He has spent much of his life in the shadow of the Dauphin\u00e9 Alps in southeastern France, where limestone cliffs catch the morning light and the silhouettes of horned ibex move across the ridgelines. To Fabien Qu\u00e9tier, who helps steer Rewilding Europe\u2019s newest and largest French project, these animals and their battered landscape are reminders of what had slipped away \u2014 and what might return, if given a chance, reports<\/a> contributor Marlowe Starling for Mongabay.<\/p>\n Rewilding was a young idea when Qu\u00e9tier began working on it, more theory than practice. In the 1990s, it sounded utopian: let nature repair itself by restoring the species that once shaped it. But in the past decade, the notion took on urgency. Forests were collapsing under heat, rivers ran dry in late summer, and even here, in this quiet corner of the western Alps, droughts and fires arrived with unsettling regularity.<\/p>\n A \u201cfixed approach to nature doesn\u2019t really work anymore,\u201d Qu\u00e9tier tells Starling. Rewilding, he believes, offers something sturdier than nostalgia.<\/p>\n Qu\u00e9tier admires the region\u2019s stubbornness. Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) and marmots (Marmota marmota) crept back in the mid-20th century, drawing in wolves (Canis lupus) and Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber) that crossed from Italy. Friends who share Qu\u00e9tier\u2019s faith nominated the area as France\u2019s first rewilding site in 2019.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t starting from nothing, says Olivier Raynaud, director of the subgroup Rewilding France and Qu\u00e9tier\u2019s colleague. The land had been quietly healing itself for decades, he adds.<\/p>\n Still, Qu\u00e9tier and Raynaud know the work requires more than biology. It means earning the trust of landowners, persuading farmers wary of wolves, explaining to skeptical villagers why vultures matter. It means accepting that some species like Eurasian brown bears (Ursus arctos arctos) cannot yet return.<\/p>\n Qu\u00e9tier understands the fragility of the enterprise. Climate projections point to hotter, harsher decades ahead. Forests might falter. Rivers might shrink. Yet he insists the only real gamble is doing nothing.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are looking for new ideas,\u201d he says. Rewilding, in his mind, is not a cure. It is simply a way of giving life a fighting chance.<\/p>\n Read the full story by Marlowe Starling here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Banner image: Two male ibex in front of Mont Aiguille in the Dauphin\u00e9 Alps, France. Image \u00a9 Luca Melcarne.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n