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 allowing them to restore themselves.

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I see it as reintroducing
missing plants and animals,

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then stepping back
and letting nature get on with it.

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♪ (guitar music) ♪

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One estimate suggests
that between 2000 and 2030,

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around 30 million hectares of land
will be vacated by farmers

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♪ (guitar music) ♪

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and that's an area the size of Poland.

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♪ (guitar music) ♪

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So maybe, we're being a bit unambitious

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if we're talking about
just wolves and lynx and bison

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and boar and beavers, which
are already spreading fast across Europe.

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(various animal sounds)

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Perhaps we should also
be thinking about bringing back

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some of the lost megafauna.

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It seems to me that rewilding

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offers us more than just
the restoration of the ecosystem.

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It brings back into our lives
a lot of thrill and wonder

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and enchantment.

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And wouldn't it be amazing if everybody
had a Serengeti on their doorstep?

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♪ (guitar music) ♪

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Rewilding the ecosystem

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offers us a chance
to rewild our own lives as well.