Picture credit: ORKCA – Removing fences, restoring indigenous plants, and reintroducing wildlife in partnership with local communities to revive the great springbok Trekbokken migration in Namibia
Cost-Efficient, Durable & Scalable
Rewilding means the recovery of ecosystems and the life-supporting functions they provide, supercharging climate mitigation, cleaning up our water and air, protecting us from flooding, droughts, wildfires and disasters, and creating jobs and supporting livelihoods.
It is a 3-in-1 nature-led approach addressing our climate crisis, biodiversity emergency and supporting human wellbeing.
Rewilding is increasingly recognised not only as an inspiring vision, but as a scientifically grounded, policy-relevant solution to the interconnected crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and the breakdown of essential ecosystem services that sustain human societies
As a policymaker, you wield the power to affect substantial change and shape the future of our planet.
Rewilding: 1 solution, 3 policy wins
Supercharge climate mitigation, absorbing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually.
Restore whole ecosystems, bringing vital and rich biodiversity back.
Support livelihoods, creating jobs and improving wellbeing in local communities.
Policy wins from the rewilding movement
In 2025, we witnessed a milestone year for global policy support for rewilding.
October, 2025
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has released its groundbreaking Guidelines for Rewilding.
This landmark document, by one of the world’s most influential conservation authorities, recognises rewilding as a legitimate, science-based, and essential approach, offering guidance for implementing rewilding projects worldwide.
October 2025
Motion 039: Mobilising the role of wild animals in ecosystems as a climate solution: IUCN accepted an ACC motion at World Conservation Congress
This motion calls for greater policy recognition of how wild animals actively support and enhance nature-based climate solutions.
November 2025
Africa governments to back a new Wildlife for Climate Declaration ahead of COP31, with the lead of the Government of Zimbabwe
March 2025
Official handover of the report “Taking Animals into Account” to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands Secretariat
The report presents the rewilding perspective as a direct pathway to achieving ecological integrity in wetlands, emphasizing the critical role wild animal species play.
Thematic focused work
The Global Rewilding Alliance with their partners and experts are working on the following thematic focused work:
Policy toolkits
Wildlife Guidelines for NDCs
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has developed guidelines to address the critical need to align national climate strategies with biodiversity goals, adressing the interconnected crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. These guidelines provide countries with 10 practical recommendations for integrating wild animals and wildlife conservation into their NDCs, ensuring enhanced carbon sequestration, economic development, and climate resilience.
Sustainable Development Goals
Below are 8 SDGs where rewilding makes a significant impact, click on each one to find out how:
SDG 1: No Poverty
Rewilding creates sustainable income streams both directly through employment in restoration, and through ecological services, nature-based tourism, and wildlife recovery, often strengthening rural resilience and diversifying local economies.
In Italy, Rewilding Apennines generated over €400,000 for local communities in just two years, supporting small mountain communities where economic opportunities are often limited. In this way, rewilding helps reverse rural depopulation.
Rewilding efforts often alleviate poverty directly, recognising it as a main driver of ecological decline of local ecosystems. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Itombwe Génération pour l’Humanité (IGH) champions a holistic model intertwining nature and people and, to date, supported the livelihoods for over 2,600 households, easing reliance on illegal activities like bushmeat and mining.
SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
Rewilding enhances ecosystem services that directly support human health, such as improving air and water quality, reducing flood and wildfire risk, increasing access to nature, and strengthening mental wellbeing.
Across the world, rewilded landscapes have increased access to wild nature experiences, which are strongly linked to reduced stress, improved cognitive function, and stronger community cohesion. In river restoration areas, improved water quality also reduces public health risks downstream.
Rewilding offers a powerful antidote, a pathway to choose a hopeful future.
SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
Healthy rivers, wetlands, and forests – with their wild animals – naturally filter water, regulate floods, recharge groundwater, and contribute to improved sanitation systems.
Wetlands are one of nature’s best water treatment systems, and animals are the reason they work so efficiently. Wild animals help maintain water quality by keeping the entire system functioning, thereby being ecosystem engineers. They drive nutrient recycling, prevent harmful build-up by opening channels which maintain water flow paths and create new water openings. This all helps the water stay healthier and cleaner by boosting oxygen which kills bacteria and the spread of algae. Learn more about the GRA’s work on wetlands here.
SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
Rewilding fosters local, regenerative economies built around nature jobs, eco-enterprises, conservation management, nature-based tourism, and sustainable food systems.
Data collected by our Senior Advisor, Prof. Alastair Driver, shows that full-time equivalent jobs on rewilding sites across England and Wales are sustained at more than double the levels recorded prior to rewilding. This demonstrates that rewilding and nature restoration strengthens, rather than weakens, our economies.
SDG 10: Reduced Inequality
Community-led rewilding initiatives create inclusive economic opportunities, empower local and Indigenous communities, and help reduce social and geographic inequalities.
By shifting land use from extractive models to regenerative systems, rewilding supports community ownership, small businesses, local guiding enterprises, and diversified incomes – particularly in marginal rural regions that have historically been economically excluded.
SDG 13: Climate Action
Rewilding directly addresses the climate crisis. Healthy, wildlife-rich ecosystems are significantly more effective at absorbing and storing carbon and are far more resilient to climate shocks.
Research shows that restoring populations of just nine key wildlife species could collectively facilitate the capture of billions of tons of CO₂ annually – contributing more than 95% of the annual carbon removal needed to meet the global target of removing 500 gigatons of legacy CO₂ from the atmosphere by 2100.
This science underpins the concept of “Animating the Carbon Cycle” – recognising the critical role wildlife plays in regulating Earth’s carbon systems. As research expands across ecosystems, we are uncovering the immense climate impact of restoring intact trophic interactions. Learn more on the Animating the Carbon Cycle website.
SDG 14: Life Below Water
Rewilding marine and coastal ecosystems, including seagrass meadows, mangroves, coral reefs, kelp forests, and oyster reefs, restores biodiversity, strengthens fisheries, and enhances ocean resilience.
Marine rewilding efforts that restore shellfish reefs and protect apex predators have been shown to improve water clarity, rebuild fish stocks, and increase long-term fisheries productivity, while also storing significant amounts of “blue carbon.”
SDG 15: Life on Land
Rewilding restores terrestrial ecosystems, reconnects fragmented habitats, supports keystone species, enhances biodiversity, and rebuilds self-sustaining natural processes.
From the return of large herbivores and carnivores to the regeneration of forests and grasslands, rewilding rebuilds trophic cascades that stabilise ecosystems, increase biodiversity, and strengthen long-term ecological resilience.
All life on Earth benefits from building a world in balance with the wild
Healthy, fully functioning ecosystems are more resilient to climate change and provide essential services, from clean water and fertile soils to flood protection and food security.
The science is clear: wildlife recovery must be integrated into climate, biodiversity, and land-use policy.
Wild animals are some of our greatest ‘Climate Heroes’, watch below to find out why:
When biodiversity declines, we lose far more than species, we lose our economic resilience and sense of identity.
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