WILD PLANET was the second studio album by the American new wave band The B-52s. Also the name of a seafood company that purportedly sells sustainably sourced tuna and sardines. Do not confuse either of these with
Planet Wild.
Planet Wild is a global rewilding network. Their website starts with the premise that “
our planet is in multiple crises at once." Sound familiar?
They raise money to partner with innovative restoration projects and then make
mini-documentaries to follow up on the results. Initially a collaboration of European entrepreneurs and filmmakers, they have grown quickly since their first mission in 2023. Now the much larger team undertakes a new mission every month. As long as the partnering projects meet their criteria of being
transformative, measurable, additive, conflict-free, lasting &
transparent.
A few examples of their partners are
Rewilding Oder Delta in Germany,
Ecosia (the AI search engine that plants a tree for every search),
Ocean Alliance for Marine Mammals, and Spain's
Coral Soul.
Although Emerge spends lots of time hearing about new philosophies, developmental individuals, and experimental communities, there is also a deep hunger for inspiring projects and successful international mobilizations.
As media, geopolitics, ethnocentric tension, and sociopathic corporate entities combine to create a global ethos of anxiety and degradation, we are also seeing radical new zones of improvement. Many of these are related to the
biodiversity crisis.
Flourishing (whether in cultures, psyches, or physical environments) depends on a synergetic collaboration among a minimum richness of diversely interactive and mutually adaptive species. Life itself is this richness. Everything begins to flatten out and regress when there is insufficient organic complexity in the soil, water, air, and noosphere.
The concept of
rewilding was introduced in the 1990s as a way to begin grappling with this problem. It is not a naive hippie notion about passively abandoning human engagement with ecosystems. Quite the contrary. This is a scientifically infused, planetary movement to increase intelligent human participation in the necessary (and holy?) restoration of
autopoietic regenerative diversity.
Planet Wild is part of an emerging new approach to amplifying the power of rewilding through synergetic social activities. Bring the fundraising, the science, the local community needs, social media, video documentation, and public information all together in the same hub.
Watching the people in these videos reveals a common thread of communitarian enthusiasm, practical results, increased thriving, and contemplative natural awe among the local participants. It becomes hard to deny that something analogous to religion is occurring.
But let's not get too carried away,
Here are three moving videos from Planet Wild:
