AI makes rewilding look tame – and misses its messy reality
When AI is asked to picture “rewilded” Britain, it produces landscapes that are strikingly similar – and tame
northeastbylines.co.uk/news/environ...
🌳 Do you want to contribute to research on how humans perceive forests? Take this quick, anonymous 10-min survey 🌲
👉 www.biodiful.org#/forest
This will help us explore how people experience forest biodiversity!
Please share on 🦋 & tag @biodiful.bsky.social to reach more participants 🙏💚
🌐🌍🦤🦑🪴🍁🧪
New study analysed 4k images from UK rewilding organizations & AI images
📸 Charismatic species and scenic views
💀 Death and decay mostly absent
👥 Few people depicted
🤖 AI imagery reproduces these exclusionary representations
Time to diversify!
📖 buff.ly/GWT6QCL
🌎Check out our new #paper which analyses #AI-generated representations of #rewilding produced by different chatbots alongside visual and textual materials from UK rewilding advocacy organisations. #Rewilding #CriticalAIAnalysis #ConservationScience #NatureRecovery
🌎 🧪 Our new #rewilding piece is available to read in #TheBiologist - Guerilla Rewilding: Urgent protest or dangerous gamble? Read it here 🔗👉🏻 tinyurl.com/mr586cke
🌍🧪The full paper is out now and free to read here: 🔗👉🏻https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.70266 #rewilding #future
Indeed! Construction/contestation of ‘mess’ or ‘messiness’ in nature recovery is the subject of Flurina's previous research. Aesthetics shape views of what is ‘natural’, ‘normal’, ‘good’ & thus desirable in what future (recovered) nature looks like besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
🌎🧪New #blog ahead of our upcoming #research #paper: Why visual #representation in #rewilding matters👬👫🌳👩👩👧 Visual patterns reveal exclusionary visions of #landscapes & environmental futures. #AI generated images risk amplifying biases tinyurl.com/y9dyyfrf #repeopling #UK #naturerecovery #socialjustice
The British Academy Place-sensitive understandings of nature recovery Introduction to a set of discussion papers commissioned by the British Academy
If this is your sort of thing we also recently published a series of discussion papers on place sensitive understandings of nature recovery
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/projects/pla...
📢🌎🧪Our #paper for @britishacademy.bsky.social is out!
We analyse place-based & social justice dimensions of England's Biodiversity Net Gain #policy, and provide a framing for policymakers to integrate social & cultural #values into #naturerecovery
Open access here 👉🏻🔗 lnkd.in/ena2eyqS
#BNG #nature
🚨 Just one week left to apply for one of the THREE postdoc positions in the #GreenFrontier project hosted at @fnp-wur.bsky.social
#conservation #EnvJustice #wilderness #rewilding #rural #underdevelopment #LandAbandonment
Deadline 25 November!
Full details 👉 www.wur.nl/en/research-...
🌏 #rewilding is happening at home - found an intrepid flat worm in the cellar. Maybe (?)Bipalium kewense, a non-native shovel-headed garden worm. Any #worm experts please confirm! You can submit a @inaturalist.bsky.social record of cosmopolitan visitors to Buglife PotWatch campaign lnkd.in/ebKyggVG
🌍 Fantastic conservation postdoc roles x 3 with @georgeiorda.bsky.social on the Green Frontier project👇 #postdoc
🪂Species reintroductions have a radical history; in the UK, where official rewilding remains tightly regulated, a covert counterculture has emerged🐗
🦅Glentworth et al. explore guerilla rewilding: unlicensed releases reshaping landscapes and challenging norms🦫
📰 lnkd.in/dw7EVA5n
🖥️ lnkd.in/dxJK4Wy6
Also worth checking out the accompanying blog with amazing photos of the origins of 🦫#beaverbombing 🌍🧪
👉🔗
www.oryxthejournal.org/blog/bringin...
Great to see our new guerilla #rewilding #paper out in Oryx
Available #openaccess here 👉🔗
doi.org/10.1017/S003...
🌍🧪
Considering the value that history and other disciplines outside of the natural sciences offer for rewilding efforts.
Thank you for the recommendations!
📣 Super important paper 📣
It explores what's needed to ensure placemaking, the built environment, & transport can play a role in health creation & overcoming inequalities. Systems thinking is vital: foster the right leadership, collaborate across disciplines, and empower.
(HT @sfrost.bsky.social)
Our new #rewilding #paper is Open Access and free to view 🌎 👇
Louise Fitzgerald & I are hiring an 18 month postdoc and 18 month research assistant (no PhD required) for a project on the political ecology of land ownership in Ireland. 2 weeks to apply. DM for any questions. 🧵
Link to DCU website: www.dcu.ie/people/jobs
When she was just 26 Florence Merriam wrote the first guide to birding with binoculars in 1889. And she slipped in this incredible feminist gem:
Fantastic 🤩 👏
1/ 📄New paper! Alison Hutchinson @georgeiorda.bsky.social Teresa Lappe-Osthege & myself have developed a new harms-based #PoliticalEcology as a way of understanding the #WildlifeTrade published in @jpoliticalecology.bsky.social ⬇️
beastlybusiness.org/2025/07/23/n...
Plus a jargon-free Plain Language Summary explaining how using #socialscience in #rewilding benefits #nature and #people 🔗👉
relationalthinkingblog.com/2025/07/15/p...
🌍
POLLEN 2026 is happening in Barcelona 🌅
The call for panels is open and closes on July 31st.
See here for more information: tinyurl.com/5b8c5w7j
Spread the word.
Perhaps a survey is needed by @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social to keep up the momentum following the Climate & Sustainability Assembly on this topic 🌳🚲🐦📒
An image of the cover of the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment Report. Overlay text reads: “Transformative Change Assessment Report. Laid-out report in English available now.”
OUT NOW: The laid-out version of the FULL @ipbes.net #TransformativeChange Report 💥
Explore how fundamental change can halt biodiversity loss and secure just and sustainable futures for all. 🌏🧪
Access the full report in English⬇️
https://www.ipbes.net/transformative-change-assessment
Working on #EnvironmentalJustice topics in Central and Eastern Europe? Then you might want to send an abstract for the conference 'The Greyzone of the Green Transition' that I'm co-organizing with my colleagues from Sibiu next year in Romania (18-19 May 2026).
Participation is free of charge!
Thanks George!