Making the “European Yellowstone”—Unintended Consequences or Unrealistic Intentions?

Home to more than 60 percent of surviving European brown bears, some 2,500 wolves, and more than half of the continent’s pristine forests, the Romanian Carpathians have recently started to be seen as a frontier for rewilding and for large investments in ecotourism. As in other cases of wilderness creation, most of the environmental protection agendas have proposed strict regimes of conservation, which often disregard the historical role of local communities in shaping such rich biodiversity.