An image by Staffan Widstrand/Wild Wonders of Europe is the cover of the German GEO magazine September issue.
”The Wildlife comeback in Europe” is this month’s cover story of the respected magazine, whose German language edition has a print run of some 350 000 copies and well over a million readers. The work done by Wild Wonders of Europe and Rewilding Europe is centre stage in the story. And all the pictures are by the Wild Wonders Dream Team of photographers. In the last months Anke Sparmann, staff writer at the German GEO Magazine travelled across European rewilding reserves. The cover story of GEO’s September issue – published on August 19th – features her journey into a continent getting wilder day by day. Anke experiences the astonishing comeback of some mammals and bird species in Europe and learns about the idea of Rewilding. She takes her readers into some Rewilding Europe project areas: Western Iberia in Spain and Portugal and the Eastern Carpathians in Poland and Slovakia. She wonders how rich our nature used to be – and what it takes to bring back the variety of life to the sparsely populated corners of our continent. Discovering Dutch Oostvaardersplassen, a place famous for its dense wildlife, Anke feels reminded of National Parks in Africa. She realizes that our wildlife has the potential for an almost unbelievable recovery. Will we ever see it happen on a broader level? It is on us to decide, Anke writes: ”What kind of nature do we want?” She finally visits an area in Germany where the grey wolf has moved in again. Here as in other wild places the GEO author experiences the magic of being in the company of wild animals: ”It felt like reaching a clearing after a long walk through a dark forest. It felt like coming home.” The article is illustrated with pictures from Wild Wonders of Europe.