Peter Michael Bauer is an anthropologist, experimental archaeologist, and historian. His work focuses on the social and environmental impacts of the neolithic revolution, and how understanding these impacts can provide us with solutions to the sixth mass extinction. Since the early 2000’s, he has been an integral catalyst in the human rewilding movement. Rewilding is a principle, or a lens, that helps us see and move through the world in terms of regeneration and reciprocity. It is not the “one right way”—it is a million ways to live in the flow of natural cycles. It recognizes that humans are not above those flows, and that it is actually more beneficial to our ecosystems when we acknowledge and become part of them. This movement works to create resilience through the return to place-based, regenerative subsistence strategies, inspired by those that exist outside of–and those that existed prior to–the formation of agrarian states. He created the first international online rewilding forum (now archived at discuss.rewild.com), wrote a book on rewilding called Rewild or Die, founded the organization Rewild Portland (where he teaches classes), and created the Annual North American Rewilding Conference.
My name is Patrick Farnsworth. I’m a long-form interviewer, occasional writer, and host of Last Born In The Wilderness, a podcast I’ve produced for the better part of five years.
