The idea of resurrecting woolly mammoths and setting them loose in Siberia and the American Great Plains or lions roaming through central Europe is pretty mad. Mostly though, rewilding is much less barmy to the point of being conventional. Rewilding projects tend to have some features in common that distinguish them from your typical conservation programme. These include, reintroducing a species (such as elephants) or introducing a proxy species (such as elephants in the place of extinct woolly mammoths). They also often seek to restore the ecology of the location (such as by creating a new habitat type or by improving the existing one) and tend to have a significant social impact as a…
