Wander Woman: A Travel Podcast

Wayward Wanderings

• Phoebe Smith • Season 4 • Episode 1

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A rewilded valley, a returning herd, and a community finding new roots—come with Wander Woman Phoebe Smith to Portugal’s Côa Valley where tauros and sorraia horses are reshaping the land and jumpstarting local livelihoods. Join her as she learns how large herbivores create healthier mosaic habitats that reduce wildfire risk, boost biodiversity, and draw back predators like wolves, and listen in as she meets the people turning these ecological wins into sustainable nature-based tourism.

Also coming up:

  • Right to Roam campaigner Guy Shrubsole on access rights and Britain's Rainforests
  • Travel Hack: How to find a legit re-wilding project
  • Top 10 Rewilding projects around the world and where to visit them
  • Meet travel writers and authors Rhona Carrier and Tracey Davies as they discuss their memoir Wayward Women - and how mid-life women are a force to be reckoned with
  • Gear chat: what to pack for a responsible wild camp
  • Florence Merriam Bailey - a birdwatcher who had to persuade others to look but don't shoot (yes, really) is our Wander Woman of the Month

Contact Wander Woman

www.Phoebe-Smith.com; @PhoebeRSmith

Speaker 5:

On this month's Wander Woman podcast.

Speaker 4:

There used to be very large herds of wild horses and bovines in Europe, as you can see in the Coa engravings. They used to be here in the Coa Valley as well. And as they disappeared from the landscape, we've lost that natural um service.

Speaker 5:

I head to the little known Coa Valley in the north of Portugal to find out how the reintroduction of an ancient breed of cattle is enriching both wildlife and community through a hugely ambitious rewilding project. I also chat to English Right to Rome campaigner Guy Shrubsole to learn about access, wild camping, and rainforests right here in Britain.

Speaker 2:

They are these dripping green cathedrals of ancient gnarled oak trees and hazels and Rowans.

Speaker 5:

And I meet authors and travel writers Rhonda Carrier and Tracey Davies, whose new memoir, Wayward Women, talk about midlife travels of the wild kind.

Speaker 8:

We're in our 50s, so um I'd like it to give hope to middle-aged women everywhere that they think they can just, you know, head to the Andes, take ayahuasca and see what happens.

Speaker 5:

Also coming up, how to find a rewilding project that is genuinely legit on your travels in my monthly travel hack. Discover a starter for 10 with a tantalising taste of rewilding projects on offer around the world. And in my regular gear section, I help you pack all you need for a responsible wild camp. Finally, I'll be revealing this episode's Wander Woman of the Month, the traveller whose name is lost in the History Books. You're listening to the Wander Woman Podcast, an audio travel magazine with me, adventurer Phoebe Smith, exploring off-the-beaten track destinations, wild spaces, wildlife encounters, and the unsung heroes behind conservation efforts. Come wander with me.

Speaker 10:

Okay, so today we received a group of 15 Tauros, which is uh um breedback bovine to replace what the Aurochs was making in this uh process making in this ecosystem. And we just received them this morning. They've been transferred from the Netherlands from the Taurss Foundation here. They are now in a quarantine fence of about three actors, and um they are still skittish about people and noises and stuff. So, what we're going to do is going to uh quietly checking the herd.

Speaker 5:

To the outside world, we must be a very odd sight. I'm standing in a group of around 20 people on the sloping granite boulder stream hillside of Ermo das Águias in Portugal's Coa valley, taking photographs and whispering in awe at the site of what appears to be an enclosure of brown cows. But these are no ordinary cows. They are tauros, a specially bred version of a long-extinct wild cattle species called Aurochs that were last seen here over 400 years ago. Their reintroduction is the latest initiative of Rewilding Portugal, a six-year-old non-profit organization whose mission is to create a wildlife corridor along the length of the Coa River Valley, joining the key habitats of Duoro River in the north with the Malcata Mountains in the south, as the team leader Pedro Prata explains to me.

Speaker 10:

It always has been quite a rich uh wildlife corridor. It is a border area with uh difficult climate and soil. It has suffered uh several uh declines due to land use, the prevalence and frequency of fire, use of poison and poaching. So that that that those are threats that uh uh made it decline a little bit. But in the last decades, those threats have been tackled and it's coming back again, and that's what we're doing. We're looking to tackle those threats and uh make use of the opportunities because uh it's an extensive landscape, it's big, uh, it is connected, uh covers multiple biomes, and uh that's where life goes through and we want to promote that.

Speaker 5:

Effectively creating a chain of island sanctuaries or stepping stones across the width of this little-known, even to the Portuguese, area of Portugal, Rewilding Europe's grand plan is to bring back some of the missing species in the area, an area that was once an agricultural stronghold for hardier farmers. But it goes beyond just nature. Depopulation has seen the valley abandoned for more fertile areas. Young people have left for the cities, family farmsteads have been abandoned and become overgrown. So their hope? Tourism through rewilding. If you bring back the missing species, then people will come to see them. Case in point, the Tarous I'm now watching. As I said, they're just a type of cow to the untrained eye. But on the way to the site, please excuse the background sound as we're traveling off-road in a four by four, project manager Marta Calix explains they are much more than that.

Speaker 4:

What large herbivores can help doing is create more pasture areas, more mosaics, so you don't have this uniformity of shrub. This is part of the natural vegetation succession, um, but the issue very often is that when you have very large areas of very uniform scrubland, it's a high risk for fire, for example. Uh, so it's better if you have discontinuities. Uh, so you have areas of pasture, areas of scrub, and then areas of forest. So you need everything, and you need these different types of habitat also if you want to have like a lot of biodiversity and species richness in a region. Yeah. And that's what large herbivores help to create and maintain over time. It's it's this mosaic.

Speaker 5:

And it naturally would have been like that before we started, I guess, farming and this kind of thing.

Speaker 4:

Exactly. There used to be very large herds of wild horses and bovines in Europe, as you can see in the coa engravings. They used to be here in the Coa Valley as well. Uh, and as they disappeared from the landscape, we've lost that natural um service, let's say, that they provided in terms of maintaining these landscapes in a certain way.

Speaker 5:

Marta mentioned the core engravings, which in my opinion are probably the best kept secret in Portugal. I visited them on my way to the Rewilding Project. Just 130 miles east of Porto, near the town of Vila Nova de Foz Côa near Douro River, is the Coa Museum, from where guided tours leave to see 5,000 pieces of Paleolithic rock art that are etched into 400 boulders along this verdant valley. They almost weren't preserved at all. A dam was planned in the early 1990s which would have flooded the valley, but this was halted when archaeologists found the first of the carvings. One of the etchings was a cluster of auroch, the nearest relative to the torus, which my guide Joao Pedro said indicated is a hugely important species.

Speaker:

You have to look at the engravings or the paintings like something, of course, a way of to communicate, but also uh something really social. You know, it's not uh it's not the artist in his ateliers, you know, the side expressing itself. It's really something communitary, okay?

Speaker 5:

After I'd seen evidence of the once wildlife-rich valley here in the past, carved into these old rocks, before I attended the release of the Tauros, I went first to one of the three island projects of Rewilding Portugal. They have ambitions to one day own eight. The most recent is Paul de Toirões , extensively mined until it was abandoned a decade ago. It now attracts hundreds of bird species, as my guide Fernando Romeo tells me.

Speaker 1:

Well, since this place is more of a wetland area now because of the digging the mine, the older mine has uh developed here. Uh it provided the the formation of um several lakes or ponds with permanent water throughout the year. Um so basically it's benefiting a lot of diversity of species of birds: aquatic birds, uh, some ducks, uh grey heron, for instance, and also uh marsh area.

Speaker 5:

We stayed in the place for several hours, listening to the bird song, admiring newly sprouting wallflower amid the dry and cracked remains of the mine workings, and wandering along the edges of the young but sprawling forest made up of oak trees and cypresses. The water was already showing abundance of aquaflora, and black stalk nested on a small islet. Camera traps revealed Roe deer had passed through here, and not long after, an Iberian wolf. From this watery site, we journeyed further south along the Coa Valley to the cobblestone streets of the medieval village of Vilar Maior, which sits adjacent to the first rewilding area Pedro's team bought in 2021. A former agricultural site, its crumbling dry-strown walls are bordered with oak, ash, and alder trees. I spied roe deer and red flashes of bee to birds just arrived from Africa. But there was one particular animal I was there to see.

Speaker 1:

And on this particular place, they have uh released a small herd of Sorraia horses. It's a Portuguese traditional breed, very rare, came from nearby Lisbon. Yes. In one of the uh rivers or river Sorraia.

Speaker 5:

Smaller than the average-looking horse, with predominantly brown and yellow coats, and sometimes a zebra-like mule stripe on their legs, they are indigenous to Portugal, though it's thought there are only about 200 left. I spotted them from a distance, using binoculars, and then Fernando pointed out to me several control areas of the landscape, which had been fenced off from the horses, so that even a lay person like me could immediately see the diversity of plant life where the herbivores are allowed to roam versus where they are not present. The next day, back in Ermo das Águias , after watching the toros come back, I headed out on a walking trail with Pedro, passing waterfalls, climbing up rocky escarpments, watching vulture saw, and saw more Soraya horses roaming free. Pedro looked on like a proud parent.

Speaker 10:

These are the large herbivores, apex predators for these large pre these large grazers is the wolf. The wolf is present. Uh what we want is to increase the prey abundance, the wild prey abundance for the large predators, while at the same time we support the prevention measures for the domestic prey that nowadays they rely a lot uh still a lot. So it's to change that balance of opportunity for for the predators to feed on wild prey instead of domestic prey. That that's a contribution for coexistence, and we want this to be a corridor of coexistence, so this is also part of it. If they prey in our taurus or our wild horses, well that's part of part of the circle of life, and it will feed also on the next level of the traffic chain, which are scavengers.

Speaker 5:

As Pedro described the importance of every level of this Jenga Tower of biodiversity, building a solid base to slowly raise the area up, I thought about the other strand to this project, the Wild Coa Network. It's a cooperative of 40 different local businesses, which help promote the rewilding, all while providing a service for tourists who come to see it. From activities, hiking, biking, farm visits, wine tasting, to restaurants and accommodation. Each one is independent, committed to sustainable practices, and encourages immersion into nature and local life, boosting an appreciation of nature while financially supporting local people. I met one of the latest joiners, a beekeeping olive farmer, Joquim Morgado. Rather than investing in property in Lisbon, as many advised him to do, he decided he wanted to create self-catering accommodation at his grandfather's old farm that would bring opportunity and his grown-up son back to the area. The result is four raised bungalows based on the shape of the hexagonal beeswax cells called Coa Honeycomb, which stand amid the sprawling olive groves. The old dovecote has been transformed into the central bar area and a communal dining hall, where locally produced wine, honey, and olive oil sit in the former pigeon holes and an infinity pool which overlooks an allotment.

Speaker 3:

You can use it while being here, can have lepers or something, or you can get something from the garden.

Speaker 5:

Also gonna have like uh chicken for the eggs, and so they have also an experience for the kids and for the families to be uh I loved how locals were not only investing in tourism they know will come with the adjacent rewilding projects, but that everything they do is also rooted in a deep love for the area, nature, and immersing people into it. On my final night, I ended up staying in the rewilding centre, self-catering accommodation, not far from the projects, and asked Pedro what his main goal was for rewilding Portugal over the coming years.

Speaker 10:

Once we are in place and we are equal to our neighbours with similar uh land types and land ownerships, uh the the purpose or the idea is to influence their management towards a wilder management to allow these animals to roam, this uh wildlife to come back, the processes to take, and to tackle the threats which are common to us or our uh neighbouring landowners. And that's the idea. So we're not gonna buy the whole thing the whole uh Coa Valley, but we will enlarge pieces and stepping stones to influence larger areas through cooperation with the neighbouring uh landowners.

Speaker 5:

And that's perhaps the key to the success of rewilding projects like these. Not forgetting that people and neighbours are as much part of the ecosystem as reintroduced herbivores and biodiverse landscapes. If you can get them to support the cause, then everyone, visitors and locals, both human and animal, will thrive. And for us travellers and wildlife enthusiasts, visiting the Coa Valley now is like getting a front row seat to the creation of a new Garden of Eden.

Speaker 5:

That was me reporting from Portugal's now a little bit wilder Coa Valley. It was a while since I went, and I've heard that now you can even book a 'wilder camp' in the former mining turned wetland area, and I for one know I will be headed back soon. Revisiting sites like this in the early stages means you will see change happening so very fast, proving that you can always go back somewhere and still be surprised. Now, after visiting Rewilding Portugal sites in the early stages, I wanted to shine a light on other rewilding projects that exist around the world, for there are many. But before you merrily type a "Rewilding Project Near Me" into Google, you should listen to this month's travel hack. Because I want to make sure you find a reputable project. Because wherever you visit, you'll no doubt find environmentally responsible, sustainable organisations that say they give back to the community. But how much can you really trust them? Well, there are a few ways to ensure that the project you choose is legitimate. Here's how:

Speaker 5:

First of all, start out by looking for trusted organizations. Rewilding Europe is one of the most credible rewilding frameworks globally, and its site lists some of the best projects on the continent, several I mentioned in my upcoming top ten, and shows how to visit them. Similarly, the Global Rewilding Alliance highlights projects committed to restoring ecosystems at scale. Both work closely with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, which is a membership union composed of government and other organisations. There is a members directory on there to double check anyone who claims to be is legit. And it's not only there, check for other affiliations such as larger non-profit foundations or government bodies that they might be linked to, maybe the National Trust, the RSPB, or those associated with that global rewilding alliance.

Speaker 5:

Then, if there's guided tours, ask who leads it. Is it run by local communities or indigenous groups rather than outside control? Other questions you can ask is whether there's a limit on numbers. If a place restricts visitor numbers, seasons, or when you can go, that's usually a good sign. Similarly, read the rules. Responsible projects are explicit about paths, wildlife distances, drones, dogs, and noise.

Speaker 5:

If you want to get more in depth, then follow the money. Ask where your accommodation fee or tour cost goes. If the answer is directly to the conservation or local livelihoods, then it's a good sign. By the same token, look out for red flags. A hands-on experience isn't usually rewilding, for example. And good rewilding experiences most likely offer interpretation and understanding over dramatic sightings or social media moments.

Speaker 5:

And look for transparency. All reputable organizations should share their monitoring and data to demonstrate progress and impact. And consider if they offer any community or educational involvement. Many legitimate rewilding projects take pains to involve local communities by offering volunteer programmes, providing educational resources for schools. In short, they indicate they have a real commitment to more than just land ownership. Once you've built up a picture, then you'll have a good idea what's being restored and why. There should be clear goals, the return of some animals, the regrowth of endemic habitat, or ecological balance, and not just a great place to visit.

Speaker 5:

Now, go forth and rewild yourself.

Speaker 5:

That was my Wander Woman travel hack, the advice I offer every episode to ensure you stay on the right track to being a responsible traveller. Now, speaking of tracks, my first guest knows a lot about those. Guy Shrubsole is a campaigner with Right to Roam, a group that organises peaceful trespass into some of the vast areas of the British countryside in which the public are not allowed, in the hope to gain wider access rights in England and Wales. Currently, we only have access in England to 8% of the land. He's also author of various books about land issues around ownership and access to land and use of it, as well as the best-selling lost rainforests of Britain. I caught up with him to ask him more about the current state of access rights in the UK, how we can get involved, and just what is a British rainforest. And first of all, because uh at Wonder Woman we have listeners from all over the world, can you tell us what rights to roam do we have or not have in Britain and how perhaps that differs from some other places?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so in fact it differs even within the constituent nations of the UK. So uh in England and Wales, um, let me start with England, we have a right to roam over just 8% of England, and this is as a result of the countryside rights of way act that was brought in in the year 2000 by the last Labour government. Uh and um it also applies in Wales, where there's slightly more um landmass that's available for people to roam over, but it's still only a fraction of uh the land mass of Wales. I think it's it's around about 20% or so. I might not have my finger quite correct there. Um but if you were to wander over the border to Scotland, you discover a very different situation. Uh, you discover that actually for the last 20 or so years in Scotland, they have had a different system in place, and uh something called the Land Reform Act that was passed in 2003. Um and that created a right of responsible access to pretty much all of the land and water in Scotland, with obvious sensible exceptions. So, you know, we're often accused in the Right to Rome campaign of, oh, do you want to just come and wander around and camp in my back garden? And we're like, no, obviously not, because that would be weird, and we're not interested in you know breaching people's privacy, and also because gardens don't actually take up very much space at all. Like, you know, if people sort of think, oh, all of England's a garden or something, it's like no, they're about five percent of the land mass of England is is all of the gardens and homes in in this country, and um and and in and in there in there's no right to roam laws on earth that give people the right to go into people's backgardens or near to people people where people are living in their in their private homes. So that's certainly not the case in in Scotland. You can't you can't uh invade people's privacy in that way. Um but you can have a much greater freedom in the wider countryside, and I think that's that's the thing that really we've been trying to get at in England um is to learn from places like Scotland, but also learn from, as you mentioned, there are other parts of the world which also have um much greater rights to roam. Uh in many of the Scandinavian countries, in Sweden, Norway, in Finland. Uh there have been there's been a customary um rights of access to nature, Alemens Ratten, I think it's called, I probably pronounced that incorrectly, for kind of for centuries, kind of probably forever, really. Um and in more recent decades, some of that has been codified into law. Um there are other parts of of Europe as well where there are wider rights to roam.

Speaker 5:

And so why is it the case then that Britain in particular has much less access, and then within it, that Scotland has so much more um allowable access compared to England?

Speaker 2:

I think to be honest, it goes back to the degree to which England really kicked off the whole idea of private property rights. And this goes back centuries, you know, maybe a thousand years even to the Norman Conquest, where you had William the Conqueror coming and conquering England as it was then, um seizing the crown, and then saying, all land belongs to the crown, and I'm gonna then parcel it out to my feudal barons who are gonna, you know, become these very wealthy aristocrats, and some of whom we still have owning land in this country today, in terms of their families and their uh ancestral lineages. And I think this is created, and and over the centuries there was sort of this accretion of land law that built up this idea that property, private property in land and in buildings, included a whole bundle of rights with it. So it didn't just mean owning. The land and being able to like rent it out, or you know, being able to farm it and get the produce that you have farmed. And some of those are sort of things like, well, cool, sure, fine, no problem with that, you know, kind of acceptable to pretty much anyone. But then it kind of got this additional right kind of put into the bundle, which was you have a right to exclude everyone else from the little patch that you've just fenced around, or the in the case of some of the Norman barons, the very, very large patch that they have fenced around in terms of their massive castles and huge estates that came with them. So, and then we ended up exporting this idea of private property rights, include which including the right to exclude everyone else, the essentially the idea of trespass, to you know, all the colonies, the empire that we had at the time, you know, many other countries around the world have um ended up adopting this sort of approach to land, um, including the US, where it's obviously even more um kind of uh heavily policed, and you know, in the sense of you know, obviously gun laws, I'm sure in the US now mean that obviously uh trespass trespasses are, you know, when you when you see a sign saying trespasses will be shot in in England, you're like, really? But I can imagine that that might have some more truth to it. Um so yeah, but it but but clearly other countries, countries with perhaps slightly different legal traditions, have come up with different approaches. And the Scandinavian countries, Scotland, which often sort of thinks of itself perhaps rightly as a Scandinavian country, has taken a different approach to land. But this isn't something that's inevitable either, because countries obviously have debates, they have political debates about what should be the right settlement, the right social contract between people who own land and people who don't own land. And that's what we're trying to provoke is a debate about land and access to it.

Speaker 5:

Have you seen a shift? Have you seen any have you had any sort of access wins or anything you can see moving in the right direction?

Speaker 2:

There is obviously one big um win that we've had uh in the last few years, uh, and that is the defeat of Alexander Darwall, who uh was the big landowner who attempted to um uh uh remove the right to world camp on Dartmoor. Um but obviously, you know, that was that was a that was an incredible fight, but I guess in some ways we are now just back to where we were before, which is that Dartmoor remains the only place in England and Wales where you have a right to World Camp. So it feels amazing to have won that uh as this movement that has come together to defeat Alexander Dole, but uh you know there's obviously still a lot more to do.

Speaker 5:

In a few sentences, what can we all do, the Great Unwashed, to help further our right to roam in Britain?

Speaker 2:

So people have enormous power to take action on this. Um, firstly, please do join the Right to Rome mailing list. You can find it at righttoRoam.org.uk. Um if you'd like to join one of our new and amazing local groups and help them to organise new mass trespasses around the country, please do so as well. And the third thing that we're gonna be asking people to do, hopefully in the new year, is that the government is, we hope, going to publish what's called an access green paper, which is essentially a consultation on what should happen around access rights uh in in England. And we kind of see this as the possibly last best opportunity under this government to get a new right to roam, to win a right to responsible access in England, and we really want thousands of people taking part in that consultation and giving the government their views.

Speaker 5:

Wow, god, we've got to look out for that then, definitely. Get as many people as we can on board. And that's all the right to rain questions, but one question I wanted to throw at you at the end was about one of your is related to one of your books, which is can you tell the listeners a little bit about Britain's rainforests, which may come as a surprise to anyone to go in, Britain doesn't have rainforests. Um so where what are they? Where are they? How can we find them?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, sure. Well, Britain's rainforests are absolutely amazing places, they genuinely do exist. I live not so far from some um here in Devon. And um, when I moved here about five years ago, it was absolutely amazing to encounter some of them. They are these dripping green cathedrals of ancient nulled oak trees and hazels and ruins. And they're what makes them rainforests is the fact that it's incredibly rainy here. Um we have about twice the rainfall in Devon than in London. Um, and uh they are therefore able to support plants growing on other plants, things called epiphytes. So these are mosses and lichens and ferns that grow on the branches of trees and the trunks of them and are able to sustain themselves just through the nutrients and the sheer amount of rainfall they get each year. And um, you know, we're we're more used to thinking about tropical rainforests, and they exist in parts of the world where it's rainy but hot, um, places like the Amazon and and the Congo and um Indonesia and so on. But there are also these temperate rainforests that exist in places where it's rainy but cool, and that's places like the Pacific Northwest of America, New Zealand, Japan, but also the Western Atlantic seaboard of the British Isles. So we're very, very lucky to have this ecosystem here. We have far less of it nowadays than we once did and we should do because we cut down a lot of it a long time ago. You know, we hear rightly about Amazonian deforestation. In fact, there's going to be you know climate talks are being held over the next few weeks in in Brazil in the middle of the Amazon. And uh, one of the big things on the on the agenda is uh stopping tropical deforestation and restoring the tropical rainforests. That's obviously absolutely vital. But I also kind of think, you know, I just thinking about how you know we've got a UK delegation going out there, we've got the Prime Minister flying out there, in fact, later this week. And I hope that he also is aware of the fact that Britain is also a rainforest nation, and that he and his ministers do something to help bring back Britain's lost rainforests as well.

Speaker 5:

That was campaigner and author Guy Shrubsole, a man who knows a rainforest when he sees one, and he sees them everywhere in Britain. I'm looking forward to checking one out myself, and you should too. But before you grab your coat, you may want to hang around just long enough to hear my pick of the best rewilding projects around the world, in case your next walk or journey takes you anywhere nearby. So here it is, this episode's Top Ten.

Speaker 5:

At 10, we're walking into Ennerdale in the Lake District. This long-standing rewilding experiment shows how landowners, government departments, and utility companies can work together with a shared vision. The spruce plantations that once dominated this valley for a century and sheep grazing is now largely left to the forces of nature. Two decades in, and this beautiful valley is unrecognisable, with salmon and butterfly populations thriving.

Speaker 5:

At nine, we're travelling to the US for one of the world's most ambitious rewilding projects, Y2Y, the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative. The aim is to connect and protect 1.3 million kilometres squared of habitat to provide enough space for grizzly bears, elk, wolves, caribou, wolverines, and more to roam, feed and reproduce along an interconnected system of wild lands and waters.

Speaker 5:

At eight, we're going to one of the most successful rewilding projects in recent times, the Iberia Rewilding in the Corrientes province in Argentina, which has transformed these vast wetlands into a thriving ecosystem, replete with jaguars, tapirs, giant river otter, and giant anteaters. It was initially launched by Doug Tompkins, who co-founded the North Face, and his wife Chris, who is now the president.

Speaker 5:

At seven, we're in Spain and the Iberian Highlands, a region that has just welcomed nine European bison. Led by Rewilding Spain, the Iberian Highlands around Guadalajara, east of Madrid, aims to restore balance to the ecosystem. Highlights include seeing herds of Serrano and Potoko horses, Przwalski's horses, and toros, a breed of cattle that, as we heard in Portugal, is similar to the now extinct Orux.

Speaker 5:

For number six, we're staying in Europe and heading to Italy for the central Apennines, just an hour and a half from Rome. The limestone mountain range in central Italy is home to red deer, roe deer, and wild boar, along with their main predator, wolves. The most famous inhabitant of the central Apennines, however, is the Marsechian brown bear, an endemic subspecies to the region. Creating corridors is perhaps the most important feature of this project.

Speaker 5:

For five, we're headed to the northern edge of Europe and to the Nordic tiger rewilding landscape located in the cultural region of Sapmi in the northern Sweden. The livelihoods of the Sami people in this area are linked to reindeer and their seasonal migrations. Over the last century, forestry has decimated many old growth woodland and rivers are mostly dammed. Visit the Forest and Sami Museum in Umea to learn more.

Speaker 5:

At four, we're going to one of Europe's most diverse regions and little known, the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria. It's the most important breeding area in the world for Griffon vultures, alongside many other raptors. On land, you'll find yourself looking for wolf and jackal, and as a result of the protection, increasing numbers of brown bear. Local tourism enterprises have sprung up in the region too.

Speaker 5:

At three, we're going to Namibia, which, although isn't a rewilding project in the European sense, has a strong movement that empowers people through the 80 or so Namibian community conservancies which manage wildlife and local development. The model has seen elephant, lion, and rhino populations all recover.

Speaker 5:

At two, it's not a place I suggest visiting at the moment given the current Russian-Ukraine war, unlike the others here, but it is fascinating and worth a mention nonetheless. The Chernobyl exclusion zone has become one of the wildest places in Europe, with herds of horse, moose, grey wolf, lynx, and bison. One day, let's hope we can revisit it.

Speaker 5:

And finally, at number one, it's the easily visited and endlessly beautiful Affric Highlands in Scotland. Wildlife is already bouncing back here, but there's a 30-year vision to transform this area into a wild refuge for many iconic species, including lynx and beavers. Start at the Dundregon Rewilding Centre, the first visitor attraction of its kind in the world near Loch Ness. That was my top 10, the destinations and places I recommend to all my fellow responsible travellers out there. Now, speaking of responsible, and because we just featured Guy from Right to Roam, I thought I'd take a moment to talk wild camping, and in particular, what you need to pack in order to enjoy one responsibly.

Speaker 5:

Okay, so you've taken the plunge and made the decision to pitch up away from a proper campsite. Even when not strictly permitted, there is a code of conduct that says if you arrive late, leave early and crucially leave no trace of your camp, then it will be tolerated. And better yet, providing you follow these rules, not even be noticed by anyone. Taking the right kit is key to this, so listen up.

Speaker 5:

First make sure your tent or bivy bag, that's a waterproof sack for your sleeping bag, great for summer, is small and discreet. No pop-up tents, no loud colours, think blending in and leaving as small a footprint as possible.

Speaker 5:

Then think about your rubbish. I always take a bin bag with me so I can pack out my trash and any other I find on the way in and at the spot I choose to sleep in. It also keeps any of your own rubbish separate from your lovely gear.

Speaker 5:

You'll want to be warm, but this should not come from an open fire on the ground. Ecosystems are fragile and complex, so take something like a Kelly kettle, which will allow you to burn things off the ground without damaging it. And speaking of burning, be sure to carry in your own fuel rather than use the resources that will be ideal habitats for bugs and fungi. And never ever pick live wood. That should go without saying.

Speaker 5:

The other way you keep warm is a good camping mat, sleeping bag, and lots of layers. But when getting this kit, think about renting or borrowing it if you don't have it, rather than adding to the consumer waste problem.

Speaker 5:

And if you do need new, then look for fabric that is responsibly sourced, blue sign approved, and preferably undyed. It's amazing how much the process damages the environment, and preferably no horrible chemicals to make it waterproof.

Speaker 5:

And when getting food to eat on your sleep out, buy as local as possible so that everyone benefits from your visit. You know it makes sense, and then you can sleep soundly, knowing that you've cared for the places and the people outside your tent flap. Happy camping. That was my monthly gear chat, the advice I offer every episode to help you equip yourself for the journey ahead. Now, two people who weren't quite equipped for their journeys ahead were my special guests, Rhonda Carrier and Tracey Davies, travel writers and authors of the newly released travel book Wayward Women: Sex, Life and the Midlife Reset. I went to the book launch to ask them to tell me about their tome and what makes a Woman Wayward. So, Wayward Women, what is it about?

Speaker 8:

Two wild middle-aged women. Tearing up the world after divorce or after separation, and yeah, reaching midlife. Rhonda?

Speaker 7:

Yes, uh losing our minds basically. So it's the kind of the elevator pictures eat prey, love meets want. So it's basically Tracey and I losing our minds, driving around in Mustangs like Thelma and Louise and meeting amazing women on the way.

Speaker 5:

And how did this all come about? The idea to then turn what sounds like a friendship, personal experience into this book?

Speaker 7:

Yeah, uh, we started a Substack um which was based on sort of like the overspill of you know what we couldn't write in our travel pieces because obviously we went to the Mermaid Academy and then Tracey wrote something for the telegraph, but that was very telegraphy, and there's just so much, you know what it's like being a travel writer, there's so much that you don't put into the things that get published. Yeah. Um so we started doing that, and then um Maxim, our lovely editor at Bedford Square, messaged me and said he'd read one of the pieces and did he think there was a book in it. And I said, Yeah, I think Tracey and I could do something together about our misadventures. And he was like, hmm, sounds a bit weird, like two people doing it. But as soon as we put Tracey wrote a chapter on the mermaids, and then I wrote a chapter like following that, which was about like date using dating apps when you're traveling, and we put them together, and we just thought, actually, this really works. So, and luckily they agreed.

Speaker 5:

So, what time period, how many years, months, does this book kind of cover?

Speaker 7:

Well, it goes all the way back to uh well it it sort of starts with us us meeting. We're kind of starting. Well, it doesn't start with us meeting, it starts with us driving to see the mermaids and then me and Bumble, and but then it goes back to us as like young mums. It goes back to us meeting 14 years ago, but then it goes back even further than that. So it's not exactly chronological. We keep sort of dipping backwards. It goes back to when Tracey just had her twins and when she first had depression, like um and all the circumstances around that. So it kind of goes back into our relationships and and also really far back, like when we both went to we both lived in Hong Kong around the same time when we were younger, we didn't know each other, but um, and then that's where Tracey met her husband, so then she goes back like 25 years later and going back to the place where she met him, having ended her marriage and stuff like that.

Speaker 5:

And so you mentioned separation, so you both separated around the same time? Um, pretty much, yeah, during the pandemic, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then and then this kind of the modern day part of this story is you on your travels together, is that right?

Speaker 8:

Yeah, it's like the second half of the story. We sort of dip back into sort of like you know, not historic travel, you know, what our travels are uh within being being travel writers, but um the second part of the book is uh is sort of more forward thinking about what we're finding out about ourselves and and and then brilliant women that we're meeting along the way, and it's a it's quite a wild ride.

Speaker 7:

It's yeah, the second part is called looking for answers, I think, isn't it? And it's like more like road trips and hiking the Andes and taking um ayahuasca and uh going to see psychics in New Orleans and yeah, trying to find the answers and going to see Buddhist nuns in Bali and all sorts of until we finally, you know, have some kind of like I don't know, it's a healing, it's a book about healing.

Speaker 5:

And you said wild rights quite a few times. What was the wildest thing that we're gonna read about in this book?

Speaker 8:

Oh god, dare we say, there's lots of things. It's quite it's actually quite an exposing book, I think, for both of us. Um it's quite it's very personal. We talk about, I could say, uh depression and and love lives and uh and divorce and affairs and all the also, it covers so many, so it's quite it is quite an exposing book, but each time I've read it through all the way through, through editing and everything, it's just I just think yeah, it's quite it's it's entertaining to say the least.

Speaker 7:

Yeah, I think that I think the chapter that I like that always makes me laugh, even though obviously you know what it's like writing a book, you've read every chapter like 5,000 times, and you think you would be so bored of it. But every time I read the Peru chapter, which was the one that Tracey wrote, and basically because we were knew that we were going to take ayahuasca, Tracey had to come off all her meds like at the beginning of the week before we climbed the Andes. So it was an extraordinary experience. But even before the ayahuasca, it was it was yeah, it so that was but it makes but also it's just hilarious the whole chapter because I just read it still thinking, oh my god, did that actually happen? It was it was so it was so mental.

Speaker 5:

And then and then tell me, what do you hope people reading this book will, what's the message you hope they take from it?

Speaker 8:

Um I think I would like, but I it's you know say you should write the book you want to read, and I would have wanted to read this book when I was going through you know tricky times in my marriage or just feeling not myself or feeling depressed and and weird with ADHD. I want to read something that I would recognise, bits and pieces, and I think it really does that for whatever, however, you are when you're you know with parenting, with you know marital issues and and travel and friendship and all the things. I think, yeah, I think people just take something from it, I think they'll and also being we're in our you know, we're in our 50s, so um I'd like it to give hope to middle-aged women everywhere that they think they can just you know head to the Andes, take ayahuasca and see what happens.

Speaker 5:

We've noticed there's a huge push to recognise middle-aged women wanting to now travel, travel with friends rather than partners, travel solo. What do you think's driven this for it to be happened now? It feels very of the moment. Yeah, it is.

Speaker 8:

I don't know what's what what has driven. I think I think for for me, I've I took literally turned 50, and it was about uh seven or eight months before I turned 50 that I separated from my husband, and it was a long time coming. And we turned 50, and that's why I did the comedy course, and wanted, you know, do all this. There is just this drive to think, do you know what we're here now and let's do it, and there's you there's a confidence that comes with it. I think that might be something behind it where people are just thinking, actually, there's a huge world out there, and I can I can do it.

Speaker 7:

Yeah, I think you know, there's social media gets a bad rap, but I think the whole thing is that we have there's a lot more discussion of like mental health and menopause and people like exchanging information and just being really truthful about themselves, and I think that makes each of us braver, like women going, okay, like yeah, I'm not happy either. But seeing other women doing that, you know, it we could our mother's generation really didn't have you know the financial freedom, but they weren't seeing that happening. The more people it's just like a snowball effect. The more people that do it, the more people go, okay, fine, yeah, I can do that as well. But there's so many opportunities to do it, like there's growing numbers of opportunity to go on a you know on a group holiday. You don't just you don't just have to go and like climb the Andes by yourself, you know, you can do it and make new friends or go with friends and stuff. So you know, people are just seeing the opportunities more, and yeah.

Speaker 5:

And if there was one message you want to give to potential would-be wayward women, what would that be? Who wants to go first?

Speaker 8:

I would just say just do it. In fringent from Nike.

Speaker 7:

You know, if these maniacs can do it, then I can as well.

Speaker 5:

I mean, you know, just yeah, I think that would be my and the final question I ask everyone on the podcast is what's the one piece of travel gear that you never go anywhere without travel gear, wow, tarot cards. That was this episode's Hidden Hero, the people making a difference to others in travel through their contribution. It was great to hear Rhonda and Tracey flying the flag for empowerment and travel for midlife and beyond women. Thank you, ladies. And just like that, it's near the end of the episode. So nearly time for me to reveal my inspiring Wander Woman of the Month.

Speaker 5:

I hope you've enjoyed what you've heard. Please do subscribe so you never miss an episode, and please do consider leaving a review. It means so very much. You can follow me on Instagram at Phoebe R Smith, find me on Blue Sky, or go to my website, phoebe-smith.com, where you can sign up for my occasional newsletter, and of course, send me a message. Now, this episode we journey to the US, where we join a woman who definitely does not have bird feathers in her hat.

Speaker 5:

There was a time when passionate bird lovers, ornithologists, and natural scientists would look up to the skies, see a wondrous bird, perhaps with an enormous wingspan or a flurry of colours. They'd admire it, wonder at it, and then lift the barrel of their gun and blow it right out of the sky to be picked up in the slathering jaws of their retriever. Sounds crazy, right? But it was the way things were done. Just look around the bird gallery and the Natural History Museum in London. The Victorians loved a dead bird. A dead anything, really. And that's just those who loved birds, adored them. There were millions and millions who thought that a dead bird's feathers would look rather fetching in their hat. The buoyant plumage trade in the early 1900s led to an estimated death of five million birds every single year.

Speaker 5:

Today the practice seems misguided at best. But when Florence Merriam Bailey called for the banning of the plumage trade and suggested birds be studied alive, she was laughed at. But Florence was unwavering in her activism. She wrote more than 100 articles, many of which sought to stop the unchecked killing of birds. And she authored 10 books, including the earliest field guides to birds that allowed them to be identified without being viewed down the barrel of a gun.

Speaker 5:

Her legacy? Well, few remember her name, but her activism worked. She was an integral part in the US Congress passing the Lacey Act in 1900, which still prohibits trafficking in fish, wildlife or plants that are illegally hunted or taken. Her guides, including the Handbook of Birds of the Western United States, sold wildly and contributed to a renewed interest in spotting birds. Alive.

Speaker 5:

Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey was born near the Adirondack Mountains in New York State in 1863 during the Civil War, but developed a great interest in the outdoors and the natural sciences. While enrolled in Smith College, Massachusetts, she founded a chapter of the Audubon Society, an organisation dedicated to conservation of birds and their habitats, with fellow ornithologists and writer Fanny Hardy Eckstorm, as well as asking anyone they saw not to wear feathers in their headwear.

Speaker 5:

In 1889 she wrote a book called Birds Through an Opera Glass, which encouraged birdwatchers to find birds using binoculars or opera glasses rather than in a glass cabinet. In one paragraph, she lamented how the description of female birds were named after the male, regardless of differing colour. For example, the formerly titled Female Black Throated Blue Warbler is nothing of the kind. She wrote, "like other ladies, the little feathered brides have to bear their husbands' names, however inappropriate. What injustice! Here, an innocent creature with an olive green back and yellowish breast has to go about all her days known as the black-throated blue warbler, just because that happens to describe the dress of her spouse."

Speaker 5:

In the first decades of the 20th century, she wrote dozens of articles before completing her Magnus opus, The Birds of New Mexico, for which she won the Top American Orenthologists' Union Award for Orienthology in 1932, three years after becoming the first female Fellow of the Union. She was also praised for her engaging and literary descriptions. When describing the ruby-throated hummingbird, she wrote, "What tantalizing little sprites these airy daughters are. Her nest is the most exquisite of all the beautiful structures of winged architects. Her domestic life and ways of caring for her young among the most original and curious."

Speaker 5:

She was also a skilled illustrator, contributing to her husband's work, the naturalist and manimal expert Vernon Orlando Bailey, who worked for the US Biological Survey. For 30 years they travelled together, him watching mammals and her opera glasses pointed more towards the skies. The couple never had children, but she loved children and worked with the Boy Scouts along with many other similar organisations. And she campaigned to have nature studied in classrooms and taught birding herself at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, in 1903, which became a hugely popular course.

Speaker 5:

She lived quietly in Washington, DC, and died peacefully aged 85 in 1948, five years after her husband. With the exception of Parus gambeli baileyae, a subspecies of mountain chickadee from the mountains of Southern California named after her, her legacy is largely forgotten, even in the ornithological world. But her work against the killing of birds and the popularisation of bird watching as a hobby on your travels should never be underestimated.

Speaker 5:

She is a true Wonder Woman who proved that grace and intelligence can have just as much power as those with guns. And also the reason now that when you look up wherever you are in the world, you will see and notice our feathered friends gracing the skies. That was our inspiring Wander Woman of the Month, the traveller whose name is lost in the history books purely because of her gender. I hope that next time you hear a bird chirping or congratulate yourself on an incredible photo of a tucan you put on Instagram, you say a little thank you to Florence Merriam Bailey.

Speaker 5:

On the next episode of the Wander Woman Podcast... I head to India and let the train take the strain on a week-long adventure from Kolkata to Delhi. I speak to author Shafik Meiji about his love affair with Latin America and his most recent book. And as always, I'll be revealing more of my inspirational Wander Woman of the Month. See you next time, Wander Woman out.

Speaker 5:

The Wander Woman Podcast is written and produced by me, Phoebe Smith. The editor and writer of additional material is Daniel Nielson. The logo was designed by John Summerton. A final shout out to all the people I met on my journey and were willing to talk to me. It's because of you that this episode was able to happen at all.