New rewilding project teaches tour guides to offer fresh look at travel

Level: Intermediate

1
  Warmer
Put these places in order of how natural it is for animals and plants to live there (1 = not natural,
5 = completely natural). Give reasons for your choice.

1. a. farms

2. b. forests

3. c. zoos

4. d. safari parks

5. e. parks

2
  Key Words
Find the following words in the text. The paragraph numbers are given to help you.
1. restoring an area of land to its natural state (para 1)

2. a long way from towns or people (para 2)

3. following or looking for an animal (para 3)

4. the process of using methods that do not harm the environment (para 5)

5. all the people who join a course at the same time (para 7)

6. the effect of something (para 7)

7. a wild cat that has a short tail, long hair on the ends of its ears and dark spots
(para 8)

8. move from place to place without a particular purpose (para 9)

9. the set of principles that people use to decide what is right and what is wrong
(para 9)

10. the most exciting, impressive or interesting part of an event (para 10)
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 New rewilding project teaches tour guides to offer fresh look at travel
Level: Intermediate
Sophie Yeo
22 January, 2021
1 A new training programme is teaching tour
guides about rewilding. The programme aims
to create economic opportunities within wilder
landscapes. The training is run by a not-for-
profit organization called Rewilding Europe.
It is trying to return nature to a wilder state in
eight regions of Europe by removing human
management and reintroducing certain species.
2 The programme also hopes to help the tourism
industry by attracting visitors to remote areas,
such as the Southern Carpathians in Romania
or the Velebit Mountains in Croatia, where
they might see wild animals including lynx
and wolves.
3 In 2017, Rewilding Europe set up the
European Safari Company to bring tourists
to its rewilding projects. It now runs 40 safari
packages, including bison-tracking in the Oder
Delta in Poland and bear-watching in Croatia.
Its operations manager, Aukje van Gerven,
who is running the training programme, says
tourism can help to replace the income people
once made from jobs such as forestry.
4 “In all the rewilding areas we work in, there are
villages and towns, where people are living and
working,” she said. “If it goes wild, it means
there shouldn’t be any more forestry there, and
in most of them, there’s a lot less hunting than
in the past. So how do the people in that area
survive?” For van Gerven, the training is not
just about creating jobs in tourism but teaching
guides how to create links between rewilded
landscapes and the community.
5 “If I go wolf-watching with my clients,” she
said, “am I just going wolf-watching, or will I
visit the local honey producer to see how they
use fencing to make sure the bears in the area
are not eating the honey the bees produce?
Will I visit the local shepherd, to see how
he’s protecting his sheep against wolves?
It’s focused on economic sustainability within
a wild area.”
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6 To start, trainees attend online webinars and
can then participate in a five-day field training
programme, which will take place later in
2021 in Italy. There is a third stage for more
specialized training, including skills such as
birding, photography and wildlife-tracking.
7 The programme’s first intake started in
October 2020, with a second round of training
now under way. A third round is scheduled
for November, 2020. Rewilding Europe
will measure the impact of its approach
by surveying the tourists taken on by their
graduates and comparing that with tourist
experiences from before the training.
8 Petra Draškovič Pelc is a guide and
photographer from Slovenia, who graduated
after the first round of training. She works in the
Kočevsko region, where lynx were reintroduced
in 1973. “I liked the idea of connecting to
enthusiastic individuals who work in tourism
across Europe, to bring new knowledge to my
guests and to explain nature and its functions
better,” she said.
9 The Knepp Estate is among the best-known
examples of rewilding in the UK: longhorn
cattle, pigs and ponies now roam what was
once a 1,400-hectare farm. Rina Quinlan,
who works there as a guide, is enrolled in the
current training scheme. She is looking forward
to learning about the ethics of wildlife tourism
and how to tell better stories about rewilding to
the tourists that will eventually visit the estate.
10 “With rewilding, it’s not just about the individual
species, although that’s definitely a highlight of
any tour,” she said. “I think this idea that you’re
visiting this landscape – and that it’s part of a
wider picture – isn’t usually part of training in
the UK.”
© Guardian News and Media 2021
First published in The Guardian, 22/01/2021
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 New rewilding project teaches tour guides to offer fresh look at travel
Level: Intermediate

3
  Comprehension check

Are these statements true (T) or false (F) according to the article? Correct any that are false.
1. Rewilding Europe is working to return nature to a wilder state by removing certain species. T/F

2. The programme hopes that tourists will visit remote areas to see wild animals such as lynx
and wolves. T/F

3. People do not live or work in the areas Rewilding Europe works in. T/F

4. There should be no forestry in rewilded areas. T/F

5. People are not allowed to hunt in rewilded areas.  T/F

6. Trainee tour guides begin by attending a five-day field training programme. T/F

7. Petra Draškovič Pelc graduated after the third round of training. T/F

8. There are no wolves on the Knepp Estate in the UK. T/F

4
  Using key language

Match the words in the left-hand column with those in the right-hand column to make expressions
from the text.
1. training a. industry

2. remote b. guide

3. economic c. manager

4. operations d. organization

5. tourism e. programme

6. tour f. training

7. specialized g. area

8. not-for-profit h. opportunities

5
  Discussion
• Is rewilding a good idea? Give reasons for your answer.
• Is mass tourism good for the economy of remote regions? Give reasons for your answer.
• Would you like to be a tour guide? Why? Why not?
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 New rewilding project teaches tour guides to offer fresh look at travel
Level: Intermediate

6 In your own words

  
Choose one of these places from the text to research:
• the Velebit Mountains in Croatia
• the Southern Carpathians in Romania
• the Oder Delta in Poland
• the Knepp Estate in the UK

Find more information online about your chosen place and especially about rewilding projects
there. Prepare a short report on your findings (100 to 120 words) and include some statistics (for
example, the number of animals).

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 New rewilding project teaches tour guides to offer fresh look at travel
Level: Intermediate – Teacher’s notes

Article summary: The article describes how 4. sustainability

rewilding certain areas might encourage 5. intake
tourism and bring economic growth to those 6. impact
areas. 7. lynx
8. roam
Time: 60 minutes 9. ethics
10. highlight
Skills: Reading, Speaking, Writing
3. Comprehension check
Language focus: Vocabulary
Make sure that, apart from deciding which statements are
Materials needed: One copy of the
true and which are false, students also correct the false
worksheet per student
statements. The corrections given in the key are only
suggestions and students may use their own words to
correct the false statements.
Note: The difference between safari parks
and zoos is that most zoos cage animals Key:
for exhibition, whereas safari parks let their 1. False. … by removing human management and
animals roam free resembling a real wildlife reintroducing certain species.
environment.
2. True.
3. False. There are villages and towns, where people
live and work.
1. Warmer 4. True.
5. False. In most of them, there is still hunting but a lot
There is no correct answer to this activity as the order less hunting than in the past.
will depend on each student’s individual ideas. Check 6. False. To start, they attend online webinars.
that students understand the meanings of the words. 7. False. She graduated after the first round of training.
Make sure that students give reasons for their choice. 8. True.
You could also ask students to think of at least one
advantage and one disadvantage for each place. 4. Using key language
For example, In zoos, animals can’t roam free but
at least they’re safe from poachers. Point out that there may be more than one possible
answer in some cases (e.g. ‘specialized’ can be used
2. Key words with ‘programme’ or ‘training’) but that there is only one
solution that uses all the words in the way in which they
Ask students to do the exercise individually and then are used in the text. Encourage students to look back in
compare their answers in pairs or small groups. After the text to check their answers.
checking the answers, encourage students to use some
of this vocabulary actively by asking them questions such Key:
as ‘What are the advantages and disadvantages of living 1. e
in a remote area?’, ‘What was the highlight of your last 2. g
holiday?’ and ‘What impact could rewilding have on jobs 3. h
in remote areas?’ 4. c
5. a
Key: 6. b
1. rewilding 7. f
2. remote 8. d
3. tracking
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 New rewilding project teaches tour guides to offer fresh look at travel
Level: Intermediate – Teacher’s notes

5. Discussion

Allow students time to note down their ideas about each

statement and encourage them to say why they agree or
disagree with each one.

6. In your own words

The four places are only mentioned briefly in the text, so

this is an activity in which students have the opportunity
to find out a bit more about one of the places and use the
information to prepare a short report. Encourage them,
if possible, to include statistics in their report. Suggest
that they narrow the scope of their report by including
rewilding in the words they enter in the search engine,
for example rewilding in the Oder Delta. The Rewilding
Europe website also has extensive information. This
activity is probably best done as a homework task.

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