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"When you have radical ideas like this, people think you're a crackpot," says Paul Lister.
The Scottish landowner is a man on a mission.
He plans to wind back the clock at his estate in the Highlands by
repopulating the land with a raft of animals that have not been seen in
Britain for hundreds of years - including brown bears, lynx and wolves.
"What I'm aiming is to create a wilderness and wildlife reserve
similar to those that exist in Southern Africa; something that is
controlled, managed and fenced," he told BBC News.
"It is nothing like Britain or Europe has ever seen before."
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I
get quite angry when I think about the fact that when we want to put
back just 1% of the Highlands, we get potential resentment from some
quarters
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The idea for the proposed project came to Mr Lister years ago.
He explained: "The main problem we have in Scotland is a complete
overpopulation of red deer. We probably have triple or quadruple the
number of red deer than we can sustain.
"When I was 20, I was out shooting deer and I started thinking
about why we were having to cull so many of them. And the reason was
that we got rid of all the predators years ago.
"By bringing large predators back - wolves, lynxes and bears -
then we would end up with a more healthy and balanced population of
ungulates."
He is keen to point out that he is not trying to reintroduce
animals back into the wild, rather he is aiming for a "controlled
release" into a 50,000 acre (20,000 hectare) fenced enclosure.
Bringing back moose
A BBC Natural World team has been following Mr Lister set up his multi-million pound scheme.
And it has all started with animals that have not been seen in
the wild in Britain for many centuries - a pair of moose (which are
also known as elks).
They have recently arrived from Sweden and have been settling
into a 450 acre (180 hectare) enclosure within Mr Lister's Alladale
Estate.
They join some newly introduced wild boar and also 80,000 Caledonian
pine, juniper, hazel and birch trees, which have recently been planted
to bring back the land that he bought four years ago from its "desert
state".
The moose were flown in to Scotland from Sweden.
But while a couple of moose and some new flora are unlikely to
attract too much debate, the proposed plan to introduce larger
predators to his fenced reserve has provoked more controversy.
Local farmers are worried about the impact on local livestock should any large predators escape from the Alladale Estate.
On the other hand, the proposed fence to keep animals in is worrying local ramblers who want to safeguard their right to roam.
And while some ecologists are onboard with Mr Lister's idea, others have concerns.
Timothy Coulson, professor of population biology at Imperial
College London, says: "In many ways, I think this is a nice idea and I
applaud him for investing the time and money to see if this will work.
"However, the proposed area for the reserve is too small to
viably support, in the long run, an ecosystem containing large
predators.
"A single pack of wolves will cover a huge territory, so in
50,000 acres you could probably just have one pack, and for long term
survival, the animal population would have to be actively managed."
Wolves were hunted to extinction in the UK about 200 years ago
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Mr Lister points out that there is still much to do before larger predators can be brought in.
For a start, he says, he needs to increase the size of his
estate from 23,000 acres to 50,000 acres and there is also the need to
bring his neighbours on board, as well as to navigate through the reams
of red tape the project would involve.
However, he is optimistic, and believes the reserve could be up and running in two to five years.
He told the BBC: "We have covered our countryside with
motorways, highways, buildings, golf courses and so on to our own
benefit and satisfaction to the detriment of every animal that has ever
lived there.
"I get quite angry when I think about the fact that when we want to put
back just 1% of the Highlands, we get potential resentment from some
quarters.
"When someone wants to come along and do something good for the native
flora and fauna, we ought to put our hands up and get on with it."
BBC
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