Rewilding, Landscape Restoration, and Exploring Interconnections in Tasmania and Beyond
An Interview with Dr. Tristan Derham
Dr. Tristan Derham is a PAN Works fellow as well as an ecologist, environmental philosopher, and expert in conservation ethics. He is particularly focused on restoration practices, the ethics of introductions rooted in ecological value, individual wellbeing and autonomy in rewilding, and the concept of animals as refugees. Tristan’s research explores these topics in context of the intersections of ethics, ecology, Indigenous traditions, and cultural elements of conservation.
Kim Hightower: Tell us how you came to your career, and to this place of expertise in environmental philosophy, ecology, and nature ethics.
Dr. Tristan Derham: My grandmother, Pifa, was quite a character and we had a close relationship. When I was a child, she fed me a steady diet of Gerald Durrell books and David Attenborough television documentaries, dutifully recorded on her VHS. I was growing up in a forested part of Western Australia, away from the suburbs, and I began to see my ecological surroundings as a community of fascinating animals and plants, some of which were missing.
That inspiration carried through to my adult life, and I studied zoology and environmental engineering, and worked as an environmental consultant to mining clients, but it wasn’t until my 30s that I began to discover philosophy. A housemate was studying undergraduate philosophy. He would come home from lectures brimming with gripping conversation. I couldn’t stop thinking about the questions his lecturers had raised about politics, ethics, metaphysics and the like, so I decided to go back to university. Of course, I ended up studying environmental philosophy, in particular rewilding.
I was inspired by rewilding but it also seemed an easy way to unpack metaphysical and ethical questions about ecological restoration and about animals. I also wanted to be able to make practical recommendations for action: the ecological crisis requires us to make a difference right now.
KH: Is there a key species that draws your focus, or has any one species shaped the trajectory of your work?
TD: My fascination with animals has led me to focus on different taxa throughout my life. For much of my childhood, I wanted to be a frog biologist. The animals I’ve shared my life with — mice, rats, cats, and dogs — have all been close companions. In an intellectual sense, I have always thought ants are amazing, particularly the way that simple local rules can lead them to incredibly complex communal outcomes. For my PhD research, I deeply considered the lives of elephants, because they gather so many ethical issues to themselves. With my colleague, Freya Matthews, we carefully thought through the question of whether animals can be refugees. Sadly, the plight of elephants in Africa shows that they can. I also looked at (extinct) Tasmanian emus because they provided a useful case study for de-extinction and rewilding.
KH: Can you share more about your work on emus and the impact it’s had?
TD: Most people don’t think about which animals are missing from a landscape. As an ecologist, I can’t help it. I suppose it’s a bit like being a museum curator, walking through a collection, and seeing a space on the wall, a piece missing from the collection of a great master.
Rewilding often concerns itself with missing species and advocates for their return. Rewilding suggestions can be contentious when they focus on returning large animals who need plenty of space and who can be inconvenient, or even dangerous, for local people. Discussions about the return of large animals (especially predators) can also become a matter of political affiliation. I wanted to consider an example that the Tasmanian community could think about clearly and discuss without this sort of distraction.
No one had done any detailed research into Tasmanian emus, and we didn’t know why they went extinct, so my colleagues and I thought it would be interesting to find out. We found that European colonists killed off the emus, by hunting too many, too quickly. You can take emu eggs by the dozen but if you hunt too many adults, numbers drop very quickly. Tasmanian Aboriginal people probably knew that, which is why they could live with emus for more than 40,000 years.
We also showed that there was plenty of habitat remaining in Tasmania, which is exciting! But we were conscious that emus would not be welcomed everywhere, so we mapped out areas in which they might be protected, and where they might conflict with locals. That’s crucial for planning any reintroductions because the introduced animals should be given a very good chance to thrive, without persecution.
I’m not sure about impact, but certainly a lot of people here know me as the emu guy, ha ha! I’ve had several landholders offer their properties for reintroductions, so I suppose the idea is now in the public consciousness.
KH: In your work, what is the interplay among rewilding, Indigenous traditional practices, and a model of conservation that serves the wellbeing of all beings?
TD: I’m inspired by Australian Aboriginal cultures, which have recognised, developed, and maintained place-based principles over tens of thousands of years. These principles, or Law, have been described as geogenic, i.e. derived from the Earth itself (Mathews, 2021). They often incorporate a respect for the other members of one’s ecological community, and their right to their own places, their own agency, their own purposes. These are, I believe, crucial elements of an adequate environmental ethic. If we are looking for cultural and ethical change that will allow us to live well with the other members of our mixed ecological communities, then this is a very good place to take inspiration.
Rewilding has captured some of these ethical commitments, in a narrow way, in particular recognising the rights of other animals to exert their agency and develop purposes of their own.
KH: What does it mean to restore wildness and autonomy in nature?
TD: Restoring wildness and autonomy in nature first requires us to recognise and respect the agency, the purposes, and the inner lives of the beings with whom we share our places. Animals are the most obvious ones who have such agency, purposes, and inner lives. That doesn’t mean withdrawing from animals and distancing ourselves from them, though in many cases animals are better off when humans are not nearby. It means supporting their agency, in material ways. That might mean giving (back) lands or waters to use as they please, or explicitly recognising their rights to share our places. For humans, it means, collectively, restraining ourselves from taking over, dominating, and fencing off every part of the land for our businesses, houses, mines, forestry, farms, and roads. I don’t see wildernesses as places sans people. I see them as places that are more obviously for other beings, where the voices of others might be heard more easily and their purposes more easily expressed. Then we can take joy in the thriving of others in our mixed communities.
KH: What are you currently working on that energizes you?
TD: Oh dear, I have so many projects on the go right now! I’m working with the Tasmanian Aboriginal community to restore a cultural landscape on an island in the Bass Strait, Lungtalanana/Clarke Island. That project includes cultural burning and repatriating animals to make that Country healthy again. With WWF-Australia, we are preparing to return wombats to the island.
At the University of Tasmania, I’m teaching a unit on landscape fire and am the coordinator for a practical course on sustainability: the Diploma of Sustainable Living. Being new to those roles I am learning a lot about sustainability, about teaching, and about how universities operate.
I’m also working with the IUCN Rewilding Thematic Group on new guidelines for rewilding, assisting that group to engage more closely with Indigenous groups, and to consider more deeply the implications of rewilding for animal wellbeing.
Kim Hightower is the associate editor for PAN Works.
Please visit PAN Works for more about our work on ethics and animal wellbeing.
