How can we rewild the Earth at scale?

t work, I think at the scale of the planet. The nonprofit I work for, One Earth, helped create the Global Safety Net—a composite of global datasets that identifies the 50.4% of Earth’s land that must be conserved to reverse biodiversity loss and stabilize our climate. But at home, in the shower, I fret over our few acres.

The growing tips of our native Ceanothus saplings were nibbled off last night. Their lilac pom poms mawed in half, too. I suppose I’m glad the deer are enjoying their native foods, but I ache like a parent, anxious to give my baby plants a fighting chance to re-populate. I worry over the clear blue sky. Is it my imagination, or are there fewer birds than there were last spring? My suspicion simmers into an accusatory ire leveled at the stray black cat I’ve seen prowling the garden. I plan a drive to Forgotten Felines to pick up a humane trap. As much as I love cats, I can’t condone the free reign of their ecological terror.

I worry over a bugless meadow. I want more butterflies. I’ll even take the flies. Certain ones anyway. I want a healthy delegation of the 1600 species of native California bees with their buff black bodies, fly-like disguises, or furry stout abdomens. I need more time, to plant more pollinator plants, to home more insects, to feed more birds. I want the Laguna to refill, the Herons to return, the Coho salmon to try their luck through a maze of spearing beaks. I want the beavers to slow the floodwaters, otters to hold hands in the river, and Tule elk to reclaim the pastureland that was once their foraging grounds.

These aren’t just nostalgic longings for a charismatic Earth, although they are that, too. After all, I was born into a world of declining abundance. Population sizes of wildlife have declined on average by 73% since the 1970s. I look around and see a world unraveling. Thinning out. Emptying. The promise of an enjoyable future, of any future, slips from my grasp.

We live in an ever-hollowing husk that threatens to crumble if we don’t reverse course. Beyond nostalgia, my activism seems so uncomplicated, so simple. I don’t want to live in the crumbling. I don’t want to live in the frayed end of a rope we hang ourselves by. I want to see the recuperation of the world. I want to see the planet refill with the million species that humans have put at risk of extinction. The fullness of the world—the beaver, otter, salmon of it all—are the hallmarks of a healthy, robust ecosystem that I can rely on into my future and the future of the generations beyond me.