In Ben’s Rewilding the World podcast series, he talks to the individuals behind some of the most inspirational and dramatic rewilding projects around the world. From the UK and Europe to Africa, the Americas and Asia, their work is helping return areas of land and sea to its natural state and creating spaces where wildlife can thrive.
In this episode Ben Goldsmith speaks with Highlander David Balharry. David leads the John Muir Trust, an organisation which is leading efforts to restore the great mosaic of woodlands and wetlands that once made the Scottish Highlands one of Europe’s wildest landscapes.
Pedro Prata is helping to restore great swathes of Portugal and provide spaces for native species to thrive. Through buying patches of land Rewilding Portugal is creating a mosaic of areas to reintroduce native animals and plant species with the hope they will spill out to the surrounding areas.
The Amazon of Europe stretches across five countries and is one of the places where there are still wild, pristine rivers. Dragana Mileusnic from The Nature Conservancy is part of the United for Rivers project helping to protect these precious freshwater gems for future generations.
The Lake District is an iconic landscape loved by millions and people traveling from all over the world to revel in its beauty. Lee Schofield is an author and head of RSPB Haweswater and is spearheading a project to create a landscape of thriving uplands wildlife alongside sustainable farming.
Removing parts of the sea’s ecosystem and the introduction of invasive species can have far reaching consequences both in and on the water. Zafer Kizilkaya is an award-winning conservationist and founded the Mediterranean Conservation Society which built and oversaw Turkey’s first community-managed Marine Protected Area.
Once Scotland’s great Caledonian forests stretched from coast to coast. In this episode Ben Goldsmith is joined by Steve Micklewright from Trees for Life. They, and organisations like them, are working to reinstate wild forest in the Highlands and build a new economy around wildlife and nature tourism.
Ben Goldsmith speaks to Astrid Vargas from Inspiration4Action. Astrid has been part of a plan to save one of the rarest big cats from extinction; the Iberian lynx. Thanks to the efforts of Astrid and others the numbers have been boosted from 90 to almost 1700 in the wild.
In this special episode join Ben Goldsmith as he speaks to conservationist and author Isabella Tree and Director of Rewilding Britain, Alistair Driver, about the concept of rewilding. In this episode the three talk about their own passion for rewilding and discuss why the movement can sometimes be viewed negatively.
Dams can effectively act as concrete straight-jackets. Spain is leading the way in the number of structures being removed from its rivers. In this episode Ben speaks to Pao Fernández Garrido from Dam Removal Europe about why the movement is taking such a hold there.
Christoph Promberger from Carpathia Wilderness Reserve is rewilding an enormous woodland across Transylvania, Carpathia and Romania. He joins Ben from his home at the foot of the Carpathian mountains, a range which stretches through seven countries and home to some of Europe’s rarest large mammals.
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“There are a growing number of extraordinary, huge-scale rewilding efforts taking place across the world, and nobody knows about them! I started my Rewilding the World podcast series to illuminate these, and to give people a regular dose of optimism.”
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