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Pleistocene Rewilding promotes the reintroduction of descendants of Pleistocene megafauna, or their close ecological equivalents. Toward the end of the Pleistocene era, between roughly 13,000 to 10,000 years ago, nearly all megafauna of South, Central, North America and Europe had dwindled toward extinction. With the loss of the large herbivores and predator species, niches important for ecosystem functioning were left unoccupied. Paul Martin, the originator of the Pleistocene rewilding idea, claims that present ecological communities in North America do not function appropriately in the absence of megafauna because much of the native flora and fauna evolved under the influence of large mammals. Pleistocene rewilding is an extension of the conservation practice of "rewilding," which involves reintroducing species to areas where they became extinct in recent history (hundreds of years ago, or even less). The fact that Pleistocene rewilding is based upon the dynamics of ecosystems many thousands of years ago lends it a grander breadth, but also makes it much more controversial than rewilding as presently practiced.