New Perspectives on Rewilding for Nature and People in Europe

Upscaling ecological restoration is widely understood to be the most effective approach to addressing the biodiversity and climate twin crises. This requires novel perspectives and solutions that are environmentally effective, economically feasible, and socially acceptable. Rewilding is an approach to nature restoration with a strong focus on ecosystem function, self-regulation and resilience while reducing local to landscape scale human pressures. Rewilding is widely considered as a nature-based solution that can potentially address environmental and social challenges whilst enhancing human and ecological wellbeing. Yet the effects of rewilding are far from being fully researched or understood; we do not fully understand how important it will be in addressing the increasingly urgent challenges we face. 

wildE, a Horizon Europe funded project, has pioneered ‘climate-smart rewilding’, an innovative approach to nature restoration that systematically considers interactions between biodiversity, climate change and society as an integral part of rewilding strategies. wildE research has explored how rewilding can generate benefits for biodiversity, climate change mitigation and adaptation while navigating structural constraints and managing inevitable trade-offs. Bringing together leading European experts from the environmental and the social sciences, this event will highlight the major project outcomes whilst explaining how these relate to associated fields of research. Join us to learn more about ground-breaking work on rewilding in Europe, how it fits into our rapidly changing world, the relationship between ecological disturbance and rewilding, and how innovative rewilding can bring nature and people together in the future.