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(birds chirping}

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{lion growling)

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(birds chirping}

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♪ (guitar music) ♪

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Rewilding means reversing[br]the destruction of the natural world

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and attempting[br]a mass restoration of ecosystems.

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(sound of bulldozer passing)

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(birds chirping)

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♪ (guitar music) ♪

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Why is it that trees[br]are so amazingly resilient

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that you can smash them,[br]you can twist them and splinter them,

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but they still come bounding back?

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And why is it that understory trees

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like box and holly and yew[br]are so much tougher

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than the big trees like oak and beech[br]and ash in the forest canopy.

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♪ (guitar music) ♪

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I think the same answer applies to both

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and that is elephants.

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Does that sound crazy? I'm sure it does,[br]but elephants were everywhere.

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♪ (guitar music) ♪

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Our ecosystem was dominated[br]by giant straight-tusked elephants

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and if trees could not resist them,[br]they would be wiped out.

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♪ (guitar music) ♪

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And the elephants in Britain,[br]they were driven out

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by the ice into the southern Europe

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and they persisted there[br]till about forty thousand years ago.

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So did rhinos and hippos.

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Lions and hyenas lasted much longer.

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But they were all eventually[br]wiped out by human hunters.

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♪ (guitar music) ♪

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We live in a shadow land, in a dim,[br]flattened relic of what there once was.

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(sheep bleating)

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And rewilding offers us[br]this fantastic opportunity

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to start restoring systems or

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allowing them to restore themselves. I see[br]it as reintroducing missing plants and

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animals, then stepping back and letting[br]nature get on with it.

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One estimate suggest that between 2000 [br]and 2030, around 30 million hectares of

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land will be vacated by farmers, and that[br]is an area the side of Poland.

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So maybe, we're being a bit unambitious if[br]we're talking about just wolves and lynx

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and bisons, and otters and beavers, which [br]are already spreading fast across Europe.

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Perhaps, we should also be thinking about [br]bringing back some of the lost Megafauna.

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it seems to me that, REWILDING offer[br]us more than just the restoration of

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the ecosystem; it brings back into our [br]lives a lot of thrill, and wonder and

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enchantment. And wouldn't it be amazing if[br]everybody had a Serengeti on their

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doorstep.Rewilding the ecosystem offers us[br]a chance to rewild our own lives as well.