REWILDED LANDSCAPES
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Clockwise from top left: Costa Rica’s Tenorio Volcano National Park protects a dense swathe of rainforest; nightingales and free-roaming cattle have returned o Knepp Estate in West Sussex; Río Celeste waterfall, in Tenorio Volcano National Park, cascades from a height of 30 metres; wild horses roam Italy’s Monti Sibillini National Park Previous pages from left: The Eurasian lynx is Europe’s largest wild cat; Scotland’s Glenmore Forest Park is home to centuries- old forests
ature’s ability to bounce back never stops amazing me,” says Esteban Brenes-Mora. The conservation biologist, who works for the environmental organisation Re:wild, is discussing his favourite subject: tapirs.
The long-nosed, charismatic herbivores are revered in his
native Costa Rica. But they — and pretty much every other shred of biodiversity — were eradicated when a cattle ranch was created on the fringes of mountainous Tenorio Volcano National Park in the north of the country in the 1990s. Today, following a decade of intensive rewilding at the site,
with new plantings and the restoration of its lagoon, life is flourishing once more — and what’s now proudly known as Tapir Valley Nature Reserve is frequented by the creatures. To Lisa Chilton, CEO of Scotland: The Big Picture, such natural
“irrepressibility”, as she calls it, is all too familiar. The social enterprise-turned-charity was founded in 2008 to drive large- scale nature recovery and rewilding across Scotland. Today, it works with dozens of landowners and projects across the country, including Ballintean Mountain Lodge, the home of Peter Cairns, a photographer and founder of Scotland: The Big Picture. The lodge sits amid the Cairngorm massif, a major mountain range in the eastern Highlands, which has itself become emblematic of Scotland’s rewilding journey. In 1995, the lodge and its land were the site of an over-grazed
equestrian centre. But three decades of ‘letting nature lead’, to use the buzz phrase, has transformed the property into a teeming mosaic of grassland, woodland and scrub with a species-rich floodplain around the River Feshie. It’s a reminder, says Chilton, that ecological regeneration
can work at all scales. “I think there’s a feeling that rewilding is just for billionaires who can buy tens of thousands of acres and dedicate it to the process. But it’s far more inclusive and accessible than that.” When Scotland: The Big Picture was being set up two decades
ago, the concept of rewilding was still in its infancy. Now, it’s become a major movement, supported by cross-border groups such as Rewilding Europe, which brings together 100 initiatives across 29 countries, and Re:wild, which counts Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio among its backers. The first step is always the cessation of the harmful activity,
such as intensive farming, logging or overgrazing. Sometimes this is done proactively, perhaps through the purchase of a degraded site. More often, a shift in industrial patterns frees an area from further exploitation. One example is the Lusatian Lakeland project in eastern Germany, in which disused opencast lignite mines are being flooded to create Europe’s largest artificial wetland landscape. Lake and mountain environments are particularly prized for
rewilding, largely for one reason: water. When rivers originate in higher ground, reintroducing a healthy mountain ecosystem has huge downstream benefits, literally as well as figuratively.
Lakes, meanwhile, are the quickest and surest way to supercharge a rewilding process. “It’s like when you dig a pond in the garden,” says Chilton. “You’ll immediately see life attracted to it.” Reinstating water flow through the removal of dams is highly
beneficial, as is ensuring land is naturally grazed rather than cut back. The aim is for an ecosystem to become self-sustaining once more. Species reintroduction — the grey wolf in Yellowstone National
Park in the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, for example, or the Eurasian lynx in Germany’s Harz mountains — may play a part. This can lead to what’s known as trophic cascade, in which changes at the top of the food chain have trickle-down benefits for every element of the environment. But the disproportionate publicity given to the reintroduction
of such creatures often over-simplifies what is, in reality, a highly nuanced term and process. “It’s just wolves, isn’t it?” says Charlie Burrell, parroting a common reaction when he talks about the topic of rewilding. Burrell — Sir Charles Burrell, to give him his full title — is
one half of the highest-profile couple in UK rewilding. His wife, Lady Burrell, is the author Isabella Tree, whose 2019 bestseller, Wilding, told the tale of how the couple transformed the Knepp Estate in West Sussex from a failing farm to a pioneering 3,500- acre rewilding project. Now, Knepp Estate teems with life. The bodies of water across
the estate are havens for dragonflies, water shrew and rare flora such as the water violet. Herds of cattle, pigs, deer and ponies roam the landscape. And some of Britain’s rarest creatures, including purple emperor butterflies and nightingales, have found their way here. There’s not a wolf in sight. “We’ve been trying to get the message through for many
years,” says Burrell. “Rewilding is a deeper, more philosophical way of thinking about our future and about how we interact with nature.” Another big misconception is around people. The inferred
corollary of the term rewilding is that humans must logically be excluded. In fact, the vast majority of successful projects have nature-human coexistence at their centre, whether that’s persuading local communities that there are economic as well as environmental benefits to the process or attracting eco- conscious visitors to help make a project sustainable. Knepp Estate makes far more income as a thriving restored
ecosystem than it ever did as a farm, with tens of thousands of visitors a year walking the footpaths, enjoying overnight stays and taking themed ‘safaris’ to spot re-established species. Similarly, travellers flock to the Lusatian Lakeland for breaks that would baffle those who recall the area in its former guise, while the Tapir Valley Nature Reserve is now a hotbed for eco-tourism. “As a cattle ranch, perhaps just one family benefitted,” says
Brenes-Mora. “Now that the site has switched to eco-tourism, it might be a dozen or more. It’s a message we’re always keen to get across: rewilding opens up opportunities.”
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER – LAKES & MOUNTAINS COLLECTION 33
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