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Biologist Dr Hugh Wilson has been reforesting the Hinewai Reserve on New Zealand’s South Island since 1987 and is now the subject of a documentary ‘Fools and Dreamers’.
Man Spends 30 Years Turning Degraded Land into Massive Forest
When, in 1987, botanist Dr Hugh Wilson let the local community on New Zealand’s Banks Peninsula know of his plans to allow the introduced ‘weed’ gorse to grow as a nurse canopy to regenerate farmland into native forest, people were not only skeptical but outright angry – the plan was the sort to be expected only of “fools and dreamers”.
Now considered a hero locally and across the country, Dr Wilson oversees 1500 hectares resplendent in native forest, where birds and other wildlife are abundant and 47 known waterfalls are in permanent flow. He has proven without doubt that nature knows best – and that he is no fool.Fools & Dreamers: Regenerating a Native Forestis a free 30-minute documentary from HappenFilms about Hinewai Nature Reserve(below)
Full Documentary: Man Spends 30 Years Turning Degraded Land into Massive Forest (Fools & Dreamers) The incredible story of how degraded gorse-infested farmland has been regenerated back into beautiful New Zealand native forest over the course of 30 years.. Source: YouTube/HappenFilms
So you want to get a job in conservation? Great! With wildlife in crisis all around the world and numbers of threatened species at an all-time high, the natural world needs your help. So how do you give yourself the best chance of success? Conservation Careers asked 146 professional conservationists from 50 countries to provide their careers advice. With a combined experience of 1,734 years in the sector, here’s what they had to say…