Where should you start? Rewilding is a great term. I am not convinced that is the way to go with our present urban and environmental pressures. If it is a challenge here in rural REGUA, a place where change is still possible, how are we going to conserve natural resources elsewhere?

I was happy to learn from seeing the Sebastião Salgado film (the reforestation project in Brazil) that over half the world is actually in a really good state, although the majority of this is comprised of mainly wilderness areas. Evidently if it were possible to make a master plan and carry it out, the main actions would be:

• fully protect what’s left in the world
• reduce our impact on the world through reduction, re-use and recycling
• educate and promote conservation on a global scale
• introduce obligations for reforesting degraded land
• prioritise the protection of large continuous fragments of over 100,000 hectares and areas where threatened species occur

All of this within an international binding agreement.

We have to learn that in some areas of the world, ecosystems are so badly damaged that it is just not cost-effective to invest incredible sums to restore habitat, especially where there are other areas in less damaged state where less money will achieve a lot more. I do appreciate however, that there is a need for so much to be done.

Obviously, as guardians of the planet we need a different mindset, for this is about sharing the world’s problems, thinking and acting as one rather than our own individual needs, although I understand how politically contentious this is.