Peering through binoculars across a grassy field near Denmark’s south coast, I catch my first glimpse of a creature I’ve never seen before. Clearly some kind of cattle, but taller and leaner than you’d expect, with long, wide horns.

This rare bovine variety is an echo of an ancient ancestor: they were bred specially to resemble the aurochs that once roamed Europe, but were hunted to extinction in the early 1600s. Known as Tauros, these cattle are at the heart of a rewilding project that is transforming this piece of former farmland, by reactivating the natural processes that agriculture turned off.

Rewilding is not new. The term was coined in the early 1990s, and in the decades since the idea of helping reestablish natural processes, then sitting back and letting nature do its thing, has captured the world’s imagination. Projects are underway on every continent, helping species bounce back and ecosystems reveal their full potential once again.