Chapter 6

Here we turn to what we can actually do — to protect the environment, repair our broken relationship with the natural world, and lower the risk of future pandemics. We examine the role of the big international biodiversity and wildlife summits asking whether they are capable of delivering the change that we urgently need.

At the other end of the scale, we document re-wilding projects in England and around the world, and their vital role in restoring the habitats we have spent centuries destroying. Just as rewilding offers hope for the land, we show how local and internationally supported initiatives are helping to restore parts of our oceans.

We feature Burma's Indigenous women's wildlife protection units — Asia's first all-women wildlife intelligence team — as an inspiring model of conservation success, and explore why female empowerment and the protection of nature are so deeply linked. And we close with a plan of action: bold initiatives from the world's leading conservationists, scientists and ecologists, and from governments and international bodies, to end the commercial wildlife trade and trafficking, halt deforestation and the spread of industrial meat production, advance health, education and development, and chart a viable, sustainable course for the world.