So in Russia there's this Pleistocene Park, which is a part of tundra where grazing animals are left to be in hopes of recovering the ancient arctic steppe landscape.
I hope they still exist and get some finance in the current polit-economical climate.
Nothing prevents the EU from buying a large amount of Indonesian lands (Brazil, etc) and making it a Orangutan paradise. Like a national park but this time actually international. I guess everybody will be happy, including Indonesia who will sell or rent out this land, and private property laws will prevent deforestation.
Instead of this EU just nags Indonesia that it should preserve its pristine nature instead of developing its economy. Stick is being waived and no apparent carrots. That looks highly hypocritical, given how European countries of the past absolutely devastated their lands for the sake of economic development. Even now, Norway is planning on killing every one of their wild boars[1]. I'm not sure how the effort to reintroduce wolves elsewhere compares with that plan. Reintroduce a couple dozen wolves, kill 2k boars?
Returning to the Californians, with their urban sprawl they've already wasted a large portion of landscapes in their state, taking advantage of the awesome weather they are having. When they start telling other people around the world how they should be living and developing lands, the only appropriate response is "stop lecturing us, provide material help instead".
1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/19/norway-conside...