Picture credit: Rewilding Chile – A wildlife ranger, Luigi Solís, dedicated to protecting huemul deer in Patagonia National Park.
The evidence is clear: We need rewilding!
The Global Rewilding Alliance works with scientists, practitioners, and experts worldwide to compile, review, and share this growing body of evidence so that rewilding can stand at the centre of environmental decision-making and action.
Rewilding research
Nature Climate Change, 2023
Trophic rewilding can expand natural climate solutions
This landmark study, authored by 15 scientists across 8 countries, forms the scientific foundation of Animating the Carbon Cycle (ACC), placing wild animals at the heart of natural climate solutions.
Restoring just 9 wildlife species could help draw down 6.4 billion tonnes of CO₂ every year.
The research ranked in the top 5% of scientific papers globally by impact (Altmetric).
Our original research was published in 70 mainstream outlets, 50 countries and translated in 12 languages.
Global Change Biology, 2025
Global Tiger Density Linked With Forest Carbon Stock, Top-Down and Bottom-Up
This study reveals a powerful link between apex predators and carbon storage. Where wild tigers thrive, forests capture and retain significantly more CO₂.
The findings provide compelling evidence that wildlife recovery is a critical, and overlooked, climate solution.
Forests with healthy tiger populations store 1.5–2x more carbon than ’empty forests’.
Global Rewilding Alliance – Rangelands Working Group, 2025
The Ecological Uplift
This position paper identifies two priority actions: restoring wildlife populations and integrating rewilding into working landscapes, outlining practical pathways for both nature and land managers.
Built on three pillars — more wildlife, wilder working landscapes, and enhanced ecosystem services — it shows how healthy rangelands improve soil, water cycles, and productivity across grasslands, savannas, tundra, shrublands, woodlands and deserts worldwide.
Increasing wildlife abundance can rebuild rangeland ecosystems while sustaining billions of people.
Global Rewilding Alliance – Wetlands Working Group, 2025
Taking Animals Into Account
Drawing on global case studies, this report demonstrates how wildlife maintains wetland ecological character, water systems and biodiversity.
Large animals are essential to keeping wetlands resilient and functional.
A global report and Africa special edition highlight the underestimated role of animals in wetland health and bring wildlife back into wetland policy and management conversations.
Rewilding reminds us that humans are part of nature, and that our wellbeing depends on healthy, wild ecosystems.
On-the-ground evidence for rewilding
Rewilding helps turn unprofitable farmland into biodiversity hotspots
Knepp Estate in the United Kingdom, once an unprofitable intensively farmed landscape with depleted soils and declining wildlife, is now one of Britain’s most celebrated rewilding projects.
Their twenty-year rewilding review reveals incredible numbers: 900% increase in breeding birds, 500% rise in nightingales, along with a growing population of butterflies, dragonflies, and other species.
By allowing natural processes to return and introducing free-roaming grazing animals, the land has regenerated rapidly, going from being a significant carbon-emitting agricultural system to a powerful carbon sink. It has also proven to be economically viable, generating income through nature-based enterprises such as high-quality meat, safaris, and glamping, showing that wildlife and people can flourish together.
Video credit: Knepp Estate
Rewilding helps reduce wildfire risks
In Galicia, Spain, some of the most effective firefighters don’t carry hoses or wear helmets. Instead they graze the hillsides on four legs: Galician wild horses are emerging as unlikely heroes in facing increasing wildfires.
Fundación Montescola recognises that the key to long-term ecological health and protection from wildfires lies not only in human-led habitat restoration but also in the rewilding of free-roaming, large herbivores like Galician wild horses, who used to graze Galician healthlands for centuries.
Picture credit: Fundación Montescola
Rewilding helps create jobs and strengthen local economies.
Across 65 rewilding sites in England and Wales, full-time equivalent jobs have more than doubled compared to pre-rewilding levels.
In Italy, Rewilding Apennines generated 400,000 € for local communities over the course of the past two years.
Rewilding is not just ecological restoration, it actively supports people.
Picture credit: Rewilding Europe, James Shooter
Rewilding helps sustain family traditions
From his ranch in the Sonoran Desert of northwestern Mexico, Osvaldo Coronado speaks of how agave plants have sustained his family for generations.
Osvaldo and his family produce bacanora, a traditional distilled spirit similar to tequila and mezcal. But behind every bottle is an often-overlooked partner: bats.
Bats play a vital role in pollinating agaves, ensuring the plants can reproduce and thrive. Without them, both ecosystems and family traditions would struggle.
Osvaldo Coronado – Rancher and Conservationist in the Sonoran Desert, Mexico
Mossy Earth
Rewilding is rewriting what’s possible for nature, climate, and people
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