Rewilding Britain: Rebecca Wrigley on Restoring Nature and Empowering Communities

So I'm Rebecca Wrigley, and I'm the chief executive of Rewilding Britain. Wonderful. Well, nice to meet you. Thanks for joining the podcast, Rebecca. I'm gonna be really interested to kind of hear more about Rewilding Britain and your career and your advice as well.

Where to start? Well, I thought a good place to start is, before diving into what is Rewilding Britain, could you just give us, like, a little bit of an overview as what is rewilding? It's a word that many of us have heard of. I think if you're interested in conservation or working in conservation, it's a really interesting space. It's a topic that's kinda captured lots of people imagination.

But, yeah, just in case people are aren't super clear, what is rewilding? How would you describe it? So rewilding is the mass restoration of naturally functioning ecosystems to the point where they can start to take care of themselves. So it's about reinstating natural processes, and missing species where that's appropriate. But it's also about, working with people and nature.

So we feel that people are very much part of nature, not separate from. And so it's all about, finding a balance that works both the local people and communities, ensuring that we have economic models that support the restoration of nature just as as much as ecological models. Got you. So it's about bringing people into as well, not necessarily keeping people away but working with local communities to allow nature to restore itself. Yeah?

Yeah absolutely. I mean we know how important nature is for human well-being, for instance. And so restoring nature is is about restoring our our living systems, our life support systems. And so we need to rewilding Britain very much takes a kind of systems approach as it were. We need to look at the whole system and how we can shift it so that the balance between, so we kind of recalibrate almost the balance between people and nature.

Got you. Okay. What I'm really interested with rewilding, is this idea I think maybe it's just even in the term itself that conservation feels like we're sort of maintaining things. We're conserving. It's sort of status quo, holding on, if you want for a better word.

Whereas it feels like rewilding links to kind of restoration. It's about improving. It's about sort of bringing back and allowing nature to kind of take back hold. And that intuitively feels really, really exciting. And someone who wants to see nature thrive as as we all do, as many of us do, just that concept, that idea of kind of allowing, yeah, nature to come back is so exciting.

Like, what what do you find personally exciting about rewilding the concept? And, you know, you've been leading the organization now for eleven years according to LinkedIn. Yeah. So, obviously, you like the work and and that sort of area, but what do you find exciting about rewilding as a as an area of work? I mean, fundamentally, it's it's really hopeful, I think.

Mhmm. And it's about releasing nature. It's about reinstating those wonderful webs of life that form, that, you know, nature is is is very good at, forming and, and they're dynamic and ever changing. And so the the difference between maybe more traditional conservation approaches and rewilding is about it's about reinstating natural processes and then letting nature do its thing. Yeah.

And so it's not necessarily orientated towards one species or one habitat because we don't know what might return. If we if we if we put back in those natural processes like free flowing rivers and natural dynamics between predators and prey and natural mixes of sort of herbivores so that there's disturbance and things are ever changing and and it creates those sort of multitude of niches into which lots of wildlife can can live. And what we have in Britain at the moment is overly sort of degraded and simplified ecosystems that just don't have those full webs of life. And that's what I you know, I think we all kind of inherently know that because when we watch David Attenborough documentaries, we kind of see it through a screen and think, wow, that looks amazing. But I don't think we're very good at connecting what we see through a screen and what's happening outside our windows.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, and I love that as well, like releasing nature. Yeah.

Rather than, I guess, controlling and being clear on a a goal and where you get it to, this is about not knowing what the outcome's gonna be, but letting nature take its course. Yeah. And not not to I mean, I think one of my problems with the whole orientation towards specific habitats and species is that, we don't know what mixture of it doesn't really matter what, you know, what particular habitat whether it's a heathland or a woodland because naturally functioning ecosystems are amazing mixtures of the two, that sort of blend and change and, are constantly dynamic. And so what we want to see is those healthy living systems, that can then therefore become much more resilient to changes, whether that be climate or weather or, and so we get these sort of resilient but constantly changing and and colorful mosaics of habitats. That's what, we would like to see return.

/: 1930

I was wondering if you just, yeah, give us an idea of how you're going about achieving that really kind of ambitious, that really exciting goal. Like, what sort of programs or or strategies are you kind of playing out to help kind of drive you towards that? So we largely do three things. We help catalyze rewilding. So we have a rewilding network for instance that now has over a thousand members and covers an area of land around 180,000 hectares and it's a real variety and diversity of different kind of approaches from the large scale over a thousand hectares.

We might have private landowners but we also have community landowners for instance that are driving ecological restoration and community regeneration. But we also have much smaller scale members, three four hectares. And so what we're helping to do is create this sort of community of practice, this sense of peer learning and solidarity and sharing, so that we can put some of these practices into practice and learn from them, share them, and so that they start to become just an accepted way of of managing the land at sea. So that's one thing. We also influence.

So we want to create, you know, an enabling context for rewilding, which might be policy change, but it might be research priorities or technology that supports, rewilding. And then we engage people. So we want those that may own land or work on the sea to be involved but also those that might not, people that live in urban areas for instance, so that people can feel connected and a sense of involvement almost like a kind of rewilding movement. And ultimately, we want to see rewilding just mainstreamed into the way that we manage the land and sea. It's just another option.

It's not seen as separate, and it helps us to deliver, what we're asking of the land and sea in the twenty first century, which of course is around food production and timber production. But it is also about meeting our climate commitments, and our nature restoration commitments, ensuring human health and well-being, ensuring flood mitigation. So the challenges that we're facing currently are very different from fifty years ago and we have to adapt and evolve our approach to land and marine management accordingly. I find it. I hadn't quite appreciated the kind of the the the different scales that you're working at in terms of rewilding.

I think intuitively, my assumption is rewilding is like a big scale thing. Everything's tens of thousands of acres and hectares, but you're talking they can be small pockets of land as well and small areas and and small numbers of people and learning from those different scales. Yeah. I was wondering, like, could you maybe could you give some examples of maybe one or two projects that that Rewilding Britain's been involved with to kind of bring it to life? Maybe pick a small one and a big one if that helps.

You know? Just, you know, just and and how Rewilding has sort of changed or what changes you've seen, like, across the the lifetime of some of these projects, please. I mean, again a great diversity the one that probably most people are familiar is is the NEFA state. I mean partly because of the book Wilding and now the film Wilding where you can actually sort of see how that's changed and evolved over time and quite quickly as well. In ten, fifteen years, it's changed from farmland to, you know, what is starting to look like the African bush in many ways.

It's much more scrubby and and messy and, and complex and full of species. But that's just one example. We're also working with, the Langham initiative in Southern Scotland, which was a community buyout of an ex grouse, shooting estate. And so the community own the land and are leading again nature's restoration alongside community regeneration. So that's a really exciting and completely different sort of project over thousands of of of hectares.

But then we have lots of small scale projects. For instance, we have an innovation fund, for, to do what it says. In a sense, it is to help that kind of innovation. And, we recently awarded, funding to the scouts, for instance, to rewild some of their the areas of land they own but also sort of connect young people to to rewilding and engage young people. So that's a, a different type of project I suppose.

And then we have lots of smaller scale projects and urban projects and I think the scale while, true rewilding requires larger scale for those natural processes to be restored, actually, you can achieve that through connectivity, for instance. I mean, what we would love to see is people able to step from from their front door out into maybe an area of rewilded, park, through a river corridor, out into the countryside, and out into sort of larger areas of land. And let's not forget marine rewilding as well. We'd love to see areas where, they're left to restore themselves, where there is no trawling and dredging, where people can enjoy, being on the sea and seeing the species return. I mean, I live in Devon and I was lucky enough, that locally you can see bluefin tuna who've now returned to British seas and you can literally see them standing on a headland and they're jumping and leaping out of the water within 20 meters.

It's quite phenomenal. So again it's about engaging people in those experiences that we might associate with far flung places that people might go to but actually should be happening around around Britain. Yeah. And that I think that connects to the hope that you were talking about too and the, and the speed of change you talked about, NEP as well, how things come back really rapidly. You know, people think about NEP.

I've got the book actually over there. I think I know it's blurred out. Wilding is there, and he talks to you obviously about turtle doves coming back rapidly, bluefin tuna now coming back rapidly. It feels like if you get the balance right and allow nature to take its course, it it there's huge hope in that idea that, you know, things do return really quickly and hope isn't lost. Change can kind of revert back.

And, yeah, that's it's a really exciting kind of concept to be working within, I think. Yeah. And there's also all sorts of economic activities that can be associated with rewilding. I mean, we've looked into the kind of idea of nature based economies, for instance. If we want 30% rewilding when nature is is is restoring, we're prioritizing natural processes, we also have to have, local economies that support that and that communities and local people can benefit from.

And so that, you know, that can be often people think, oh, well, that's just tourism, isn't it? Whereas actually there is forms of meat production, for instance, and we, production of venison for instance which has to go in the absence of wolves and other predators. Actually we need to control their numbers more at the moment we're importing venison from New Zealand for instance when we should be linking wild caught venison into the food chain so that can be part of a kind of nature based enterprise for instance. Some forms of timber production are compatible with rewilding. So it can be an impetus for regeneration, and for sustaining and and diversifying livelihoods as well as, regenerating, nature.

So important. Yeah. I'd love to I'm conscious of time. So what I'd like to do is kind of talk about you and your role as well. Firstly, as chief executive, as you've been for eleven years, and then also about your career path as well.

So let let's start with your role as a chief executive. What's your job really like? Like, how do you describe it to people who don't know who you are and what you do? Like, bring bring bring a role like yours to life for us, I think, please. It's it's kind of difficult to answer with for Rewilding Britain because we, I helped found the organization eleven years ago, and we were, like, two people at that point.

In fact, we started with a few people doing it, on a pro bono basis. And in eleven years, we're now just over 30 people. So my role has has changed quite considerably but, you know, relatively gradually. And so and I've now got a fantastic senior leadership team, who are incredibly supportive, and a wider staff team. And so my role is moving more into thought leadership I suppose.

It's trying to, I mean, see the next step or the next two steps ahead and where we might move into and how can we just maintaining that bigger picture of if we're wanting to see 30% rewilding, where are the changes that need to happen? What are the levers that we can pull connecting with people's finding out where other people's energy is and where that their synergy with what we're doing and how we can collaborate. Because our ethos is very much to achieve things through helping to capitalise and enable others. I mean we deliberately don't own land or manage land for instance because we feel that we can have much more impact by influencing and supporting those that do. So that's sort of networking, influencing, being a ambassador for rerolling Britain and kind of that thought thought leadership role is what I do mainly do now.

Yeah. Yeah. And amazing to hear it's grown from two to 30. So you're obviously doing something really right and having to evolve and keep up with that organization as it grows, I guess. I was really interested, in a couple of things actually, man.

I was just preparing for the interview today. One is your values as a as an organization, which are visionary, inspiring, pioneering, collaborative, you've just spoken to, incredible as well. You got five values that are laid out there. I also noticed you're you're an associate coach. You've you've done coaching.

You have a coaching background, which aligns quite a lot of values and and being aware of that. I was wondering if you could just speak a little bit to the importance of values in an organization. How are those five values useful to rewilding Britain? How do you use them or how your staff use them? Like, why even have values?

I mean, I think I think they're they're kind of fundamental really in many in many senses but particularly for organizations like like Rewilding Britain where, because we're looking at big changes and the role that we can play within those, big changes and that shifts all the time. I mean who would have imagined six months ago that, we'd be rolling back on many of our climate and nature commitments, well globally, you know the global context has shifted and that's had an impact on us in The UK and that's had an impact on, us as an organization. So we're constantly having to shift and change but you need to have some sort of bedrock of it's almost like what's the principles that you bring or that we bring to our approach? Because that's what provides the sort of solidity I suppose the stability. This it kind of almost encompasses in a sense what our approach is to achieving the change that we want to see.

So I see that both personally and organizationally as, vitally important. Yeah. Yeah. I really like that. And you're right.

I mean, we're seeing, you know, change happening so rapidly at the moment in terms of, how people view nature and how governments want to conserve it and how businesses interact with it. So having the almost like a compass, I guess, is what I'm Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Values. Yeah. Yeah. It sort of gives you that direction, that clarity as to how you approach everything. Yeah.

Yeah. Just going back to your team, so there's 30 of you now, give or take, in the organization. Could you just paint a little bit of a picture as to the different types of roles and skills that you have within a kind of an organization like like yours? Like, who, yeah, who who are you sort of hiring? What what's valued, you know, within within a team like Rewilding Britain?

So we have, what is an effective policy and practice team? So, some people support the remodeling network, for instance. We also offer some funding pots. I've mentioned the innovation fund, which is smaller scale, but we also have an annual challenge fund, which is, a hundred thousand pounds to and with the view to helping a project scale up as in terms of area but also in terms of ambition. So it's kind so and then we have one of the areas that we've, grown is our our policy influencing team.

So we now have, four people, one in each nation and one covering marine rewilding. So that's a really important aspect of and growing aspect of our work that's growing in importance. But so is, our communications and engagement team. So one of the key things that we have realized what you might call normalizing rewilding. If we want to it to be just part of the way that we manage the land and sea, that's about kind of a shifting paradigm and and mindset.

And that's about kind of communications and engagement. And so so so we're growing that team as well. How do you inform but also engage and shift people's shift the way that people see rewilding and the place it has in our world. And I suppose we consider ourselves as across that as being quite creative, being quite willing to be bold and to I'm not sure I really like the think outside the box phrase but you know what I mean? Kind of take unusual approaches, adapt as we go along and that suits some people.

Some people thrive and love that. I mean I personally do. Some people like things to be a bit more predictable I suppose. That's not us. We don't do.

I mean not not in all of our jobs but so I think What I'm hearing is like agile is that are you speaking? Yes yes. And I think some people, again some people love that context and environment and other people struggle with it and I think we've got better at kind of identifying or recruiting people that will really thrive in that environment. Yeah. What what does your recruitment process look like if I can ask?

Like, what what could you share around that when you're, yeah, when you're shortlisting or interviewing? Are there things that you do that maybe are unique to you or anything that people might learn from that? Oh that's a good question. I suppose it's more, I mean I think we probably use quite a you know a normal process in terms of application and interview. I suppose it's more about get as we've grown getting a better sense of the I mean I suppose recruiting almost for values rather than and sort of mindset rather than qualifications and getting a sense of orientating our particularly our interviews towards getting that sense of people.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's why I was asking the question actually. Yeah. Yeah.

It feels like if you want people who are going to thrive within an agile setting and you have these particular values then you've got the skills you're looking for. But really you're trying to find the people that are gonna fit on you. It's like how do you how do you approach that? Yeah. Yeah.

Really interesting. As as chief exec, like, going back to your role again if I might, what do you what do you sort of enjoy about the work that you do, and are there any challenges you'd like to share? Again, just just not many people get to have a role like yours, and it's ever evolving and and changing. But are there particular things that you do that you really relish? Are there things that you enjoy?

And are there any things you wanna share with an audience that you find particularly challenging? So I suppose what I relish is it's quite a creative role. I mean, in a smaller organization that is, and the kind of space we occupy, allows, again, allows that agility. It allows us to give ourselves permission to do things differently. I think one of the things, for instance, I mean, I come from a background in conservation development and spent ten years working overseas and so I've seen things from a very different perspective.

And and so I've been able to I mean particularly so for example when I was working in Mexico I worked for primarily in for a conservation organisation but there most of the land is communally owned and so you can't go in and tell people what to do on the land. It's all about, you know, in a sense it comes back to that coaching process. It's a process of working with communities to help them see the resources that they have and see how they can, you know, how they want to manage them and the benefits they gain from them. So it's a very different process, from what might be seen as sort of traditional conservation in The UK. So I think I bring, that perspective.

And I think I'm also naturally a a kind of big picture thinker. I'm much more comfortable when I understand how things fit into a kind of a big picture. And what I really like is is the, you know, the the ability to be creative about, again how we achieve our our goals and networking and meeting a whole range of different people that might be the kind of usual suspects but might be people that might not have thought would be where they might not have thought that we'd have synergy. And what I love is that kind of and then, again, finding the energy and the interesting ideas and sort of bringing people together. And that idea that you can kind of bring something together is more than the sum of its parts rather than, ideas competing with each other.

That's the space that I really enjoy, and that ability, to do that. So the challenging I mean I suppose it's it's it's a good question. I think it is when, I mean, the people our team is is vital for that. And when the the team yeah. It's almost again, it's that sort of more than the sum of its parts.

When you get things right, it's like this well oiled machine and it's it's you know with the the I mean some people have said that you know that idea of sort of punching above a weight you can achieve incredible things when that's not quite the case and it you know that might be a combination of reasons of not quite the right you know person that's the right fit or something so I think that's when and that creates dissonance and that's quite difficult to manage. So I suppose that was probably the more challenging. I mean we have had you know not everyone embraces rewilding and so we've had conflict in that sense as well. So you know and again ultimately as the chief executive I'm responsible for everything and everyone and so the buck stops with me and sometimes that can be quite exhausting. I bet it can.

Yeah. Yeah. And you'll be holding to your board, I guess, so you're reporting right through to those people. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah. You've touched on there about your career as well, and you've worked and lived abroad for ten years in Mexico, I believe New Zealand, Uganda as well. Mhmm. Possibly elsewhere.

I probably missed some. Do you could you just give us a, yeah, a a a what have been your key milestones? When you look back at your career, like, what have you done that stands out, that's maybe even helped to get you to where you are today? So I think the first thing to say is I didn't do the right university degree. Okay.

So I took careers advice that was, you know, it was interesting because the careers advice was I I you know, I found biology, easy, thought I'd do biology, didn't really know what I wanted to do and a careers adviser said oh don't do biology, it's too it's not specific, you know, it's too general And so I ended up doing genetics which I mean again with hindsight looking back is quite laughable because it's really, you know, I'm not a details person, I like the big picture and I like, sort of psychology and what makes people tick and how you can change behaviors and but I thought I'd finish it just because I didn't know what else I wanted to do. So, so I think that's this kind of lesson in not worrying too much about each step because, you know, you can always reorientate. And then I traveled for a year and realized that what I really wanted to do was work overseas. And I mean I suppose I always felt passionate about nature and conservation. And so not easy to do with a genetics degree so I then did a master's degree in rural development and environmental policy.

So again you know you can reorientate, you can change, depending on where your own energy is. And luckily enough that the college that I did that master's in had a connection with Mexico so I just thought I'll go to Mexico. So I went there for the first two years and just had a really amazing experience in effect learning kind of learning how not to do development. So I worked in a Mayan but I learned a lot about local communities overseas. I worked in a Mayan community and then came back to The UK and was looking for the next job and had a year when I was at a you know really didn't couldn't find the next job.

So again there's a lesson in I mean I did volunteering work and I got knocked back a few times and you know I was lucky enough to be able to live with my parents, go back and live with my parents, was that boomerang child. But eventually got another job back in Mexico. So it's kind of again don't lose faith. And yeah so that worked for the World Wildlife Fund back in Mexico again. So I spent six years there which was amazing.

It's an amazing country full of challenges but delights as well. And then I suppose I've never really understood the concept of a career path because there was very definitely not a path I was following it was more whatever the next step seems interesting at the time. One thing has led to another so even starting Rewilding Britain that, came about because of the interest that, the book Feral, written by George Monbiot, when that came out, various people contacted him. I happened to be I had a small child at the time, had just been made redundant and helped out, when people came together and started talking about wanting to do something about re welding. So it was never in my and I think if it was never in my career plan because I've never had one.

And then I think it's it was interesting if you'd, if if you'd asked me ten years ago where I thought we'd be in ten years' time, I don't I'm not sure what I would have said, but I don't think I would have said the organization as it is now with 30 people. Oh, I've got about 20 questions I could ask. Yeah. What's the process been like of setting up Rewilding Britain? I think that's something I'm really interested in.

Like, how did you go about it? Where did that idea come from? There might be loads of people listening thinking I'd love to start my own organization. I've got this passion for this thing. What's yeah.

What what steps have you taken? What lessons have you learned even? Yeah. Another good question. I mean, at the start, as I've said, was the the interest and impetus that was generated by that book.

And then you know a few people got together started talking about making something happen and I think when when the thought of actually setting up an organisation came about it was one of those moments where everyone else starts looking at their feet and I happen to be looking up. And I you know I have to I had no experience in setting up an organisation so I we all those involved we kind of made it up as we went along. So again it and you start off doing everything from literally registering it with the charity commission to try to get funding to working out what it was that how it could add value, what we you know, what would we be doing. And yeah. So it was, I mean, I suppose it's in many ways been steady growth because ten years isn't not a long time to get to the point where you've got 30 people, but, with lots of challenges along the way.

And there's no manual to say this is how you do it. Yet. So I suppose what was has been critical is finding kind of, both peers and mentors that have helped along the way and I mean particularly also a board of trustees that have been I mean they've changed along that path that have just been an incredible support. Yeah. Where did your first funding come from?

Like, how did you sort of get off the ground financially? Yeah. I wonder if you can tell us a bit about that. Well, we had one foundation that committed, some funding, but they required us to get match funding. So, which quite rightly.

And then, so there was quite a long period of trying to find the additional funding Mhmm. Which, god, I'm trying to remember. I I think critically came from, the Esme Fayburn Foundation, which I mean, there are some foundations that are, you know, very mindful and of supporting, young organizations or smaller organizations that might not because they're young and haven't got a track record, might be a bit more risky. So it's that sort of funder that we went to initially. But what again has been amazing is that we've been able to diversify our funding sources.

So we get we've got regular givers who give you know £5 a month and are also sort of supporters of Rewilding Britain. We continue to get funding from trusts and foundations. Now corporate partnerships, which is increasingly important but again has its implications in terms of the having an ethical funding policy and making sure you're we're not being funded by those that don't share the values that we have I suppose and some major donations. So, and I think one of the critical things is largely a lot most of that funding has been core funding. So what's called unrestricted which has supported our ability to be agile because we haven't kind of defined you know outputs per year to say well this is what we're going to do for the next three years and getting restricted funding for that pot.

So I think I think that's been a lesson that I mean it's very lucky that we've been able to do that but it's also supported our ability to achieve what we have achieved. Yeah. It comes back to the strategy really doesn't it? And Yeah. Core funding, is the hardest funding to raise but the most important isn't it when you run an organization because it's flexible and you can use it as you need to.

Yeah. As you do the best bit. Yeah. Careers advice, you know if people are listening, and we already have people listening right now, we'll turn to to questions in ten minutes or so. What advice would you give someone who's maybe at university or looking to switch careers, they're aspiring conservationists, like, what advice would you give them if they're looking to maybe become a a rewilding professional?

That's a difficult question to answer. Again, particularly, looking at, you know, with what I'd said about not really understanding what a career path is, and really only ever thinking one step ahead, if that, actually. Yeah. So I suppose it's more about, what not to worry about rather than concrete advice. I mean, as I mentioned, I shouldn't really have done a genetics degree but that was fine you know.

I think I should have taken a year off before going to university because I think going straight from school you have no experience of kind of life. Remnant. And hitting a pause then might have allowed me to understand a bit more about what I was interested in. And I think again, gaining a bit of experience. I mean, volunteering is always good, but not every I mean, the challenge with it is not everyone can do that.

Because I think quite often, my sense is that there aren't very clearly defined career paths anymore. Everyone has to sort of navigate for themselves. And I think we're led to believe if you don't get that kind of if you're not already on the path by the time you're in your early 20s, you know something's gone wrong. Whereas I was, well I mean I still don't still not on a defined path and had quite long periods of time in the middle, like I was explaining that sort of year between between jobs where I was quite clear, you know, what I wanted to eventually be doing, but wasn't quite it didn't become clear, and I didn't get that kind of next job for a for a year. And so I, did volunteering jobs and a few jobs to earn some money to keep myself going.

So I suppose, and I think they're probably skills within within rewilding. I think there are, I think there are like coming into it from an a kind of enterprise angle I think that is a really interesting aspect. Again there's not a defined career path for that and at the moment there aren't that many people with the expertise in advising rewilding initiatives on business modeling, for instance, and what could be the combination of nature based enterprises that would support or financing rewilding. So I suppose what does that boil down to in terms of advice? Focus on what you feel passionately about and where you know what you feel some energy around.

Don't worry too much if you take missteps along the way or like myself take a degree that I realized wasn't what I wanted to be doing but I then reorientated myself and that's that's fine. I think sideways steps are often better than always trying to go up the career ladder. Does that I don't know. Beautifully yeah there's loads in there absolutely yeah yeah I love that yeah. As we sort of start to wrap things up I was wondering if I could ask some sort of more broader questions actually yeah about how you think really.

Yeah. And the first one is, it's a simple question. If we could take you to one place in the planet and you could see one species, I was reading about your profile, I read that you've seen gorillas and sharks and turtles and bit and so forth. Where would you go and what would you like to see? Oh my god.

Oh, that's such a tough question. You're well traveled, so it's a tough one. Yeah. Yeah. I almost got to go to Patagonia.

I'd love to go there. And if given half a chance hop down from there to Antarctica. I mean somewhere completely completely different. But then I've somebody's always been interested in going to Bhutan as well because again, I think I think they have a quite a different philosophy and, you know, different values than in other places. So I suppose those would be the places that I would and what what I love is it's not so much an individual species but all the unexpected things that you that you find.

So I took some extended leave over Christmas and was lucky enough to visit my sister-in-law in Kenya and yes it's amazing seeing sort of lions and elephants but one evening it rained and all the bushes around the camp we're at were lit up by fireflies. I've never seen that before and in the roof next to my sister in law's house that some bush babies lived in the roof and at twenty to seven each evening they would poke their little heads out with their big eyes and you could watch them sort of emerge and leap into the bushes. So it's all the sort of little things. I mean and that comes back to almost your first question about that. What is amazing in Kenya is that amazing web of life from predators down to the smallest species and the fact and the abundance within it.

That's what really inspires me. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Biodiversity, nature, wildlife, whatever we want to call it, is in decline globally.

You know, we're all doing our best to kind of turn that tide around, but the stats show that we are, well, we're failing as a as a conservation community. What do we need to do more of or be better at in your view if we're really gonna turn this around as a conservation movement? In in Britain? Or globally. Yeah.

As answer as you wish. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think first I mean, again, in in Britain, I think we have to see and it all comes down to what we're asking of the land and sea, and, seeing that rewilding can bring multiple benefits and is a valid, viable and productive use of the land and sea in relation to the in relation to what we're asking in the twenty first century. So I think we need to shift that.

I mean again one of the things that we're more explicitly doing at Rewilding Britain is taking a sort of systems transformation approach. And if you want the scale of change that we need to have happen we have to, change mindsets and shift paradigms and we have to create an enabling environment in terms of policy and research and technology and we have to have lots of people making changes on the ground that can start to shift what's you know the way things are done. And so I think it it's about taking a combination of those, approaches. But you can I mean, I have to remain hopeful that sometimes those tipping points seem to be unachievable but sometimes they can shift? If you get the right combination of changes at each of those levels then they can shift suddenly.

So you know an example might be, it used to be commonplace to just burn stubble. You would see it every year, and the clouds of smoke and pollution and, you know, accidents it's caused. And it seemed to be an intractable problem. Everyone said, no that's just how we need to do things and then suddenly it shifted and it became totally unacceptable and completely stopped. So it's how do we reach that tipping point where it just becomes part of the way that we manage the agency.

I think that's so I've got to remain hopeful that that's that's possible and that's what we're orientated towards, helping to move and create those tipping points. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. And hope is my final question, actually.

Yeah. We've mentioned it a few times, like, during our chats just now, but also you talked about being hopeful during your job hunt when you're unemployed for a year or so and hope that is shown within rewilding and the the change that it can bring. How do you maintain optimism? How do you maintain your hope? How do you stay positive?

I think it's my question. Yeah. I suppose my unsurprisingly, it's about connecting with nature for me. As I said, the joys of, going out and watching bluefin tuna leap out of the sea 20 meters from where you're standing or or I've turned into one of those wild swimming nuts and swimming in the sea, which doesn't necessarily help those that, maybe it does, you know, in in your job hunting or when those moments where you feel despondent and that you're not moving along the path that you want to be, I suppose it's, again, it's reconnecting with that sense of purpose and place and, well, again, coming back to values, and not losing not losing hope. Wonderful.

Rebecca, thanks again so much for jumping on the podcast. It's been a real pleasure talking to you. If people wanna find out more about Rewilding Britain, your work, maybe get involved, where should they go? Well, we have a website. So hopefully there's a lot of information about, what we do and you can sign up as a supporter of Rewilding Britain so getting regular updates.

If you're involved in Rewilding you can contact us about joining the Rewilding Network you'd be very welcome. And so that's a more kind of active community. So there's various different levels of of involvement and engagement. Most of most of the information can be found through our our website. Wonderful.

And we'll drop a link in the show notes and yeah. That's great. Okay. Once again, thank you so much. Thank you.