The Benefits of Rewilding

Unleashing Nature’s Superpower

Picture credit: Altyn Dala – Przewalski’s horses return to Central Kazakhstan after almost 100 years of absence.

Rewilding heals our relationship with our environment and with ourselves

Millions of people around the world are inspired by undeniable proof of life rebounding. By bringing back nature, wild animals and the beauty of dynamic landscapes, our global movement is revitalising our planet for generations to come.

Rewilding gives practical hope, grounded in sound science and a powerful shared vision. It’s a credible and cost-effective key solution for our times.

Paradoxically, rewilding is both revolutionary and conservative, old and new, different and deeply familiar. And it’s simply the right thing to do because nature enables all life to thrive.

Rewilding Superpowers

Rewilding is a journey towards a more biodiverse, wild future where dynamic ecosystems are resilient, self-sustaining and abundant, providing many benefits to all living things.

Boost climate solutions

Healthy populations of wild animals enable ecosystems to capture and store vast amounts of CO₂. Functional ecosystems – with all their wild animals – act as natural carbon sponges. For instance, forests with wild Tigers store significantly more carbon than those without these apex predators.

Protect us from flooding, droughts & wildfires

Wild forests, grasslands and wetlands act as natural buffers against extreme weather events, like Beaver dams, which slow river flow, reduce flooding and store water for dry periods.

Bring back biodiversity & wildlife

When wildlife returns in number and diversity, ecosystems recover, restoring balance, beauty and resilience. The return of Lynx creates a cascade of impact as it controls deer numbers, in turn allowing forests, plants and other wildlife life to flourish again..

Purify our air & water

Healthy ecosystems naturally act like filters, delivering fresher air and cleaner rivers and oceans. Did you know that a single Oyster can filter nearly 200 litres of water every day.

Create jobs & supports livelihoods

Rewilding uplifts local economies and creates new nature-based jobs. In Italy’s Apennines, rewilding has generated over €400,000 for local communities in two years.

Malcolm Wield, Retired Forester in the Scottish Highlands, from Trees for Life

“There’s no doubt that native woodlands bring countless benefits. And the wilder the woodland, the better. Connecting with nature brings relaxation, and relaxation nurtures wellbeing. Wilder places simply make our world a better place to be.”

Malcolm Wield – Retired Forester in the Scottish Highlands, Trees for Life

Don Arcilio Sepúlveda

“I never imagined that at some point of my life I would have the chance to learn so deeply from pumas in nature, killing them to protect the sheep was my job, but now it is hard to imagine doing this again.”

Don Arcilio Sepúlveda – Former Leonero, a Puma hunter; now he protects them, Rewilding Chile

Sharon Jessop, Runner for Rhinos, South Africa

“We have seen the magic, the magnificent changes that can take place in just a few years. Now imagine the magic that could happen if all of us started taking small, strategic actions today.”

Sharon Jessop – Runner for Rhinos, South Africa

Alejandra Saavedra, wildlife ranger specialized in Darwin's rhea, Rewilding Chile

“I’ve been working for 9 years with [Darwin’s Rhea], and I love watching it recover from local extinction in Chile’s Patagonia National Park.”

Alejandra Saavedra – Wildlife ranger specialized in Darwin’s Rhea, Rewilding Chile

Get Inspired By These Rewilding Success Stories

Picture credit: Rewilding Chile – Linde Waidhofer, Patagonia, Chile

1 solution solving
3 Global Challenges

1 – Climate Crisis

Rewilding is a scalable climate solution.

The escalating climate crisis, marked by intensifying storms, wildfires, and floods, demands solutions at scale. The financial and technological solutions need to be found together. We cannot engineer our way out alone; the transformation required demands working with nature, not against it.

Rewilding offers that partnership. By restoring and protecting biodiverse ecosystems, we unlock nature’s capacity to regulate carbon cycles.

Climate stability and biodiversity restoration are not separate goals; they are fundamentally intertwined.

2. Biodiversity loss

Rewilding brings life back to whole ecosystems.

Habitat destruction, pollution, and overexploitation have driven a devastating decline in our planet’s biodiversity. Rewilding directly addresses this crisis by actively restoring entire ecosystems and helping nature heal itself.

By reintroducing native species, including those once on the brink of extinction, we enable ecological processes to recover, making landscapes resilient and functional once more.

These thriving, biodiverse environments are essential for providing us with critical services like clean water, pure air, and a stable climate.

3. Disconnection from nature

Rewilding heals our relationship with nature and brings hope.

The constant stress from interconnected crises and disconnection from the natural world take a significant toll on our mental and physical well-being.

Rewilding offers a powerful antidote, a pathway to choose a hopeful future. Worldwide, people from all walks of life, from urban cities to rural communities, actively support the return of nature, showing nature’s remarkable ability to rebound when given the chance. This reconnection reminds us that we are inherently part of nature.

It’s the most exciting environmental fix out there – with legs on…!

Keggie Carew – writing in Time Magazine about our research ‘Trophic rewilding can expand nature climate solutions’

Science & Evidence For The Benefits Of Rewilding

Rewilding key principles

Our commitment to restoring the natural world is guided by the 12 Rewilding Principles outlined in our Global Charter for Rewilding the Earth.

Developed by leading experts in the global conservation community, including the IUCN Wilderness Specialist Group and other key contributors, these principles were crafted in preparation for the 11th World Wilderness Congress in 2020.

The principles illustrate that rewilding is a dynamic social and ecological movement aimed at benefiting all life on Earth. We invite you to explore these principles and join us in our mission to unleash nature’s healing power.

The 12 Principles of Rewilding

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.

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.

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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, proactive, strategic, opportunistic, and entrepreneurial.

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.

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, enabling restored natural processes to shape dynamic land- and seascapes of the future.

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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.

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.

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.

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Recalling ecological history and acting in context

Successful rewilding efforts are informed by deep knowledge of the environmental and cultural history of particular places. Working within the social, biological, and physical realities of a territory will foster successful rewilding outcomes.

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.

Public / private collaboration

In the way that public/private collaboration has helped to expand protected areas, private initiative can catalyze public actions from governments at every scale, from local to national, so that economic and institutional frameworks provide increasing incentives for rewilding.

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, working intergenerationally and honoring the perspectives of diverse stakeholders will produce successful rewilding results.

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The Global Charter for Rewilding the Earth is also the founding document for the Global Rewilding Alliance, which was founded at the World Wilderness Congress in 2020. Our mission is to mainstream rewilding in science, policy and practice globally by 2030.

More About The 12 Principles

Read About Our Vision & Strategy

12 Principles image credits: Jaguar Rescue Center – Costa Rica, Samara Karoo Reserve – Etienne Oosthuizen, South Africa, Jaguar Rivers Initiative – El Impenetrable, Argentina, ORKCA – Namibia

A positive future is in the making. Join us.

Rewilding is one of those discoveries that only come along rarely, offering a practical solution to so many of our challenges. We warmly welcome you to join our community, stay up to date with our uplifting movement.

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