Wildnis - Unser Traum von unberührter Natur

Wilderness - Our Dream Of Untouched Nature

What does wilderness actually mean? Award-winning nature filmmaker Jan Haft explores a place of longing for nature lovers and an important concept of nature conservation.

An untouched forest filled with old, majestic, and fallen trees, a landscape without traces of civilization – this is how we imagine wilderness. But is this image accurate? Do we preserve an intact, species-rich wilderness if we leave nature to its own devices? In forests that are no longer managed, only a fraction of the native animals, plants, and fungi still live today. Why is that? Biologist and award-winning nature filmmaker Jan Haft questions our understanding of wilderness in his new book and proposes a new concept of wilderness. The final message is that a livable and climate-friendly landscape with great biodiversity could easily be achieved if we wanted it: We need large herbivores like horses, cows, and water buffaloes on “wild pastures.”

Nominated by Bild der Wissenschaft for the Knowledge Book of the Year 2023.

Biologist Jan Haft, born in 1967, is an award-winning nature and wildlife filmmaker whose films are shown in both cinemas and on television. He lives with his wife and three children on a farm in the Isental near Munich. His first book, The Meadow. A Call to a Mysterious World (2019), was released alongside his film The Meadow – A Paradise Next Door, both of which were a great success. In 2024, he published the illustrated children’s non-fiction book My Meadow. In his second book, Home Nature (2021; paperback 2023 under the title Nature Next Door), he focused on the habitats, animals, and plants right outside our doors. With Wilderness (2023), he outlined a new understanding of wild nature.

Author: Jan Haft
Publisher: Penguin Verlag Munich
Publication Year: 2023
144 pages; 206 mm x 132 mm
ISBN: 978-3-328-60273-6