The Rhodope Mountains have today officially become a part of the Rewilding Europe initiative, after a period of intensive preparations for it within the region.

At the second European Rewilding Network webinar for its members, on July 8, there was an exchange of first hand experiences and inspirational stories from several rewilding sites about novel ways of building rewilding partnerships with hunting interests.

Stoycho Stoychev, a nature conservation colleague from the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds is one of the winners of the 2014 Whitley Awards. The 2014 Whitley Awards Ceremony was held on the 8th of May at The Royal Geographical Society in London, hosted by Kate Humble and the awards presented to the winners by HRH The Princess Royal.

A fresh sunny autumn morning in the late October of 2013 in the Studen Kladenets (Cold Well) Game Reserve in South-East Bulgaria. The colours of the trees are like the design of blankets made by the locals in this region: from green through yellow and reddish to brown. The morning haze is slowly moving from the top of the Yumruk Skala (Feast Rock) down to the smaller hills. The narrow asphalt road along the recently fenced area of a few hectares is almost completely blocked by cars and people.

The disappearance of grazing herds of sheep and goats transformed large areas of the Mediterranean mountain landscape into forest with dense undergrowth and scrub. These landscapes are particularly susceptible to large fires and extremely dry summers due to climate change increase the chances of this. But with the return of native herbivores such as deer, ibex, wild horses and wild cattle, semi-natural landscapes, which are much less vulnerable to fires, are once again formed.