Wild animal eating bit of tough heather in specific region (5,7)
I believe the answer is:
latin america
'specific region' is the definition.
(region of the Americas)
'wild animal eating bit of tough heather' is the wordplay.
'wild' indicates an anagram.
'eating' is an insertion indicator.
'bit of' suggests taking the first letters.
'heather' becomes 'erica' (the plant genus Erica includes heather plants).
The initial letter of 'tough' is 't'.
'animal' with letters rearranged gives 'lainam'.
'lainam' going around 't' is 'latinam'.
'latinam'+'erica'='LATIN AMERICA'
'in' is the link.
(Other definitions for latin america that I've seen before include "Western territories" , "Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking region" , "Spanish-speaking area" , "southern part of a continent" , "Non-English-speaking New World" .)