Rewilding: Real Life Stories of Returning British and Irish Wildlife to Balance

A hopeful yet practical collection of essays exploring the many opportunities and benefits of rewilding and how to get involved today. Highly illustrated with nature photography tracing landscape change over thousands of years.

Rewilding has become the key talking point in the modern conservation movement. But it’s commonly misunderstood as a campaign to fill the forests with lynxes, wolves and bears, when in fact the ethos guiding the British rewilding movement is much more nuanced, and much broader in scope. It’s also much more complicated, requiring an in-depth understanding of the complexity of regional ecosystems.

Naturalist and photographer David Woodfall has spent years canvassing converts actually working in the countryside, meeting the people on the frontline of rewilding and collecting their stories. The result is a passionate chorus of voices from all facets of the movement. More than 50 contributors share stories of successful examples like the Knepp and Alladale estates, of unique species like the North Atlantic Salmon under threat, of the essential NGOs and trusts, of government agencies and policies, and so much more. Illustrated with Woodfall’s stunning nature photography, Rewilding offers at once an in-depth understanding of an essential movement and the people leading it; and of British ecosystems in all their terribly fragility and intricate beauty.

David Woodfall has spent 22 years of photographing nature. BBC Wildlife has described him as ‘the poet laureate of British and Irish landscapes'. In North America and Europe he is better known for his work on environmental issues. He has won a number of international awards including category winners in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards and in Natures Best (USA). Both his books, Natural Heartlands and Flowers at my Feet have been highly commended in the Natural History Book of the Year Awards.