Wildlands

No corner of our planet remains untouched by human influence. Yet in some remote places, a handful of Earth's natural wonders and ecosystems still stand proud. Robust, teeming, fragile, regenerating, these places offer us glimpses of how the rest of our planet once looked - and how, with better stewardship, it could look again in the future. In the book, Benedict travels from place to place, meeting the people fighting to protect the future of these landscapes, and tells us what we might learn from these ecosystems to help rebuild species elsewhere that are so integral to our continued survival. Along the way, Benedict comes face to face with a Sumatran Tiger, follows abandoned railway tracks in Chernobyl where wolves now roam, and snorkels and dives among sealions, rays, sea turtles and white-tipped sharks in the Sea of Cortez. He speaks to a great cast of characters in the process, from filmmakers to philanthropists, local guides, farmers, ecologists and campaigners. Mixing history, science, travel-writing and storytelling, this is a beautifully written and important book about the wildest and naturally richest places on Earth, about the urgency of rewilding, and what these places can teach us about living in harmony with nature.