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Rewilding is a new (and controversial) wildlife conservation technique.

We are surrounded by landscapes modified by millennia of human intervention and activities. In recent years, ecologists and conservationists have started to explore how nature can be brought back in, particularly how these landscapes can be "rewilded", so that nature can take its course. Rewilding would mean the removal of local agriculture and the reintroduction of locally extinct species (such as beavers in Scottish rivers and wild cattle in the Netherlands). In some cases, analogue species could be introduced to replicate the role of extinct species, such as a proposal for introducing African elephants to the American plains to replicate the ecological role of woolly mammoths. Rewilding is controversial, not just scientifically but also for its potential impacts on human economies, societies and cultures.

This talk will explore the science and politics of rewilding, from the rivers of the UK to the proposed Pleistocene Park of Siberia.