Wildlands: Restoring Life on Earth

The hidden story of Earth's wildest places, how we might preserve them and what they can teach us about our own continued survival

In Wildlands, Benedict Macdonald tells the story of the last great refuges of the World, extraordinary places that are relatively untouched by human hands, teeming with life, naturally rich, wild and fragile. These are places shaped entirely by animals and wild forces, where over a hundred species of birds might visit one tree, where hordes of fairy-tale fish, dolphins and humpback whales swim in a beautiful, kaleidoscopic coral reef, where pumas, wild deer and rheas roam in abundance among grassy mountain tops. A veritable Eden.

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.