Rewilding the World with Ben Goldsmith

"Engaging with nature in that urban space can be so beneficial and if we scale those micro actions up to a macro level, imagine the change that would seed."More and more urban rewilding projects are engaging growing numbers of citizens in local nature restoration. In this episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith is joined by Elliot Newton of Citizen Zoo – an organis

"All of us involved in the project are driven by the opportunity to make a real difference for this special part of the planet." Eradicating giant mice from South Africa's Marion Island, a vital haven for seabirds. The vast, wild Southern Ocean is home to albatrosses, petrels and other remarkable seabirds which wander for years on end in search of food. Only to breed

"A lot of Costa Rica's success on forest cover hasn't been emulated in terms of active rewilding. That's what I'm trying to start the wheels turning in Costa Rica; when do we need to use more of an active approach?" In this episode Ben Goldsmith is joined by Andy Whitworth of Osa Conservation, an organisation which is busy rewilding Costa Rica's e

“I would be very excited if I found a grasshopper on the balcony and my parents would put it in a jar for me to observe.”In this episode Melpo Apostolidou from BirdLife Cyprus tells Ben Goldsmith about the remarkable ongoing effort to return the vital, majestic Griffon vulture to the skies of Cyprus, in the eastern Mediterranean.Melpo and her team have achieved this extraordina

This episode’s release coincides with World Rewilding Day 2024, with this year’s theme being Hope Into Action. A great example of this in practice is the work being carried out by Jonathan Thomson who has created the twenty-two acre wild paradise Underhill Nature Reserve on the border of Wiltshire and Dorset in southern England.A lot of people wonder how to go about rewilding s

“We’re already starting to see dramatic habitat and water quality improvement across that Kissimmee valley.”The Everglades, North America’s largest and most vital wetland, is a place of extraordinary beauty but is facing enormous problems. The immense ‘river of grass’ has been desperately disfigured, principally by ill-considered hydrological engineering and heavily sub

“Feral cats are the primary driver of the decline of small mammals. We’ve lost more than 30 mammal species in Australia over the last couple of hundred years and the primary driver of that is cats.”Australia has a mammoth problem with invasive species brought by European settlers to the country which had been isolated from the rest of the world for millennia. Now, major effor

“Think globally, but act locally. We need to start putting some of that stuff back locally otherwise we don’t pass on anything great to our future generations.”The Scottish Highlands is one of Britain’s most beautiful and ecologically degraded landscapes. Change is in the air, however, as long lost keystone species such as wild boar, wildcats, white-tailed eagles and beaver

“With abundance comes resilience and with abundance these animals and the wildlife populations can thrive and can survive these climatic changes.”Andreia Pawel is from ORKCA, the Orange River-Karoo Conservation Area, based in the south of Namibia. The country is made up primarily of desert but once was a the place where springbok migrations dwarfed those of modern day zebra and

“What we are doing is to create the conditions, ecological and sociological, for the return of these two large predators that are present… but we need to find conditions for them to settle and to grow.”Drive through Portugal and you will see vast plantations of non-native species like eucalyptus and pine. But with these plants comes the demise of the ecosystem and a huge risk