WEBVTT

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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
the destruction of the natural world

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and attempting
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
are so amazingly resilient

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that you can smash them,
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
are so much tougher

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than the big trees like oak and beech
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,
but elephants were everywhere.

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♪ (guitar music) ♪

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Our ecosystem was dominated
by giant straight-tusked elephants

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

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♪ (guitar music) ♪

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And the elephants in Britain,
they were driven out

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by the ice into the southern Europe

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and they persisted there
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
wiped out by human hunters.

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♪ (guitar music) ♪

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

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(sheep bleating)

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And rewilding offers us
this fantastic opportunity

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to start restoring systems or

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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