I look down and meet a pair of hard-boiled white eyes staring back at me from Virginia’s freshly cooked zander fish soup. It is lunchtime with Cristian and Florin under a pergola dressed in grapevines. Finally I am here, in the village Crisan after flights, road trips, hotel nights and an extensive riverboat journey.
Rewilding Europe is the cover story of the November issue of Timbuktu Magazine, the first iPad magazine for children. The Wild issue has just been published.
Environment leaders have launched a new “Vision for a Wilder Europe” at Wild10, the world wilderness congress in Salamanca, Spain. Nine organisations from across Europe have promoted the Vision that seeks to build on the significant conservation achievements in Europe that have seen the comeback of some of our most iconic wild species such as the wolf, bear, sea eagle, salmon and beaver.
As rewilding is gaining momentum, it is interesting to see how people feel towards it. Wolf NGO, our partner in the Eastern Carpathians rewilding area, have conducted two polls in cooperation with the FOCUS agency, to find out people’s attitudes towards creating large wilderness areas.
Since many years I am dedicated to the conservation of nature and for almost a year I work with passion as Rewilding Manager at Rewilding Europe. Last months, an experience in nature and a notice in the newspaper made me think through a rewilding perspective.
It is already pitch dark when I arrive in the small town of Midwolda, in the far North of the Netherlands. I call Dirk Brul, the manager of Ennemaborgh and ask him for the key to the barn, my hotel for the night. I will not sleep alone.
Sometimes I feel like a modern cowboy, or as someone once told me: a bison boy. This November, I ‘rounded-up’ two bison in Switzerland and transported them in my big trailer to Belgium; one of many small actions, but part of a much larger operation. Rewilding Europe has an ambitious plan to have breeding herds of bison grazing in several of its rewilding areas in eight years. But where do all these bison come from?
I like to climb Veliki Rajinac. Neither the prettiest nor the highest peak of Velebit, but it is special to me because only there, leaning back on the deep soft mountain carpet and viewing the entire Adriatic Sea, I can easily unload my worries like nowhere else.
As rewilding is gaining popularity across Europe, it is important that scientific research follows, to answer at least some of the many questions that arise: how and to what extend can we reintroduce natural processes in larger ecosystems, what animals to reintroduce and where, how will they fit in the existing ecosystems, how do we know what the former wild Europe really looked like, how does rewilding relate to other types of conservation management, just to mention a few.
We continue to make steady progress as we seek to develop businesses which will support our rewilding objectives. We’re working both to identify and support existing businesses which are relevant to our rewilding areas – and also to design some new businesses where we feel there is an opportunity to create something different and complementary.
