Narrator / Host (possibly Jack Humphrey or Julius Purcell) (15:08)
I've lived in Spain for many years and recognised the sense of what Paul's saying. Rewilding is not a very well known term in Spain, but it doesn't seem to play much of a role in culture wars here either. Heading back into the town of Llerena, we pass agricultural stores and tractor workshops. The old town is studded with magnificent churches from Spain's 17th century Golden Age. In the central square, dazzlingly whitewashed, the cafes are full for lunchtime. It seems happy enough, but under the surface of rural Spanish towns like these, there's often a layer of malaise. While agriculture is being rocked by climate change, mass immigration is transforming rural as well as urban communities. And mainstream politics is under attack. In the square, I meet Tomas Angulo, a former bull fighter who now works for the rural police. Then it's back out through the countryside again, this time in a patrol jeep through plains of cereals broken up with olive groves. No links this time. Tomas is taking me to a crime scene. Yesterday, he explains, a gang of immigrants stole a truckload of olives from a nearby farmer. Tomas warmly greets the farmers, Luisa and Alberto. They point out tire tracks in the grass and Tomas takes photos. The long drought ended last fall, Luis is saying, and a rainy winter has led to a bonanza olive harvest. But this valuable crop only makes them vulnerable to the crime gangs. Tomas, our police guide, has no doubt who's ultimately to blame. Politicians in Madrid and Brussels. They know nothing about rural life, he's saying. They screw over hard working farmers with rules and red tape. It's hard enough with the drought they've had. Its outburst contains all the elements of European rural drought and the ravages of climate change. Immigrants who many suppose don't respect law and custom. While distant urban elites such as the European Union sneer at struggling farmers. A European style trumpism may well be finding a foothold in places like these. If so, it could gravely impact the fate of rewilding across Europe. The huge strides in securing cores, corridors and carnivores in Europe in the last 20 to 30 years were partly made possible by that political elite. Conservationists criticise the European Union's agricultural policies for contributing to the huge decline in bugs, birds and wildflowers, intensifying the biodiversity crisis. But it's also true that the European Union has poured money into the dramatic restoration of wolves, bears and lynx. The European Union funded 60% of the Iberian lynx program, so the turbulent politics engulfing Europe now could impact heavily on nature restoration. And yet my experiences in the southern Spanish countryside, the north is a different matter do reflect the broad social support on which the links project was so successfully built. Some Spanish farmers and mayors, even in the south, are hostile to lynx, but nowhere near the same level of hostility as that shown to carnivores in Britain. I don't think the olive farmer Alberto's views are all that unusual. Farming and ecology just have to learn to live together, he says. He's telling me how one day he was working here and a friend said, look, a lynx. He describes how it passed slowly in front of them between the trees. I always stay for a while in the olive grove here, taking a walk, contemplating, and you start to see the animals, you listen to them and it's really nice. I really like that. I like that there are wild animals out there. It's normal. Hello, Norman. Hello, Norman. And what does Tomas, the passionate defender of farmers, think? Although the Iberian lynx is smaller than the Eurasian lynx, the Iberian lynx is a nuisance to farmers. Thomas confirms this. Lynx do sometimes kill lambs. But lynx have crossed and people have been well informed about the value of the links in the landscape, despite the occasional damage that they do. Tomas describes a recent sighting. The lynx passed by calmly. It was like the king of the jungle. It walked by matter of factly, as if it was just saying hello to us. It's a lovely animal. It's such a shame that it disappears, disappeared for so long. But now it's back and recovered, and that's great news. And great news for the ecosystem too. Paul Jepson often talks about rewilding in terms of what he calls cultural framing. To many British people, carnivores such as lynx are seen as a threat to the farmer. Therefore a threat to tradition and British rural culture. The cultural framing is different in southern Spain, at least when it comes to the links, and at least for the moment. This is a procession I stumbled on, where children and families are all processing behind the statue of a saint. Southern Spain is rich in rural traditions like this. But the links doesn't stand in opposition to this tradition because it's seen as a distinctly southern Spanish animal. It's a part of that tradition. It's been featured on Spanish postal stamps. It crops up in Spanish art and literature. One of the most famous works of the Spanish artist Francisco Goya is an etching entitled the Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. It depicts a slumped, unconscious man. The monsters of the title rise from the back of the man's head as he sleeps. The etching expresses Goya's hope that Spain will reject these monsters of superstition and embrace the values of the Enlightenment. Instead, watching over this sleeping man is the embodiment of those values. An Iberian lynx, with its fiercely intelligent face, wide awake expression, it represents a reason, it represents the hope of a better Spain. But the association with the lynx as a national animal is only one factor in the revival of its fortunes. Time and again, in my chats with Spanish rewilders, the name of one man crops up. They simply refer to him as as Felix. Born in 1928, Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente was a cross between Aldo Leopold and David Attenborough. His nature documentary series man and the Earth, with its funky Mission Impossible style theme tune, enjoyed huge audiences in the 1970s. Maria Jesus Palacios.
