Escape from Extinction: Rewilding
The earth is rapidly approaching a sixth mass extinction event, with a quarter of all species under threat. However, there is still hope. Armed with a radical new vision known as ‘rewilding’, follow the world’s top environmental leaders on a spectacular journey across six continents as they work to rebuild ecosystems, restore biodiversity, and even transform lives.
Rewilding a Nation
Robi Watkinson and Emma Hodson travel across Britain and the Netherlands documenting the story of the rewilding movement from its inception, to the return of the beaver, bison and perhaps one day, the lynx to Britain.
Moose in the Glen
Multimillionaire landowner Paul Lister wants to turn his 23,000-acre estate north of Inverness into Europe's first wilderness reserve. Reinstating the old Caledonian pine forests is the first of his plans. He then wants to release long-lost animals, starting with moose and wild boar, and eventually predators such as brown bears, lynx and wolves. Some of the local people are far from convinced by Paul's vision. Will he even be allowed to let loose moose in the glen?
Am Madadh-Allaidh
For 12,000 years wolves roamed Scotland. However, over three centuries ago, we exterminated them. This film reveals the rise and fall of the Scottish wolf and explores the question of whether they should be re-introduced. Wolves arrived as the last ice age ended, following the herds of deer and reindeer that crossed a now-lost land bridge from Europe. For thousands of years, wolves and humans shared the landscape as apex predators, with the wolf entering human art, myth and belief. However, farming put wolves and humans on a collision course, and, after centuries of persecution, wolves became extinct in Scotland. Since then, deer numbers have exploded, and many of Scotland’s woodlands have been stripped bare. Some argue for the wolf’s return. Could we, and should we, hear the howl of the wolf once more in the Highlands?
American Serengeti
Scientists take on the project of rebuilding the great American plains. Conservationists must reintroduce populations of iconic American species, some on the brink of extinction.
The Last Giants
Riverwoods: An Untold Story
Three years in the making, this feature-length documentary shines a light on the perilous state of Scotland’s salmon, and tells the compelling story of a fish that once lived in the forest.
Pleistocene Park
Genius or madman? The adventure film of the year takes us on a bumpy journey to the Siberian steppes, where a Russian geophysicist wants to restore the ecosystems of the Ice Age through radical rewilding.
Mammoth
In the remote Russian Arctic, an aging scientist and his son are trying to recreate the Ice Age. They call their experiment Pleistocene Park – a perfect home for woolly mammoths, resurrected by modern genetics. But the mammoths are only a means to a bigger end: defusing a carbon timebomb frozen in the permafrost to slow the effects of global warming.
Birds of the Lakes Return
An excellent display of how humans can rehabilitate and restore an area where a heavy industry polluted the water so severely that it was unsuitable to sustain any kind of life. A a film showing how birds returned to an environment once devastated by industry. The lakes around the northern Slovenian town of Velenje, placed in the Central Europe, are geographic center of the film. They emerged as the land above the lignite mines subsided and the depressions were filled with water. The mines started operating at the end of the 19th century. In the mid 20th century a power plant was built that caused a severe pollution of the lake waters to the extent of the lakes not being fit for any kind of life. As a consequence many birds moved from these parts. After a long ecological restoration that started in the mid 1980s, life returned to the water. Gradually the birds returned as well, including some there were previously never observed in this area.
Rewilding Patagonia
This is one of the most beautiful rewilding stories of our time, that of Douglas and Kristine Tompkins, a couple of successful entrepreneurs – The North Face and Esprit – who decided to dedicate themselves to protecting vast territories in Patagonia. The results of their actions are astounding: in 30 years they enabled the creation and expansion of 18 national parks between Chile and Argentina, covering a total area of 7 million hectares, equivalent to the size of a country like Ireland. By transforming these spaces and reconstructing natural ecosystems, the development of these parks has also enabled the creation of social bonds, developed a new form of economic activity, brought forth a political space, and contributed to strengthening the population’s sense of belonging to their territories.
Germany's Wild Amazon
As one of Germany’s beauties, the river was the gem of German landscape. But with industrialization it became the country’s hardest working river and like everything that has been overworked, it lost it magnificence and charm. Due to tender love and care, the river is now a reigning example of one of the most successful and outstanding renaturation projects in the country.
ReWilding Kernwood
For three decades, Jean Aspen and Tom Irons called Alaska's remote Brooks Range home. Choosing to live lightly with the land, their family built a log cabin and explored the valley on foot-a journey they shared in books and documentaries. Now elders, the couple decide to close the circle and erase their footprints. In their third documentary, they dismantle their home and carefully restore the site to intact wilderness while exploring stewardship, responsibility, and human belonging to our living Earth. ReWilding Kernwood is a layered conversation on release, completion, and finding purpose in the shifting mystery of life.
Why Not Scotland?
The film accompanies Flo, a young Scot from Glasgow, on an intensely personal journey, as she seeks out examples of nature recovery around Europe. Like many of her generation, Flo is concerned by the state of nature and fearful about an uncertain future. However, during her travels, she discovers places where nature is making a spectacular comeback, breathing life back into the landscape and revitalising human communities. Encouraged by these stories of hope and renewal, she is prompted to wonder: Why Not Scotland?