The principles of rewilding

"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."

There has been much talk of rewilding in recent years as a large scale means to address biodiversity loss, provide for the recovery of nature and the environment, create sustainable local communities and nature-based economies and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

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 of these are visionary books on rewilding and I heard both authors speak at BirdFair in August 2018 and August 2019 respectively and I chatted briefly with them at book signing sessions afterwards.

So, what is rewilding?

It means helping nature heal.
 
It means giving space back to wildlife and returning wildlife back to the land as well as to the seas.
 
It means the mass recovery of ecosystems and the life-supporting functions they provide.
 
It 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.

It 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.

Rewilding is a progressive approach to nature conservation and nature recovery. It’s about letting nature take care of itself, enabling natural processes to shape land and sea, repair damaged ecosystems and restore degraded landscapes. Through rewilding, wildlife’s natural rhythms create wilder, more biodiverse habitats.

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.”

There are already many inspiring and successful rewilding projects in the UK (Knepp, Wild Ken Hill, Wild East and others) as well as across Europe.

Both Rewilding Britain and Rewilding Europe are doing amazing work in promoting and encouraging rewilding projects.

Advocates of rewilding from across Europe have co-formulated a set of principles that characterise and guide rewilding in a European context. All equally important, these are as follows. 

Providing hope and purpose

Rewilding generates visions of a better future for people and nature that inspire and empower. The rewilding narrative not only tells the story of a richer, more vital tomorrow, but also encourages practical action and collaboration today.

Offering natural solutions

By providing and enhancing nature-based solutions, rewilding can help to mitigate environmental, social, economic and climatological challenges.

Thinking creatively

Rewilding means acting in ways that are innovative, opportunistic and entrepreneurial, with the confidence to learn from failure.

Complementary conservation

Rewilding complements more established methods of nature conservation. In addition to conserving the most intact remaining habitats and key biodiversity areas, we need to scale up the recovery of nature by restoring lost interactions and restore habitat connectivity.

Letting nature lead

From the free movement of rivers to natural grazing, habitat succession and predation, rewilding lets restored natural processes shape our landscapes and seascapes in a dynamic way. There is no human-defined optimal point or end state. It goes where nature takes it. By helping nature’s inherent healing powers gaining strength, we will see people intervene less in nature going forwards.

Working at nature’s scale

Rewilding means working at scale to rebuild wildlife diversity and abundance and giving natural processes the opportunity to enhance ecosystem resilience, with enough space to allow nature to drive the changes and shape the living systems.

Acting in context

Rewilding embraces the role of people, and their cultural and economic connections to the land. It is about finding ways to work and live within healthy, natural vibrant ecosystems and reconnect with wild nature. We approach rewilding with a long-term knowledge of the environmental and cultural history of a place.

Building nature-based economies

By enhancing wildlife and ecosystems, rewilding provides new economic opportunities through generating livelihoods and income linked to nature’s vitality.

Long-term focus

To ensure sustained positive effects on biodiversity and resilient ecosystems for future generations, rewilding efforts aim and work on a long-term perspective.

Working together

Building coalitions and providing support based on respect, trust and shared values. Connecting people of all backgrounds to co-create innovative ways of rewilding and deliver the best outcomes for communities and wild nature.

Knowledge exchange

Exchanging knowledge and expertise to continually refine rewilding best practice and achieve the best possible rewilding results. Using the best-available evidence, gathering and sharing data, and having the confidence to learn from failure will lead to success.

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