Rewilding the World with Ben Goldsmith

"Our herd is north of 5,000 so I think it's the largest conservation herd in the country and it may be the largest herd period, even amongst non conservation."  North America's iconic bison are recovering from the brink of extinction. Millions of bison once populated the North American landscape but by the turn of the 20th century, fewer than 1,000 remained.  In this episode of...

"I saw everything that was missing from the sea of my childhood." If you haven’t seen the latest David Attenborough film Ocean yet, you must. It’s a masterpiece.  In the latest episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith speaks with one of the key people behind it, Enric Sala, from National Geographic‘s Pristine Seas campaign . It has secured protection from industrial fishing for milli...

"We have to make this crime type too risky and lower the reward. We need to seize all the assets that they gain from their criminal enterprise... it's something I'm very committed to." The illegal trade in wildlife and the body parts of wild animals is driving many creatures towards extinction; yet governments put little effort into busting the culprits and closing down this vi...

"Go for it. Go into any kind of career even if you don't have that ecological education and change the culture from within. That's just such a powerful moment." How can rewilding and traditional pastoral farming systems go hand-in-hand? The grazing, browsing and movement of livestock has shaped our landscapes across millennia. In the latest episode of rewilding the world Ben Go...

"Oyster reefs do this really special thing; they become a refuge for finfish species, for crabs, for all types of really important species and so it's really critical for all of those species to interact together and oyster reefs make that habitat."    New York’s Billion Oyster Project is one of the most exciting urban rewilding projects ever. In this episode of Rewilding the World,...

“You’re going to invest in a fund but this fund is going to own peatlands, sphagnum moss, re-wiggled rivers. It's going to restore farmland, it's going to own oyster reefs.” How are we going to find the funding needed to restore nature at scale? Protecting communities and infrastructure from flooding, and drought, by rewilding river systems may hold the key.  In this episode of Rewilding...

"We fill a law enforcement void that exists in the world's oceans and we'll continue to fill that void until government fills that vacuum. And then we'll hold government accountable." Sea Shepherd is a truly heroic organisation, with four ships, brave crews and volunteers who hunt down the world’s worst ocean abusers: illegal fishing vessels, and whalers are amongst the wo...

“There absolutely is no substitute for just seeing it but also smelling it, feeling it, hearing it. You can read all the books and watch all the films you like but there is absolutely no substitute for seeing it in the flesh.” The mysterious appearance of seemingly tame lynx in the Highlands of Scotland raised questions about who released them and why. Scotland’s native Eurasian lynx are believed...

"Part of restoring nature - a really important part - is making sure that everyone has equal access to it." The National Trust is now arguably one of Britain’s most ambitious and important nature charities. It now has plans for restoring nature on an area larger than Greater London. In this episode Ben Goldsmith is joined by the Chair of the National Trust, Rene Olivieri, who has been hu...

“We don’t give nature enough credit. All mankind needs is to do is to move aside and let the natural system return.” Iraq is one of the five countries most touched by some effects of climate change, according to the United Nations. In this episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith talks with Azzam Alwash, founder of Nature Iraq, about the fabled Mesopotamian marshes. This great wetland is consi...

"We are destroying these ecosystems at our peril, and if we take out these apex predators, like mountain lions or lynx we are messing with our own capacity to survive, not just wildlife."  Did you know there are mountain lions living in the very centre of Los Angeles? Some cougars have even gained celebrity status. In the latest episode of Rewilding World Ben Goldsmith is joined by wildl...

" British saltmashes accumulate about 700,000 tonnes of carbon a year alone, and in the top 10cm of soil saltmarshes hold about 2.3 million tonnes of carbon." Ben Goldsmith is joined by Angus Garbutt, a coastal ecologist and world expert on saltmarshes. In this episode Ben and Angus discuss why these mysterious, alien places are absolutely vital. So much saltmarsh habitat in Britain and...

The smell of a dead animal, a carcase, an animal that's just been killed, is something you'll never ever forget and it's that that sticks with you. It's that that gives you the energy to continually try and do my best to put a hold and a stop to what is still happening out in South Africa. In this episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith talks to England cricket legend Kevi...

"Up in Oregon, sixty miles from that old dam site, adult Chinook salmon were swimming in the Klamath River. It happened in ten days, when our scientists were saying it might take ten years." The largest dam removals in history just took place on California’s Klamath River. In the latest episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith talks with Chuck Bonham, Director of California Fish and...

"River restoration is essentially a violent act, what we do, but it's because it's undoing a violent act. It's essentially an equal and opposite violent act to what was done to the rivers in the first place." Rivers are meant to be wild things but we have tamed them out of all recognition in the UK. Our rivers and streams have been straightened, buried underground, encased...

"Larger scale restoration projects mean better ecological outcomes, but they're also more efficient in terms of cost-per-acre." What can be seen as one of the most important things currently happening in rewilding is the opening up of private investor capital for the purpose of restoring nature.  This has never happened before; it’s always been a charitable endeavour. However, that...

"I'm very happy, last week we brought beavers to France and that was my 1000th beaver I had exported either myself or through the organisation. And that was not just to bring back the beaver, but also to bring back the benefits of the beaver." One man is responsible more than any other for bringing beavers back to Europe; German ecologist, Gerhard Schwab. There were probably two to...

"If you look at restoring the whole Andes, the entire Andean mountain range, you can't just go at it by planting trees. There are so many other things that you need to do to holistically permit nature to actually come back." In this episode Ben Goldsmith talks with inspirational Earthshot Prizewinner, Florent Kaiser . Florent is leading an effort to restore the high altitude forests...

"We just put together a project in Indonesia on restoring mangroves and it's 2000 hectares, and over 40 years the local communities will get in excess of 100 million dollars." People are pretty much sold on the idea that we need to restore nature at scale. David Attenborough said it himself, we need to ‘rewild the world’ but the question is how do you pay for it? What if there was a...

"Coming to terms with the wolf in Britain would be one of the biggest and bravest things we've ever done. But we desperately need to start a conversation about how we do this and when we do this and start to make progress towards attaining it as a real goal." Beavers are the ultimate ecosystem engineers. Derek Gow is a farmer turned conservationist and played a major role in reintro...

"If you want to save any species on Earth, there's really only one species you have to fully understand, and thats homo sapiens, because are the cause and therefore we are the solution to just about every rewilding or biodiversity or climate concern." This time on Rewilding the World, Ben Golsmith talks to Brett Jenks, CEO of Rare.org. They discuss how the St. Lucian parrot was save...

"I remember genuinely thinking, 'we don't need insects. What's the point of them?' Little did I know!" Welcome to a new series of Rewilding the World with Ben Goldsmith. In this first episode Ben is joined by Stephen Fry. As well as being a national treasure, and one of the funniest people in England, Stephen has long championed nature projects both in the UK and abro...

"Over a period of 10 years we were able to rear in captivity 331 Kestrels that we released back into nature." In the latest episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith speaks with legendary conservationist Carl Jones about the island of Mauritius. Carl famously led efforts to save a variety of species. These included the Mauritius kestrel which was on the brink of going the way of the d...

"El Carmen Nature Reserve is a very good example of a success of conservation, with the interaction of several actors from the private sector and government agencies from both sides of the border." In this episode Ben Goldsmith is joined by Alejandro Espinosa Treviño who - on behalf of Cemex - is overseeing restoration of a great swathe of grassland, forest and mountain on Mexico’s north...

" We have started to get a few things right, why can't we just watch the things we have done right and do more of them?" In the latest episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith speaks with legendary author and oceans campaigner Charles Clover who also co-founded the Blue Marine Foundation . Charles' seminal book, The End of the Line, marked a turning point in our understandi...