This article is a much abridged version of
a full paper [with 184 references] published (13-8-25) in the journal
Ecological Civilization.
Rewilded region of the River Kennet in Reading, UK.“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.” — George Gordon Byron (1788 – 1824).
1. Rewilding.The term, rewilding, often elicits
strong emotions, especially as presented in the media. Thus, anger is provoked that farmers will be forced to waste precious cropland, letting it return to the wild, or that dangerous animals will be released into towns and cities. Elsewhere,
guerrilla rewilders are secretly breeding butterflies, birds and beavers, and illegally releasing them (e.g. “beaver bombing”) across the countryside.
However, while rewilding, as a subject, is now widely discussed, its linkage with ecological overshoot and planetary boundaries is far less addressed. And yet,
as we show in our recent paper, this connection can offer a systems-level perspective for fixing the current global polycrisis. This is both as a critical component of Natural Climate Solutions and by influencing human behavioural change.
Thus, although rewilding is often thought of as keeping humans “away”, in fact, people must be
integrated into much of the rewilding process, living alongside and allowing space for “wildness”.
Rewilding sets an advance from nature protection to recovery, restoration and regeneration, aiming to strengthen the adaptive capacity of ecosystems by restoring natural processes and
minimising human management. The resilience of such ecosystems should also be considered, especially in regard to how the impacts of a changing climate may prevail upon them. It is not merely land abandonment, although the level of management intensity tends to be
related inversely to the size of the area being rewilded.
Rewilding can act to support other natural climate solutions (NCS) [nature based solutions (NBS)] approach, in regard to the restoration and improvement of wetlands, grasslands, forests, agricultural lands, seascapes etc., and while exact definitions may vary, a key feature is that (after some initial support) it minimises the level of human intervention/management in a given region, instead encouraging natural processes to take the lead and self-manage, in the restoration, shaping and enhancement of natural ecosystems and of critical ecosystem functions. Indeed, it may be
crucial for meeting 30x30 targets for countries such as the UK, i.e. protecting 30% of its land- and seascape by 2030.
(Re-)wilding is not necessarily bringing back what was there before (e.g. Pleistocene rewilding), but “making wild again”, so that new, thriving and regenerative, ecosystems can arise and flourish. It is a looser, systems-based, approach aiming to give nature the space and freedom to recover, grow and adapt on its own terms, expecting only that natural processes will drive change, leading to better functioning ecosystems and increased resilience.
It looks to the future, not the past.
2. Nature Degradation and “Half Earth”.The renowned American biologist, Edward Osborne Wilson (generally known as E.O.Wilson) regarded mass extinction as the greatest threat to Earth’s future, and once said that
“destroying a rainforest for economic gain was like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal”. Wilson coined the term
“biophilia” to suggest that humans have an intrinsic affinity (“love”) for other species, and was one of the first ecologists to estimate that we need to rewild roughly half of the Earth, an aim that he called
“Half-Earth”. Since only 15 percent of the world is protected as nature preserves, this implies that by the end of the century, 50 percent of all species will go extinct. Alternatively, protecting half of the world will
help 85 percent of species survive.
However, in a later interview, Wilson
argued that, “the process of setting aside half the Earth doesn’t mean moving people out, but being creative with park designations, restoration, and encouraging private-public partnerships.” Indeed, since
relatively little of the Earth’s land surface is free from human activities, people
must be integrated into much of the rewilding process, living alongside and allowing space for
“wildness”.
Rewilding Britain have presented an excellent
flow-graphic which illustrates how rewilding might be used to heal the degraded British uplands landscape, building complexity, biodiversity and resilience, over a period of perhaps 50 years. Here, people are a critical partner and overall beneficiary of the overall plan. However,
cities can also be included as an essential part of the Half Earth approach, since while more people are shifting from rural areas to cities, the ecological footprint of the latter is
many times their geographic area, drawing in resources from wider regions.
3. Principles for Rewilding. While it has gained in popularity, misuse of the rewilding concept runs the risk of alienating communities, harming existing biodiversity and undermining confidence in a methodology that offers enormous potential for ecological restoration. In an effort to avoid any such misunderstandings,
10 principles for rewilding have been defined as follows:
The 10 rewilding principles: 1. Rewilding uses wildlife to
restore tropic interactions (i.e. food webs and food chains).
2. Rewilding employs landscape-scale planning that considers core areas,
connectivity, and co-existence (i.e. that outcomes are to the mutual benefit of people and nature).
3. Rewilding focuses on the
recovery of ecological processes, interactions, and conditions based on reference (i.e. similar healthy) ecosystems.
4. Rewilding recognises that
ecosystems are dynamic and constantly changing.
5. Rewilding should anticipate the effects of
climate change and act as a tool to
mitigate its impacts.
6. Rewilding requires l
ocal engagement and (community) support.
7. Rewilding is informed by science,
traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), and other local (indigenous) knowledge.
8. Rewilding is
adaptive and dependent on monitoring and feedback.
9. Rewilding recognises the i
ntrinsic value of all species and ecosystems.
10. Rewilding is a
paradigm shift in the coexistence of humans and nature.
As a simpler, and more pragmatic guide, Rewilding Britain have proposed
“Five Principles of Rewilding”:
1. Support people and Nature together.
Rewilding is about all of us finding ways to work and live within healthy, flourishing ecosystems. Rewilding can enrich lives and help us to reconnect with wild nature while providing a sustainable future for local and wider communities.
2. Let Nature lead.
From the free movement of rivers to natural grazing, habitat succession and predation, rewilding seeks to reinstate natural processes. This includes reintroducing missing species where appropriate, particularly keystone species. It is not geared to reach any human-defined optimal point or end state. It goes where nature takes it.
3. Create resilient local economies.
Rewilding creates opportunities for resilient new nature-based economies. It’s about finding opportunities for livelihoods that thrive alongside and enrich, nature.
4. Work at Nature’s scale.
Rewilding is restoring ecosystems with enough space to allow nature to drive the changes and shape the living systems on which we all depend. Scale may come from single landholdings or through joining up nature so it can thrive from mountain top to doorstep, from source to sea.
5. Secure benefits for the long-term.
Rewilding leaves a positive legacy for future generations. Securing the continued, long-term benefits of rewilding areas is key to a healthy, prosperous future.
4. Rewilding and Food Security.In a
report by the WWF, it is posited that rewilding advocates have often not engaged appropriately with farmers, and accordingly are perceived as “elite” outsiders who do not really comprehend rural communities or environments. Media coverage has further driven this division, with the result that rewilding and farming are frequently regarded as being in conflict with one another. The WWF have proposed that, rather than it being seen that a simplistic binary choice exists between farming and rewilding, the latter should be thought of as part of a broad spectrum of approaches to help nature recover. This spectrum incorporates different kinds of “nature-friendly” farming, along with more “traditional” conservation techniques, with rewilding-type approaches sitting more towards
one end of the range. Thus, aspects of cost-effectiveness, landscape fragmentation and stakeholder opposition are all part of the integrated discussion.
Some commentators fear that leaving land to regenerate for nature will compromise food production in the UK, and relocate our environmental footprint to other countries. Sustainable food production in the UK needs properly functioning nature – healthy soils, clean and plentiful water, and thriving insect populations, all of which are the foundation of successful farming. In 2021, the UK Government’s
Food Security Report determined climate change and ecological breakdown to be the major challenges to food security. The report concludes that a
more effective overall use of land is needed, including diets based more on plants and less on meat, along with reducing food waste.
Similarly, the
Dimbleby Report (“National Food Strategy”) concludes that, “If we were to... increase productivity by 30% and reduce meat eating by 35%, we could produce the same amount of food from 40% less land. Both these scenarios free up enough land not just to achieve our climate goals but also to make space for nature, both in wilder areas and on our farms, without compromising our levels of food self-sufficiency.”
It is noteworthy that converting less productive agricultural land to rewilding can increase crop yields on neighbouring productive areas, an effect that improves further over time, as seen
from a 6-year study. This happens because rewilding creates habitats that enhance natural pest control and soil protection, and increases beneficial species like pollinators, ultimately leading to higher yields and field productivity.
While record temperatures have been experienced during the past few years, it is predicted by the
UK Met Office that, as compared to the UK’s climate in 1990, by 2070, winters will be between 1 and 4.5°C warmer, and up to 30% wetter. Summers will be between 1 and 6°C warmer, and up to 60% drier, depending on the region, with hot summer days being between 4 and 7°C warmer. This is likely to have significant effects both on health and food production, and some crops may not fare well under hotter and dryer conditions, while excessive rainfall/flooding of fields is a further issue.
5. Rewilding in a Changing World.Svenning has proposed that rewilding
should be central to the massive restoration efforts that are necessary to overcome the global biodiversity crisis and enlarge the capacity of the biosphere to mitigate climate change.
Critical factors in achieving this include large areas being set aside for nature, the restoration of functional megafaunas and other natural factors to promote biodiversity, synergy with major societal dynamics, and judicious socio-ecological implementation.
Gardner and Bullock have extended the argument further, and concluded that, in the climate emergency, conservation must become
“Survival Ecology”. They aver that, species and ecosystems are beginning to be subject to unprecedented conditions, which will likely undermine their continuing to exist in historical ranges; nonetheless, conservation remains largely directed towards returning species and ecosystems to an historical state, but where the deleterious impacts of humans are ameliorated.
In contrast, survival ecology reorients conservation efforts toward a future where humans and other species can coexist within a dynamic planetary system, acknowledging inevitable change, and actively shaping the world's forward trajectory rather than solely focusing on preserving a static past. They further advance that, since conservation science and advocacy have so far been insufficient to bring about change on the scale necessary, survival ecologists should also embrace
non-violent civil disobedience.
6. Rewilding and Human Ecological Overshoot (Aspects of the Broader Canvas). As we have seen, rewilding can help Nature to regenerate, and act to mitigate biodiversity loss and climate change. However, these are but symptoms of the wider underlying issue of human ecological overshoot, as noted by
Ripple et al. The tendency to focus on carbon emissions, with renewable energy as its antidote, misses much of the broader canvas of threats impinging on nature and society, and has accordingly been termed “
Carbon Tunnel Vision”. Undoubtedly, to rapidly ameliorate increasing atmospheric CO2 (plus other greenhouse gases) concentrations is
essential and critical, since they are causing ocean acidification, elevating air and ocean temperatures, melting of ice sheets, glaciers, and sea ice, rising sea-levels, and are
interrelated with biodiversity loss.
In addition,
we see collapsing fisheries and coral reefs, deforestation and habitat loss, the draining of fossil aquifers, rivers and lakes, soil erosion, desertification, massive species displacement and extermination, insect die-off, resource depletion, pollution of air, land and water – e.g. by microplastics and “forever chemicals” - all being driven by an unsustainable consumption of
100 billion tonnes of “natural resources” each year, thought to reach up to
184 billion tonnes in 2050. Hence, even if we could switch our energy from fossil fuels to “net-zero” emissions, current consumption by the human enterprise would still continue to exceed and degrade the Earth’s biocapacity.
Rees has proposed that on our present course, a
“population correction is inevitable”. None of those listed above is a single, isolated problem, but components of a complex web of societal and biophysical processes, defined by a set of planetary boundaries,
6 out of 9 now exceeded. Hence, the overarching collective solution is to reduce current hyperconsumption, globally, for which a set of actions and timescales
has been outlined.
The
Global Footprint Network concludes that the human enterprise is using 1.78 “Earths” worth of resources (2024 data). In other words, we are liquidating “natural capital” 78% faster than the Earth can renew it - treating it as “income”, the dangers of which E.F.Schumacher warned about in his iconic book,
“Small is Beautiful”, published in 1973. Hence, it is necessary to reduce global consumption by around 44%, although the reductions needed would vary considerably around the world, being greatest in the richest nations (up to 80%). Merz et al. have identified that the root of human ecological overshoot lies in a
behavioural crisis, driven mainly by advertising, but that those same mechanisms may also provide means for healing the malady.
Although it is not a “cure” for the condition, the potential of rewilding (as part of a NCS approach) to restore and regenerate ecosystems, can play a significant role, directly, in addressing ecological overshoot in the following ways:
Restoring Ecosystem Services: Rewilding can bring back key species, repair damaged ecosystems, and restore natural processes that provide essential services like clean air and water, flood and fire prevention, soil health, pollination and carbon sequestration.
Increasing Biodiversity:
By reintroducing native species and allowing natural processes to shape ecosystems, rewilding can increase biodiversity and resilience, leading to more stable and productive ecosystems. Healthy, diverse ecosystems are more resilient to climate change and human disturbance, and provide long-term ecological stability.
Reducing Reliance on Human Management:
Rewilding allows Nature to take care of itself, reducing the need for human interventions and resource extraction, which can strain ecosystems. Rewilding helps to reestablish natural predator-prey relationships and nutrient cycling, reducing the need for human intervention (e.g. pesticides, irrigation).
Enhancing Carbon Sequestration:
Rewilding projects, particularly those involving proforestation/reforestation, peatland, grassland and wetland restoration, which act as significant carbon sinks, can significantly help to mitigate climate change.
Promoting Sustainability:
Rewilding can foster a more sustainable relationship between humans and Nature by demonstrating the value of healthy ecosystems and the importance of responsible resource management.
Addressing the Behavioural Crisis:
Rewilding can also play a role in addressing the
behavioural crisis that drives overshoot, by fostering a greater appreciation for nature and promoting more sustainable consumption patterns. It has also been proposed that rewilding can enable us humans to
expand our consciousness, and better
comprehend the limits to growth.
7. Rewilding as Part of a Larger Solution:To begin fixing the overall
global polycrisis, rewilding (and other NCS) must be part of a systems-level approach that includes the following strategies:
- Energy transition: Cut fossil fuel use (and emissions) by moving more to renewables and reducing (minimising) total energy demand.
- Degrowth/post-growth economics: Redefine progress and prosperity.
- Circular economy: Reduce waste and resource extraction.
- Behavioural/cultural change: Shift values from consumption to stewardship.
- Relocalisation: Change from global dependency to local resilience.
- Population: Amend the culture of pronatalism, to bring human numbers back within planetary limits.
- Policy: Land use, subsidies, and regulations must support regeneration over exploitation.
