In his framing of cultural rewilding, Alberto Frigo Cana compares modern civilization to a ship and gives cultural rewilders the role to build the necessary lifeboats. In Frigo's mind, the ship is not only depleting the resources of the planet in order to stay afloat; it is keeping people separated from the natural world with the inevitable consequences that this detachment causes.

If on one hand then the captains of the ship are building their private rockets to set off to other planets, cultural rewilders scavenge for the components they need to set up their lifeboats which become temporary autonomous vehicles enabling them to reconnect to planet earth. Importantly, it is in this process of scavenging that cultural rewilders resume a hunter-gatherer way of being.