“Rewilding Europe wants to make Europe a wilder place, with much more space for wildlife.
In the Central Apennines, Rewilding Europe is working to create corridors of coexistence to connect wildlife with the local economy”.
This is Rewilding Apennines, our partner, with whom we had the pleasure of spending a day in the Abruzzo mountains, in particular between Ortona dei Marsi and Cocullo, to plant some fruit trees in order to diversify the vegetation and provide resources to the bear and to other animals in the area.
“These corridors favor the dispersion of animals in order to have the possibility of a genetic exchange between the populations of different animal species found in the Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise National Park and the Sirente Velino Regional Park” explains Mario Cipollone, Team Leader di Rewilding Apennines.
During the day we also met various volunteers, such as Nathan and Eleonora, who toured Europe, “from Finland to the forests of Galicia”, in search of this intimate contact with nature, before arriving in the Central Apennines.
There was also Marie, who came from France, where she attends the faculty of agronomy, because she needed to leave the academic environment aside to get closer to the wilderness. Or Benno, a Dutch student who wanted to get his hands dirty with the earth and learn as much as possible from this experience.
During the afternoon spent planting trees and building fences we continued to talk with the volunteers, guys with clear ideas who have in mind why they have taken this path.
They tell us how hard and tiring work is, but the satisfaction of the results that are achieved and the interaction that is created between humans and animals repays all the sweat poured out.
We have understood the difficulty of establishing a collaborative relationship with the people who live in these places and who see the rewilding with a doubtful eye, thinking it is simply a turning back, losing the value of that land. Instead, it is the opposite: making an area wild means creating spaces for wildlife, but also creating economic opportunities for the people who inhabit whose places, specially now that eco-sustainable tourism has seen exponential growth.
