“To count the blades of grass and to count the bees is, well…, rather ambitious.”

In 2014, the Romanian town of Armeniș became a site for rewilding Europe’s largest land mammal, the European bison. A decade later, the project lead by WeWilder Campus and WWF Romania, has done more than bring the bison back. It has sparked a broader socio-economic transformation that fosters local economic growth, reduces dependence on waged labour and city-bound migration, and enables a revival of making a living from the land.

A proposed highway route crossing through the mountains puts a decade of patient work at risk. To reroute the highway away from the bison’s habitat and the agricultural community the project must recast its achievements as ‘measurable value’ into the spreadsheet economics of the Ministry of Transport.

This film covers conversations with the two remarkable women at the heart of the WeWilder initiative. Their insights describe how to walk the thin line between a regenerative way of life and the pressure of economic development – it's never either/or, it's always both/and. Their enduring presence and unwavering commitment have earned the community’s trust.

Cadence, insistence and permanence, the alchemical recipe for a collective future.