“The Wolf Mountains – Where Nature Is Getting A Second Chance” is the title of a stunning documentary film about the Eastern Carpathians rewilding area that will be launched in theatres across Slovakia in September this year. The documentary, which shows one of Europe’s top wildlife areas, will also be presented to a worldwide audience at the 10th World Wilderness Congress, WILD10 in Salamanca, Spain, in October 2013.
Arolla Film, a Slovak-based film company, produces the film. Rewilding Europe has supported the production both financially and technically. The film tells the story about one of the remaining large wilderness and wildlife areas in Europe, known in the past as the Wolf Mountains (Vlčie hory). Together with friends, the Slovak wildlife film maker and project leader of the Eastern Carpathians rewilding area Erik Baláž spent three years in this area located in the territory of three countries – Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine – exploring living together with wolfs and other animals. Here one of Europe’s largest wild-living populations of bison lives side by side with red deer, roe deer, wild boar, lynx, wolves, brown bears, beavers and otters. It has vast, extensive forests with untamed rivers, low undulating mountains with scattered alpine meadows and pockets of old-growth forests. A world almost untouched by people’s hands opens to your eyes, yet with huge opportunities to become even wilder and create ways for people to enjoy and benefit from this rich nature.
Warm up for this great film and watch the trailer here:
A number of tangible results have been achieved here already during the first year of rewilding work. This was mainly linked to obtaining a good overview of the opportunities for rewilding in the Bieszczady region in Poland and the Polininy area in and around the Polininy National Park in Slovakia. A feasibility study showed that the Eastern Carpathians rewilding area provides huge rewilding opportunities on both the Slovakian and Polish side. Also, there is a large local support for the initiative, as shown by a poll held in 2012.
For more details on the results in this rewilding area so far, see our Annual Review 2012.
Despite these promising initial results, the Rewilding Europe board decided to review the Eastern Carpathians rewilding area, before moving forward. This review relates in particular to ensure a number of critical factors are being met to create a good base for success. We have started to explore with existing and potential new partners how this can be done. Conclusions are expected in the second half of this year.