Rewilding the World with Ben Goldsmith

"If you look at restoring the whole Andes, the entire Andean mountain range, you can't just go at it by planting trees. There are so many other things that you need to do to holistically permit nature to actually come back."

In this episode Ben Goldsmith talks with inspirational Earthshot Prizewinner, Florent Kaiser. Florent is leading an effort to restore the high altitude forests of the Andes, stretching all the way from Venezuela down to Patagonia. Accion Andina is a truly earth changing initiative.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to people from all over the world who champion nature and are helping to restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

The Conservation Collective support locally-led environmental Foundations around the world. Together we'll protect and restore the wild places we know and love.

"We just put together a project in Indonesia on restoring mangroves and it's 2000 hectares, and over 40 years the local communities will get in excess of 100 million dollars."

People are pretty much sold on the idea that we need to restore nature at scale. David Attenborough said it himself, we need to ‘rewild the world’ but the question is how do you pay for it?

What if there was a way, a market mechanism, for getting the world's largest companies to do just that? In this episode Ben Goldsmith is joined by Tim Coles who is pioneering a new market for biodiversity credits. His firm, rePLANET, is already pouring money from large corporates into rewilding projects. This, alongside an existing and fast growing market for voluntary carbon credits, might just be the source of funding the rewilding movement has been looking for.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to people from all over the world who champion nature and are helping to restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

The Conservation Collective support locally-led environmental Foundations around the world. Together we'll protect and restore the wild places we know and love.

"Coming to terms with the wolf in Britain would be one of the biggest and bravest things we've ever done. But we desperately need to start a conversation about how we do this and when we do this and start to make progress towards attaining it as a real goal."

Beavers are the ultimate ecosystem engineers. Derek Gow is a farmer turned conservationist and played a major role in reintroducing the Eurasion beaver to England.

In this episode Ben Goldsmith speaks to Derek about how he led the charge to bring beavers back to waterways here in Britain, one of the greatest triumphs of the nature movement. The pair also discuss why there are calls to reintroduce the wolf to the UK.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to people from all over the world who champion nature and are helping to restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach. 

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

The Conservation Collective support locally-led environmental Foundations around the world. Together we'll protect and restore the wild places we know and love.

"If you want to save any species on Earth, there's really only one species you have to fully understand, and thats homo sapiens, because are the cause and therefore we are the solution to just about every rewilding or biodiversity or climate concern."

This time on Rewilding the World, Ben Golsmith talks to Brett Jenks, CEO of Rare.org. They discuss how the St. Lucian parrot was saved - in part - by a rebrand and how changing the attitudes of ordinary people can have transformatively positive impacts on the environment.

Brett Jenks has championed behavior change in the conservation community for more than 30 years. As CEO, he leads Rare’s international mission to equip people in the world’s most biologically diverse countries with the tools and motivation needed to sustainably manage their natural resources.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists and thought leaders from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

The Conservation Collective support locally-led environmental Foundations around the world. Together we'll protect and restore the wild places we know and love.

"I remember genuinely thinking, 'we don't need insects. What's the point of them?' Little did I know!"

Welcome to a new series of Rewilding the World with Ben Goldsmith. In this first episode Ben is joined by Stephen Fry.

As well as being a national treasure, and one of the funniest people in England, Stephen has long championed nature projects both in the UK and abroad.

Ben talks to Stephen about where his love of nature comes from, and how he thinks we can go about bringing even more people to the movement.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to people from all over the world who champion nature and helping to restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

The Conservation Collective support locally-led environmental Foundations around the world. Together we'll protect and restore the wild places we know and love.

"Over a period of 10 years we were able to rear in captivity 331 Kestrels that we released back into nature."

In the latest episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith speaks with legendary conservationist Carl Jones about the island of Mauritius. Carl famously led efforts to save a variety of species. These included the Mauritius kestrel which was on the brink of going the way of the dodo, as well as a bunch of landscape-scale rewilding projects in Mauritius and its surrounding islets.

Carl describes Mauritius as it must have been when Europeans first arrived on the island; forests of ebony, palm savannas grazed by herds of giant tortoises, dodos ambling down the beach to greet the new arrivals, and a cacophony of strange and marvellous bird and reptile species. Now, inspired by Carl, Mauritius seems set to begin rebuilding these natural treasures.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

"El Carmen Nature Reserve is a very good example of a success of conservation, with the interaction of several actors from the private sector and government agencies from both sides of the border."

In this episode Ben Goldsmith is joined by Alejandro Espinosa Treviño who - on behalf of Cemex - is overseeing restoration of a great swathe of grassland, forest and mountain on Mexico’s northern border with the US.

Alejandro and his team have recently reintroduced bison to the El Carmen Nature Reserve, a species extinct in Mexico for more than a century.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

"We have started to get a few things right, why can't we just watch the things we have done right and do more of them?"

In the latest episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith speaks with legendary author and oceans campaigner Charles Clover who also co-founded the Blue Marine Foundation.

Charles' seminal book, The End of the Line, marked a turning point in our understanding of the collapse of marine wildlife when it was released two decades ago. Finally now, meaningful efforts are underway across the world to restore sanity and the health of our oceans.

Charles' new book, Rewilding the Sea, describes how and where these things are happening. You might be surprised to learn that the UK is an oceans conservation leader!

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

"Our dream is quite simple and that is to achieve co-existence between people and nature."

This episode focuses on one of the grandest, most vast rewilding efforts anywhere on the planet.

Join Ben Goldsmith as he speaks with Werner Myburgh of Peace Parks, an organisation dedicated to establishing immense trans frontier protected areas across southern Africa. The rehabilitation of these vast landscapes, liberated from fencing, species restored, poaching driven out, is dramatic and uplifting.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

"It's now been seven years since we removed the rats and goats and I just walk around with my mouth open, it is beautiful. There are so many trees on the island - when we started there was only two - now I can't count them."

The Caribbean is a magical place; but it’s also one of the most ecologically degraded regions in the world. In this episode Ben Goldsmith speaks with Jenny Daltry who is leading rewilding efforts in Antigua and across the Caribbean.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

"Engaging with nature in that urban space can be so beneficial and if we scale those micro actions up to a macro level, imagine the change that would seed."

More and more urban rewilding projects are engaging growing numbers of citizens in local nature restoration.

In this episode of Rewilding the World Ben Goldsmith is joined by Elliot Newton of Citizen Zoo – an organisation which is bringing people together across London to restore habitats and reintroduce missing species such as water voles and beavers.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

"All of us involved in the project are driven by the opportunity to make a real difference for this special part of the planet."

Eradicating giant mice from South Africa's Marion Island, a vital haven for seabirds. The vast, wild Southern Ocean is home to albatrosses, petrels and other remarkable seabirds which wander for years on end in search of food.

Only to breed do the seabirds of the Southern Ocean need land, of which there are just a handful of tiny specs. One of these is South Africa's distant Marion Island, which has become overrun by invasive mice, introduced inadvertently by sailors at least two centuries ago. The mice eat the eggs, young and even the adult seabirds.

Now Anton Wolfaardt of BirdLife South Africa and his team have a wild plan to eradicate the mice, with the hope that it will allow seabirds to surge back to their historic abundance.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach. 

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

"A lot of Costa Rica's success on forest cover hasn't been emulated in terms of active rewilding. That's what I'm trying to start the wheels turning in Costa Rica; when do we need to use more of an active approach?"

In this episode Ben Goldsmith is joined by Andy Whitworth of Osa Conservation, an organisation which is busy rewilding Costa Rica's ever wilder Osa Peninsula.

Liberated from low productivity, highly damaging cattle ranching, much of western Costa Rica is returning to forest. On the Osa Peninsula, a place of verdant green hills and white beaches, Andy and his team are focused on plans to reintroduce white-lipped peccaries, giant anteaters, harpy eagles and various other vital missing species.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

“I would be very excited if I found a grasshopper on the balcony and my parents would put it in a jar for me to observe.”

In this episode Melpo Apostolidou from BirdLife Cyprus tells Ben Goldsmith about the remarkable ongoing effort to return the vital, majestic Griffon vulture to the skies of Cyprus, in the eastern Mediterranean.

Melpo and her team have achieved this extraordinary feat against a backdrop of poisoning, ill-considered and unsustainable development and, worst of all, rampant illegal hunting of migrating birds. The BirdLife team is doing an amazing job reducing each of these things year on year, and the beautiful island of Cyprus is steadily coming back to life.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

This episode’s release coincides with World Rewilding Day 2024, with this year’s theme being Hope Into Action. A great example of this in practice is the work being carried out by Jonathan Thomson who has created the twenty-two acre wild paradise Underhill Nature Reserve on the border of Wiltshire and Dorset in southern England.

A lot of people wonder how to go about rewilding smaller patches of land. The answer can be found in playing the role of the keystone species yourself! In this episode Ben Goldsmith speaks to Jonathan about how he has become a guru for those rewilding smaller patches of land, from a small garden up to fifty acres.

According to Jonathan, the key is for you to play the role of beaver, bison, wild boar and even wolf. Hordes of school children and people keen to learn from his experiences now pass through his plot of land to see how he does it, as well as to experience the beauty and natural vibrancy he has created there. Hear Jonathan give his advice on how to create your own small wildwood.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

“We’re already starting to see dramatic habitat and water quality improvement across that Kissimmee valley.”

The Everglades, North America’s largest and most vital wetland, is a place of extraordinary beauty but is facing enormous problems. The immense ‘river of grass’ has been desperately disfigured, principally by ill-considered hydrological engineering and heavily subsidised industrial sugar production.

In this episode Ben Goldsmith is joined by Steve Davies, lead scientist of The Everglades Foundation, which is leading efforts to restore the Everglades to health. Now the vast sheet of water is beginning to flow south once again, in the way that it should, and wildlife is resurgent.

Floridians have come to understand that the Everglades underpin everything they have and everything they do, from fresh water to flood defence to the sandy beaches on which Florida’s tourism industry depends. Finally, under the guidance of Steve and his colleagues, the state is stepping up and restoration is underway.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This episode is sponsored by Vivobarefoot. All Vivobarefoot footwear is designed to bring you closer to nature by enabling you to be as close to barefoot as possible. They promote your foot's natural strength and movement, allowing you to feel the ground beneath your feet.

You can enjoy 15% off all Vivobarefoot products using the code VIVOREWILDING15, valid until 30 April 2024.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

“Feral cats are the primary driver of the decline of small mammals. We’ve lost more than 30 mammal species in Australia over the last couple of hundred years and the primary driver of that is cats.”

Australia has a mammoth problem with invasive species brought by European settlers to the country which had been isolated from the rest of the world for millennia. Now, major efforts are underway to restore vast tracts of wild land and the wildlife that once inhabited it.

In this episode Ben Goldsmith is joined by Tim Allard who leads the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. The organisation is working to restore millions of hectares of wilderness in Australia.

One of the keys to AWC’s success are the partnerships he and his team have developed with cattle ranchers, indigenous communities and other rural stakeholders, who all have a hand in bringing the landscapes they love back to life.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This episode is sponsored by Vivobarefoot. All Vivobarefoot footwear is designed to bring you closer to nature by enabling you to be as close to barefoot as possible. They promote your foot's natural strength and movement, allowing you to feel the ground beneath your feet.

You can enjoy 15% off all Vivobarefoot products using the code VIVOREWILDING15, valid until 30 April 2024.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

“Think globally, but act locally. We need to start putting some of that stuff back locally otherwise we don’t pass on anything great to our future generations.”

The Scottish Highlands is one of Britain’s most beautiful and ecologically degraded landscapes. Change is in the air, however, as long lost keystone species such as wild boar, wildcats, white-tailed eagles and beavers are returning.

In this episode Ben Goldsmith speaks with Highlander David Balharry, who leads the John Muir Trust, an organisation which is leading efforts to restore the great mosaic of woodlands and wetlands that once made the Highlands one of Europe’s wildest landscapes.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This episode is sponsored by Vivobarefoot. All Vivobarefoot footwear is designed to bring you closer to nature by enabling you as close to barefoot as possible. They promote your foot's natural strength and movement, allowing you to feel the ground beneath your feet.

You can enjoy 15% off all Vivobarefoot products by clicking this link and using the code VIVOREWILDING15, valid until 30 April 2024.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

“With abundance comes resilience and with abundance these animals and the wildlife populations can thrive and can survive these climatic changes.”

Andreia Pawel is from ORKCA, the Orange River-Karoo Conservation Area, based in the south of Namibia. The country is made up primarily of desert but once was a the place where springbok migrations dwarfed those of modern day zebra and wildebeest.

Andriea and her team have partnered with local landowners to secure areas surrounding the Orange River with the plan to create a 2.5 million acre reserve. They are working to reintroduce the wildlife that one lived there, restoring the landscape to its full vibrancy for the benefit of local communities and nature.

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier and rewilding enthusiast. Join him as he speaks to environmentalists from all over the world who are working to help restore habitats and wildlife to some of the most nature depleted parts of our planet.

This episode is sponsored by Vivobarefoot. All Vivobarefoot footwear is designed to bring you closer to nature by enabling you as close to barefoot as possible. They promote your foot's natural strength and movement, allowing you to feel the ground beneath your feet.

You can enjoy 15% off all Vivobarefoot products by clicking this link and using the code VIVOREWILDING15, valid until 30 April 2024.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.

“What we are doing is to create the conditions, ecological and sociological, for the return of these two large predators that are present… but we need to find conditions for them to settle and to grow.”

Drive through Portugal and you will see vast plantations of non-native species like eucalyptus and pine. But with these plants comes the demise of the ecosystem and a huge risk of fire; in 2017 more than 100 people died in forest fires that were able to cross huge swathes of land and even dams.

Pedro Prata is helping to restore great swathes of Portugal and provide spaces for native species to thrive, including lynx and wolves. Through buying patches of land Rewilding Portugal is creating a mosaic of areas to reintroduce native animals and plant species with the hope they will spill out to the surrounding areas.

Join rewilding enthusiast and financier Ben Goldsmith as he speaks to environmental trail blazers from all corners of the globe.

Recent climate science seems to paint a picture of despair with irreparable damage being done to our natural world. But there are rays of hope. Across the planet people are carrying out astonishing work, returning large areas of land and oceans back to their former glory.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Text Rewilding the World here. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if there are any rewilding projects you would love Ben to feature in future episodes.