The Wilder Blean project, like many of its ilk, is inspired largely by the work of Dutch ecologist Frans Vera. In his influential book Grazing Ecology and Forest History, published in 2000, Vera questions the prevailing wisdom that vegetation in the lowlands of central and western Europe used to be dominated by closed forest. As a result of this assumption, he writes, farming has been given a lot of credit for increasing biodiversity, as grazing livestock creates different types of vegetation. But Vera argues that this theory ignores the impact of wild animals, and especially large herbivores, which could have played
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