutions. Fighting the wildfires is an important, but short-term, solution to Sicily’s relationship with burning. They believe the long-term solution lies in rewilding.
Collettivo Rewild Sicily has realised that Nature Guiding and Rewilding can engage local communities, providing intrinsic and emotional incentives to love nature. Rewilding has become a tense, volatile term, generally associated with species reintroductions. Returning wolves, eagles, lynx, and bison to Europe has created a media frenzy, thriving off controversy and tension between farmers and conservationists.
But the concept of rewilding is supposed to be positive and hopeful. It’s about looking at the land and seeing what could be; creating more robust, more fire-resistant ecosystems; forging space for people and wildlife; and allowing the land to heal so that the land, in turn, can help people to heal. Rewilding offers a fresh perspective on the issues facing our planet. As George Monbiot puts it in his book, Feral:
“Rewilding has no endpoints, no view about what a ‘right’ ecosystem or a ‘right’ assemblage of species looks like… It lets nature decide.”
Collettivo Rewild Sicily is drawing on what it terms the indigenous knowledge of those who use the land; shepherds, hunters, nature guides, and members of the forestry service. The group was keen to use this expertise to build a better picture of the land around them. These groups often disagree about how the land should be managed. In an effort to ease these tensions, members of these groups were invited to join the guides for the final two days of this training week, forging connections and engaging in conversation.
Once all the participants had arrived, we each introduced ourselves to the group, identifying ourselves as an animal and using that animal to describe what we brought to the table and what we needed. What stood out to me was how many of the needs people described were about community; the desire to have roots; to have support from like-minded people; and to know they were not alone in their efforts.
It struck me how lonely it can be to work in conservation. It's like making a career as a prophet of doom, talking constantly about climate change, habitat loss, and extinction. People go into this line of work because they are desperate to save a crumbling planet. Our love/hate affair with nature is ramping up, beyond our safety nets into unchartered territory. The methods that have worked in the past are less and less applicable. Conservationists are weary, stretched-thin by long working hours with little job security, drowning in red tape, doubled over by climate anxiety.
There was, however, an exciting, youthful energy among those running Collettivo Rewild Sicily. The individuals involved are clearly well-seasoned in conservation, nature, and community engagement, but it felt like the energy was coming from being together, from working within this community, as though the social side was what was driving their endeavors.
Rewilding promises a greater good, looking towards a future where the needs of the community are met, in all of its shapes and forms. Local communities and stakeholders have often been ignored in the conservation efforts of the past, sometimes accidentally, causing hurt and upset. But rewilding can provide a nature-based economy, bringing in tourists, who need guides, places to stay, food, etc. The employment that this provides can help to revitalise areas where people are already moving out in search of work. When done right, it doesn’t kick people out of the area, it provides a reason for them to stay. Effective rewilding engages in community, connecting people with nature, reconciling groups, and working to meet people’s needs.
After our introductions, we walked into the hills in silence, encouraged to focus on what was around us. Someone would spot an interesting rock, an insect colony, a porcupine quill, and we would pool our knowledge together, sharing what we knew about what surrounded us. The path was littered with dung from cattle which had crossed crossed the path earlier. We crouched to examine the dung beetles frolicking in it. They are vital for ecosystems, rolling dung into balls and burying it in the mud. This reduces the level of parasites passing between cattle and improves nutrient cycling in the soil. We spotted a wild boar trotting up the far hill, seven piglets in tow. It was likely a hybrid between feral pig and boar. By churning up the soil, searching for grub, they are considered a keystone species, which means that they alter the woods and landscapes they inhabit. The disturbed ground provides space for seeds to germinate, helping to grow the forest.
As the sun began to fade, we split up to find spaces to sit by ourselves and be a part of the landscape. By letting ourselves become quiet and still, we got a much more accurate sense of the territory around us, noticing bird calls and spotting any movements we wouldn’t have seen while walking. The air rang with cattle bells, while a buzzard soared over the dusty, rock-splattered hills. Until the nineties, a pair of griffin vultures nested here. There are now 8 pairs left in Sicily.
As darkness loomed we began to emerge from our observation spots. What had first looked like an empty hill was slowly filling with figures rising and stretching, heading down to the valley floor.
As we walked back to camp, we spotted a fire on a distant hill, a series of amber lights, straddling a field edge and a road. It looked to be under control, but I tried to imagine standing in Palermo this past summer, surrounded by hills blazing with that same amber glow, multiplied by ten. It helped me see the importance of groups like this for rewilding. If we are to have any hope of saving our planet, halting wildlife declines, and protecting ecosystems, we need to have effective communication between groups, airing our differences through conversation so that we can work together.
Night had fallen by the time we arrived back at Eremo di San Felice. The church was a mass of bodies fumbling through the darkness until candles were lit on the candelabra over our heads. After dinner, we headed out to a campfire. The full moon bathed the hills in silver light and a tawny owl hooted in the distance. We sat by the fire, googling photos of tawny owls and trading its English name for its Italian name (Allocco).
As I chatted to the people around me, several of them shared their plans for rewilding and conserving their “territories”, what they’d like to make happen, the difficulties they’ve encountered. I shared my own in return and it struck me how helpful it was to bounce ideas off other people with similar interests. It coaxed the lonely, depressing mindset of the environmentalist towards the realisation that there are other people in the same boat, with brilliant ideas for the future.
From my short time on this training week, it felt like the space Collettivo Rewild Sicily had provided for guides was similar to a tree nursery. People were coming together with the seeds of ideas and they were being given the space to become grounded in community, to set roots and build a support network so that they could branch out into their own communities, offering hope and shade, light and livelihoods.
