Antoine Scherer is a French field ecologist and independent researcher with a passion for photography.

Scherer is working on developing a local rewilding model for the Finnish Boreal region and to change the way we view our relationship with the environment. He is working with a Finnish NGO called Snowchange Cooperative in a nation-wide Landscape Rewilding Programme, which aims to restore natural environments from rivers and wetlands to lakes, forests and peatlands all over Finland. 

Everything started with rewilding of a peatland close to Joensuu and now the programme has around seventy active sites across Finland.

Rewilding is an innovative, progressive process and a holistic attitude to restore balance in natural ecosystems and give nature the tools to heal itself while taking into account the social and economic factors to develop long-term sustainable models for local communities to live in harmony with their environment. Each project is unique, which makes rewilding fascinating but challenging at the same time. Sometimes a lot of work is needed and sometimes rewilding can simply be about acquiring some land and letting it be.

There are some indicator species, say Scherer. When they’re back, you know that things are going the right way.

Rewilding is about the big picture, not about protecting a single animal or plant species. Scherer felt that this holistic approach was missing when he was studying his Masters in biodiversity management at the University of Lille in France. While he was looking for options for his internship, he came across an organization called Rewilding Europe and ended up studying the diversity of day butterflies and the impact of grazing of large animals at one of their regions in Portugal. 

During his internship in Portugal Scherer got to witness the extraordinary biodiversity of the cork woodlands and the ecological and environmental value of the cork trees that are completely adapted to the local conditions, protecting the landscape from erosion and wild fires. Scherer recalls one special encounter he had one morning in the forest.

I was running around with my butterfly net when I noticed a beautiful fox looking down at me from a nearby rock. He stayed there watching me chase butterflies for a good 15 minutes. It was an amazing experience as the rewilding project was already mature and I could see first hand the different stages of rewilding in the reserve, the dynamics between species, buffer areas with human presence and abandoned areas where nature was again taking over.

There is a real need for rewilding as while we have detached ourselves from nature, it doesn’t mean we still don’t depend on it.

Many things are crumbling at the moment. We have the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, the global social crisis. There is a real need for rewilding to create a link between modern humans and a wilder environment and restore the ecosystems we rely on.

Earlier this year Scherer hosted his first photography exhibition at the Hilma museum in Joensuu. The exhibition consisted of nature photography paired with information about rewilding and stories from the field. Having worked for years as a field ecologist, Scherer is used to spending a lot of his time outdoors. In the beginning the camera served as a tool to document his work and to help identify some species such as butterflies or insects he had encountered on the field. Since then, photography has become a medium for Scherer to tell stories and to create awareness for rewilding.

In the context of my pHD I need to do some scientific communication. Instead of producing articles for the academic community, I decided to do the exhibition. I consider myself as a kind of a hybrid – not just a researcher and not really an artist, but I find it interesting to mix the two. The science is somehow legitimating the art and the art is making science more accessible to the general public. I believe we are coming back to physical exhibitions again as social media as a platform for photography is limited and a lot of meaning and context is lost in the endless scrolling through beautiful images.

Scherer wishes to keep spending time outdoors, continue to develop as a photographer and to make a positive impact through the rewilding projects. According to Scherer, it often takes a lot of effort to convince local people and decisionmakers to see the benefits of repairing the damages and bringing back connectivity. However, it is possible to bring nature back to a state of balance in a way that benefits both wildlife and the local communities. 

It comes down to a change in mindsets. Finland has great potential to lead the way and with the amount of forest Finland also has a responsibility to examine old forestry practices and build new models, which are not just good for the environment but also economically interesting.

You can visit Antoine Scherer’s photography exhibition ‘Boreal Rewilding’ online HERE.

Photos: Antoine Scherer