"I don't want to make a zoo. I don't to take care of those animals for eternity, I want them to live on their own and in order to have a sustainable ecosystem it's extremely important to have all niches filled in this ecosystem." In the place of the vast Siberian tundras were once great grasslands teeming with wildlife, until early humans hunted them out. In the latest episode of Rewilding the World Nikita Zimov explains how his Pleistocene rewilding project in remotest Siberia is...

"If it quacked like a Duck, to be honest I don't think we’d be that excited about it but because it sings like an angel and it looks so beautiful and it lives in liminal spaces - these wetland areas where we don’t really feel at home - all those things add together to make the Curlew a very mysterious and very loved bird." In this episode Ben Goldsmith is joined by Mary Colwell, Director of Curlew Action. She is also a writer, producer and a giant of Britain's conservation movement. Mary has ...

"We thought the project was over... We would lose the trust of the public and they were sceptical to begin with. We stuck together." Michigan's mighty Boardman-Ottaway River has been liberated by the removal of four huge concrete dams, thanks to decades of hard work by Frank Dituri and Brett Fessell. In this episode you'll hear all about this staggering story of restoration. Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to people from all over the world ...

"Our seas around the UK are so busy. There are so many different activities that happen on it, from fishing to offshore wind, to cabling, to shipping... so looking after and building space for restoration and regeneration and reseeding the sea is so important." On this episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith is joined by Sandy Luk about the Marine Conservation Society's ambitious Wild Atlantic Coast campaign. It aims to restore seagrass meadows, kelp forests, oyster reefs and abundant wi...

"They don't hate wolves, they just hate the idea of losing their livelihood. So for me, if we can prevent the conflict, and we can empower rural areas and rural land owners and ranchers to be the best stewards of the land that we can, that's the best way to keep conservation alive in the West." In the latest episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith talks to range-rider Daniel Curry who works with cattle ranchers to foster coexistence with wolves and other wildlife. Daniel is doing vital w...

"Something like 27 million people in Britain consider themselves gardeners. If you can harness those people, if you can get them thinking about their relationship with the natural world; with wildlife, with invertebrates, with bugs, with biodiversity, you're getting quite a big chunk of Britain heading in the right direction." In this episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith talks to Dr. James Canton, author of Renaturing: Small Ways to Wild the World. Discover how James trans...

"What we really need to do, and what we're really trying to do with our work, is bring back that old forest condition and the main ingredient for that is time - we're buying these forests time." In this episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith talks with Shelby Perry from the Northeast Wilderness Trust. New England's vast and majestic forests have recovered greatly in the last century. Shelby and her colleagues are doing all they can to protect them into the future. Text...

"Sea otters are the best long term solution for the health of the ecosystem and resiliency off of the coast as a keystone species." The release of this episode of Rewilding the World coincides with Sea Otter Awareness Week. Ben Goldsmith talks with Chanel Hason of Elakha Alliance, working to reintroduce vital sea otters to their former Pacific north-west range. Sea Otter Awareness Week is organised and sponsored by Defenders of Wildlife, Sea Otter Savvy, California Department of P...

"The wolf is the devil in hundreds and hundreds of years of storytelling. If you're talking about the devil's right hand it's very difficult to talk about proper population sizes or quotas; you just want to get rid of him." Imagine the reaction if the headlines proclaimed that Sri Lanka was to kill half its leopards, or Costa Rica half its jaguars. Well, here in Europe, Sweden is doing just that – downgrading or removing protections for vital, iconic species such as wolves, brown bears and ly...

"These tortoises are absolutely the ecosystem engineers. They are incredible grazers, they are nutrient cyclers, they are seed dispersers, also just mechanically they are the largest creatures on these islands." In the latest episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith talks with Aldabra tortoise champion Celina Chien. The islands of the Indian Ocean once teemed with giant tortoises but European sailors harvested them nearly to extinction. Now the Indian Ocean Tortoise Alliance i...

"I think what we need now is a new landmark Act of Parliament to set the vision for the coming 50 to 100 years; truly visionary in restoring nature at scale, but doing that in a way which is going to help the country to thrive in terms of public health, our resilience to climate change and to be able to secure our water and food security long into the future." In this episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith speaks with Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England, and a lifelong campaigner for...

"We're essentially trying to create an AI powered research assistant to accelerate the rate of discovery and support biologists understanding even more and help the biologists come up with new hypotheses from their own data." Imagine if we could decipher the language of other animals such as whales, monkeys or crows? How would that change our relationship with them? In this episode Ben Goldsmith talks with Katie Zacarian of Earth Species, which is using artificial intelligence to do just this...

"Our herd is north of 5,000 so I think it's the largest conservation herd in the country and it may be the largest herd period, even amongst non conservation." North America's iconic bison are recovering from the brink of extinction. Millions of bison once populated the North American landscape but by the turn of the 20th century, fewer than 1,000 remained. In this episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith talks with Canadian bison champion Tom Olson about the return of this ma...

"I saw everything that was missing from the sea of my childhood." If you haven’t seen the latest David Attenborough film Ocean yet, you must. It’s a masterpiece. In the latest episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith speaks with one of the key people behind it, Enric Sala, from National Geographic‘s Pristine Seas campaign. It has secured protection from industrial fishing for millions of square kilometres of seas around the world. Enric is a true conservation hero. Ben Goldsmi...

"We have to make this crime type too risky and lower the reward. We need to seize all the assets that they gain from their criminal enterprise... it's something I'm very committed to." The illegal trade in wildlife and the body parts of wild animals is driving many creatures towards extinction; yet governments put little effort into busting the culprits and closing down this vile trade. In the latest episode of Rewilding the World, Ben Goldsmith talks to Olivia Swaak-Goldman, formerly of the ...

"Go for it. Go into any kind of career even if you don't have that ecological education and change the culture from within. That's just such a powerful moment." How can rewilding and traditional pastoral farming systems go hand-in-hand? The grazing, browsing and movement of livestock has shaped our landscapes across millennia. In the latest episode of rewilding the world Ben Goldsmith speaks to landscape ecologist Toby Diggens to discuss how the rich agro-ecological history of Britain informs...

"Oyster reefs do this really special thing; they become a refuge for finfish species, for crabs, for all types of really important species and so it's really critical for all of those species to interact together and oyster reefs make that habitat." New York’s Billion Oyster Project is one of the most exciting urban rewilding projects ever. In this episode of Rewilding the World Ben talks to Katie Mosher about the once vast abundance of oysters in New York and along the whole Eas...

“You’re going to invest in a fund but this fund is going to own peatlands, sphagnum moss, re-wiggled rivers. It's going to restore farmland, it's going to own oyster reefs.” How are we going to find the funding needed to restore nature at scale? Protecting communities and infrastructure from flooding, and drought, by rewilding river systems may hold the key. In this episode of Rewilding the World, Ben Goldsmith is joined by Rob Gardner of Rebalance Earth, a new initiative which aims to ...

"We fill a law enforcement void that exists in the world's oceans and we'll continue to fill that void until government fills that vacuum. And then we'll hold government accountable." Sea Shepherd is a truly heroic organisation, with four ships, brave crews and volunteers who hunt down the world’s worst ocean abusers: illegal fishing vessels, and whalers are amongst the word offenders. Captain Peter Hammerstedt joins Ben Goldsmith to share some white-knuckle stories of environmental heroism o...

“There absolutely is no substitute for just seeing it but also smelling it, feeling it, hearing it. You can read all the books and watch all the films you like but there is absolutely no substitute for seeing it in the flesh.” The mysterious appearance of seemingly tame lynx in the Highlands of Scotland raised questions about who released them and why. Scotland’s native Eurasian lynx are believed to have suffered extinction more than 500 years ago. In this episode Ben Goldsmith is joine...