REWILD AT HEART

Chris Leadbeater lists other places where land is being reclaimed for animals MOZAMBIQUE

As recently as the 1960s, Gorongosa was one of Africa’s great wildlife zones. But it was caught in the crossfire of Mozambique’s civil war from 1977 to 1992. Once the guns had stopped, illegal hunting reduced population levels to as low as 10% of what they had been. Since the turn of the millennium there has been a concerted effort to reintroduce residents such as lions, blue wildebeest and Crawshay’s zebra. Europe is rarely associated with bison — perhaps because, although the animal was once found across the continent, it was hunted to near-extinction. In 1954 the noble beast was reintroduced to Bialowieza Forest in northeastern Poland, using the offspring of animals surviving in captivity. As of this year, numbers have soared to about 800, and the forest has been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site.