Rewilding is already happening, incrementally, around the planet, sometimes driven by new protected area designations on land and in the oceans, and often by the abandonment of marginal farmland, especially in the Northern Hemisphere but also in tropical countries. Dietary changes could also free-up several million square kilometres of land and sea, and with a no animal-source food, global CO2 emissions could be reduced by up to eight billion tons per year, which corresponds to more than 20% of the current level of human GHGs emissions.
The Global Rewilding Alliance already works on rewilding in more than 70 countries, covering an area of more than 100 million hectares of land and ocean.
This page is mainly created for you who already are a rewilding practitioners. Here you will find scientific papers and other background information of relevance to rewilding. There will also be an opportunity for you to connect with other practitioners in your specific field of interest, and to know about different learning opportunities.
At the end, the “12 Principles for Rewilding” are presented to guide your work.
INTRODUCTORY READING
PEER-TO-PEER CONNECTION
Ask for advice on a particular rewilding issue by filling out the form below.
LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
A key task for the Alliance is to facilitate exchange of experiences and ideas amongst its members but also to create learning opportunities for interested people outside the network. This will accelerate implementation in the field as well as grow the rewilding movement.
Many of our members are already engaged in education and other learning activities, such as the European Rewilding Network. There is even a specific Rewilding Academy and a Professor in Rewilding Ecology established.
An important task for the Alliance is therefore to disseminate where these learning modules are to be found, but also to take the initiative of creating new learning opportunities on critical issues not covered by the network applying different tools, such as face-to-face and online interactions as well as project-based experiential learning.
THE 12 PRINCIPLES FOR REWILDING
The following twelve Principles for Rewilding in the “Global Charter for Rewilding the Earth: Advancing nature-based solutions to the extinction and climate crises” guide our work:
The ecosphere is based on relationships
Rewilding our hearts and minds is fundamental. Thus, a crucial first step toward widespread societal embrace of rewilding is to accept, celebrate, and activate the principle of “relationship,” the essential function and ethic that sustains life on Earth.
Protecting the best, rewilding the rest
Conserving the most intact remaining habitats and key biodiversity areas as well as working to recover lost interactions of nature at all levels and restore habitat connectivity in land- and seascapes at every scale, shows the complementarity of rewilding and traditional approaches to nature protection.
Taking the long view
To ensure sustained positive effects on biodiversity and quality of ecosystem services (such as carbon storage), rewilding efforts must be planned and implemented with a long-term perspective.
Evidence-based adaptive management
Learning from others, using the best-available evidence, gathering and sharing data, and having the confidence to learn from failure will lead to success and grow the institutional capacity of the rewilding community.
Making hopeful stories come to life
Rewilding is about telling the story of a richer, more vital future but also about executing successful projects—empowering others to support and join this movement by demonstrating positive results.
Letting nature lead
As in medicine, rewilding efforts should emphasize helping nature’s inherent healing powers gain strength, with the goal that management interventions would decline or cease over time. Humility will allow us to cede control, allowing restored natural processes to shape dynamic land- and seascapes of the future.
Building local economies
Creating, expanding, and restoring natural areas with abundant wildlife can provide new opportunities to create economic vitality and generate livelihoods linked to nature’s vitality.
Public/private collaboration
In the way that public/private collaboration has helped to expand protected areas, private initiative can catalyse public actions from governments at every scale, from local to national, so that economic and institutional frameworks provide increasing incentives for rewilding.
Embracing natural solutions and thinking creatively
Rewilding can help solve environmental, social, and economic problems. Conservationists should design and implement rewilding projects in ways that are ambitious, innovative, strategic, opportunistic, and entrepreneurial.
Working at nature’s scale
Natural systems operate at many scales continuously. Similarly, global rewilding efforts can work, place by place, incrementally and at various scales to rebuild wildlife diversity and abundance and allow natural processes, such as disturbance and dispersal, to create resilience in natural and social systems.
Working together for the good of ourselves and Nature
Effective advocates for nature build coalitions and forge partnerships based on respect, trust, and common interest. Connecting different disciplines and honouring the perspectives of diverse stakeholders will produce successful rewilding results.