Benedict Macdonald

Benedict Macdonald is a British naturalist, conservation writer, and wildlife television producer whose work argues for ecological restoration at landscape scale. Rebirding examines the long decline of Britain's wildlife, connecting habitat simplification, intensive farming, lost large animals, and collapsing invertebrate populations. Rather than treating conservation as the management of isolated remnants, Macdonald makes a case for restoring functioning ecosystems, rewilding national parks, and linking recovery to viable rural employment. Pelagic published the book, and naturalist and broadcaster Stephen Moss contributed its foreword. It won the inaugural Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation and the Richard Jefferies Society and White Horse Book Shop Literary Prize. Macdonald studied at Christ Church, Oxford, then worked in natural-history filmmaking, including as a field director on Our Planet. His screen work joins field observation to public communication about wildlife recovery. Later books include Orchard, written with Nicholas Gates, and Cornerstones, extending his interest in species and landscapes that sustain richer ecosystems.