- Rewilding aims to restore ecosystems and reverse biodiversity declines by allowing wildlife and natural processes to reclaim areas no longer under human management.
- Misunderstanding of the rewilding concept has led to applications that harm communities and biodiversity, and threaten to undermine an approach with enormous conservation potential.
- Well-applied rewilding can restore ecosystems at a landscape scale, help mitigate climate change, and provide socio-economic opportunities for communities.
- Evidence-based rewilding principles will guide practitioners to rewild safely, help assess the effectiveness of projects, and incorporate rewilding into global conservation targets.
Human activity is degrading ecosystems and driving biodiversity loss faster than ever before. The need to reverse these trends is formalised in Sustainable Development Goals 14 and 15. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and the post-2020 global biodiversity framework provide opportunities to rebuild the biodiverse ecosystems which sustain all life on Earth. Rewilding has the potential to do so at a landscape scale, and brings other important benefits for society.
Rewilded ecosystems can help mitigate climate change by increasing carbon removal from the atmosphere and protect against climate change impacts by reducing soil erosion and flood risk, for example. Rewilded ecosystems can also create socio-economic opportunities for local communities, reduce the effects of and costs associated with environmental hazards (such as flooding), and improve human health and wellbeing by improving access to nature.
A project in Chacabuco Valley in northern Chile is one example of successfully applied rewilding. Following a land purchase in 2004, Rewilding Patagonia removed livestock and farming infrastructure from 890 km2. Native vegetation and wildlife have since recreated Patagonian steppe and temperate beech forest systems which function without human intervention. The project also supports ranchers around the rewilded landscapes to implement sustainable land management practices.
Poorly managed rewilding, however, carries risks for biodiversity and local people.
A 2019 study evaluates the Oostvaardersplassen (OVP) project in the Netherlands which began in 1983 with the introduction of Heck cattle, Konik horses and red deer to reclaimed land. Their numbers were not managed and the animals could not move to new habitats, so populations were largely regulated by food availability. Native vegetation was degraded by overgrazing, and up to 30% of the animals died over winter periods when food was scarce. In 2018 the management plan for OVP was revised, with reduced herbivore numbers.
Rewilding projects should identify core rewilded areas and ways to connect them.
Photo: © Soulé and Noss, 1998
Without proper consultation rewilding may not benefit local communities, especially those with histories of traditional land management such as hunting, farming, forestry and fisheries. Inappropriate plans to reinstate natural habitats and reintroduce animals that may have originally been extirpated because of conflicts with human interests are often controversial. Projects risk alienating local people unless stakeholders are involved in planning that identifies and mitigates such concerns. In several cases, a lack of consultation has led to local anti-rewilding campaigns causing projects to be abandoned.
