Join our Wild Horizons series to hear fireside stories from today’s
most inspiring conservation pioneers
Wednesday, 9th November 2022
6.30pm GMT / 7.30pm CET
1.30pm EST / 10.30am PT
IN CONVERSATION WITH…
With the forest restitution in Romania and clear-cuts starting in 2005, they went back into conservation and founded Foundation Conservation Carpathia with the goal to stop illegal cutting and to create a world-class wilderness reserve. Since 2009, they have raised over €100m , which has developed into the largest private land conservation project in Europe and have made huge steps to realise this plan.
Creating Europe’s Largest Forest National Park: Carpathian Mountains, Romania
Christoph, born in 1965, achieved a degree in forestry at the University of Munich, however was always drawn to protect natural landscapes instead of logging them down. In 1993, he initiated a research project about wolves in the Romanian Carpathians where he intended to spend 3 years.
However, meeting his Austrian wife Barbara, a fellow biologists and conservationist, in Romania, he spent the next 10 years developing this initial research into a complex multi-layer conservation project upon wolves, bears, and lynx. In 2003, after finishing the large carnivore project, Christoph and Barbara set up a horse-riding business and spent time exploring Transylvania on horse-back.
Isabella Tree is an award-winning journalist and author of five books, married to the conservationist Charlie Burrell.
Her best-selling book Wilding tells the story of the daring wildlife experiment they began in 2000: rewilding their 3,500 acres of unprofitable farmland at Knepp Estate in West Sussex, UK. In less than twenty years their degraded land has become a functioning ecosystem again, wildlife has rocketed and numerous endangered species have made Knepp their home. What has happened at Knepp challenges conventional ideas about nature, wildlife and how we manage and envisage our land. It reveals the potential for the landscapes of the future.
Isabella and Charlie are currently working on The Book of Wilding – a practical guide to rewilding big and small, due to be published by Bloomsbury in May 2023. Isabella also writes for The Guardian, National Geographic Magazine and Granta. Her children’s books When We Went Wild and When The Storks Came Home are published sustainably by Quarto Books.
REWILDING THE JAGUAR
IBERÁ WETLANDS
ARGENTINA
Conservationist Kristine Tompkins & her late husband Douglas Tompkins have achieved unprecedented success as philanthropists with more than 25 years dedicated to saving wildlife and natural habitats. As the current president and cofounder of Tompkins Conservation, Kristine has worked to protect wild beauty and biodiversity by creating national parks, inspiring activism & fostering economic vitality as a result of conservation. In 2018, she was named the United Nations‘ Global Patron for Protected Areas.
Jonathan Baillie is President of Natural State whose mission is large-scale natural restoration. Jonathan was formerly Chief Scientist and Executive Vice President, Science and Exploration at National Geographic Society, where he led grant making in areas of science and exploration and acted as Vice Chair of National Geographic Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration, based in Washington DC.
This extraordinary wetland, the largest in Argentina, is home to 30% of the biodiversity in the country including endangered species such as the pampas and marsh deer, the maned wolf and grassland birds like the strange-tailed tyrant.
In 2005, what was to become one of the largest rewilding programs in the Americas was started, with the goal of restoring keystone species that had been extirpated from Iberá through hunting and habitat loss and were extinct in the region, the Province or, in some cases, the country.
As the rewilding program developed, the cultural identity of Iberá began to recover alongside the ecosystems and natural processes, impacting a total population of 100,000 people who surround the park.
Today, Iberá stands as one of the world’s most successful ongoing conservation missions.