Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait, featuring Ninad Mungi, ecologist by trade and Assistant Professor at Aarhus University’s ECONOVO Center in Denmark - as well as inspiring and insightful stories from 🇵🇱 Poland, 🇺🇸 the US, 🇳🇱 the Netherlands, 🇰🇭 Cambodia, 🇲🇪 Montenegro, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England and 🇦🇷 Argentina.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Ninad Mungi

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Ninad Mungi, ecologist at Aarhus University’s ECONOVO Center in Denmark. Before that he spent years as a researcher for the Wildlife Institute of India, focused on the recovery of tigers in India, snow-leopards of Trans-Himalaya and mega-herbivores across savannas. Then he did his PhD on invasive plants! All of that research was, he says, his gateway into restoration and rewilding.

His portrait, his insights challenges, inspiration and rituals are fascinating. He sees actively pushed hyper-consumerism as the root cause of the biodiversity crises, but sees paths for better ways with creative alternatives, compelling stories and the strengthening of democratic accountability. I love this: “Stories often succeed where data alone cannot. I strongly believe that our world needs more scientists and storytellers to flourish with nature, to imagine and build a nature-positive future.”

👉 Get to know Ninad

2) Beaver power in Poland: Check out out Planet Wild’s latest project

Beavers a key ecosystem engineers. Their presence and work of creating dams and canals brings and distributes water and with that water comes a massively increased biodiversity, both flora and fauna thrive when beavers are allowed to do what beavers love to do. Now Planet Wild, working with Rewilding Oder Delta, has purchased a piece of land in Poland. Once drained for agriculture, the land was then flooded and dammed for a huge fish farming operation - now it lies abandoned and degraded … Beavers will fix that!

The above clip’s a good one not just to learn about this particular project, but also to get a sense of beaver history. How and why they many millions of beavers were almost entirely wiped out and how beaver reintroductions (including some by parachute!) began to return them. Remember, beavers are essential - and the current numbers in no way reflect the numbers that once were. What Europe needs is not pockets of beavers, but beaver abundance.

With that come coexistence challenges, of course. Here, too. Planet Wild is engaging and working with local communities. 9000 willows will be planted and 300 hundred trees protected. Beavers are expected to come to the 20 hectares of land naturally over the coming years - and once they’re there, their impact will begin to ripple outward, eventually delivering nature-positive impact to about 400 hectares of surrounding land.

👉 Go here for more

3) The fence that protects ground-nesting birds

Amanda Royal of Earth Hope reports on a massive project to protect ground-nesting birds on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i. The predator-proof exclusion fence, put up in 2023, has a length of 2 miles and cost 1.7 million. Was it worth the cost and effort - absolutely! The fence has proven to keep out rats, feral critters like cats, dogs and even excellent diggers like pigs.

In the past I’ve occasionally come across stories where those trying to protect ground-nesting bird populations eradicated every single predator on entire islands … well, that’s one way of going about it. But I can’t help but think that it isn’t the predators’ fault that their ancestors were brought there hundreds of years previously by our species. They, too, should have a right to live. Exclusion fences are, to my mind, the far better option. Yes, they come at a cost, but healthy nature needs balance, and a good balance usually depends on the presence of predators.

As for the big picture: I think that life/nature will always find a way. And so, for me, such fencing solutions are excellent coexistence stepping stones. But they cannot permanently stem the flow of nature. Just like water, nature will eventually flow in ways it wants to flow … and that will mean - also because of climate change, of course - that there will be dramatic changes in the coming centuries of species entirely disappearing, and habitats drastically changing with a new and different mix of species.

👉 Go here for more

4) When are golden jackals an alien species? Answer: Never!

The golden jackal is a beautiful canid, a species that’s been expanding its range naturally southeastern sphere across western Europe. In a new post Arie Trouwborst, professor of nature conservation law, reports that the Netherlands have named the golden jackal a protected indigenous species. This may seem a bit odd at first glance, as no golden jackals were even seen in the Netherlands until 2016. But it is a question of natural range expansion, and the Dutch have got it right.

As Arie explains in his LinkedIn post, the golden jackal, like coyotes in North America, naturally travel and expand their territories. “Therefore, even when adventurous jackals appear in areas without prior records of the species - as in the Netherlands - they do not qualify as an alien species and must not be treated as such. Instead, according to international and European wildlife law, golden jackals are in principle to be welcomed. Also in a legal sense, where they lay their heads is home.”

👉 Go here for the post, legal detail and other papers

5) Will tigers return to Cambodia in 2027?

The last confirmed tiger sighting in Cambodia was in 2007 and those living around the proposed release region aren’t particularly thrilled. In the article, one man is decidedly against tigers, as he recalls a harrowing moment thirty years past when he was tapping trees for resin with a relative: “I saw the tiger take him with my own yes. He was screaming but we couldn’t help him.” These a huge cats. These are apex predators … such terrible events can and will happen. But just as we accept that thousands of people die of car accidents, we should also learn to live with these large predators (here’s looking at you, Europe!) for the benefit of healthy nature for all of us.

Back to Cambodia! The plan’s been in the making - with India sending some of its tigers to the southwestern Cardamom Mountains of Cambodia, a vast rainforest expanse that stretches over a million hectares. The hopes are clear - these big cats jumpstart trophic cascading, their presence affecting every aspect of the region’s fauna … the problem is - as always - a human one. While the region is protected, poaching is rampant and thus there’s an understandable concern that there may not be enough prey for tigers. There’s differing opinions and so, for now, it looks like this will be happening, with the budget in place and the expected benefits from the presence of tigers.

A key aspect, also mentioned in the article, is one I often think about. My question is often: What are we waiting for? The perfect being the enemy of the good and all that. What do we gain by waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect timing? And what do we lose? In this case, the presence of tigers will act as a signal, with even just a few present - it will make that rainforest more than a rainforest - it will put the awesome in it and will likely serve as a reason to heighten protection, catch and prosecute poachers and minimize both legal and illegal logging. I know, easy for me to say, but I’ll say it anyway: Bring on those tigers!

👉 Go here for more

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6) Montenegro’s spectacular pelican comeback

The colony of the Lake Skadar National Park had struggled since 2008, when flooding wiped out nesting sites. Then, as of 2014, the park introduced no-disturbance zones and floating platforms to protect the birds, and numbers have grown steadily ever since. The pelicans even adapted to a 2022 avian flu outbreak by moving to a new nesting site, and continued breeding successfully there. Now Rewilding Europe reports that they’ve had their best breeding season on record this year, with more than 300 birds.

As part of the Wilder Parks initiative, Rewilding Europe and a coalition of partners are now stepping up efforts to restore natural processes, strengthen wildlife populations, and create new opportunities for local communities. At Lake Skadar, this means: restoring migration routes for fish; exploring the return of the critically endangered Adriatic sturgeon; using natural grazing to control invasive false indigo-bush around the lake; and supporting wildlife-watching tourism and training park rangers.

Marinela Djuretic of Montenegro’s National Parks says, “The greatest achievements in nature conservation are made when communities, institutions and partners share a common vision: ensuring that wild nature remains a place of life, inspiration and hope. Wild nature is not a luxury, it is the foundation of healthy ecosystems, quality of life, and our shared natural heritage.” Amen to that!

👉 Go here for more

7) Former UK training site for hunting dogs will be rewilded

Ah, that makes my heart sing. Even if it isn’t, really, it feels like a double whammy. Unfortunately these dogs will still be trained elsewhere and shooting estates will continue to do what they love doing. But for the 7’550-acre Emblehope estate, there’s rewilding on the horizon. Restore has purchased the land after it was put up for sale the previous summer.

Restore, led by Benedict MacDonald (who still owes me his ‘Meet the Rewilders’ portrait - just saying!), says that the entirety of the land will be dedicated to the restoration of the natural world. Ben Goldsmith had this to add: “I’m so excited about the acquisition of Emblehope by the Restore team. Benedict MacDonald is a nature visionary, and he and his team will create a uniquely, marvelous wild landscape here.” Now, now, a bit of hyperbole there. I doubt the landscape will be unique - but then it doesn’t have to be! May it be entirely commonplace nature that is allowed to choose its own ways. That’s plenty good enough!

👉 Go here for more

👉 And here for the podcast

8) Celebrating reintroduction success of giant anteaters in Argentina’s Iberá Wetlands

The giant anteater had disappeared from Argentina’s Corrientes by the middle of the last century due to poaching, fires and habitat degradation. Then along came the Tompkins Foundation with their well-storied efforts of rewilding and restoring lands and eventually handing them over as national parks. In 2007, the world’s first giant anteater reintroduction program began. They rescued orphaned individuals and released them in Iberá Park.

Now, nearly twenty years, Rewilding Argentina has reason to celebrate the sustained efforts. Several wild generations have in the meantime growin in freedom - bringing the regional population to over 200. “With more than 200 individuals living freely, the project not only recovered an extinct species in the province but also generated social, economic, and cultural benefits, establishing Corrientes as a leader in conservation and sustainable tourism.”

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should.

In his words, “If everyone would take the time to look at & appreciate Nature more, instead of focussing on 'endless economic growth', political infighting, wars etc., the world would be a much better place.”

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Help grow the movement 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• get inspired by the lives, decisions, challenges, beliefs and hopes of passionate rewilders with the Meet the Rewilders portraits;

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of Peter Cairns, James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait, featuring Harvey Tweats, Director of Celtic Rewilding - as well as inspiring and insightful stories from 🇨🇭Switzerland, 🇦🇺 Australia, 🇳🇱 the Netherlands, 🇲🇽 Mexico, 🇬🇧 the UK and 🇪🇸 Spain.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Harvey Tweats

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Harvey Tweats, Director of Celtic Rewilding - an ecological restoration firm with a particular focus on returning lost native species - such as amphibians, reptiles and birds - to the British landscape. With Harvey, the fascination for nature hasn’t grown, it’s always been there. Even as a teenager he already spent his summers working in a plant nursery - something that offered lessons for life.

I love what he says about getting things done. He believes that “Good conservation lives in the balance between three things that constantly pull against one another: delivery, planning and standards. You have to actually get work done on the ground, too much of our sector mistakes intention for action, but delivery without rigorous planning is just enthusiasm, and planning without high standards produces work that doesn't survive contact with scrutiny or with the real world. Holding all three in tension is the whole discipline. Drop any one of them and the project, sooner or later, fails.”

👉 Get to know Harvey

2) EDUWOLF: Welcome to the fascinating world of the wolf

The Mission Wolf in Switzerland is a research project and forms part of the Swiss Wolf Group association. The objectives of Mission Wolf are two-fold: 1) to collect comprehensive data that helps official bodies make informed decisions on wolf pack management and to provide factual and scientific information to improve wolf knowledge; and 2) to enhance public understanding of wildlife with education programs for both adults and children.

For over a year already, Sonny Folliot and Isabelle Germanier are trying to bring education on the topic of wolves back to the French-speaking part of Switzerland with the EDUWOLF Program. As they rightly say, “Educating the public has definitely not been a federal or cantonal priority, and many people feel completely in the dark on the subject of wolves. The mission we carry out is simple: educate the public on the topic of wolves, and create dialogue between the heavily divided parts of our society. For example, we carry out debates with 15-18 year olds where they role-play shepherds, politicians, NGOs and scientists and understand WHY each stakeholder sees the wolf the way they do. No bad guy, no good guy - just a society adapting to a new pressure on a historically and ecologically sensitive topic.”

We all have our biases, we all have our blinders - the great work by EDUWOLF is indeed something that should be at the heart of the government’s (federal and cantonal) responsibilities. Instead of ideologies, there should be facts - and future generations growing up with a clear understanding of what it means - and what it takes - to have biodiversity-rich, sustainable, healthy nature. Fantastic effort. Bravo, EDUWOLF!

👉 Go here for more

3) After decades of logging, 33’000 hectares in Australia are now protected under Indigenous ownership

The Australian government writes that “the Great Cumbung is one of the largest remaining reed and river gum wetlands of its kind in the Murray–Darling Basin. The wetland plays a critical role in storing carbon and regulating greenhouse gases, with further opportunities possible through ongoing restoration.” For decades, the lands had been used for logging cattle grazing purposes. When the property came up for sale in 2019, The Nature Conservancy (together with others) was quick to jump in and purchase it to prevent further degradation.

Since then grazing pressure has been reduced and natural flooding has done the rest - I mean just look at the picks for the difference even a few years can make. This year TNC Australia has sold the lands to the Nari Nari Tribal Council. There will be some commercial use, but overall the intent is nature’s long-term health. They restore wetlands (bulldozing embankments and opening channels to allow floodwaters to move freely, filling lignum wetlands and providing essential habitat for breeding birds) and focus on sustainable agriculture.

👉 Go here for more

4) Could the Eurasian lynx return to the Netherlands?

The Rewilding Academy’s Arend de Haas reports on a new study by Sophie Trenning about the lynx and the Netherlands - are they a good match? Trenning’s research has shown that, yes, the country is ready for the lynx from an ecological point of view - but that society and governance are still lagging behind … I find that, unfortunately, that’s pretty much always the story when it comes to species reintroductions.

Once a society has forgotten about coexistence with a species, it always becomes a tangled endeavor fraught with hurdles of tradition, perspective, ownership and control. And those against such reintroductions will either shout their Nay, or will magnanimously says Yeah, but only after new and ever more studies and surveys and consultations have taken place. I am against guerilla action of illegally releasing species - but I do understand actions such as beaver bombing in the UK. When the system is too firmly shaped to protect the status quo on one side, and the urgency for healthy nature presses on the other …

Preparation, creating solid foundations, is the ideal - but we don’t live in an ideal world. Entrenched minds (most often the vocal minority) will remain opposed. What matters are laws that embed protection and coexistence measures. All else, until the lynx arrives, remains theory. Adaptation (and positive friction - i.e. learning) will happen when the lynx is actually there.

👉 Go here for more

👉 Up for some stunning lynx awesomeness?

5) The miracle of Cabo Pulmo in Baja California

traveled with his two sons - both passionate divers like himself - to the tip of the Baja Peninsula, to the Cabo Pulmo National Park, that represents a fantastic story of nature recovery. By the 1990s the local fisherman saw their catches decline because of constant overfishing. They chose to do something rare, deciding that it was best to stop fishing altogether. A collaboration with scientists and conversationists persuaded the Mexican government to establish the national park - 27 miles of reef and surrounding waters.

This article doesn’t just tell the history of recovery (in just 10 years the total reef biomass increased by a remarkable 463 percent, one of the largest recoveries ever documented inside a marine reserve), it also takes you right into the waters. Erik writes, “I was blown away by not only the sheer number of fish, but also by their size. Visiting Cabo Pulmo had been a dream of mine for years. Now the dream is to go back.”

👉 Go here for more

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6) Boothby Lodge Farm: The story of its rewilding journey from 2022 to today

Boothby Lodge Farm was a perfect example of extensively farmed land in the UK until just a few years ago. It was business-owned with an absentee landlord and a contracted farmer with big machines produced wheat and beans. A bit of the land was also used to release pheasants so that they could be shot. In all, the farm made £250’000 profit - half of which came from government subsidies. A few made money, the government paid, and the land grew poorer and poorer with 92% of Boothby being plowed … then the government decided to switch gear and those subsidies will no longer simply flow by 2027 - the land came up for sale - and so, in 2021, Nattergal purchased it - Boothby Lodge Farm was set to become Boothby Wildland.

In a super-long (but wonderful read) article, The Guardian takes you to Boothby with a year after year account from 2022 to today. Charlie Burrell (owner of Knepp Estate), Neil Perry (in charge of Nattergal) and Ivan de Klee (Nattergal’s Chief Nature Officer - love the title) are taking you through the experience as they engage local communities, field questions, explain processes … and the changes that have taken place in just a few years are astounding. Charlie Burrell (he of the Knepp Estate) knows what he’s talking about - they’ve done it before, they have the proof and what they’ve done has shown to be best practice, applicable at Boothby and elsewhere.

👉 Go here for more

7) Changing laws for wild herbivores

With the very essence of rewilding being that of wilder nature should lead and should be allowed to flow freely, it often finds itself knocking up against existing laws that are not fit for purpose. The topic of wild herbivores, as Rewilding Europe explains, is one such mismatch. You see, existing rules treat wild large grazers like the Tauros as livestock - and that comes with host of do’s and don’ts that make sense for the farming industry, but none for wild animals.

The Lifescape Project, Rewilding Europe and Rewilding Spain are tackling this issue with the aim to create legal frameworks suitable for wild and semi-wild herbivores. First successes have come about in the Iberian Highlands, on the Castilla-La Mancha rewilding landscape where wild horses, Tauros cattle and European bison roam. Regional laws have been adjusted - but on the European level the EU Commission still needs to recognize it. What’s happened on Castilla-La Mancha, offers a roadmap for rewilders around Europe. May many learn from this and tackle nature-negative laws everywhere.

👉 Go here for more

8) Birdsong: our vanishing everyday connection to the natural world

The Guardian has published an illuminating piece about birds in the UK. It is well known that nature abundance overall is in decline, species disappear, go regionally (or entirely) extinct and most people don’t even notice. One clear indicator of things gone very wrong are windshields of cars once splattered with countless insects, now barely any. But about birds? What if you could hear the vanishing?

Because of the dreaded shifting baseline syndrome, we barely notice that millions fewer birds are around, that the population decline of ersthile ubiquitous species like house sparrows and starlings is massive The Guardian article offers a sound experience that allows you to listen to birdsong over the course of the past fifty years … it’s sobering to hear what we have ‘accomplished’ in just fifty years - and it should lead to an immediate overhaul of government priorities. Will it? Of course not.

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should.

In his words, “If everyone would take the time to look at & appreciate Nature more, instead of focussing on 'endless economic growth', political infighting, wars etc., the world would be a much better place.”

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Help grow the movement 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• get inspired by the lives, decisions, challenges, beliefs and hopes of passionate rewilders with the Meet the Rewilders portraits;

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of Peter Cairns, James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait, featuring biologist Thor Hjarsen, who’s leading the Hempel Foundation’s Vildmarken in Denmark - as well as inspiring and insightful stories from 🇪🇸 Spain, 🇬🇧 the UK, 🇵🇪 Peru, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland, 🇨🇷 Costa Rica and 🇨🇳 China.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Thor Hjarsen

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet biologist Thor Hjarsen, who’s leading the Hempel Foundation’s Vildmarken in Denmark. Vildmarken (The Wilderness in English) consists of four areas (Saksfjed, Nørholm, Asnæs and the Mols laboratory), totaling 2’600 hectares of land. Thor was hired to implement the rewilding ambition - and it clearly flies! There are already 14 team members and I’ve read about big plans for research, engagement with schools across Denmark and stakeholder conferences.

As he’s shared his thoughts for the portrait, Thor realized that he had spent 30 years working in various nature-related roles even before the Vildmarken opportunity came along. What a journey! He says he feels both lucky and privileged - and there is that, for sure. But I’m a great believer in making our own luck by putting in the work - and Thor has most definitely put in a great deal of work across the globe in those 30 years!

With all of everything he writes, I get a sense of the kid that still happily resides in him. A kid still marveling at nature, at spotting a beetle and being captivated, at always wanting to see more and learn more about nature in all its forms all around us. We should all take care of our inner kid - it makes us better, maybe even whole. Thor’s biggest challenge? Time! “Not having enough time to study ALL the thousands and thousands of species living even in Denmark. Nature and biology are schools where you NEVER get to the final level - it’s both fantastic and occasionally stressful! You see a large beetle or dragonfly and you go “What the f.... was that!?” There are SO many things to learn and to explore!”

👉 Get to know Thor

2) The return of red kites: Spain helped the UK, now the UK is helping Spain

A declining population of red kites in the UK was helped in the 1990s by bringing genetic diversity with birds brought from Spain. The enrichment clearly worked and red kites, adaptable and not shy to consume just about anything, began to spread further and further. Even as far back as the 1990s, some in Spain also thought that red kite populations might decline … then it happened.

In 2018 a project - completed just now - began after a survey had found only a single breeding pair of red kites in Spain’s Extremadura. Reaching out to ornithologists in the UK, help was soon on hand and a reintroduction project with British red kites began in 2022. “All 126 birds released over the course of the project were collected every June from forests in and around England’s Northamptonshire county.” AMUS (Acción por el Mundo Salvaje) has, since 2018, created a 30’000 square kilometer haven for red kites, working with farmers and communities to ensure fruitful coexistence.

👉 Go here for more

3) 240’000 acres of Peruvian Amazon are newly protected

The Andes Amazon Fund reports that a a process begun way back in 2013 has led to the establishment, less than a month ago, of the Aguas Calientes Maquia regional conservation area. The region is home to jaguars, tapirs, macaws and a huge number of other species - nearly one thousand species of flora and fauna have been scientifically documented, among these at least twenty endangered species.

When you check through the article, you’ll find a map that highlights how this isn’t ‘just’ the protection of one specific area. It lies adjacent to the Sierra del Divisor national Park and thus greatly does a great job at growing and safeguarding important wildlife corridors. Importantly, these efforts also protect the headwaters of rivers that are essential resources for the Nuevo Canchahuaya indigenous community. “The creation of the Regional Conservation Area is very important to us because it is the headwaters of our streams. We rely on its resources and also its hot springs and beautiful waterfalls.”

👉 Go here for more

4) The insidious confirmation biases that keep us divided … and how they can be tackled

Some claim that badgers kill lambs because it fits their narrative. Facts show that this ever happening is rare at best (scavenging is another matter). This is just one example where, depending on where you are and who you’re with, you’ll immediately jump to the one or the other, because the one or the other confirms what you thought anyway.

Hugh Webster of SCOTLAND: The Big Picture has penned an excellent article (and marvelous alliteration - just take “faded feline fury” - joyous, right?) about the world we live in, where what we think to be true is no longer based on fact, but on belonging. The social media world has done a great deal to exacerbate this into rabid tribalism and ideology-driven fits of outrage. Facts are not what matters, what matters is that it (whatever IT is) fits with what we have in our bubble. The uncomfortable truth is that we humans don’t actually know a great deal. We know some things, but then rely on others to fill in the blanks.

And biases help us ignore a great deal that’s just too time-consuming to bother with … but in the world we live in, this is exactly where we needed to pause - we need to check our assumptions, we need to question what we read, what we hear and what we see. We need to learn to pause, reflect and verify. And in any discussion, I find, sometimes the best thing to do is to say, “I’m really not sure. Tell me more.” In that way you learn. And in that way your opposite often also finds that they may need to learn more as quite often so-called facts thrown at us begin and end with a strongly stated opinion. We must all do better.

👉 Go here for more

5) The return of the peccary to Costa Rica’s Piedras Blancas National Park

The rewilding team of Osa Conservation (switch the name to Osa Restoration, please! It’s pet peeve, but an important one, I think - see more on that here) has made history by reintroducting 18 white-lipped peccaries to an area where they had not been seen for nearly two decades. The project’s vet, Dennise Ortiz, details the steps it took to make it happen: Three years ago the project came together as a joint effort and started by monitoring still existing herds.

After learning more about behavior thanks to collaring and camera traps, they captured and evaluated individuals. Transporting the peccaries into the wilderness meant logistics involving cars and boats - and even transporting crates on foot. The peccaries, equipped with satellite collars, are not out there in their new habitat. While a big step toward ecosystem recovery, Dennise proudly says that “This is only the beginning of a new stage in Piedras Blancas National Park.”

👉 Go here for more

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6) It’s chick time! Growing restoration success of cinereous vultures in Bulgaria

Rewilding Europe has a wonderful story that details the return of cinereous vultures to Bulgaria’s Rhodope Mountains. These magnificent birds, nature’s most excellent cleanup-crew, have been absent from there for decades. But restoration efforts began in 2023 and now the first chicks have been born. This is wonderful news, but when you read the article, you’ll see that it only marks the a stepping stone on a long journey until these vultures are back in numbers to fulfill their essential work as part of the circle of life.

The article also does a good job of showing that rewilders are not about one thing, they are about the restoration of functioning ecosystems. Thus a key element for the success of vulture reintroduction was to ensure that the ecosystem, supported by rewilding, offers growing populations of deer, wild boar and other wild herbivores. When these day, vultures swoop in and scavenge, thus preventing the spread of disease and returning nutrients to the soil.

Vultures are amazing creatures and, unfortunately, one of the biggest threats they still face today is from poisoning (misguided people leaving out poisoned meat to kill e.g. wolves - such actions invariably lead to the deaths of vultures, foxes, badgers and other scavenging animals). They work with an antipoison dog, helping to stop disasters from happening.

👉 Go here for more

7) China has restored 12 million hectares of desertified lands in just 5 years

The China Daily reports on something that, gotta hand it to them, I doubt a country other than China could deliver on as rigorously as they have. The 1990s saw the creation of a World Day against Desertification and Drought. At that time, China lost an average of 343,000 hectares of land to desertification. Today, nearly twice that - 666,000 hectares - are restored every year. In the time between 2021-2025, China has restored over 10 million hectares of desertified land and almost 2 million hectares of rocky-desertification land.

“Since 2023, the central government has invested 88.9 billion yuan ($13.2 billion) in 544 key projects, covering 16.3 million hectares of land, it disclosed. China has adopted innovative approaches in desertification control as it forges ahead with the program. For instance, it has integrated photovoltaic power generation with desertification control efforts, bringing 353,300 hectares of sandy land under treatment.”

👉 Go here for more

8) A sobering yet hopeful piece about restoring Britain’s nature pyramid from the bottom up

I’ve written a lot about what writes about in her excellent essay about Britain’s state of nature - but while I’ve written about deforestation, over-abundance of deer and sheep, nature-degrading shooting estates, the release of millions of non-native pheasants annually, the practice of muir burning, etc. etc. - Suzanne brings it all together beautifully in one powerfully clear essay. It is sobering, to be sure - so much of it is, because it is so obviously and insidiously wrong - a status quo maintained by the exclusive few while most get to suffer the consequences.

Read it, let the numbers sink in - but just as importantly, focus on the positive - recovery is not just possible, it is, in pockets, happening. The proof is there and the key is to start by restoring a solid foundation for nature’s pyramid. One clear way forward is not by starting with apex predators, but with large grazers that restore soil and restore wild pastures for a multitude of species - for the benefit of all of us.

“You build a pyramid from the base, not the apex. The wild ones were here—the meadows alive with orchids, the soil thick with life, the fields and waterways loud with birds, and yes, in time, the great predators in forests wide enough to hold them. The forgetting of them is the deepest kind of shifting baseline, because it convinced us that a green desert was the natural state of things. But a lowered baseline can be raised again, and in Britain, it can be raised from the ground up. A verge, a field margin, a garden left unsprayed: each is a small act of remembering, and a down payment on a richer baseline handed to whoever comes next.”

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should.

In his words, “If everyone would take the time to look at & appreciate Nature more, instead of focussing on 'endless economic growth', political infighting, wars etc., the world would be a much better place.”

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Help grow the movement 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• get inspired by the lives, decisions, challenges, beliefs and hopes of passionate rewilders with the Meet the Rewilders portraits;

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of Peter Cairns, James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait, featuring Flo Blackbourn, the general manager of Curlew Action and known to many as the presenter leading through the excellent documentary Why Not Scotland? - as well as inspiring and insightful stories from 🇳🇱 the Netherlands, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland, 🇮🇳 India,🇳🇵Nepal, 🇨🇦 Canada, 🇺🇸 the US,🇨🇭Switzerland, 🇸🇪 Sweden, plus an in-depth look at rewilding in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Wales.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Flo Blackbourn

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Flo Blackbourn, the general manager of Curlew Action and known to many as the presenter leading through SCOTLAND: The Big Picture excellent feature length documentary Why Not Scotland?

She studied zoology and her love for wildlife naturally guided her into her current work. When asked about key decisions, I love what she says about applying for things she didn’t expect to get - that putting herself out there has let to many opportunities and experiences. I think that’s marvelous insight. All too often we wait until we think we are perfect for a role - going for it and learning on the job is the far, far better option!

What a wonderful portrait with her thoughts on challenges, on being less set, more pragmatic and open, about bringing people from different sides together. And as with so many of us, happiness for her is often found in nature (and we don’t have to travel the world for that, it can be, as Flo explains, anywhere): “Seeing nature makes me happy, especially birds. I love stopping to watch the simplest of wildlife behaviours and interactions, of any species. I’ve visited dumps to watch gulls and will sit and watch a spider going about its business quite happily.”

👉 Get to know Flo

2) Celebrating 15 years of Rewilding Europe

Frans Schepers (second from the left in the image) is the co-founder and executive director of Rewilding Europe. On the 28th of June 2011, fifteen years ago, he met with the notary, together with Staffan Widstrand, Neil Birnie and Wouter Helmer. They signed the paper, which marked the birth of Rewilding Europe. Oh my, how far they’ve come, what an amazing organization that has inspired me and countless others time and time again with their ceaseless efforts for a wilder Europe.

In his LinkedIn post, Frans reflects on what brought them together: “The realization of a historic opportunity to have much more wild nature in Europe, for a range of good reasons – the wildlife we saw coming back, more space for nature due to rural depopulation and land abandonment , the political environment in the EU , and more. But to be honest, it was also because we saw a lack of ambition, long-term vision, thinking big and lack of innovation in the conservation movement in Europe at the time. We needed a new narrative, we felt it was time for change.”

👉 Read the brand-new 2025 Annual Review that looks back at the past fifteen years with all that’s been achieved so far - it is staggering, to say the least!

👉 Read the wonderful ‘Meet the Rewilders’ portraits of Frans Schepers and Wouter Helmer (and Staffan’s is in the works 😊)

3) Want an abundance of herring? Protect an abundance of maerl!

Maerl is a coral-like seaweed that grows slowly and grows amazing pink seabed habitats that are essential to a rich variety of species. The Blue Hope Alliance in Scotland’s Wester Ross has been focused on safeguarding and monitoring Marine Protected Areas and particularly the wondrous maerl that makes a favorite spawning ground for herring.

Herring fisheries once brought economic wealth to coastal communities - but the herring numbers have never recovered in the west of Scotland from a stock collapse in the seventies. Now it would seem obvious that all you need to do is protect the habitat they need to lay their eggs … and still, inside and outside of Marine Protected Areas, maerl beds are under threat by dredgers, illegal activity, sewage and salmon farm waste. The Blue Hope Alliance does amazing work. Check out the latest report!

👉 Go here for more

4) More vultures, please!

Just as every health ecosystems needs predators, it also needs scavengers. Some call vultures nature’s clean-up crew. When you have them, you best be thankful for them, as they consume carcasses, thus removing potential dangers for soil and water. By simply doing what they do, by simply being present in numbers, they also limit other scavengers that might readily spread diseases (such as feral dogs). And then these majestic creatures are of course a sight to see for any ecotourism fan - what’s not to love about vultures, right!?

The RSPB shares a detailed article about an amazing vulture tale from India and Nepal that spans decades. In the nineties, it was noticed that vulture numbers were declining. They had been present in abundance, valued for scavenging on cattle carcasses. Years later is was discussed that a drug given to cattle was the cause … over the course of years an alternative was found, the old drug was banned - and today vulture numbers are soaring once more. Great story - great for the entire circle of life.

👉 Go here for more

5) Yellowstone to Yukon: Giving wildlife room to roam

This video is from a TEDx event late last year, but it was only just uploaded on Youtube. In it, Y2Y’s president and chief scientist Dr. Jodi Hilty talks about the ecology, and the past and present of the monumental Yellowstone to Yukon effort. You probably know your TED Talks, they always do a great job of telling a great story or important insight in a short period of time. This is a hopeful TED Talk - all the more so because what she talks about is a way to tackle the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change.

All we have to do is give nature more room to roam. I know, I know, easier said than done and many countries don’t have the wide spaces North America has. Still, what she shares is heartening, about protecting nature, about connecting nature, about building coalitions of communities. How they go about it, and how they hope to achieve their 30X30 goals is truly hopeful. Hilty impresses the point on the need for large scale and says: “We need to do that because otherwise we loose critters from habitats that are too small. We need to do it if we want humanity to maintain its soul and have our own places to go. For me, it is really about my children. I want them to be able to run wild rivers, to experience wild nature, and for future generations to be able to do the same. Isn’t that what we all want?”

👉 Go here for more

Share

6) A new rewilding adventure in Sweden is coming your way

The first such pilot trip was organized earlier this month by Rewilding Sweden and Wild Sweden, a wildlife tours company. Rewilding Europe’s James Shooter was along for the ride and brought along his camera and his drones for some wonderful testimony of what must have been a wonderful exprience. Tag along with James, the way he writes is like being there. “After weeks of anticipation, we finally slipped into the river. My fingertips brushed the cool water as the current began to carry us downstream — our fates now tied to the Hjuksån for the next few days. We were off.”

Such rewilding adventures are more than trips, they are immersive nature experiences - and they are also about learning and working. Sure there was paddling and camping and barbequing, but there the learning about wild nature, about forests, about renaturalizing rivers, about restoring ecosystems one tiny fish at a time: “Watching thousands of tiny trout disappear into the clear water felt like the perfect conclusion to the week. Sixty-five thousand reasons to believe our work had made a meaningful difference.” Discover current rewilding adventures on Wilder Places now - and stay tuned for this one to appear in 2027 on the Wilder Places platform.

👉 Go here for more

7) Support Switzerland’s ‘Wild Pastures’

I’m thrilled to see that there’s a ‘large grazer’ rewilding effort in the works in Switzerland. It’s not quite there yet as, with so many other such efforts, a bit of crowdfunding helps to get things off the ground. But mind you, Switzerland is a small countries with most landscapes in use - so finding properties that will be of substantial size to have an ecosystem impact is challenging. They have succeeded. The Wilde Weiden (Wild Pastures) NGO has already extensively engaged government bodies and experts - and has narrowed it down to four possible and promising landscapes.

Now then - the crowdfunding effort is well on its way with over 80% of its 40’000 Swiss Francs funding goal already reached. Help them reach that goal so they can bring their projects to fruition. Wilder meadows with free-roaming large grazers are a boon for nature. Large grazers, by trampling, wallowing and pooping create rich habitats. A single large hoof can be the beginning of a micro-habitat! Now imagine a herd of wild cattle and wild horses - before long, both flora and fauna are richer, before long, the soil replenishes and absorbs and stores, before long - a variety of species (including ours) benefit from such wild pastures.

👉 Go here for more

8) Rewilding in Wales

The Welsh Rewilding Alliance has only just come into being. Same as in Scotland, there have been failed beginnings and fears and anger and many understandable (if mistaken) concerns about rewilding as outside influence and exploitation. With all of that exploitation, I’d worry, too. But then I’d take a closer look at the various arguments and facts (or lack thereof) behind them.

Today both England and Scotland have already embraced rewilding with many and always more projects. And I have a feeling that Wales has what it takes to catch up fast - not least because Wales’ 2015 Well-Being of Future Generations Act. In this article I’m taking a closer look at the state of nature in Wales, current rewilding efforts and the potential and power of a merger between the Well-Being of Future Generations efforts and those of the Welsh Rewilding Alliance - a match made in heaven that would prove hugely beneficial for all future Welsh generations.

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should.

In his words, “If everyone would take the time to look at & appreciate Nature more, instead of focussing on 'endless economic growth', political infighting, wars etc., the world would be a much better place.”

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Help grow the movement 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• get inspired by the lives, decisions, challenges, beliefs and hopes of passionate rewilders with the Meet the Rewilders portraits;

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of Peter Cairns, James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait, featuring Hedda Werres, co-founder of the youth-led NGO Sylvester Rewilding - as well as inspiring and insightful stories from 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Wales, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England, 🇪🇸 Spain, 🇺🇸 the US and the African Sahel region. 🇸🇳🇲🇷🇲🇱🇧🇫🇳🇪🇳🇬🇹🇩🇸🇩🇪🇷

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Hedda Werres

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Hedda Werres, co-founder of the youth-led NGO Sylvester Rewilding, where she wears many hats, from project management to communications, and workshop facilitation to field work. She did her masters in Cognitive Science, is a photographer and surf instructor and says that her path into rewilding was not exactly obvious - but a move to Portugal clearly jumpstarted that path.

I very much enjoyed her portrait, her answers are from the heart, straight up about her challenges, inspirations, the joy of spending time outdoors and the anger at a willfully ignorant human species that, for the most part, makes the ongoing crises ever bigger. “I always used to wonder how my grandparents’ generation could allow something like what happened in Europe and especially Germany during the 1930s. Now I’m sitting there like them, seeing things going wrong socially, environmentally and economically, and all it seems like I can do is keep doing what I do, trust that it’s the right thing and pray that it’s enough.”

👉 Get to know Hedda

2) Rewilding California’s Point Reyes

Ken Bouley, the director of the Turtle Island Restoration Network, lives right by the Point Reyes National Seashore in California. While the idea of the land’s protection goes back to JFK, who signed the bill in 1962, much of the land continued to be used by beef and dairy cattle operations as grazing lands … overgrazing led to ever poorer conditions. By today, thankfully, 10 of 12 commercial cattle operations have vacated the national park - meaning ecological restoration can begin. I’ve particularly wanted to highlight this story for two reasons: 1) to show just how much it took to prevail against big monied interests and 2) just how precariously fragile all of these efforts remain with the current US administration.

Bouley writes; “The January 2025 Point Reyes settlement took more than a decade of intensive pressure: several iterations of a park management plan, litigation, protests, public hearings and comments, investigative journalism, town halls, letters to the editor, petitions, intrepid photographers photo-documenting lease violations and environmental degradation, ranch infrastructure decay, extended drought, and collapse of dairy markets.” and “There is, of course, an orange elephant in the room. Until the next presidential election, any progress involving federal agencies or federal funding faces more of a vertical cliff than an uphill battle.”

👉 Go here for more

3) The Ealing beavers transform Paradise Fields

Ealing, a borough in the west of London, used to flood regularly, drowning streets and even a tube station. A massive engineering project was considered, but then the idea of a nature-based solution came up: “Why not give beavers a shot to mitigate against floods?” The Ealing Beaver Project began in 2023 with the release of five beavers - and in just a few years, they’ve transformed their habitat into a biodiversity-rich haven for many. Oh, and as for the flooding, after the second year with beavers, there was no more flooding for the first time in a decade.

I have to admit I often struggle with CNN, the creator of this article, as they have become so excessively focused on “balanced reporting” that an audience is often left with two sides that are equally weighted. Here an expert who authored a study on local opposition to beaver rewilding is given space to voice that farmers and others feel imposed upon. Rubbish. Coexistence measures exist, mitigation measures exist, damage schemes exist. Beavers are never the problem, they do a great job. Whenever humans consider them to be a problem, it is because they are unwilling to move from their status quo.

👉 Go here for more

4) The Welsh are reclaiming rewilding

Jon Moses is a founding member of the newly formed Welsh Rewilding Alliance. In a new Inkcap article he does a formidable job laying out the state of things in Wales, the path from species abundance of the past to the degraded state of flora and fauna today. He explains a failed first rewilding start in Wales, and the fears (and anger) behind anything seen as outside influence and exploitation. So while rewilding efforts have taken off across England and Scotland - Wales has kept even the word rewilding at bay.

Some have argued that it should be changed, but I’m entirely with Jon in what he says, “We think they’re wrong. First, it’s patronising: if you are rewilding, be honest about it. Second, the term has a specific ecological meaning. Unlike traditional conservation, rewilding prioritises dynamic natural processes, often through the reintroduction of the lost species, or their proxies, that help them unfold. We shouldn’t fit concepts around culture wars. Instead, we should defend ideas we believe have merit. Otherwise we’ll end up replacing one short word with twenty bits of jargon.” Well put - and it reminded me of the time when I called out the John Muir Trust for not wanting to use the term rewilding because they thought it was ‘too sensitive’. We should not cede ground on this, the term is excellent.

He also calls out the spurious assertions that somehow it’s nature or people (the opposite is true - rewilding is great for people), or that rewilding is threatening food security (when in truth 95% of all beef and lamb Wales produces is exported). All around excellent article and Wales has all it takes to become a nature-positive biodiversity-rich gem that benefits all.

👉 Go here for more

5) Q&A with ‘Animating the Carbon Cycle’s Oswald Schmitz

The Yale School of the Evironment, together with the Global Rewilding Alliance brought us the Animating the Carbon Cycle platform. Professor Oswald Schmitz spoke with YSE News about “how animals actively shape soil carbon, what it takes to find the right balance of wildlife on the land, and why the climate accounting most governments rely on is still missing a critical piece.”

Who’s kidding who - when it comes to climate change mitigation measures, the focus is always on landscapes, forests, rivers, wetlands, etc. But neglecting the ecosystem engineering animals that live in those landscapes is a huge blindspot. If governments increase focus on the restoration (to abundance levels) of missing or poorly represented species. It helps supercharge the carbon cycle.

Asked what has surprised him since the launch of the ACC, Schmitz says, “What has surprised me is how rapidly it has inspired enthusiasm in both the grassroots and international wildlife conservation NGO community globally, while less so in government environmental agencies. Moreover, while ACC is a highly captivating way to promote animal conservation, especially of large charismatic animals, members of the NGO community that I work with are committed to thoughtfully ground their advocacy using the best scientific evidence.”

👉 Go here for more

Share

6) The Guadalajara bison experiment

This January, nine European bison became ‘residents’ of El Recuenco, a small village in Spain. Rewilding Europe reported on it in fascinating detail. A new article takes a look the pilot project. The huge ecosystem engineers and grazers extraordinaire are in a fenced enclosure (990 acres) and the project aims to prove that these animals, by their daily routines, help to a) restore damaged ecosystems and b) reduce wildfire risk. In addition, of course, the village mayor rightly sees potential for new revenue with eco tourism.

Let’s be clear: rewilding is never about returning to a past state. Rewilding is about letting nature lead, trusting it to know best. I’m mentioning this because with the Guaralajara bison a researcher sought to question whether or not they had once been native. Whether the prehistoric cave paintings had been those of the extinct steppe bison and not the modern European bison. From a rewilding perspective, that’s neither here nor there.

Give it a few years and we’ll know whether these bison feel at home in that climate and do what they are naturally meant to do. Some research tries to stall rewilding. This project however, is pure science, the best science. By not hindering it, by monitoring and measuring it all the way. Sometimes, when some of a habitat’s building blocks are out of balance, adjustments are made - but as a whole, rewilding is about trusting nature to know best.

👉 Go here for more

7) Florida development project becomes rewilding success

Fascinating, and very telling. Not so long ago, most of the world really didn’t even consider healthy nature. Nature was product, there for us to use. Picayune Strand, a huge area in the Southwest of Florida, consists of cyprus swamps, wet pine flatwoods and wet prairies. In the 1940s and 1950s the land was logged, then the land was bought by developers, planning on turning it all into the ‘Golden Gate Estates’ - planned to be the largest residential subdivision in the world … it never happened.

But what did happen was the draining of wetlands (and legendary sales scams). It wasn’t until the 1970s that it became obvious just how detrimental the drainage was, and not just on Picayune Strand, but also to adjacent ecosystems like the Everglades. Restoration began in the 1980s, 17’000 plots of lands were eventually bought by the state, and by 1995 the Picayune Strand State Forest was official. The restored lands benefit everyone, people, flora, fauna - among these endangered species such as the Florida panther.

👉 Go here for more

8) The one-hundred-kilo Sahara desert converter

When it comes to nature, the benefits that flora and fauna provide are often pretty obvious, circle of life and all that. But when you look at the African spurred tortoise, you may not necessarily think of them as habitat creators in the Saharan desert, right? Well, they are and they do. In 2021, 500 such tortoises were released into a desert landscape at the southern edge of the Sahara … and now green spots are appearing across those lands.

The way it works is straight-forward - the Saharan desert soil is often a thick and sealed crust that allows for no seeds to take hold, and for no water to seep in. These huge tortoises survive in deserts by digging holes ten meters and more into the earth. That’s where they remain when temperatures are deadly. These holes and the work to create them turns soil hard as rock into soil that is able to receive seed and water. To me this is one of the many, many examples that shows what happens when we allow species in abundance to do what they naturally do. Studies suggest that today they’re found only in about 16% of their natural range. More spurred tortoises! Heck, maybe they’d do amazing work across arid regions of the Iberian Peninsula, too.

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should. In his words, “If everyone would take the time to look at & appreciate Nature more, instead of focussing on 'endless economic growth', political infighting, wars etc., the world would be a much better place.”

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Help grow the movement - thanks! 🌞

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• get inspired by the lives, decisions, challenges, beliefs and hopes of passionate rewilders with the Meet the Rewilders portraits;

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of Peter Cairns, James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait, featuring Hugh Webster, the Rewilding Relations Officer for SCOTLAND: The Big Picture - as well as inspiring and insightful stories from 🇷🇴 Romania, 🇵🇫 French Polynesia, 🇧🇷 Brazil, 🇵🇪 Peru, 🇨🇴 Colombia, 🇻🇪 Venezuela, 🇸🇷 Suriname, 🇪🇨 Ecuador, 🇳🇱 the Netherlands and 🇨🇦 Canada.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Hugh Webster

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Hugh Webster, the Rewilding Relations Officer for SCOTLAND: The Big Picture. In his role he particularly tackles the more conflict-laden rewilding issues in Scotland, such as deer management and the potential return of the lynx. Hugh, I can tell you, is one heck of an excellent writer. From the first I loved his in-depth articles that are invariably on point, many-faceted and balanced.

His portrait is filled with gems, well worth reading. His thoughts on humanity; the challenges of remaining positive in the face of all we see our species do; the co-existence balancing act; getting out from behind one’s desk and bubbles; the joys of Lego and the troubling AI developments … you see, a wide-ranging portrait (just as his wonderful articles).

Hugh writes, “With so many things likely to get worse as climate chaos accelerates and societies struggle to cope, it's never been more important to rewild, to forge a more resilient and nature-rich future, and to offer people something that is tangibly getting better that they can feel optimistic about. We could do it too, for a fraction of what we spend on guns and bombs, but until we vote for parties that focus on these bigger issues we will get more of the same: nature loss, climate breakdown and ecological collapse.”

👉 Get to know Hugh

2) Scientists unite on urgent need for wildlife protection for the sake of the climate

We have long known that animals have a major impact on climate change mitigation and adaptation. If you allow animals to do in abundance what they naturally do, they create healthy, biodiversity-rich habitats that help sequester vast amounts of carbon. But the 11th of June marked the first time that nearly 300 scientists came together with explicit wording to urge governments “to incorporate wildlife and their ecological roles into climate policies and frameworks.”

This is far more than just words. Today, the mass of existing wildlife represents a single digit percentage compared to livestock and the human species. But even now, wildlife, if allowed to, could help take care of over 6 gigatons of carbon annually. Now just imagine rewilding across many more land- and seascapes - an abundance of wildlife would naturally supercharge climate mitigation efforts. Learn more about the power of natural solutions to the climate emergency by exploring ACC (Animating the Carbon Cycle by the Yale School of the Environment and the Global Rewilding Alliance).

Jens-Christian Svenning (find his Meet the Rewilders portrait here) was one of the 12 scientists who helped draft the wording. He says, “Wild animals play important and often under-appreciated roles in the earth system — influencing carbon cycling, fire regimes, and the capacity of ecosystems to adapt to climate change. The scientific evidence for these effects has grown substantially in recent years. Recognising this in climate policy is a critical step, and I see this consensus statement as an important contribution to that process.”

👉 Go here for more

3) Carpathia’s 2025 annual report is out - and it tells a great rewilding story

The Carpathia Foundation is a huge philanthropic nature preservation and restoration effort in Romania. It began its work in 2009 to stop illegal logging and protect a big chunk of Carpathian forests. The 2025 annual report is well worth browsing through - it gives you a great sense of scope and scale, of projects and accomplishments. The world needs many more such large-scale efforts, patches from where healthy nature can ripple out further. They manage over 25’000 hectares of forest and have brought illegal logging to microscopic levels. They have replanted over 1600 hectares of forest in the Făgăraș Mountains with over 200’000 saplings.

They monitor 40 beavers and support their work. Their bison population saw the birth of 9 calves and the herd is closely monitored with mitigating co-existence measures implemented. The griffin vulture project was pushed to the next level with the new aviary that helps vultures to get familiar with the habitat before being released. More than half a ton of native trout were introduced into the streams. Wildlife management and conflict reduction are front and center (check page 20 of the report). Then there are the studies, the engagement, the education - and just to highlight the importance and value for local people: the socio-economic impact in communities in 2025 was measured at nearly three million Euro!

👉 Go here for the full report

4) Rewilding Amazonia with Brooke Mitchell

Rewildology podcaster extraordinaire Brooke Mitchell (get to know her in her Meet the Rewilders portrait here) just completed another of her immersive rewilding series. The last one was focused on Patagonia, this new one brings you eight episodes dedicated to the Amazon. She writes, “And just like that, the biggest story of my career has reached the finale.”

She’s quite right, that series is a massive feat: Over the course of six months Brooke interviewed scientists, practitioners, Indigenous leaders and community organizers across Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Suriname and Ecuador … sit back, start listening and travel the Amazon with Brooke for an illuminating while.

👉 Go here for more

5) 520’000 square kilometers of sea protected against mining, trawling and industrial fishing

520’000 square kilometers - sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Well it is! To give you a sense - it is nearly the size of the entire country of France. In 2025, French Polynesia moved to protect all of its waters (which, with its many islands, encompasses a region the size of the entire European Union). And now the latest announcement adds teeth to that bite by giving two of its most biologically rich archipelagos the highest level of protection.

This progress has been long in the making thanks to the collaboration and growing momentum by the government, local fishing communities and NGOs like Conservation International and others. What finally made it happen, though, was the formation of a new government that had the courage and the wisdom to put nature on a different footing. They “reframed ocean protection not as a policy, but as a sacred duty to find common ground between conservation and sustainable development.”

👉 Go here for more

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6) Step into the daily life of a Tauros herd

The Tauros is a back-bred version of the prehistoric aurochs, a massively imposing grazer and first-class ecosystem engineer. The Tauros cattle are beginning to put in an appearance thanks to reintroductions across various European countries like the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Croatia (and I believe there’s still a project in the works for Scotland!). If you allow such herds time and space, healthy, biodiversity-rich habitats will be their gift.

Now then, Grazelands Rewilding is breeding these majestic animals in Keent. In this article, you’ll travel with Grazelands’ herd manager Vince Verpoort into the meadows where he explains the ways of the Tauros, their lives, their behavior, herd structures, bonds - and of course also how they impact nature all around them, and how it benefits. Excellent article! Vince says, “Give these animals an area and they know exactly what to do to make the best of it for themselves and nature.”

👉 Go here for more

7) On the occasion of International Lynx Day, a look at the return of the lynx in Europe

The 11th of June marked International Lynx Day and Rewilding Europe took the opportunity to give us a closer look of what is happening across Europe. They write: “Beyond their captivating appearance, lynx play a crucial role in nature and for people. As top predators and keystone species, they boost biodiversity, maintain ecosystem health, and contribute to the circle of life. They can also serve as a major drawcard for local tourism. Across Europe, local teams, partners, and members of the European Rewilding Network are working in various ways to support the lynx comeback.”

The Eurasian lynx was considered extinct, but was reintroduced as of the 1970s and today there are roughly 18’000 Eurasian lynx. As for the Iberian lynx - it represents another undeniably clearly rewilding success story. From less than one hundred in the wild back in 2002, there are not more than 2’000. The lynx is, in many places the top of the foodchain predator and, as such, key for the restoration of healthy, biodiversity-rich ecosystems. May there be many, many more lynx across EVERY European country.

👉 Go here for more

8) And finally, six minutes of glorious rewilding joy

Imagine 5’000 free-roaming bison. What the Olson Bison Rewilding project delivers in Canada’s Manitoba, brings tears to my eyes (I ain’t kidding). Watch the documentary of how this family-led effort began in 1992 with just a few bison … to today where 5’000 bison live their lives as prime ecosystem engineers. Watch how they’ve transformed the land, the extraordinary difference they make to woodlands, and the enormous wealth of biodiversity that flourishes thanks to their presence.

The scale of change is dramatic and the images in this documentary are the stuff of legend come back to life - it’s truly awesome (in the original sense of the word) to see. But what the documentary also beautifully highlights is the human aspect, the generational aspects of what work like this means, what it teaches young ones growing up about life on this orb. The doc closes with the following words - good words to keep in mind for everyone:

“There’s no situation where all of a sudden one day it’s gone from black to white. But in a family-led rewilding, we can take a project like this and go for multiple generations and instill a sense of conservation and philanthropy throughout the family, through our teachings and our lifestyle, even when the steps are tough and even when you can’t always see the trail on which you’re walking, but always forward. We started this project with a handful of bison and a small piece of land. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect that it would become one of the largest and most significant bison rewilding projects in the world.”

👉 Go here for more about Olson Bison Rewilding

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should. In his words, “If everyone would take the time to look at & appreciate Nature more, instead of focussing on 'endless economic growth', political infighting, wars etc., the world would be a much better place.”

Here he shows us a common red poppy - just stunning, right?

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Help grow the movement - thanks! 🌞

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• get inspired by the lives, decisions, challenges, beliefs and hopes of passionate rewilders with the Meet the Rewilders portraits;

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of Peter Cairns, James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait, featuring Fabien Quétier, Head of Wilder Parks at Rewilding Europe - as well as inspiring and insightful stories from 🇦🇷 Argentina, 🇿🇦 South Africa, 🇷🇴 Romania, 🇦🇺 Australia and 🇧🇭 Bahrain.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Fabien Quétier

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Fabien Quetier, Head of Wilder Parks at Rewilding Europe, the man leading the Wilder Parks initiative that, by adopting rewilding principles at already 10 parks, aims to grow nature restoration efforts across Europe on an unprecedented scale.

Against the scale of destructive human endeavors, it takes a tough hide, a great deal of optimism and a good sense of humor (I think those are key traits in rewilders!) to fervently keep at it. As Fabien writes, “Rewilding is also about challenging the status-quo, and I certainly enjoy that with plenty of irony, sarcasm and cynicism to spread around! Paul Jepson calls rewilders “punk ecologists”. He may be onto something, as we’re often going against the grain of some well-established beliefs, and against often ineffective but well-established practices in nature conservation and restoration.”

An excellent Q&A with Fabien that offers a hopeful and frank account, looks back at his path, calls out false narratives and powerful adversaries, funding challenges and, in all of everything, humor and hope. But hope is not enough, he rightly says. “It’s important to demonstrate practical rewilding, and showcase how it benefits nature, climate and people. Everyone can play a part, on their land, in their community, and through civic engagement. Let’s do it!”

👉 Get to know Fabien

2) An update from Rewilding Argentina’s Sofía Heinonen

The CEO of Rewilding Argentina Sofía Heinonen takes a look back at 2025, gives an update on progress wildlife reintroductions and recovery, on ecological restoration and local development, on reinvigorating wetlands and tackling bottom trawling … all that and much more. One of the biggest new projects of last year was to go from focusing on Argentina alone, to collaborating with other countries (Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia) to restore vast nature corridors along rivers with the Jaguar Rivers Initiative.

The efforts of Rewilding Argentina are staggering, and heartening. Great to see all of this progress. Sofía writes, “Our new goal goes beyond restoring ecosystems. We now aim to establish ecological corridors along major rivers, protect and manage high-biodiversity sites in collaboration with governments, reintroduce key species, and control threats effectively. At the same time, we continue working in the surrounding landscapes with rural communities, supporting the development of restorative business models —where residents benefit directly from nature -based economies.”

👉 Go here for more

3) Ferncliffe: Restoring a damaged forest

Ferncliffe Forest Wilding in South Africa currently has 12 hectares of forest under restoration - and has a goal of going for 50 hectares by 2030. It all began in 1967 when a couple moved to a small farm near a forest called Ferncliffe and there raised their children. While that couple has passed away, the father’s dream of seeing Ferncliffe protected and restored is alive and well. The couple’s son Connor and his partner Janine have moved from Cape Town back to Ferncliffe in 2021 with the goal to bring a damaged forest - in their words, “to try and put a tiny, devastatingly beautiful slice of the world to rights.”

Aside from planting native trees, a great deal of the work is the removal of alien vegetation that smothers and displaces native plants. On their Progress page you get an excellent sense of just how much trouble invasive species are - and how much has already been achieved in just a few years. Now, the planting of trees and tackling all of that massive (in some places it was 90%) alien growth needs support. You might, for example, join them as volunteers. Go here to find more ways for you to assist them in their important work.

👉 Go here for more

4) Seven inspiring nature adventure days in Romania

The European Nature Trust’s travel supervisor Bryony Sharma journeyed to Romania and there, for seven days, joined the Romanian Coexistence Adventure in the Carpathians. These trips, organized for small groups of nature lovers by TENT and the Foundation Conservation Carpathia, all support Romania’s most ambitious nature preservation and restoration project.

To give you a sense, here’s Bryony, “At the base of the stunning rockface of Piatra Craiului stands the beautifully appointed Poiana Tamas Wilderness Camp – our accommodation in the mountains for Day 4 of our trip. Warm log fires, tea, and homemade soup brought comfort as we prepared for a night in the wilderness, surrounded by bear tracks, boar prints, and signs of European bison.” Interested? If so, you better hurry, there are only 4 spaces left for the next such adventure in September!

👉 Go here for more

5) Australia’s first ‘sea country’ Indigenous Protected Area

As most countries, Australia aiming to fulfill it’s 30x30 obligations. One way of protecting 30% of land by 2030 is by creating more IPAs (Indigenous Protected Areas). This is without a doubt a good idea - as the Karajarri people in northwestern Australia illustrate. They declared their IPA - almost 2.5 million hectares - in 2014. And they’ve moved forward with the creation of a marine and coastal ecosystems IPA that covers nearly 240’000 hectares … now those are some great numbers and the people on the ground, who have been there for many thousands of years, know better than anyone else about fruitful coexistence with nature.

Alas, when you read the Mongabay article, you’ll also read about the duplicity of the government. On one hand they support indigenous efforts with millions to protect and restore healthy ecosystems, on the other “the Australian government provides billions of dollars to the fossil fuel industry, as well as biodiversity-damaging practices in agriculture, fisheries and forestry. Around the world, governments spend some $500 billion annually on “harmful subsidies,” which the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework calls for reforming by 2030.”

👉 Go here for more

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6) The healing beauty of rewilding

In her Nature Reclamation Substack, environmental storyteller Christina Egerstrom has penned a wonderful piece about the past of conservation and the move, over the course of the past few decades, to rewilding. Essentially from conserving specific places and species at all cost (not unlike the thinking behind a zoo or a museum), to restoring ecological processes … and then stepping back to let nature take the recovery lead. Christina explores this shift and then highlights a variety of examples of species reintroductions, from bison to lynx and beaver to wolf.

She writes, “What emerges from examining both the successes and challenges of European rewilding is a vision that is realistic about the difficulties ahead yet fundamentally optimistic about what’s possible. The goal isn’t to return Europe to some imagined pristine past—that ship sailed centuries ago. Instead, it’s about creating dynamic, self-regulating ecosystems that can adapt to changing conditions while providing space for both wildlife and people to thrive.”

👉 Go here for more

7) Mangrove forests around the world are healing

Mangrove forests are vibrant ecosystems, they host rich biodiversity, capture greenhouse gases … and they are also natural flood mitigation solutions. With health mangrove forests protecting coastlines, the dangers of storm surges, flood and wind damages are a fraction … for decades now, scientists showed that human endeavors have wounded and even destroyed such wonders of nature.

Now scientists report that mangrove forests are staging “an unexpected comeback. For decades these swampy trees had been declining rapidly as they were cleared for fish farms and housing. But a new study shows that since 2010 the world has been gaining more mangroves than it has been losing - driven by stronger legal protections and increased public awareness of their importance, sparked by disasters such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.”

👉 Go here for more

8) Dugongs are climate heroes

Dugongs are pretty amazing creatures, often called sea cows as these gentle giants mostly munch sea grass. And just like the above-highlighted mangrove forests, dugongs, too, are climate heroes. A new study tracked a herd of 700 dugongs in the shallows off Bahrain’s coast - and discovered that they help “the seagrass around them capture more than twice as much carbon as it would without them.” It is estimated that Bahrain’s seagrass ecosystems could capture approximately 546,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually when healthy Dugong populations are present.

The ACC (Animating the Carbon Cycle) is an effort by the Yale School of the Environment and the Global Rewilding Alliance, and the dugong example is one of many to show that animals play a key role in making that happen. The aim is clear: “By reintroducing abundant populations of wild animals and fostering ecological resilience, we aim to unlock nature’s full potential to draw down legacy carbon emissions from our atmosphere.”

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should. Here he captured the beautiful contrast between a silver-green leaf weevil amongst the red galls induced by sycamore cherry mites.

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Help grow the movement - thanks! 🌞

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• get inspired by the lives, decisions, challenges, beliefs and hopes of passionate rewilders with the Meet the Rewilders portraits;

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of Peter Cairns, James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait, featuring Matt Phelps, Lead Ecologist and Science Communicator at Knepp Wildland - as well inspiring and insightful stories from 🇷🇴 Romania, 🇨🇴 Colombia, 🇮🇩 Indonesia, 🇬🇧 the UK and 🇰🇭 Cambodia.

☝️ Before we get going: Order of the Wild hosts an immersive gathering from 17-21 June in France. In their words: “Join us for this immersive gathering dedicated to transformative, nature-led experience design for humans working towards a better future for people and planet.” France in June? Sounds as fantastic as I’m sure the event will be - if you can make the time, be there!

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Matt Phelps

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Matt Phelps, Lead Ecologist and Science Communicator at Knepp Wildland since 2024. He oversees scientific research across the project, from in-house species monitoring to coordinating visits from specialist groups and academic researchers.

With the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, I often hear that people feel overwhelmed by the challenges. And I often see that it becomes quite manageable and entirely real when connected with those dear to us. I think Matt puts that beautifully with regard to his daughter:

“I feel very driven to do the work I do because I passionately believe in our ability to restore the damage we have done to the living world if we put our hearts and minds into it. Becoming a parent in recent years has made me more committed than ever to trying to nurture a world that is wilder than the one I myself grew up in. I want my daughter to experience all the wonder that I had (and still have) with the natural world as she is growing up, but with the added excitement of previously lost species and landscapes that were unimaginable in my own childhood. It’s just wonderful to me that she already knows about beavers!”

👉 Get to know Matt

2) Three ambassadors for Romania’s magnificent bison

The European bison was one gone from Romania. Today, roaming freely in the Southern Carpathian forests and valleys, are 250 bison. Rewilding Europe reports that more than half of them were born in the wild. Now three ambassadors have been chosen to use their voices, experiences and platforms to help “raise awareness of rewilding and its beneficial impact, and to strengthen the bonds between people, communities, and wild nature.”

The ambassadors are Romanian actress and filmmaker Dana Rogoz (she will help share the story of the bison’s return with her fans and followers and encourage people to reconnect with nature). Regenerative farmer and anthropologist Roxana Zaha brings a strong focus on living and working in harmony with nature, promoting farming approaches that support biodiversity and ecological balance. And biologist, explorer, and university lecturer Alexandru Stermin has dedicated much of his career to deepening understanding of the relationship between humans and the natural world.

👉 Go here for more

3) Akae Conservancy protects Colombia’s Wild Orinoquía

Ever more organizations join the Global Rewilding Alliance - by now the GRA brings together over 300 alliance partners from 124 countries - and these, together, account for nature protection and restoration efforts of a whopping 2.2 million square kilometers of land, and 5 million square kilometers of sea. A new alliance partner, portrayed by the GRA, is Akae Conservancy, a family stewardship of massive proportions in Colombia.

Akae Conservancy is powered by family, by a belief that we all have a responsibility to nature and future generations - and one that is very much also about local communities. What was once a cattle ranch, is not 20’000 hectares of increasingly wild ecosystems. The width and breadth of wildlife is amazing. From the above-pictured tayra, to ocelot, tapir, puma, giant anteater, march deer, Orinoco goose, giant armadillo, squirrel cuckoo, etc. etc. etc.!

In the article, GRA puts a focus on family, writing that: “Rewilding often begins with families who make the pivotal choice about the future of their land. These family-led efforts are a growing and powerful part of the rewilding movement, rooted in love, heritage and a willingness to resist short term pressures in favor of long term renewal. Family stewardship offers something rare, the ability to protect the land through generations regardless of shifting politics or funding streams.” Well put!

👉 Go here for more

4) Could the Tauros help rewild the UK?

In the latest podcast from At the Edge, Peter Cairns meets the pioneering Grazelands Rewilding team, and their hugely impressive Tauros cattle that roam De Maashorst nature reserve in The Netherlands. In prehistoric times, the majestic aurochs roamed from Western Europe and North Africa, to the Indian subcontinent and East Asia. It has long gone extinct, but remains with us in the form of fossils, cave paintings … and now the back-bred Tauros.

Grazelands Rewilding has used scientific methods to breed an animal that isn’t an aurochs as such, but is very close to it, both visually and behaviorally. Today, there are more than 800 Tauros cattle shaping woodlands and grasslands across Europe. In the podcast, Pete asks whether these powerful herbivores could do the same in the UK and if not, what are the social and cultural factors standing in the way?

👉 Go here for more

5) How local practitioners restore Bali’s coral reefs

Livingseas Foundation makes it clear that they are not scientists - they are practitioners, the are dive instructors, divers and coastal communities who have seen marine ecosystems suffers - and have chosen to not just rein in destruction by refuse, but to rebuild reefs. When you look at the images of the before and after - it’s amazing. Within just a few years, where there was nothing left, now there are new coral reefs, teeming with life.

By now they have deployed nearly 10’000 reef structures, planted over 400’000 coral fragments - and are seeing nearly 10’000 square meters of seabed revitalized. What they do in addition may be even more important - their community outreach and educational efforts help create the future generations that care and understand and will want to continue to do whatever is in their power to keep and increase healthy seabeds around Bali.

👉 Go here for more

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6) These structures protect against bottom-trawling - and create new habitats

I’ve written about the work of Marine Conservation Cambodia before - and it’s great to report on progress. What you see in the above image are concrete structures that are 2-3 tons heavy. They are assembled from separate - manageable - pieces on the seabed. When finished, these octagonal havens for wildlife are so heavy that bottom trawlers a) cannot move them and b) destroy their nets. Oceanographic reports that by now an amazing 1’250 such structures have been deployed.

The efforts so far took two years - and in total they aim for 5’000 such structures. The results are already abundantly obvious: there are fewer trawlers and more fish, squid and crabs. These structures provide sealife with shelter, act as new habitats and as important nurseries. In the end - and without the utterly destructive bottom trawling - everybody wins. Fish abundance has risen six-fold. And increased fish stock then of course also greatly benefits local fishers who had seen their livelihoods more and more endangered by bottom trawlers.

👉 Go here for more

7) River Wye granted rights in UK first

The Guardian reports that “the entire catchment of the River Wye has been formally recognised as a living ecosystem with intrinsic rights in a charter, a UK first that campaigners hope will help save the highly polluted river.” Two county councils have already implemented the charter, two more are expected to adopt it soon - once that has happened, the entirely of the River Wye - 130 miles - will be covered.

Traditionally, nature has always been a resource, someone’s property, an object to be used as our species saw fit. It’s great to read that lawyers for nature are winning cases across the globe, turning nature from object into subject, into entities with inherent rights. According to the article, the UK’s House of Lords is considering a proposal by Natalie Bennett that would do just that.

👉 Go here for more

8) Poland’s people stand up against the excesses of the hobby-hunting lobby

☝️ You may wonder why, in a forum about rewilding, I occasionally write about the world of shooting estates and hobby-hunters. The thing is that rewilding and leisure hunting are clearly pulling in opposite directions. Rewilding is about a new balance between humanity and nature, and it is very much about a lived respect and care for nature … and that, of course, includes animals. Whereas shooting estates and hobby-hunting are, regardless of what smokescreens are put up for us, about an intentionally maintained imbalance for the purpose of exercising their passion for killing animals.

A new initiative in Poland makes it clear that it is not against recreational hunting - but wants to addresses certain excesses for the benefit of all Polish citizens. It’s a smart way forward. They aim to strengthen private property laws, push for laws to protect children, to ban the trophy-hunting killing industry (rampant in Poland), etc. This is great stuff that could and should be replicated in every European country. This way of going about it makes it clear that it is not against hobby hunting - but entirely PRO POLES.

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should.

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Help grow the movement - thanks! 🌞

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• get inspired by the lives, decisions, challenges, beliefs and hopes of passionate rewilders with the Meet the Rewilders portraits;

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of Peter Cairns, James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait, featuring Aukje van Gerven, co-founder of MOYO Training Foundation and manager of MOYO Nature Travel - as well inspiring and insightful stories from 🇳🇦 Namibia, 🇮🇹 Italy, 🇬🇧 the UK, 🇫🇷 France - and fantastic river-freeing news from across 🇪🇺 Europe.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Aukje van Gerven

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Aukje van Gerven, co-founder of MOYO Training Foundation and manager of MOYO Nature Travel. The travel business partially funds the work of the foundation that creates nature-positive tourism trainings and experiences that help guides, tourism entrepreneurs and travel professionals build businesses that support both people and nature. I’m entirely with Aujke when she says, “I believe tourism can and should be a force for good.”

May nature-positive tourism grow manifold in coming years and that people begin to see and understand in ways that Aukje does. She says: “I believe tourism should leave places better than they were before we arrived. Travel is an incredible privilege, but it also comes with responsibility. Too often, tourism only benefits large companies while local communities and ecosystems pay the price. I believe visitors can contribute positively instead: by supporting local guides, listening to local stories, learning about conservation challenges, and choosing experiences that protect rather than exploit nature.” YES!

👉 Get to know Aukje

2) Namibia permanently protects 24% of its country

The Namibian government, together with communal conservancies and a global coalition of Enduring Earth partners, has announced the permanent conservation of up to 50 million acres. It’s called Namibia for Life and it “has secured an initial $63 million in public and private funding to permanently conserve more than 24% of the country and bolster livelihood opportunities for 283,000 people. With additional investments from the Green Climate Fund (GCF)—through a Climate Resilient Enduring Earth initiative—and other partners, the fund has the potential to grow to $75 million.”

Without health nature, we have nothing. Elijah Ngurare, Prime Minister of Namibia puts it perfectly: “Namibia’s rich biodiversity is a national asset that underpins our tourism economy, rural livelihoods, and our resilience to climate change. Initiatives such as Namibia for Life demonstrate how strategic partnerships can translate conservation achievements into long-term socio-economic benefits for our people.”

👉 Go here for more

3) Record-breaking dam removals across Europe in 2025

The above time-lapse clip is from a few years ago, when the River Dee in Scotland was freed. I just thought it illustrates perfectly what still exists in far too many places; this one required a great deal of effort - often smaller barriers can easily be removed - and then nature flows again as it should! Dam Removal Europe has published its annual report - and the numbers are fantastic: in 2025, more barriers than in any previous year were removed - a whopping 603 barriers were removed in a total of 21 countries.

DRE details that: “Sweden was the new trailblazer of European barrier removal, followed by Finland and Spain; 50% of the removed barriers were culverts and 31% were weirs; Dams were the next most common type of the removed barriers (10%), followed by timber floating dams; 78% of the removed barriers were lower than 2 m, 20% were 2-5 m high and 2% were more than 5 m high; 5% of the removed barriers were used or originally built for hydropower production; More than 3,740 km were reconnected through barrier removals.”

👉 Go here for more

4) A wild week with wild animals, rural communities - and the fine people of Rewilding Apennines

Pádraic Fogarty writes in the Irish Examiner about his recent trip to Italy, where he spent time with the fine people of Rewilding Apennines for one of their rewilding experience weeks. He saw wildlife, traveled wild lands, met local communities and found out how they live and thrive with wild nature by embracing various coexistence measures.

One local cheesemaker says he’s not troubled by wolves for his sheep - as either shepherds or shepherd dogs are always present. A farmer with an apple orchard also says he regularly tends his trees. And Pádraic also helped another farmer put up an electric fence to keep deer and boar off a vegetable patch. Presence is key. We’ve become frazzled, torn in many directions. too little time for all the many things that really are not important. But a return to such a coexistence world in wild nature, that requires presence - and with it, I believe, comes a new center, come peace of mind and clarity. Maybe the ideal would be, in such rewilding landscapes, to haver ever more self-sustained communities like the amazing Findhorn in Scotland.

👉 Go here for more

5) The UK urgently needs to move from nature preservation to nature restoration

Founder and CEO of Rewilding Britain Rebecca Wrigley has penned an excellent essay to illustrate just how stuck in the past conservation policy in Britain still is today. The SSSis (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) have been touted left and right for years and they could be considered fine what what they where, and what one knew, when they first came about. They found places worth protecting for this or that reason, and then treated it as something that required preserving, conserving it. It is what Rebecca calls the ‘museum model’ - something that’s more akin to curating a collection. Does it work? Of course not!

Rebecca writes, “A recent review by the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) shows that in England only a third of SSSIs are in favourable condition, deterioration is increasing, monitoring and enforcement have been severely weakened, and Government is nowhere near meeting its legal nature commitments. Nature is also in freefall in Scotland, where 43% of species are facing population losses and in Wales where nearly 80% of habitats are in an unfavourable condition. Across Britain, nature is still in decline. We need a fresh approach to not only protecting nature, but enabling it to take care of itself — and us — again. That’s what’s unique about rewilding. At its heart, rewilding is about reinstating natural processes, like letting rivers flow freely and bringing back missing species – and allowing them to replenish nature’s remarkable web of life.”

👉 Go here for more

👉 and here for Rebecca’s ‘Meet the Rewilders’ portrait

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6) Celebrating the 30th anniversary since the return of the Pyrenean bear … but not all’s rosy.

Fabien Quétier, Head of Landscapes at Rewilding Europe highlighted this particular anniversary. It’s a good story, for sure - after all, the Pyrenean bear was close to extinction in the 1990s - then successive releases began the recovery - and today more than 100 of these bears roam the massive mountain range. While the 100 number sounds positive - it really is a far cry from what bear numbers once were. Various things stand in the way of what actual recovery would look like.

Currently, instead of adopting coexistence measures, farming unions are still in a mode of defiance and refusal. With proper protection and adoption of coexistence measures, these bears could use corridors to not only grow their populations, but to also ensure genetic diversity - something that’s an urgent concern for now. Alain Reynes, director of Pays de l’Ours says, “We can no longer turn a blind eye; there is an urgent need to stop inbreeding, at the risk of it becoming uncontrollable and permanently detrimental to the brown bear population. There is still time, but inaction is no longer an option.”

👉 Go here for more

7) The water vole returns to Cumbria’s rivers

Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme reports that water voles - gone from around 94% of the areas where they once lived - are staging a comeback to Cumbria. In some places they are now living alongside beavers for the first time in over 400 years. Over the past three years, 750 water voles have been reintroduced across the Cumbria Connect landscape — a large-scale nature recovery partnership working across 42,000 hectares between the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales.

Monitoring already show encouraging signs of success. The water vole is a keystone species that shapes riverbanks and thus creates habitats for a range of plants, insects and other wildlife. Healthy rivers need them. As ever so often, the Cumbria Connect effort shows that working in isolation is a bad move for nature. Nature needs to flow. As Bill Kenmir, Conservation Manager (who is a Restoration Manager, not a Conservation Manager … just saying) for Cumbria Connect, says: “This reintroduction shows what is possible when we restore whole landscapes rather than isolated sites. By creating connected habitats, we’re giving water voles the space they need to thrive and spread.”

👉 Go here for more

8) The vanishing of death and cadavers

In the past it was commonplace for most of our species to see dead bodies, be they corpses or cadavers. In our modern times, this is often removed from us - and it has a negative impact on nature. Death is part of life and our being confronted with it is valuable. It reminds us, it teaches us, it shows us. Ideally, in functioning ecosystems, we would let the cycle of life and death play out naturally. Instead of calling a ranger when coming across a cadaver, we should just leave it. The carcass of a deer, or badger or boar is a feast for a wide range of scavengers (raptors, foxes, insects, etc.) - and it enriches the soil, too!

In this latest article I’m taking a closer look at the subject from a few odd angles: philosophy; law; water contamination; the sensibilities of hikers; the famous/infamous Oostvaardersplassen ‘disaster’; the Isle Royale counterpoint; and the story of Timmy the whale … Lots to ponder … I think that, once we see more remnants of dead animals on our walks again, we’ll know that we’re on a better path toward healthy nature for all of us.

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should. Look closer - see the camouflaged spider?

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Help grow the movement - thanks! 🌞

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• get inspired by the lives, decisions, challenges, beliefs and hopes of passionate rewilders with the Meet the Rewilders portraits;

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of Peter Cairns, James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait, featuring Malawi-based conservation and sustainable development specialist and storyteller Mpambira Aubrey Kambewa - as well inspiring and insightful stories from 🇫🇷 France, 🇳🇱 the Netherlands, 🇻🇳 Vietnam, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England and 🇺🇸 the US.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Mpambira Aubrey Kambewa

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Mpambira Aubrey Kambewa, a conservation and sustainable development specialist and storyteller based in Malawi. His work focuses on communities living adjacent to protected areas, on landscape ecology management, interpretation and heritage tourism development, and community-centered development initiatives.

The challenges are many, but so are the moments of joy and inspiration. It’s great to read about Mpambira’s mindset, efforts, beliefs and hopes: “In the next ten years, I hope conservation efforts across the Global South will become more equitable, inclusive, and representative of diverse communities and economic backgrounds. I hope to see greater local ownership of conservation narratives and more authentic stories emerging from underrepresented regions and people. Ultimately, I hope for a future where conservation is not only about protecting ecosystems, but also about empowering societies and creating shared prosperity.”

Encouragingly, projects I come across these days often do have that focus on empowering local communities. May more and more communities truly own lands, and thus own and decided the future they want to see become reality.

👉 Get to know Mpambira

2) French forest gets to lead its own recovery

Good news for the Dauphiné Alps rewilding landscape. The Vercors Regional Natural Park with its vast forests is part of it - now the municipality that owns 432 hectares of communal forest has signed a ground-breaking agreement to let the Die Forest lead its own recovery for at least 60 years. Actually, that’s better than good news - 60 years is great news! There will still be some logging and some hunting - but a lot will be set aside to recover, a lot more deadwood will remain, and hunters have agreed not to hunt in certain areas.

It seems that this agreement just may be catching on - wouldn’t it be great if more and more municipalities would weigh nature’s health, financial gains, and social and cultural cohesion and come to the conclusion that this type of agreement is in the best interests of everyone. Olivier Raynaud, Rewilding France’ Team Leader in the Dauphiné Alps says, “We consider Die Forest as a pilot site to demonstrate that letting nature lead its own recovery is viable, efficient, and economically beneficial, which has been demonstrated elsewhere already. As time progresses, the aim is to also show that there are important ecological benefits to libre évolution in forests too. We hope by achieving this easement in Die, other municipalities will be inspired to take the same approach.”

👉 Go here for more

3) Saving Dogger Bank from bottom trawling

The Dogger Bank, part of Doggerland, lies at the bottom of the North Sea. As little as 10’000 years ago, Doggerland was still a massive landmass above sea-level between continental Europe and the British peninsula. Then sea-levels rose, creating the North Sea and the Channel and … what remained for a few thousand years longer was the Doggerbank uplands, still a vast island by 5’000 BC. The Doggerland Foundation came into being to fight in the courts for the protection and active restoration of the Dogger Bank, a rich marine habitat.

Good news from Dutch courts: “The District Court of The Hague has ruled that Dutch bottom trawlers can no longer fish without a permit and full environmental assessment in the Dutch Dogger Bank – the Netherlands’ largest protected nature area and one of the most ecologically significant stretches of seafloor in the North Sea.” This is considered a landmark ruling that is expected to have implications across Europe. May this be a decisive blow to the disastrous practice of bottom trawling.

👉 Go here for more

4) Vietnam is preparing its Rewilding Plan 2027-2035

What I particularly love about this is that there’s nothing special about using the term rewilding - the term has arrived, it’s matter-of-fact, it simply is what it is. Good! In Vietnam, the country is in the process of formulating the “Vietnam Rewilding Plan for 2027-2035” as was announced at a conference organized by VNFOREST, the IUCN and Re:wild.

Deputy Director of VNFOREST Dr. Doan Hai Nam said that, while Vietnam’s forest cover at 42% is good, “greening the land alone is not enough, as many forests are not facing the ‘empty forest syndrome,’ meaning serious depletion of wildlife species and a decline of ecological functions.” Vietnam’s three main challenges outlined are: 1) habitat degradation and fragmentation; 2) continued pressure from illegal hunting, trapping and wildlife trade; and 3) essentially funding, as the implementation of any long-time and far-reaching plan requires considerable resources, data, monitoring, facilitation, engagement, etc.

The Cuc Phuong National Park is said to be gradually approaching rewilding as a continuous ecological process under the principle that “nature leads, humans support.” The final plan will hopefully be approved by the government this year. “Vietnam’s future rewilding efforts will focus on restoring natural ecosystems and populations of endangered and rare species, expanding conservation areas, strengthening habitat connectivity, combating illegal hunting and wildlife trade, standardising scientific procedures and mobilising social resources for nature conservation.”

👉 Go here for more

5) How wolves brought healthy balance to the Isle Royale

Don’t worry, these wolves are fine - more than fine, they are thriving on the Isle Royale, an island between Michigan and Canada that is a designated National Park. In her weekly Nature Signals (well worth subscribing to!), Ruth Thornton highlighted the fascinating story with the latest update from the Isle Royale Wold-Moose Project. Begun in 1958 by the Michigan Technological University, this is considered the world’s longest predator-prey study.

In brief: Moose came to the island in the early 20th century. The first wolves arrived decades later by crossing the frozen expanse from Canada. And in 1958 scientists began to monitor. For a while there was balance, then wolf numbers dropped (a virus inadvertently introduced by humans) and moose populations surged … by the late 1990s, moose numbers had tripled to nearly 2’400. A harsh winter dropped that number to 500. Today there’s a healthy balance of both wolfs and moose - but the fascinating thing is really that scientists have learned something important - namely that their predictions are worth little to nothing:

“For over 60 years, the focused purpose of the Isle Royale Wolf-Moose Project has been to predict and understand a relatively simple natural system. But the more we studied, the more we came to realize how poor our previous explanations had been. The accuracy of our predictions for Isle Royale wolf and moose populations is comparable to those for long-term weather and financial markets. Every five-year period in the Isle Royale history has been different from every other five-year period – even after sixty-five of close observation.”

👉 Go here for more

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6) White-tailed eagle restoration project in southern England gets a boost

The wildlife licensing authority Natural England has given approval for the release of more white-tailed eagles in the south of England. These majestic birds were once widespread, but regional extinction was in time cause by human persecution. The reintroduction project will add to its existing program of releases (begun in 2019) an additional 20 young eagles over the course of three years.

The one and only Roy Dennis says, “White-tailed eagles were once a common sight in England but were lost centuries ago. This project is reversing that situation, and I am delighted that we will be able to release additional birds this year and boost their numbers in the wild. It is exciting to be able to play a part in restoring these birds back to their former home, and to see how well they are fitting into the English landscape. We will continue to work closely with a range of organisations as we enter this next phase of this exciting project.”

👉 Go here for more

7) American Prairie’s fight for bison

When you pay attention to the news in the US, you can’t help but see how blatantly the current administration is intent on dismantling environmental efforts and protections at every turn. American Prairie is an NGO focused on restoring free-roaming bison. They manage nearly a thousand bison on private and public lands. Now public lands are supposed to be just that - but in the US, ranchers are often granted the right to graze their cattle there.

American Prairie had the permission to let the bison roam on 63’000 acres of public land. The Bureau of Land Management has now revoked that permission … and you know why? Because the ranching lobby was up in arm, arguing that the bison represented a threat to the cattle industry. What rubbish! There’s plenty of grazing land for livestock - but the industry will always want more. What the buffalo graze, should be grazed by their cattle, they say. BLM’s decision is clearly one that simply catered to a lobby - industry’s laughing, and nature, for the millionth time, suffers the consequences … and so do we all.

👉 Go here for more

8) “We marinade ourselves in spring.”

What a lovely sentence. This last article I’d like to highlight strays a bit from the usual path of rewilding projects across the globe … but it is, I believe, very much at the core of all of everything nature restoration efforts can and should deliver on for future generations. In her Substack, Claire Ivy Waters writes about her son’s mental health, neurodiversity, home education, wildness, off grid and on grid, the importance of nature for our children and their senses. An unusual, personal and eye-opening read. She writes;

“If we keep siloing children on the straight and narrow curriculum, and away from the natural world, then who’s listening to the biosphere? Our monocrop of children and land have parallel problems. We can nurture kids to have eyes and ears wide open to innovative ideas and creations, to take part in the living web of life. We can reinstate agency for both children and landscapes and allow both to communicate, touch and heed each other with all their plethora of spectrums and senses. Let’s widen the lens of education to facilitate self-directed learners who notice the diverse glimmers of their internal and external landscapes, resourcing this appropriately to reflect the true value of children and wild places and those that tend them. There is regeneration in self-willed learning.”

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should. This week he shows new needles opening beside female ‘flowers’ on a twig of a larch tree.

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Upgrade to paid - Every little helps 🌞

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• get inspired by the lives, decisions, challenges, beliefs and hopes of passionate rewilders with the Meet the Rewilders portraits;

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of Peter Cairns, James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait, featuring head of Wildlife Portugal Fernando Romão - as well inspiring and insightful stories from 🇺🇸 the US, 🇵🇹 Portugal, 🇧🇦 Bosnia, 🇧🇬 Bulgaria, 🇬🇷 Greece and 🇮🇹 Italy.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Fernando Romão

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Fernando Romão, focused on bringing people closer to experiencing wild nature. He runs Wildlife Portugal, a travel agency and tourism operator based in Portugal that works in partnership with Rewilding Europe and Rewilding Portugal.

It’s wonderful to read about Fernando’s path that always guided him into the great outdoors - it was a path that involved species monitoring, environmental education and ecotourism - a path that always had nature at its core. He writes, “Nature is my religion. I believe we are part of it, even though we have drifted away from it. I believe that most of humanity’s problems would disappear if we reconnected with nature. Even so, even if man continues to lead humanity towards the abyss, I believe that life will endure, albeit in a different form. Life always finds a way!”

👉 Get to know Fernando

2) Rewilding is about letting go of control

In a new blog on the Rewilding Institute site, Jordan Bridger writes, “Rewilding isn’t about saving nature, it’s about letting go of control.” For anyone reading this newsletter, the statement will be entirely obvious. But it must be said that most of humanity (sigh) does not read this newsletter (yet!). Most people still have either no clue about rewilding, or have their minds fixed on something erroneous.

I like this blog in that I think it’s quite helpful when talking to misinformed people. Here just one of Jordan’s paragraphs: “Rewilding is not about erasing humans from the landscape. It is about relinquishing the fantasy that we stand outside it. In a time marked by ecological collapse and cultural fragmentation, rewilding offers something rare — not a solution to be implemented, but a relationship to be repaired. And that repair begins not with control, but with listening.”

👉 Go here for more

3) How elephants will help to rewild Portugal

One of the best tools to help restore degraded nature is to allow large grazers to do the work for you. A growing number of countries are thus releasing free-roaming bison, feral horses and asses, the Taurus and even water buffalo. All of which were once abundant, roaming Europe in herds. They shaped the landscape by trampling, wallowing, pooping and dispersing seeds. By simply going about their business, these key ecosystem engineers have an outsized impact on flora and fauna.

Now all of what’s happening is good - but imagine if you had an even larger grazer? In steps Pangea with an ingenious idea that delivers in multiple ways. The Pangea sanctuary in Portugal is now open and ready to receive the first elephants that are still in captivity in Europe. As legislations change, more of these elephants will need a new home and Pangea offers one that will be great for them, but also for nature as they’ll automatically start their ecosystem engineering work.

👉 Go here for more

4) They Eurasian lynx: a tale of pride and resilience

Emir Delić recounts (in a LinkedIn post) how the lynx in his part of the world has one of the most interesting histories in Europe. I’ll just let him tell it: “The original population went extinct in the early 20th century due to hunting, habitat loss, and decline of prey. It was then reintroduced in 1973, when lynx from the Carpathians were translocated to Slovenia, from where they naturally spread into Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and further into Italy and Austria. For a while, it worked. But over time, the population started to decline again, this time not because of space or habitat alone, but due to severe inbreeding and genetic bottlenecks. Low genetic diversity started to directly affect survival and reproduction.”

“That’s what triggered the #LIFELynx project (2017–2023): a large-scale genetic rescue effort across Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Romania and Slovakia, coordinated by the Slovenia Forest Service. In total, 22 wild lynx from the Carpathians were translocated to restore genetic health. The results are quite clear from a scientific perspective: most animals successfully integrated, reproduced, and helped reverse the decline. Population density increased, inbreeding dropped significantly, and even ecosystem-level effects were observed through restored predation and scavenger support.”

“It’s a rare example in Europe where extinction, reintroduction, and genetic rescue are all part of the same ongoing story, not a finished success, but a managed recovery process still unfolding. In places like Bosnia and the wider Dinaric system, lynx are not just a symbol of wilderness, they are a living case study of how fragile and how recoverable small apex predator populations really are.”

👉 Go here for Emir’s Meet the Rewilders portrait

👉 and here to explore the awesomeness of the lynx

5) Watch the webinar about the poison crisis affecting vultures across Europe

Rewilding efforts across Europe often focus on the reintroduction of missing species, and a particular emphasis is on vultures. It makes great sense as these amazing creatures, nature’s clean-up crew, are key to well-functioning, healthy nature. Unfortunately these amazing efforts are sometimes struggling with a human foe - that secretive (they know what they’re doing is illegal) person who leaves poisoned cadavers out in the world (mainly to decimate wolves). Yes, wolves may be victims, but so will be other creatures, like foxes and especially like vultures.

There are increasingly large rewards offered for information that helps catch these insidious poisoners - but in the meantime animals continue to die. What to do? The webinar is now available on YouTube - well worth watching - learn about the challenges, learn from the experts on the ground, and learn about anti-poisoning measures and best practices already applied. Anyone leaving poisoned meat out there in the wild, is a truly despicable excuse for a human being. If you know of anything, alert the authorities or, heck, alert me and I’ll follow it up.

👉 Go here for more

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6) Rewilding comes in all sizes - here with the Italian fire salamander

Rewilding Appenines shared a joyous little clip of the work they annually do to help salamanders cross the road to reach the streams where they lay their eggs. Ever so often we focus on the bison, the wold, the feral horses, the lynx, the beaver … but it’s always worth remembering that all of the big stuff wouldn’t be without all of the small stuff - the tapestry of life is fantastically diverse and whenever we take a closer look, it just gets even more fascinating. I came across the above salamander during a hike in Italy a while back … I mean, sheer wonder, right!?

Rewilding Appenines writes, “Every spring these animals need to cross the road to reach the streams where they lay their eggs or give birth. A short migration, but on tarmac it can be lethal. A few years ago, joining an initiative by Maiella National Park, we decided to do something very simple: build underpasses and install mobile fences that guide the animals towards those safe passages. We at Rewilding Apennines built 4, thanks to the support of Patagonia, and every year, right on cue, we come back to complete the job.”

👉 Go here to watch the clip

7) The story of Rewilding Portugal - and Portugal’s rewilding wine!

This article by Tamlyn Currin in the wine-focused JancisRobinson site offers a wonderful (and wonderfully pictured) look at Rewilding Portugal, its challenges, projects and path from the beginning to this day … it talks projects and finances, large herbivores and wolves, the construction of over 50 ponds, the rewilding center, wildlife tourism, you name it. And then, of course, eventually the article switches to the topic of wine, specifically the Altano Rewilding Edition.

Turns out that, in search for funding, Rewilding Portugal brought this idea to the Altano brand - they loved it and created a specific rewilding bland. Every sale of the Rewilding Edition contributes financial support to Rewilding Portugal and, so the article, this wine alone has tripled Rewilding Portugal’s annual income. Currin has tasted the wine and seems to be a fan (I’ll definitely get myself some of that wine!) and she writes, in addition: “Rest assured, this wine is greenwash-free. More than that, it’s a cause genuinely worth supporting, and you get a bottle of wine in return!”

👉 Go here for more

8) Let’s bring Daylighting into the light

It seems insane: For one hundred years, the pictured river flowed in a concrete pipe under a huge parking lot. But this is what has happened to countless creeks, streams and rivers across the world when they became inconvenient - aka in the way of progress. Since the 1980s, so-called daylighting efforts bring more and more waterways back into the light. It’s fascinating work.

In this latest article, I’m looking into the history, the examples, and the manifold benefits. I discovered that I had such a creek buried below a field near our farm. Hard to imagine, and it couldn’t feel more wrong. On the plus side I’ve learned that the nearby city of Zurich as the world’s forerunner when it comes to daylighting. Why do all of that costly work? Because water is life and the benefits of flowing water and biodiversity-rich riverbanks are not just environmental, they’re also economic and social. Daylighting waterways is a gift that keeps on giving.

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should. What you’re looking at below is slime mould. Alan takes offense to the name: “Slime moulds have been burdened with a terrible common name that completely belies their remarkable life cycle & intricate shapes. They spend most of their time as single celled organisms inside their substrate (dead wood in this case) before merging to form a multicellular plasmodium that flows across the surface and then forms these spectacular sporangia which release the spores for its reproduction.”

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Upgrade to paid - Every little helps 🌞

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• get inspired by the lives, decisions, challenges, beliefs and hopes of passionate rewilders with the Meet the Rewilders portraits;

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of Peter Cairns, James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait, Fraser Murray, community engagement officer at Bright Green Nature (a Scottish nature restoration charity) - as well inspiring and insightful stories from 🇪🇸 Spain, 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan, 🇧🇬 Bulgaria, 🇳🇱 the Netherlands, 🇮🇹 Italy, 🇺🇦 Ukraine, 🇵🇹 Portugal, 🇸🇪 Sweden, 🇦🇷 Argentina, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland, 🇩🇰 Denmark, and 🇺🇸 the US.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Fraser Murray

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Fraser Murray, who works for Bright Green Nature (a Scottish nature restoration charity) as community engagement officer where he particularly focuses on the Young Rewilders group. Now here’s someone who should inspire all of us, because, as the saying goes, it’s never too late. Fraser spent most of his life in the motor trade. Then COVID came and he decided to dedicate the rest of his working years to rewilding.

The Meet the Rewilders feature is quickly beginning to connect the dots! At Bright Green Nature, Fraser works with founder and CEO Karen Blackport, who already participated (see here), and he was inspiring to join the rewilding movement after watching Why Not Scotland (which starred Flo Blackbourn - who’ll also participate in the Meet the Rewilders). Six degrees of separation will soon be one, or two at most!

Fraser’s values are a perfect match with the 8th story of this week’s newsletter - he says, “I believe in equality and fairness, for all people and for all other species. For me that extends to not seeing animals as a resource to exploit for food or other uses. I think that empathy and compassion are the most important values anyone can possess, and that, no matter what, we should always try to have a sense of humour and to smile as much as possible.” Indeed!

👉 Get to know Fraser

2) A look back at the many wildlife reintroductions of 2025 thanks to the European Wildlife Comeback Fund

The European Wildlife Comeback Fund (EWCF) was launched in 2022 to help drive forward and scale up wildlife reintroductions of keystone species across Europe. Rewilding Europe reports that, thanks to the fund, every year more progress is made. The focus is on keystone species because of the outsized difference their presence makes to their habitats. The range of such species is great to see: bison, vultures, hamsters, red kites, horses, Tauros, trout, you name it!

In 2025, the fund supported 23 reintroduction initiatives, covering 17 species across 9 countries. Rewilding Europe’s Sophie Monsarrat says, “The fund makes a real difference by providing the support where it is needed most – something made possible only by generous donations. We are proud of the role it has played since its launch in 2022 in scaling up reinforcements and reintroductions across Europe. The return of wild species requires long‑term commitments to deliver impacts that span into the future.”

👉 Go here for more

3) Watershed restoration campaign in Patagonia Park

It’s done! The work began in 2018, with the removal of fences from what had been land used for cattle ranching. As we know, such lands over time degraded massively, biodiversity diminishes - and passive rewilding alone doesn’t do the trick when humans have also meddled with the water sources. For years now Rewilding Argentina, together with local communities, have worked to bring a natural flow of water back to the lands.

It is thanks to the knowledge of old people - who know where springs are, what changes have been happened - that work soon progressed with the wetland regeneration from 8 to 30 hectares in just 4 years. The success is clear to see - says Román Mosqueira, “… we begin to observe a greater presence of fauna, especially birds associated with these wetlands: the Austral Moorhen, various ducks such as the Spectacled Duck, the White-faced Duck, the White-faced Whistling Duck, the Yellow-billed Pintail, and the Crested Teal; Silvery Grebe, Upland Goose, flamingos, ibis, herons, coots, common snipe, and rheas. Some mammals also make use of the wetlands, particularly guanacos, coypus, foxes, and in winter we often see pumas.”

👉 Go here for more

4) Coexistence with white-tailed eagles

In a fascinating podcast episode of At the Edge, Peter Cairns explore the frictions between people focused on nature restoration and traditional farming communities - the episode’s title already hints at where this is going: “Can an eagle really kill a horse?” The question comes from the claim by a farmer in the Outer Hebrides, saying that sea eagles (another term for white-tailed eagles) took five of his Shetland pony foals. It remains unproven and - based on what you’ll hear in the podcast, it is highly unlikely that sea eagles were - or even could have been - the responsible party.

The fascinating parts in Pete’s episode is the layered look at it all - where are the different positions? What does it take to bring people together? What’s the real issue? Interestingly, I think one of the farmers brought it home by simply stating that they used to be in control of their lands, with the right to kill predators if need be. That going out and killing foxes, for example, felt good and the right thing to do - and that, seeing white-tailed eagles fly by and knowing them be protected, making it illegal for him to shoot them, felt just galling.

Do sea eagles kill horses? Unlikely, at best. Do they take lambs? Yes, remains have been found in nests. But whether they were healthy, or ill, or already dead, cannot be ascertained. As always, at the core is a fear of change and a loss of control. Both can be mitigated against. One way that’s proven to work with jaguars in Mexico is to monetize presence of predators. It should become desirable for farmers to know that sea eagles frequent their lands. This can be done. And it works.

👉 Go here for the podcast

5) The return of giants to Denmark

The Hempel Foundation’s philanthropic efforts help restore 2’500 hectares of former farmland in southern Denmark, called Vildmarken, or the Wilderness. The Saksfjed Wilderness is part of this effort and there 30 Tauros were ‘reintroduced’ in 2025. The Tauros cattle has been back-bred to resemble as closely as possible the prehistoric aurochs, the majestic ancestor herbivore that once grazed across Europe. These large grazers are ecosystem engineers with an outsized positive impact on their environment.

Biologist Thor Hjarsen shares his excitement: “These large herbivores will increase biodiversity and create wilder nature. They are referred to as “keystone species” because their impact is so important to other species. Large herbivores, such as Tauros, create the habitats that many endangered species depend on.” Are those Tauros expected to do all of the ecosystem engineering work on their own? Of course not! In addition, there are 200 Galloway oxen and Exmoor horses - all roaming free in a place that was, until just 2023, dominated by farming and forestry. With all of these large grazers doing the heavy lifting, the Saksfjed Wilderness is bound to be a biodiversity haven in years, not decades. One of the many places I’d love to visit one fine day!

👉 Go here for more

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6) Pushing back against the human sprawl

Ben Goldfarb is an environmental journalist with nature corridors at heart. He is the author of Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet - and he is also the author of a new article in bioGraphic that looks into the ever growing sprawl of humans in the Western US. I think the above image perfectly illustrates how humans continue to encroach on ever more of nature - thus make it ever more difficult for nature to flow, to travel through corridors as it must to function.

In the article, he lays out national and local plans and explains that a great deal (two thirds!) of what happens with land is actually managed by local government. Every day, more nature is lost to human development, but a few local governments are beginning to make longterm plans that focus on a healthy balance - i.e. building where infrastructure already exist, and ensuring nature corridors in perpetuity.

“If current trends persist in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, once-sleepy towns in Montana and Idaho could someday erupt into population centers. All that growth strains resources: Cash-strapped counties must shell out to maintain dirt roads battered by exploding traffic, new wells deplete finite groundwater, and sprawl pushes neighborhoods into fire-prone forests. There is a true economic cost to communities that don’t develop in a planned and organized fashion. Limiting sprawl doesn’t just aid wildlife—it allows rural towns and counties to survive inevitable growth.” (Cindy Riegel of the Project Greater Yellowstone)

👉 Go here for more

7) European freshwater fishes under threat

If European countries were to take rewilding action to heart across the board, this would not be a story. The way to help fish populations recover is straight-forward - but of course far from simple: It would require river renaturalizations at scale; the rewilding of river banks with shade-giving flora (to combat rising temperatures); the removal of all obsolete weirs and dams; and a moratorium for fishing/angling for a few years … Unfortunately, such a concerted effort at scale across all of Europe is wishful thinking at best.

A new IUCN report shows that nearly HALF of all European freshwater fishes are at risk of extinction. Read the full report here. So what to do? They are right in saying that freshwater fishes are key indicators of ecosystem health. The report is thus a loud and clear alarm bell. “The deteriorating status of freshwater fishes signals broader ecosystem decline. Without urgent, coordinated action to tackle habitat loss, pollution, invasive species, and climate change, Europe risks losing a significant portion of its aquatic biodiversity within a generation.”

👉 Go here for more

8) Every animal is someone

You may wonder why, in a forum about rewilding, I occasionally write about animal cruelty. The thing is that rewilding is about a new balance between humanity and nature, and it is very much about a lived respect and care for nature. Animal cruelty is the very opposite, it is an abomination - whether in lab testing, farming, illegal trading, gambling or anywhere else. Animals are not things, they are someone. And when we learn and live with empathy, we’re on a better path for nature everywhere.

Every year, some 200 million animals are subjected to cruelest tests that are ethically abhorrent and scientifically useless. There are better ways and, finally, there is hope on the horizon. In this article, I'm looking into the specific example of Ridglan Farms, their claims, the abuses, the efforts and increasing successes of animal rights groups, the potential of the necessity defense, Jane Goodall's clarity, and the hope that comes from the tremendous courage and actions of people like Wayne Hsiung.

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should.

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Upgrade to paid - Every little helps 🌞

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• get inspired by the lives, decisions, challenges, beliefs and hopes of passionate rewilders with the Meet the Rewilders portraits;

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of Peter Cairns, James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait - featuring Professor Jens-Christian Svenning, ecologist and director of Aarhus University’s ECONOVO Center - as well inspiring and insightful stories from 🇧🇬 Bulgaria, 🇩🇪 Germany, 🇨🇳 China, 🇺🇸 the US, 🇦🇺 Australia and 🇬🇧 the UK.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Jens-Christian Svenning

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Professor Jens-Christian Svenning, an ecologist working at the Department of Biology, Aarhus University in Denmark, where he leads the Center for Ecological Dynamics in a Novel Biosphere (ECONOVO). Even by just following the man, I’ve learned a great deal about vegetation, herbivores, and changing ecosystems from ancient times to today. I can only imagine how supercharging it must be to be one of his students.

I love the way his life’s played out so far, the things he’s done, the places he’s been, the way he looks at the world, at our species, at what matters. And when you read his portrait, it’ll be easy to understand why the subject of time is his biggest challenge (I’d be dead if I had half as much on my plate!). When I read through his portrait, I was thinking that a younger me (some 40 years younger) would have been immediately inspired to embark on a similar path - I mean, just read this:

“It was an extraordinary experience—long days in the forest, learning the incredible diversity of tropical biodiversity, and occasionally encountering wildlife like jaguars, bush dogs, giant otters, and anacondas. The species diversity was truly out of this world, and I ended up describing a new species of palm and collecting a pepper plant that later turned out also to be a new species (now described as Piper svenningii). Experiences like that make a lasting impression.”

👉 Get to know Jens

2) Protect the Byala Reka from new mining project

The Byala Reka, a river in southern Bulgaria, and all of its surrounding habitats are in grave danger. Rewilding Europe calls the region in the Rhodope Mountains “one of the most impressive wild places in Europe.” For years now rewilders have been working to help nature recover, reintroduce missing species and help local communities find new livelihoods connected with wild nature. You can read about the efforts and successes here.

Now a massive open-pit mining project threatens to destroy it all. Over a period of 35 years, there would be blasting and drilling, mining waste and all the usual destruction that goes with such projects - and this directly within two Nature 2000 protected sites, including the Byala Reka Special Protection Area. “The project is large in scale and long in duration. It would involve open-pit mining, drilling and blasting, flotation processing, mining waste facilities, and related infrastructure over a period of 35 years, across a planned concession area of 275.34 hectares, of which 117.9 hectares would be directly disturbed.”

👉 Sign the petition against the project today!

3) Germany funds huge peatland rewetting efforts

Mission to Marsh (what a great name) CSO and cofounder Ann Christin Kornelsen reported on this in a LinkedIn post, highlighting that Germany has allocated 1.75 BILLION Euro to help peatland restoration efforts between now and the end of 2029. This also covers all costs associated by landowners and farmers. The scale is huge. As Ann Christin writes, “Germany has 1.7 million hectares of drained peatland. At least 1 million need urgent rewetting. Those degraded peatlands currently emit 7% of Germany's total greenhouse gas emissions every year. Peatlands that should be storing carbon, releasing it instead, because draining them for agriculture made short-term economic sense.”

She goes on to say that funding is the easy part (well, I doubt that allocation 1.75 billion was easy, but I know what she means, of course). Now it comes to the doing - and organizations like Mission to Marsh can help these transformative measures with scientific knowledge, hands-on capacity and working with landowners. Go here to read about the German governments plans.

👉 Get to know Mission to Marsh (and watch the videos!)

4) Nine organizations that change the world for the better through ecosystem restoration

The 22nd of April marked Earth Day. I’m sure that - like me - you’ve come across bountiful posts not only to highlight and celebrate Mother Nature, but also to highlight, promote and support the many people and organizations that make nature restoration efforts their daily business. The UN’s Decade on Ecosystem Restoration took the occasion of the special day as an opportunity to particularly highlight nine such organizations from across the globe. Take the time to explore them all - it’s thoroughly uplifting and inspiring. I’d particularly like to highlight (won’t come as a surprise to you) that Rewilding Europe is one of those selected few.

The UN writes, “Across Europe, large-scale restoration efforts are taking place. Rivers are being reconnected, forests and wetlands are regenerating, and wildlife such as bison, wild horses, lynx, brown bears and vultures are returning. Rewilding Europe demonstrates how restoration at scale strengthens connectivity and climate resilience. From dam removal to the creation of Wilder Parks, these efforts are restoring ecosystems while supporting local economies. With over 1,000 Young Rewilders engaged across 31 countries, the movement inspires a new generation to see rivers, soils and wetlands not as separate resources but as one integrated life-support system.” The recognition is supremely well deserved!

👉 Go here for more

5) Birdwatching tourism in China so successful for rural communities, calls for regulation arise

A fascinating story published by in Dialogue Earth: He recounts how, in the late eighties, two tourists watched a farmer killing birds with a slingshot. They were so impressed by the abundance of birdlife in the remote region, that they offered to pay the farmer to show them wild birds and, as Mike writes, “by the end of the day they had seen 160 bird species.” It marked the start of a birdwatching ecotourism economy.

What started small, is a pocket-industry of more than 250 such birdwatching places across China where professional hides are provided near ponds where birdlovers cannot just watch and photograph a huge variety of birds in closest proximity - but where there’s in some places even food delivered to the hides. Mechanisms were found to make this beneficial for all within local communities. By now there are calls for regulation. It’s an interesting dilemma. This ecotourism looks like an all-around success story … but on closer look you see the concerns for wildlife.

👉 Go here for more

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6) River re-naturalizations in the US: Nearly 5’000 miles of river reconnected in 2025

2025 has been a good year for dam removals in the US. According to American Rivers, 100 dams came down, thus reconnecting 4’893 miles of rivers in the process. This is a project that began early in the last century - they say that there are 2’350 dam removals documented since 1912. The damming of nature, for hydropower, supposed flood controlling, agriculture needs, etc., has removed much of what free-flowing rivers can - and should be able to - do for biodiversity-rich, healthy nature.

American Rivers explains why this work will continue for generations to come: “You might be wondering: weren’t dams built for a reason? Yes, but most of those reasons are outdated, much like these dams. The US has more than 500’000 dams in its national inventory, and a staggering number of them are simply sitting there: no longer generating power, no longer supplying water, no longer serving any practical purpose. What they are doing is blocking fish from reaching spawning habitat, warming water in stagnant reservoirs, threatening public safety, and accelerating flooding risks during storms.”

👉 Go here for more

7) Protecting the environment cannot be left to the slow-grinding mills of government alone

It you want to aim for massive impact, than country-wide laws are the way to change something at vast landscape scale. But governments are invariably hampered by opposing parties, by priorities, by election cycles, by budgets and and and … when things happen, they have a massive impact - things like the EU Nature Restoration Law, for example. Alas, no one should wait for any of that to happen - chances are always iffy, and at best changes come about in years to come.

Which brings me to a new Guardian article that highlights how, powered by individual donations and bequests, Australia “now has one of the world’s largest networks of privately protected and managed land.” The origin story of Bush Heritage Australia with Bob Brown is recounted. When I read this, it seems like such an obvious way to go. The world’s financial riches are transported from generation to generation with ever growing inheritances. What a fantastic change it would be if more and more people felt pride and joy and bequeathing some of their wealth to the purchase of more and more lands for the purpose of seeing them wild and protected in perpetuity.

👉 Go here for more

8) This bird is likely contaminated by pet pesticides

Huh? you might wonder. I never thought about this before - of course, it makes perfect sense once you do. This story comes our way from the UK, but it is undoubtedly happening in many other countries. There are about 11 million pet dogs and nearly as many pet cats in the UK. Their well-meaning owners protect them against fleas and ticks with chemical treatments. These chemicals are banned for agricultural use - but remain in use as treatments and collars for pets.

Now scientific evidence shows that significant amounts of these chemicals are found in waterways (either because they were washed down the drain, or dogs with tick collars swimming in rivers and some such). New studies published by the University of Sussex show evidence that these chemicals are also entering wild birds because, as many birds use the hairs of cats and dogs to build their nests. Now these pesticides are found not just in the nests, but in the feathers, eggs and even chicks of wild birds. If these chemicals are banned for agricultural use, they should probably banned for any use. On a personal level, for now, best we can do is be mindful of this!

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should. What you’re looking at hyphae. Alan explains, “The main part of all fungi are the hyphae, which form a network of white threads in the substrate where they are growing (dead wood in this case). What we know as mushrooms are in fact just the fruiting bodies, and they are the only part of the fungi that are normally visible. It’s rare to see the hyphae together with the fungal fruiting body of a fungus, but you can with this corticoid fungus.”

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Upgrade to paid - Every little helps 🌞

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• get inspired by the lives, decisions, challenges, beliefs and hopes of passionate rewilders with the Meet the Rewilders portraits;

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Holy crap - 100 editions! Well, if it’s 100 editions then that means nearly a thousand stories of rewilding and nature recovery have been curated, highlighted and shared via the Rewilder Weekly over the course of the past two years.

For the Meet the Rewilders feature of this 100th edition it’s none other than Rebecca Wrigley, CEO and co-founder of Rewilding Britain. In addition, this week you’ll find inspiring and insightful stories from 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland, 🇳🇦 Namibia, 🇺🇸 the US and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England, 🇳🇴 Norway, 🇮🇸 Iceland and 🇯🇵 Japan.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Rebecca Wrigley

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Rebecca Wrigley, CEO and co-founder of Rewilding Britain. What a journey, from living and working with a Mayan community in Mexico to leading Rewilding Britain! From the get-go, her efforts have always been on nature and people - specifically on empowering local communities to lead their own nature restoration efforts.

Life often presents us with what I call black holes. Moments when we can either dare to jump into an unknown - or walk around it. In my experience, jumping invariably leads to a richer life. And Rebecca most certainly jumped! She says, “When a group of us met to discuss whether a new organisation was needed, everyone else literally ‘looked at their feet’ when we needed volunteers to act on the decisions we’d made. I happened to be looking up and got drawn into helping to set up Rewilding Britain. I had a young daughter at the time and wasn’t really looking for a leadership role - but I’m now delighted that one came my way!”

👉 Get to know Rebecca

2) World Rewilding Day - Impact Report 2026

World Rewilding Day took place on the 20th of March - it reached millions across the globe with massive online engagement, more than fifty events with over 430 organizations across all continents. The Global Rewilding Alliance coordinated across the world and they’ve taken the time to publish an impact report. Check through it all - it’s bound to make any nature-loving heart all warm and fuzzy!

The rewilding movement is growing massively. Nearly 300 organizations (trigger warning with this link - you’ll come across my mug there 😵‍💫) are already GRA alliance partners and there can be no doubt that there are many thousands more around the globe engaged in nature restoration efforts. I’m entirely with the GRA when they say, “Whatever your background, wherever you are, there is a place for you in this movement. Every one of us can be a positive force for change. Thanks so much for all you are doing to help create a wilder, kinder and more resilient world for generations to come!”

👉 Go here for more

3) Largest peatland restoration project in Scotland

This video is a joy - amazing to see peatland restoration happening at such scale and with such a range of partners coming together. NGOs, landowners and businesses have teamed up to repair a connected area of blanket bog (something that’s rare in the world - and something that Scotland has much of).

Kudos to Rewilding Affric Highlands, peatland restoration consultancy Caledonian Climate, Trees for Life’s Dundreggan estate, the privately owned Hilton Guisachan, and Corrimony Farm. Stephanie Kiel (Head of Rewilding Affric Highlands) says, “This is about restoring a whole ecosystem at a landscape scale, and a shared commitment to tackling the nature and climate emergencies and benefitting local communities.” Overall, Rewilding Affric Highlands aims are huge - the plan is to restore nature across more than 200’000 hectares of the central Highlands.

👉 Go here for more

4) More marine habitat protected from bottom trawling off the Sussex coast

Good news for marine beds - a new law bans bottom trawling and scalloping off the Sussex coast. 101 square miles protected. Sussex Bay calls it a milestone for marine recovery at Beachy Head East. “By focusing restrictions where they are most needed, the approach reduces interactions between fishing activity and vulnerable habitats, helping to meet conservation goals while minimising disruption to local inshore fisheries.”

There’s something that struck me as odd with the linked-to BBC article. Twice it hedges when talking about bottom trawling, writing “Bottom trawling is viewed by many conservationists as damaging and indiscriminate.” and that the bottom trawling “can lead to the destruction of reefs and other marine habitats.” You don’t have to be a marine biologist to understand that, if you drag something across the seafloor that takes along whatever’s there, that what’s left behind is destruction. Also, we’ve all seen Attenborough’s Ocean. Less hedging, BBC!

👉 Go here for more

5) How an old painting brought the change that benefited the rancher, the wolf and nature overall

What a story - the painting in question is by Charles Marion Russell, a man who painted the Wild West in thousands of paintings. The above painting may not be the one that brought about the change, but it is by the same painter and it most certainly fits the story. You see, a rancher in Idaho had been ready to call it quits as wolf attacks on his livestock were costing him thousands of dollars annually … then one of Russell’s paintings showed him a different way, an old way, of ranching - cowboys on the range, with the cattle, day and night.

That was ten years ago, as Suzanne Asha Stone (Head of the International Wildlife Coexistence Network) relates in her article. Back then he changed, he did what they used to do - he moved in with his cattle - and he hasn’t lost a single cow or calf to wolves since that time. Suzanne shares that she and that rancher, Glenn Elzinga, were before Washington State legislators to brief them on what coexistences with wolves looks like in practice - how it’s done - and that it absolutely works. Excellent article about in-herding, the learning curve, the potential for Europe - and the amazing benefits.

👉 Go here for more

Share

6) Africa’s largest transboundary rewilding project

Once upon a time, one of Africa’s great migrations what that of the springbok - twenty million would move across the region - and such large-scale movement has a tremendous impact on every aspect of fauna and flora. As more and more of Namibia was parceled out and fenced in, more and more of the necessary corridors were blocked … the migration faded, and so did all the animals that, one way or another, benefitted from those migrations.

The Global Rewilding Alliance shares the story of ORKCA (Orange River-Karoo Conservation Area) in southern Namibia. The initiative works with local communities to remove fencing and to create new stewardship models with the hope that, eventually, the vast springbok migrations can once again happen, in a corridor that’ll reach all the way into South Africa, too. As the GRA reports, ORKCA’s ambition is huge - “to rewild 1 million hectares of restored wildness, where nature and people flourish side by side.”

👉 Go here for more

7) Good oyster news from the UK

Oyster reefs are important marine habitats that offer so-called ecosystem services like the filtration of water, storing of carbon, and even the protection of shorelines. According to this article, science estimates that less than 15% of the historic distribution of oyster reefs remain. Restoration efforts are critical for the health and resilience of costal habitats and communities.

Now, as what is called one of the UK’s biggest rewilding projects, more than fifteen million juvenile oysters will be dropped into the North Sea around Orkney in the hopes that these will before long re-create a huge oyster bed. The greater hope is that this project will lead to many more. As Richard Land (marine expert lead for the project) says, “It won’t just benefit fish and the bay, it will benefit sea mammals, seabirds and the whole environment.”

👉 Go here for more

8) And still commercial whale hunting continues

Whales are ecosystem engineers, essential for healthy oceans. In a time when we all need to do our part to help restore nature, there is simply no longer even a hint of justification for commercial whale hunting. Forty years ago, in 1986, a whale hunting moratorium came into effect, but three countries continued. Japan, Norway and Iceland have slaughtered over 45’000 whales since then.

Seems hard to believe, right? Three countries, forty-five thousand whales … and that despite the fact that a) there’s a moratorium, b) there is no economic necessity, because c) most people have no interest in eating whale meat. To perfectly illustrate: In 2022, around 36 tons of whale meat was illegally exported from Norway to Finland to use as dog food. And in Japan, where there’s also barely any interest in whale meat, there’s lobbying to create such that missing interest. In this article, I’m taking a closer look at the Japan’s commercial whale hunting. As with many such topics, it’s emotionally loaded - and here a key reason is WWII.

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should. He explains what we’re looking at here: “These are the female 'flowers' or strobili and the new needles opening out from their buds on a young European larch tree (Larix decidua). After the strobili get pollinated they will grow on to become ripe seed-bearing cones by the autumn.”

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Upgrade to paid - Every little helps 🌞

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait - featuring rewilder Emir Delic, whose wild heart and main focus lies with the Western Balkans - as well as inspiring and insightful stories from 🇷🇴 Romania, 🇺🇦 Ukraine, 🇩🇰 Denmark, 🇮🇹 Italy, 🇨🇳 China, 🇺🇸 the US and 🇫🇷 France.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Emir Delić

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Emir Delić, a conservation scientist and practitioner working at the intersection of rewilding, biodiversity conservation, and environmental governance in the Western Balkans and beyond. He supports rewilding initiatives and designs projects that restore ecological processes while also working for people and local communities.

I wish a had an ounce of Emir’s knowledge and experience. With his hope for the future, I so hope he’s right: “In ten years, I hope rewilding in the Western Balkans is no longer seen as a niche idea, but as a credible, science-based approach embedded in policy, land-use planning, and community development. I hope more rivers are free, large carnivores are better understood and more fairly managed, and protected and conserved areas are better connected and governed. Personally, I hope to have helped build institutions, partnerships, and projects that last - and to look back knowing that the landscapes I care about are healthier, wilder, and more resilient than they are today.”

👉 Get to know Emir

2) The comeback of the magnificent eagle owl

Mark Hillsdon is a freelance writer focused on nature. In this article he travels the Danube Delta and visits rewilders both in Romania and in Ukraine, where the restoration of eagle owl populations is underway. It’s an enjoyable read, you’ll feel as if you were exploring those massive wetlands with him. The eagle owl is huge - it can be up to 75cm tall and sail past with a wingspan of up to 180cm! This bird of prey is sorely needed, as it aids in “controlling the spiraling population of rats that threaten the eggs and chicks of ground-nesting birds such as plovers and avocets.”

These large birds were once widespread, but heavy persecution almost wiped them out. Luckily, the eradication program was ended in 1969 and today the hunting of eagle owls is completely prohibited. The reason for the need to reintroduce them in places where they’re no longer present is quite surprising: “Eagle owls lack an adventurous streak and, once they fledge, they don’t disperse, they don’t explore. As a result, nature can’t be relied on to repopulate an area, so human intervention is needed. But reintroductions need to be carefully managed - eagle owls can prey on almost anything … they are super-predators.”

👉 Go here for more

3) How feral horses and cattle are rewilding Europe’s landscapes

The Rewilding Academy’s Arend de Haas writes about the immense ecosystem-engineering value of large grazers. Humans have shaped the lands for a very long time now into large swaths that are cleared and tilled and mono-cultured and degraded. The reintroduction of free-roaming large herbivores helps far more than just the soil to recover. By trampling, grazing, wallowing and seeding, new habitats are created by their very presence. These new habitats enable the return of biodiversity-rich, healthy nature.

Arend explains that successful reintroductions depend on, “understanding not just that these animals eat plants, but how they move across the landscape, where they choose to feed, and how their presence affects vegetation patterns over time. Until recently, these questions were difficult to answer. But a team of ecologists in Denmark has brought new clarity by tracking GPS-collared horses and cattle and combining their movement data with satellite observations of vegetation productivity. The results, published in a recent study, reveal both predictable patterns and surprising behaviors.”

👉 Go here for more

4) “Defensive Rewilding” … wait, what?

I had not heard the time, but it’s been around for a while. We live in strange and truly disheartening times when some are downright eager to destroy whatever clarity and safeguards have existed since WWII. I think it cannot be helped that Europe builds up its own spine and lets go of a dependence that can no longer be relied upon (let alone tolerated). As part of all of this, “Defensive Rewilding” is gaining more and more traction not just in theory, but in practice.

The idea is simple: “Restoring wild forests, peat bogs and wetlands on Europe’s borders would establish defensive barriers that are hard to cross for enemy armored units, at a fraction of the cost of concrete anti-tank ditches while bringing environmental benefits, researchers said.”. Some countries are already doing it, like Poland and Finland. To me this parallels perfectly with the European Green Belt initiative. Maybe an EU-wide “Defensive Rewilding” initiative will supercharge that effort.

👉 Go here for more

5) Bear corridors in Italy prove to be corridors for all

In the Central Apennines, a mountainous range in Italy where Rewilding Appenines is making a huge difference, a great deal of focus is on the Marsican brown bear. Several corridors are supporting the protection and restoration of this species. What I particularly like about this study are the results from one of the lower-altitude corridors where there is traditional human activity (non-intensive agriculture) - such corridors are proven to be rich wildlife habitats.

Rewilding Appenines writes that the central point of the study’s finding clearly shows that “corridors designed for the Marsican bear do not serve the bear alone. They function as high-quality habitat for an entire mammal community. This is what ecologists call the umbrella effect: protecting a species with large spatial requirements creates favorable conditions for species with smaller ones.”

👉 Go here for more

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6) The Przewalski’s horse is thriving in China

There are only 2’000-2’500 Przewalski’s horses in the world. This endangered horse is different from most horses with genetic characteristics that make it a true and ancient wild horse (as opposed to domesticated-gone-feral horses). There are ongoing restoration efforts around the world and the Przewalski’s Horse, is now one of the large grazer ecosystem-engineering heroes reintroduced in many countries.

China started its “Wild Horse Return Program” forty years ago - and now they’re celebration that anniversary by highlighting the success of its breeding programs. They write, “The Przewalski’s horse — the world’s only surviving wild horse species — has completed a historic transition from being on the brink of extinction to there being self-sustaining wild herds in Northwest China. The population of Przewalski’s horses in China has surpassed 900 individuals, accounting for approximately one-third of the global total.”

👉 Go here for more

7) Depaving supports rewilding

This story focuses on one particular project in Portland, Oregon, where the NGO Depave Portland removed the concrete slabs of a parking lot. Instead of a parking lot, the area is turning into a greened space where children can play and where native wildflowers and fruit trees can grow. When you just think about it in global terms, it’s dramatic. According to the article there are about 2 billion parking places in the US alone (now imagine that worldwide) - in all of those places, the soil beneath is trapped, unable to breathe, unable to do what it is meant to do.

When you read the article, you see that Depave Portland - started by two friends that helped each other depave their driveways - is growing and inspiring. There’s no doubt on my mind that such depaving projects support rewilding. When you’re out and about today, look around. Maybe you see a space that really does not need to be paved. And then bring people together to change it! These depaved places are nature isles (ideally even corridors) in and around cities that allow wildlife to travel as it should always be able to do, to foster healthy, genetically rich and biodiversity-rich environments.

👉 Go here for more

8) The history of organized wolf hunting in France - from Charlemagne to today

Wolf hunting in France has been an institutionalized force as far back as the realm of Karl the Great, better known as Charlemagne. In the early 9th century, the great Europe unifier organized the wolf hunters - the luparii - that would in later centuries become known as the Louveterie. Led by the Royal Wolf-Catcher - the first was named by King Philip IV in 1308, this was as prestigious as that sounds. This Royal Wolf-Catcher was responsible directly to the king to whom he took his oath, and his wolf hunters enjoyed a variety of privileges.

In this article I’m roaming across many French centuries, looking at Little Red Riding Hood, the Beast of Gévaudan, the numbers of human deaths, the decline and eradication of the wolf - and its return. And I’m looking into the thorny subject of human-wildlife conflict today - the rational and emotional realities. Finally, I’m suggesting that, instead of wolf-outrage, we could tackle the underlying cause of it all. Many won’t like it, but it would solve so, so much.

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should. What you’re looking at here is the underside of an ear-pick fungus. Another one of nature’s countless marvels.

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

Upgrade to paid - Every little helps 🌞

That’s it for this week’s edition. Eager for more rewilding insights?

• connect with these organizations - sign up for newsletters and support them in any way you can;

• join these events - conferences, online seminars, rewilding days and weeks to immerse yourself and learn from the experts;

• read these books - a selection from Foreman to Macdonald, and from Tree to Daltun, Hetherington and Bowser;

• listen to these podcasts - it’s inevitably inspiring when the likes of James Shooter, Ben Goldsmith and Brooke Mitchell talk to the pros in the field;

• and check out these resources - explore the principles, ways of funding, research publications and personal ways to start rewilding.

And, of course, connect with and follow the many passionately engaged rewilders. Let’s keep growing the movement! 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

Leave a comment

Go ahead, do it! 😊 I love comments and you can ask me anything (literally). You can also let me know about projects you come across, article you think I should share - and feel free to throw in tough questions, too - spice of life!

Oh, and please do click the ❤️ (like) button, too. The more ❤️, the more these posts rise in Substack’s algorithm - which means more and more people will discover rewilding, will learn about it, will engage around it, and hopefully will become active rewilders before long. Thanks!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait - featuring Argentinian rewilder Rocío Llamas, who helps drive rewilding tourism with Wilder Places - as well as inspiring and insightful stories from 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland, 🇵🇹 Portugal, 🇩🇰 Denmark, 🇮🇳 India and 🇦🇺 Australia.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: Rocío Llamas

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet Argentinian rewilder Rocío Llamas. She is one of the fine people who lead Wilder Places, the new travel marketplace created by Rewilding Europe. Wilder Places is all about rewilding and nature-positive tourism, giving people the opportunity to discover Europe’s rewilding landscapes, local communities, and nature’s magnificent return.

Asked about sources of inspiration, her answer should resonate with all of us. Regardless of our backgrounds, our paths - we can all take action: “Throughout my (still short) career, I’ve met people without university degrees who inspire me more than anyone. People who act from where they are, their local community, their neighborhood, their school. People who don’t make excuses … To me, there are no excuses. You fight for this planet from wherever you stand.”

👉 Get to know Rocío

2) What you're looking at is a wolf ... in Scotland

Now don’t freak out! There’s no illegal reintroduction happening - what IS happening is a fantastic short film by Dan Pringle and Annie McBain. The Crowdfunder campaign was launched just last week - and of the £18'000 goal nearly 13’000 are already in the bag! I’ve joined in, too, of course. Just to be clear, this is NOT a documentary. It is fiction, it is creative storytelling at its best.

I read the script and love how it weaves Scotland and the wolf into a deeply emotional tale of nature lost and found, of life rediscovered and cherished as we step into the wild. Here’s how they describe it: “Inspired by George Monbiot's landmark book Feral, this is a poignant, cinematic exploration of a woman who catches a glimpse of something wild and finds she cannot go back to the life she had before. It is a story about the thin line between belief and obsession, and about a longing most of us feel but rarely name: the hunger to reconnect with the natural world.”

👉 Go here for more - and to support the film, of course!

3) Rewilding Portugal reports on how rewilding boosts local economies

One of the things you get to discover when you travel to rewilding landscapes across Europe (go book yours at Wilder Places!) is that local communities are always at the heart of it. It is always about nature AND people - we are part of nature and rewilding actually boosts local businesses and, by making abandoned landscapes healthier and biodiversity-rich again, makes it more attractive for new families to move in and revitalize villages.

Case in point: One of Rewilding Europe’s rewilding landscapes is Portugal’s Greater Côa Valley. They report that, over the past three years, economic activity linked to rewilding brought over 1’000’000 Euro (across tourism, services and local businesses). Head of Rewilding Europe, Frans Schepers, says, “Wildlife watching and guiding, local services, products, and nature-based businesses all show how different parts of the local economy are engaging with the landscape in new ways. As a result, more people are working with wildlife, local services are supporting rewilding efforts, and new businesses are growing based on what the landscape provides. These shifts are part of how rewilding is becoming embedded in the landscape ecologically and economically.”

👉 Go here for more

4) “Diversity begets resilience, resilience produces abundance”

In his 2025 book ‘Generation Restoration: How to Fix Our Relationship Crisis with Mother Nature’, Tim Christophersen urges for ecological literacy and explains how we can reset our relationship with nature. Filled with stories and studies environmental successes and failures, the book offers clarity on our role as part of nature and, in particular, what we can learn from Indigenous peoples around the world, who understand important and obvious lessons about nature that have escaped other societies.

I’ve only just come across the interview with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler and Tim Christophersen - it’s a good read. Discussing the book, of course, but also simply focusing on our (the human species) relationship with nature, what’s gone wrong, and what we can do to repair that relationship. Because, as he rightly puts it, “Repairing that relationship is not option. Unlike a failing marriage, humanity cannot simply walk away.”

👉 Go here for more

5) In India’s Thar Desert, the tree is part of your family

Nature recovery is a family matter! This story ties in perfectly with the aforementioned book by Tim Christophersen. He talks about relationship with nature - and in India Thar Desert, trees are considered, quite literally, part of the family. In the 2000s a professor was despondent by the apathy he saw around him when it came to a row of wilting neem trees on campus. “Instead of framing his interventions as conservation, he began characterizing them as familial. With students and villagers, Jyani created the first “green family”, linking saplings to households rather than to official programs. The shift was cultural before it was ecological.”

Now, two decades later, more than five million trees have been planted over 4’000 hectares and the concept of “familial forestry” has firmly taken hold. The article relates that, across 18,000 villages in the Thar, “close to two million families are now raising what they call their “green sons and daughters”. The idea is simple: if a tree is adopted as a family member, it will not be abandoned.” Beautiful, right? I like the “cultural before ecological” - it goes jives with “emotion before intellect.” Once it’s family, it is under your care, it is a part of you … exactly as we should always look at nature.

👉 Go here for more

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6) Cranes grow their numbers in the Scotland

They were driven to extinction in the 16th century for the usual reasons, you know, the ole’ habitat loss and hunting stuff we do so well. But after four hundred years, a pair bred again in Scotland - and 2025 marks a new record, with ten breeding pairs and nine chicks. Mind you, the RSPB says that the return is far from secure, there’s the Avian flu, and there’s the ever growing risk of extreme weather conditions that can disrupt the wetlands breeding grounds these birds need.

The RSPB writes that the return of the common crane also happens in England, and there in bigger numbers: “Cranes first recolonized the UK in 1979, when a small number of birds from mainland Europe were spotted in Norfolk. Since then, their numbers have increased with the birds also having a record-breaking year in the rest of the UK with a total of 87 pairs raising 37 chicks.”

👉 Go here for more

7) Micro-predator: The return of Australia’s ampurta

A cautionary curious tale of passive rewilding about a the introduction of invasive species … and dealing with a virus. You see, Small critters have had an increasingly rough time in Australia since domestic cats (that then went feral) were introduced in the late 18th century. The next century made matters even worse, when rabbits and foxes were brought in from Europe for the purpose of recreational hunting. Those three species pushed many others to the brink of extinction.

Now here comes … disease! A rabbit-killing disease had been brought to Australia to test it in 1991, but it got out of quarantine in 1995 and killed many millions of rabbits within a matter of months. Fewer rabbits, led to indirect suppression of cats and foxes and so, the tiny ampurta, highly adaptable to tough conditions, had the chance to make a return from near extinction - from 1995 to today, studies report that they’ve bounced back in many-fold numbers. A good news story for sure … unless, of course, you’re a rabbit.

👉 Go here for more

8) Neither pest nor rat with wings: the omnipresent and oft-maligned feral pigeon

There are many famous squares in many cities around the world - and the one thing they all have in common is what seem to be millions of pigeons. Do you know why? Because their ancient ancestors were rock doves (also known rock pigeons), nesting in a safe and cool place somewhere high up - cliff-like conditions that are perfectly replicated by modern cities. Somewhere around 5’000 years ago, domestication of rock doves began - and all of those countless feral pigeons you see in cities come from domesticated pigeons were bred for a variety of purposes for many ages.

Until we decided times had changed, time to call them rats with wings. Eventually pigeon meat was no longer in demand, same with pigeon guano, same with messenger pigeons. Again, feral pigeons are offspring of domesticated pigeons. These feral pigeons are here, in our cities, because we made them. And they are dependent on the environment and the food sources that cities provide. I would think that the responsibility lies with us - I think we should accept them with all of their beauty, intelligence (and yes, guano, too) - and in my article I also show how that can happen.

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should. Below image: Walking past, you wouldn’t even notice. Just a wasp, just the flower of a willow … but with Alan’s keen eye - what colors, what mesmerizing, almost magical, nature.

To find out more about Alan, his public speaking, writing, photography and more, visit him at alanwatsonfeatherstone.com. And if you feel like reading about my fantastically unique day with him in Glen Affric, go here.

Glad you’re here, reading the Rewilder Weekly. Share the stories, write your own (and let me know about it), engage with others. Let’s continue to reach out, inspire and activate ever more people around the world. The rewilding movement is growing, and with all of us pitching in, it’ll grow a great deal more!

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Welcome to the latest edition of the Rewilder Weekly. 🦬🌳🐺🌞🌍

This week with the latest rewilder portrait - featuring the Rewilding Britain’s Policy and Advocacy Lead for Wales, James Hitchcock - as well as inspiring and insightful stories from 🇵🇱 Poland, 🇵🇹 Portugal, 🇷🇴 Romania, 🇬🇧 the UK, 🇺🇸 the US and 🇨🇭Switzerland.

Wishing you a good week!

Cheers,

👉 If you come across stories you’d like to see featured in a future edition of the Rewilder Weekly, send them to me and I’ll gladly do what I can.

1) Meet the Rewilders: James Hitchcock

Meet the Rewilders is a series that introduces you to people engaged in the rewilding movement across the globe. Today meet James Hitchcock, the Wales Rewilding Policy and Advocacy Lead for Rewilding Britain. The timing couldn’t be better as, while various rewilding projects were already happening in Wales, the brand-new Welsh Rewilding Alliance has just been launched. Bravo!

In his portrait, James talks about his journey from protecting a single species to restoring entire landscapes - and with everything he says you sense just how strong his focus on people is. In his words: “Success will come from continuing to move away from “nature is great, nature makes you feel good” to “nature helps solve these problems and provides these opportunities for the challenges we need to meet and the issues that people care about”. Widening the conversation so there’s more voices included and we look more at land policy, community wealth and rural jobs outside of farming is going to be essential.”

👉 Get to know James

2) Protecting both people and bears in Poland

There are thought to be somewhere between 120 and 400 brown bears in Poland. They seem to be doing well and as the population is growing, coexistence efforts are now implemented. A new scheme (funded by the EU) is set up to monitor and respond to bear sightings. When they’re too close to human habitations, they’re caught, fitted with trackers and released.

Part of conflict prevention is about a rapid-reponse team of twenty people that is expected to be at the ready for whatever potentially dangerous situation is reported. But there’s more to this, of course. Bears like an easy meal and rubbish bins are feasts! So bear-proof bins are installed and in years to come the replanting of fruit trees and bushes in the mountains will offer bears plentiful food sources. Another part of any coexistence effort is, of course, education. Whether it is local residents or hikers, learning about bears is key. As Tomasz Zajac of the Tatra National Park says, hikers should stick to trails and avoid leaving waste behind and “if someone comes across a bear, they should slowly retreat but avoid running away, as a bear will be provoked to chase and, reaching speeds of 50 km/h, is the likely winner.” Indeed!

👉 Go here for more

3) What you’re looking at was a mine until recently

Until just ten years ago, the landscape was an industrial wasteland. Before it was abandoned, the mine was used to extract tin, tungsten and sand. Today, I mean just look at the picture, tells one heck of a beautiful story. Rewilding Europe writes: “Today, from the air, the 300-hectare rewilding site reveals a vibrant mosaic of lakes, ponds, ditches, and wetlands, as birds, dragonflies, turtles, otters, and a host of other species return to recolonise newly formed habitats. Around the water bodies, native forest is regenerating, strengthening resilience and further boosting biodiversity.”

With rewilding projects, quite often water needs a helping hand, either by digging ponds, undoing drainage damage, removing dams and freeing rivers. In this case, when the mine no longer operated, water began to collect in the hollows - and so the healing began. Rewilding Portugal - with funding support from Mossy Earth - has been managing the site since 2022 and stepped in with some heavy lifting to help nature recover. What a fantastic difference the efforts have made.

👉 Go here for more

4) What do you do when a bison walks into your village?

Every month, the Carpathia conservation foundation sends out an update. Invariably, their efforts and initiatives and successes are a joy to see. By now 4.5 million trees have been planted; 75’000 hectares are protected for wildlife - zero recreational hunting; 28’000 hectares or forest are under permanent protection; 2’200 students and teachers have been involved in environmental education projects and 353 local people receive fair pay for their involvement with Carpathia activities.

You’re wondering what all of that has to do with a bison walking into the village … well, it’s all part of overall effort. Follow below link and check out page 12 of the report where they write about the work “caused” by two reintroduced bison that have wandered into a village, damaging fences and feeding on hay. The way they go about, handling it together with villages, is exemplary. This is the way a healthy level of respectful coexistence is achieved. Well done!

👉 Go here for more

5) The griffon vulture returns to Romania

Another Carpathia story! This one is about returning vultures to Romania. Until about the middle of the last century, some vultures were still soaring the Romanian skies. There once were griffon, cinereous, bearded and Egyptian vultures - and then they were all gone. With several partners, Carpathia plans on reintroducing all of these vultures to Romania - and the work begins with returning the griffon vulture to the Fagaras Mountains.

A special aviary has been built where the griffon vultures that have arrived from Spain are housed while the acclimatize. They will be gradually released into the wild and will stay near for a while until they really roam wild. These birds are amazing - they can have a wingspan of nearly three meters! Carpathia writes, “Through the vulture reintroduction project in Romania, we aim to restore an important part of the natural balance of the Făgăraș Mountains and to offer a concrete example of collaboration between science, local communities and conservation. This is just one of the efforts we are making to protect the area as a future national park, the highest level of protection that priceless wilderness in the heart of the country can receive.”

👉 Go here for more

6) The first of the ‘Brit Bisons’ are moving north!

I wonder if anyone’s already used that term, I kinda like it - Brit Bison - has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Here’s the thing, the first three European bison returned to England in 2022 as part of the Wilder Blean Project. They were three females, one from Scotland and two from Ireland - and to everyone’s surprise, a calf was born even before a bull from Germany arrived! Read the whole story here. The herd began to slowly and steadily grow … and now the north of England just received their first five bison from the Wilder Blean gang.

The location is somewhere in Cumbria. Paul Whitfield (head of the Wildwood Trust) explains in the video, the folks up there want to make their own announcement so stay tuned for that. Says Paul: “Inspiring a new project like this is exactly what we hoped for from the start. The Blean bison were always meant to act as a catalyst for change, showing how bison, as ecosystem engineers, can alter woodland structure and support greater biodiversity.” Well, ‘Blean bison’ sounds okay, too, I guess - but there’s country-wide pride in Brit Bison, Paul - feel free to use and trademark it!

👉 Go here for more

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7) What is more important: healthy nature … or angling?

Apparently, the answer is angling! A new VOX article, penned by Benji Jones, tells a very uncomfortable story: Millions of nonnative fish are dumped into lakes and rivers across most US states every year - because of recreational fishing needs. This is as fascinating as it is concerning. He writes “recreational fishing is an enormous industry in the US, contributing some $230 billion to the economy each year, according to the American Sportfishing Association, an industry group. Because waters across the country are so degraded, stocking nonnative fish keeps this industry afloat.”

The economy is of course most often a key decision factor. Here, in addition, there’s a problem with the funding model. State conservation is apparently funded in part by selling fishing licenses. No recreational fishing, no fishing licenses sold - simple as that. This is a horribly warped system. The dumping of millions on nonnative fish is obviously a challenge for any ecosystem, with negative impacts unfolding everywhere. These has been done already for a very, very long time and so there’s the actual argument that, heck, the ecosystems are already broken, so why stop now? Anglers are happy, the money keeps flowing, all’s well …

👉 Go here for more

8) Fox hunting must end

In my neck of the woods, Switzerland, around 25’000 foxes are slaughtered in Switzerland annually. In neighboring Austria it’s around 65’000 - and in Germany the number, annually, is around 500’000 foxes. Let those numbers sink in. Hobby hunters shoot them as “small game” target practice - their official claims that they kill foxes because they’re pests/vermin, that they spread disease and that ground-nesting birds need protecting are all scientifically disproven.

Foxes are valuable predators and places where fox-hunting has been outlawed, like Geneva and Luxembourg and Vienna, show that there are no disease outbreaks nor measurable declines in ground-nesting birds. Where there are fewer ground-nesting birds, it is because of loss of habitats due to intensive agriculture. In this article, I’m looking into the history, the claims, the present and a way forward without the misguided and utterly pointless mass slaughter of foxes.

👉 Go here for more

To conclude this week’s edition, rewilding legend and Trees for Life founder Alan Watson Featherstone shares with us a bit of his iconic photography that often takes a look at nature in a way that’s far closer to what we ordinarily perceive in passing. Alan takes time - as we all should. He’s quite right in referring to the below image as nature’s artistry. Beautiful, right? What you see there are tracks of a carrion crow (Corvus corone) crossing the ripples in a sand dune.