The wolf has mounted an extraordinary comeback. Once hunted to extinction across Western Europe, the wolf has taken advantage of the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the depopulation of the countryside to spread from east to west, reaching the suburbs of Amsterdam and Brussels. Only Britain, Ireland, Malta, Cyprus and Iceland now lack the top predator that haunts our fairytales.Tom Heap and Helen Czerski go face to snout with the wolf to find out the secrets of its success. They're joined by writer, Adam Weymouth, who tracked the route of a pioneering wolf called Slavc that made its way from Slovenia to Verona, kick-starting the return of the wolf packs to swathes of northern Italy. Erica Fudge of Strathclyde University shares her research into werewolf tales of the early modern period and BBC Central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe digs into the relationship between farmers and wolves in their Carpathian heartland to reveal the conflicts we can expect as the western wolves increase their population. Producer: Alasdair CrossAssistant Producer: Toby FieldRare Earth is produced in association with the Open UniversitySpecial thanks to Wolf Watch UK
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53:16
Arctic Goldrush
For the Arctic, 2024 was the second-warmest year on record, with temperatures rising much faster than the global rate. The region's resources- oil, gas, iron ore, uranium, even diamonds and the rare earth metals used in electric cars- suddenly seem accessible. That's caught the attention of China, Russia and the US, with President Trump, eager to mount a hostile takeover bid for Greenland.In the first of a new series of Rare Earth, physicist Helen Czerski and environment journalist, Tom Heap consider the impact of this sudden global interest on the people, wildlife and landscape of the far north. It's not the first time that climate change has determined the fate of the region. For 500 years the Vikings occupied Greenland, using it as a base for their discovery of North America. By the late 14th century temperatures were falling, their crops failing and supply ships from Scandinavia struggling to make it through the expanding icepack. Communications faltered and then stopped completely. Historian, Eleanor Barraclough joins Tom and Helen to explore the fate of the last Norse Greenlanders- one of the great mediaeval mysteries and a warning of the power of a changing climate. They're also joined by Duncan Depledge from Loughborough University and the Royal United Services Institute who fills them in on the military and political backdrop to the Arctic Goldrush. In 2007 Russian explorer, Artur Chilingarov led a submarine expedition to the North Pole where he planted a Russian flag on the seabed. It was a blatant land grab by the Putin regime and a warning of Russian expansionism to come. The other Arctic nations are responding, with Denmark ploughing cash into the defence of Greenland as the United States and China stake their own claims to the riches of the frozen north that isn't quite as frozen as it was.The impact of climate change on the region's wildlife is so often encapsulated by the image of a polar bear on an ice floe, but ecologist Helen Wheeler of Anglia Ruskin University is more interested in the northward march of the beaver. These landscape engineers are actually moving ahead of the treeline, using rocks and mud to dam the rivers of the far north. The dams are blocking travel routes of Inuit hunters and fishers and may even be helping to raise the temperature of Arctic lakes.Producer: Alasdair CrossAssistant Producer: Toby FieldRare Earth is produced in association with the Open University
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53:18
Reasons To Be Cheerful
Could 2025 be a year of progress on climate change and the nature crisis? Tom Heap and Helen Czerski search for some tentative green shoots with former Green MP Caroline Lucas, editor in chief of Business Green James Murray, and climate comedian Stuart Goldsmith.Producer: Emma CampbellAssistant Producer: Toby FieldRare Earth is produced in association with the Open University
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53:15
Christmas Trees
An ancient Babylonian text, Hammurabi’s Code of Laws, forbids the cutting down of street trees without permission. Nearly 4000 years later, threats to our urban trees still arouse the strongest passions. Coventry residents organised a record-breaking mass tree hug in November to save 26 trees marked for the chainsaws and the battle to save thousands of Sheffield's street trees from the council's contractors inspired folk songs and expensive legal battles.As so many of us bring a tree home for Christmas, Tom Heap and Helen Czerski consider our feelings about street trees, the sweet hit of nature that provides year round shade and wildlife habitat in the least promising of city circumstances.They're joined by Jon Stokes of the Tree Council, landscape historian Sonia Dümpelmann and Paul Powlesland, barrister and founder of Lawyers for Nature. Producer: Alasdair CrossAssistant Producers: Ellie Richold and Toby FieldRare Earth is produced in association with the Open University
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53:13
Good Clean Fun
With fans travelling halfway across the country, stars expecting first class flights and venues serving up beefburgers and drinks in plastic cups the worlds of professional sport and live music share a pretty poor reputation for environmental impact. Add in the wasteful habits of high end film and TV productions and it starts to look as though anything that's fun has a disproportionate impact on the planet.In Liverpool, they're hoping to change all that. The United Nations has asked the city to use its reputation as a hotbed of culture to devise ways to cut the carbon cost of live events and film production. To launch the project the city is hosting a conference and a series of high profile gigs with Massive Attack, Idles and Chic to showcase best practice and spread the word that fun doesn't need to cost the planet.Helen Czerski and Tom Heap host a panel from the worlds of sports, entertainment and science to discuss a green future for fun, in front of an audience at Liverpool's Exhibition Centre.Producer: Alasdair CrossAssistant Producer: Toby FieldRare Earth is produced in association with the Open University
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