Saturday, 20 March 2021

Today is World Rewilding Day

Today is the very first World Rewilding Day.

World Rewilding Day has been launched by the Global Rewilding Alliance which consists currently of 106 organisations working in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America and globally that pursue the same vision and approach: to heal the planet by initiating processes that aim to recover the natural beauty, diversity and resilience of earth and to so secure also that coming generations can enjoy the richness of earth.


What is rewilding?

  • Rewilding means helping nature heal.
  • Rewilding means giving space back to wildlife and returning wildlife back to the land as well as to the seas.
  • Rewilding means the mass recovery of ecosystems and the life-supporting functions they provide.
  • Rewilding is about allowing natural processes to shape whole ecosystems so that they work in all their colourful complexity to give life to the land and the seas.

This is a critical year for nature recovery.

Against the backdrop of rising global temperatures, the loss and extinction of biodiversity and the tragic impact of Covid-19, there has never been a greater awareness of our need for nature and the wide range of benefits it provides, from clean air and fertile soil to the locking up of carbon, resilience to disease and climate change mitigation.

We need to do much more than simply protect the nature we have left. We need to restore nature by rewilding large areas across the world, ranging from ancient forests to coastal mangroves, from peatlands to coral reefs.

Nature is our best ally and the time for rewilding is now.

Sir David Attenborough ….

“To restore stability to our planet, we must restore its biodiversity, the very thing that we’ve removed.  It’s the only way out of this crisis we’ve created – we must rewild the world.

We are facing nothing less than the collapse of the living world. The very thing that gave birth to our civilization. The thing we rely upon for every element of the lives we lead. No one wants this to happen. None of us can afford for it to happen. 

So, what do we do? It’s quite straightforward. It’s been staring us in the face all along. To restore stability to our planet, we must restore its biodiversity. The very thing that we’ve removed. It’s the only way out of this crisis we have created. We must rewild the world.

Rewilding the world is simpler than you might think. And the changes we have to make will only benefit ourselves and the generations that follow. A century from now, our planet could be a wild place again.”

I first became inspired by the vision of rewilding way back in 2013 after reading “Feral” by George Monbiot. I have heard George speak at many events since on rewilding, the climate emergency and many other critically important issues.

More recently in 2018, I read “Wilding” by Isabella Tree and in 2019 “Rebirding” by Ben Macdonald . Both these are visionary books on rewilding and I heard both authors speak at BirdFair in August 2018 and August 2019 respectively and chatted briefly with them at book signing sessions afterwards.

I follow closely the brilliant work being undertaken by Rewilding Britain and Rewilding Europe plus that of Heal Rewilding and our WildlifeTrusts in the UK. I have donated some of my photos to both of the last 2 organisations to support their publicity and promotion.


The Rewilding Network collated by Rewilding Britain provides details of rewilding projects throughout the UK.

The most well known and longest established rewilding project in the UK is probably Knepp in West Sussex, the subject of “Wilding” by Isabella Tree. I had planned to visit or possibly stay (camp) here in spring last year but obviously the travel restrictions imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic prevented that as it did all my other planned trips. Hopefully, I can do so this spring.

Much closer to my home is the Wild Coast Project at Wallasea Island in south east Essex which is transforming former agricultural land on the island back into inter-tidal coastal marshland and lagoons through managed realignment. I am also closely following with great interest the developing rewilding projects at Wild Ken Hill  in north west Norfolk and Wicken Fen  in Cambridgeshire. 

In addition, I am following the work of the Scottish Rewilding Alliance, campaigning to make Scotland the world’s first Rewilding Nation, and of Trees for Life at Dundreggan  in the Scottish Highlands.

I am now looking forward to this later this morning ….

"You can be overwhelmed by the complexity of the problem or you can fall in love with the creativity of the solutions." 

"Action is the antidote to despair."

💚🦆 🦉🦋🐝🦊🦡🌼 🌳💚
Stay safe, stay well, stay strong, stay connected with nature


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