According to Rewilding Europe (a European project founded by WWF Netherlands, ARK Nature, Wild Wonders of Europe, and Conservation Capital), wildlife in Europe has increased by around 40% over the last fifteen years. This is due to several factors: wildlife protection laws (especially those protecting wolves), rural depopulation, and improvements in agricultural practices.

The project Once It All Seemed Like Countryside tells the story of the province of Grosseto in Tuscany and its transformations. The province of Grosseto was, and still is, a predominantly agricultural area, with small villages where the average age keeps rising and where the few industries that existed have shut down because of the economic crisis. It also contains inhabited areas classified as “nature reserves,” a vast hunting reserve, and many woodland areas that have returned as forests due to the gradual abandonment of the countryside.

However, while nature is reclaiming new spaces, coexistence between humans and animals is becoming more complex than one might expect. This is because wild animals themselves have undergone profound transformations. The “old” wolves, once considered nearly extinct, have increased in number and begun mating with dogs, making it difficult to determine their true lineage. And while the remaining shepherds complain that modern wolves display unprecedented aggression, even the local wild boars are no longer what they once were, due to the large-scale introduction of Hungarian specimens and increasingly frequent crossbreeding with domestic pigs.

In the 1970s, species of deer and wild boar from other European countries were introduced because of their ease of reproduction — new breeds that eventually replaced the native ones. So while fallow deer and roe deer appear among abandoned farmhouses, European projects dedicated to studying these new hybrids are being launched.

Once It All Seemed Like Countryside aims to portray the reality of the little-known Maremman countryside: a place where forests advance at the expense of the traditional rural landscape, and where, as animals reclaim unexpected territory, the boundaries between wild and domestic prove far less clear-cut than they might seem.