Bring Back the Wolf - Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life - page 109

that restoring ecological processes makes more money for local people
than was generated by the industries that formerly used the land. It is
hoping to reintroduce missing species and to raise the populations of
animals which until now have been persecuted. While talking to two
of its officers I was told something I have not heard from environmen-
talists in a long time: 'money is not a problem'. Public enthusiasm for
rewilding on the Continent is so great that their initial projects are
fully funded.
In 1997, wildlife groups and travel companies formed the Pan
Parks Foundation, which hopes to secure a further million hectares of
self-willed land in Europe.* So far it has protected 240,000 hectares,
in Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Lithuania and Belarus, Romania,
Bulgaria, Italy and Portugal. In 2012, after ten years of negotiations,
it created what it calls its first 'transboundary wilderness': a single
protected area incorporating national parks in Finland and Russia in
which no hunting, grazing, logging, mining or any other extractive
industry is allowed.†
The conservation group WWF is helping to protect around a mil-
lion hectares in the Carpathian Mountains and the Danube catchment,
connecting existing national parks and rewilded lands in Serbia and
Romania. 38 A coalition of wildlife groups called Wild Europe hopes to
allow wildlife to move between protected areas all over the continent,
by creating ecological corridors and restoring degraded land. 39 The
Polish government intends to increase the wild land around the
Białowieza Forest, the largest expanse of primeval forest in Europe. 40
The German government has now pledged to rewild 2 per cent of its
land by 2020. 41
Almost everywhere, except Britain and Ireland, large charismatic
species are returning. Wolves have spread across most of Europe.
* It uses a definition of wilderness produced by a coalition of wildlife groups: 'Wilder-
ness areas are large unmodified or only slightly modified natural areas, governed by
natural processes, without human intervention, infrastructure or permanent habitation,
which should be protected and overseen so as to preserve their natural condition and
to offer people the opportunity to experience the spiritual quality of nature.'
† It connects the Oulanka and Paanajärvi national parks, creating a single 'wilderness'
of 132,000 hectares. 37