Imagine What Could Come Back

If there is one clear message coming from rewilding circles and efforts – on land and sea – it is the joyous message that, given a chance, Nature does not waste time restoring human-damaged ecosystems and bringing back to those rewilded areas some of what we had thought was lost to us for good.

I can’t think of a better message for us to celebrate as spring unfurls in the UK, so the special theme in this issue is dedicated to a celebration of not just rewilding, but the less-known initiative of renaturing too.

We celebrate World Rewilding Day on 20 March. Of course, no rewilding conversation on or off the page would be complete without reference to beavers, and in this issue the environmental landscape artist Gary Cook discusses their recent reintroduction to the North Yorkshire estate Broughton with the owner, Roger Tempest, a man who has been sent death threats for rewilding much of the historic estate’s 3,000 acres to prioritise Nature!

Many of us are now looking for rewilding inspiration even further north, to Scotland, where some 400 years ago beavers were hunted to extinction. Witnessing a beaver-reshaped landscape is literally awesome, and today, after a scientifically monitored reintroduction programme that started in 2008, there is an estimated population of 1,500 animals.