A working document:

In 2022 The European Commission put forward proposals to restore Europe’s nature by 2050 and halve pesticide use by 2030. The proposals would make it a legal requirement to restore Europe’s nature, to repair 80% of habitats that are in a poor condition. €100 billion is to be set aside for both improving biodiversity and the restoration of habitat. The economic arguments for this are very clear, between, 1997 and 2011, biodiversity loss accounted for an estimated annual loss of €3.5–18.5 trillion.

It seems that ‘Rewilding” has become the word of the moment but what does it mean?

It often implies that cultivated land might be returned to its previous “uncultivated” state. This may or may not include reintroducing species that have been driven out or exterminated in the past.

There are many different approaches rewilding rural areas from active management and the sowing of pollinating plants, planting of trees etc to just leaving the land for nature to do what it will.

Critics of the term rewilding think that this means returning the land to a state of ‘pristine wilderness’ before human habitation. Since humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, it seems unclear which point in time that would be.

The defenders hit back at the critics accusing them of waging a war against nature.

Dr Kim Ward stated that the term wilderness “is a concept indelible with symbolic meaning. In Western environmental narratives at least, the ‘wilderness idea’ was led by Euro-American men within the historical context of patriarchal colonialism, and wilderness preservation is therefore, an artefact of colonialism that can (and has) act as a vehicle for the exclusion and erasure of indigenous people and their histories from the land.”

Dr Ward continues - that we should consider rewilding as a' dynamic process creating ‘wildness’, rather than one that creates or protects ‘wilderness.’

The Organisation ‘Rewilding Europe’ lists 5 areas of Belgium where there are rewilding projects. One in the south of Belgium, in Wallonia and the other four in Flanders.

I live in Brussels in an urban environment. It is a city of around 1.2 million people and the second most cosmopolitan city in the world behind Dubai, 62% of residents were not born in Belgium (including me) or come from a migrant background. It is a very culturally diverse city.

As a result of walking around the streets with and photographing a Belgian woman who feeds pigeons corn; of watching her with the birds, I began to think about and wonder what ‘a city dweller’s’ idea of nature is and what our relationship to nature should be.

The city of Brussels was officially founded in 979 AD. The Brussels I know now, developed during the 19th century following the end of the Napoleonic wars and the founding of an independent Belgium in 1830.

In a city like Brussels people of different race, ethnicity and cultural background will have quite different perspectives on urban landscaping. One person’s ‘wildflower’ meadow maybe another person’s unkempt park or space.

The term “Rewilding” is problematic in the urban situation because in many places humans have inhabited and altered the landscape for hundreds and in some cases thousands of years. There is no memory of what the environment was before it began to be built on. The probable better term for cities seems to be ‘urban wilding’.

Urban Wilding requires careful thought, and the solutions are often complex and intricate.  The so-called ‘greening’ of buildings and cities can be quite energy intensive and therefore misleading. It also means that urban wilding must be more than just improving the access to nature. It needs to include the redesigning of urban infrastructures so that we do not just co-exist with other species, but we are mutually supportive and inclusive.

This means that decisions need to involve the people that are affected. Usman Haque

(2022a Making Wild Cities – Notes on Participatory Urban Wilding) is very clear that there cannot be wilding without participation.

In her article - How listening to bird song can transform our mental health:  Begum states that songbirds

There are very good reasons, both economically and for our health and well-being why we should both as individuals and as communities learn to live with wildlife alongside us.

I walk around the streets I see the signs of nature finding cracks in the pavements and brickwork and growing there, but at the same time, I watch the grass in the parks mown and hedges trimmed; are we ready for the messiness of nature in our cities?

What other ways can ordinary city dwellers involve themselves with nature on a day-to-day basis?

Growing things to eat. feeding birds, walking in green spaces.

Aims and objectives

To identify the Green spaces within walking distance or a tram ride of where I live.

To identify, contact and build relationships with other individuals who grow plants to eat

To identify contact groups growing their own food.

To contact the urban farm.

Contact other photographers.

To find out what projects the city is planning

ME : Find a way of expressing photographically my experience of nurturing my plants

         What are my experiences of the green spaces that I have identified.

Experiment - Mindful photography. Cyanotype, macro photography, identifying bird species, record my experience of space.