The period from July to October is a risky one in Western Iberia every year. You cannot imagine how high the temperatures can get and how scarce the rains most often are. This means a great risk of fire. Even if fire is a natural phenomenon here and has always been, the frequency has increased to very high and dangerous levels that are not natural. Not because of the climate, but rather because of humans and their habits.

Natural grazing is all about the return of wild and semi-wild grazers to their natural habitats. But what does this mean? And how does it serve us and nature?

A herd of 24 Retuerta horses, coming from the Doñana biological station in southern Spain, were released in the Campanarios de Azaba reserve on July 27. The release was possible thanks to the Rewilding Europe initiative and the collaboration between the Nature and Man Foundation and the Doñana Biological Station.

From 26 to 30 March, Rewilding Europe organized a training seminar in The Netherlands for all the five project teams from the different European countries. The main subject was on natural grazing and communication, as these are two very important and challenging subjects in all our rewilding projects. This was the second training seminar that we organized, after the successful one on conservation enterprise development in Finland in October 2011.

It was 25 years ago when  I saw a tortoise for the last time, as a researcher of perhaps the richest area of reptiles in Europe: Thrace. Even Egyptian vulture, imperial eagle and black vulture fed on reptiles there. And it appeared that the majestic golden eagle, elsewhere picking young ibex and chamois off the rocks, was taking almost 100 tortoises a year per eagle chick back to the nest.