Course:CONS200/2026WT2/ Rewilding Europe: Reviewing Continent-Wide Strategies

Introduction [Malcolm Loewen, 88437561]

For thousands of years, Humans have gradually degraded the natural landscape of Europe and then even more in the past few hundreds of years. Europe used to be covered by vast forests, grasslands and wetlands. These ecosystems were roamed by a diversity of animal species like Aurochs (wild ancestor of domesticated cattle), European bison, elk as well as the predators that hunted them like wolfs and wildcats like lynx. Nowadays in Europe, the natural ecosystems have been greatly reduced. The forests have been cut down. The wetlands have been drained. Now most of the land is being used for agriculture and development like urban areas and industry and even the vast forests that do remain, particularly in Scandinavia, only a very small portion is natural forest and even less is old growth forests while the vast majority is forestry tree plantation lots that have very low levels of biodiversity compared to natural forests.

Nowadays, there is a growing interest in Europe for the conservation of animal species such as Norwegian wolves and sea eagles and the rewilding of natural ecosystems by the public and governments who realize the importance of maintaining biodiversity and natural habitat especially due to the concerns of climate change. As conservation can decrease the effects of drought, floods and increased temperatures and extreme heatwaves. Even though there is more attention going into conservation there are still challenges that are limiting the overall effectiveness of conservation like economic and cultural incentives that work to keep the current state of ecosystems as well there are challenges with the politics of properly implementing conservations policies.

Examples of European Rewilding [Rachel Cheng, 51434421]

For millennia, farmers in Europe have de-wilded land for agricultural purposes to support rising global populations. Despite the continued growth of global populations today, rewilding efforts have gained traction, aiming to support and expand wildlife populations, repair degraded nature, and promote wider socio-economic benefits in the form of ecological services.

The European Rewilding Network (ERN), created by the Rewilding Europe organization, is a network connecting and leading various rewilding efforts across Europe. Zoderer et al (2025) analyzed 89 rewilding projects encompassed in the ERN in October 2023, initiated between 1914 and 2022. While the projects all used different strategies within a category of six goals, all rewilding strategies ultimately focused on reshaping human-nature interactions and aimed at achieving socio-economic objectives.

It is important to consider the socioeconomic aspects of rewilding to cultivate a positive relationship between humans and the environment, allowing nature space to revive itself while ensuring the least disturbance to human livelihoods. This serves as a significant challenge for rewilding projects, as it is difficult to find a balance between controlling nature while letting nature thrive itself. An example of this challenge was the reintroduction of wolves in Norway following the 1960s, where the wolf was practically exterminated on the Scandinavian peninsula due to active hunting. The project sought to rejuvenate and protect this endangered species. Careful monitoring of individuals within the Norwegian wolf population and increased emphasis on national and international rules have led wolf populations to grow since 2008, with designated zones prioritized towards carnivores. The rewilding of Norwegian wolves can be seen largely as a conservation success, with the increased protection and repopulation over a once threatened species. However, the increase in the wolf populations did not come without disruption to sheep farmers around the area, with multiple farmers reporting up to 100% losses of livestock. Despite undisputed disturbance to production, farmers were not necessarily against the conservation of wolves. The adoption of new technologies such as electric fencing or a shifting of practices allow farmers to mitigate conflict and build resilience towards new risks , creating conditions for humans and wildlife to thrive in tandem.

Additionally, rewilding can rejuvenate species that were made extinct in certain areas through reintroduction of the lost species and enhanced protection. One such example is of the Sea Eagles, also known as White-tailed Eagles, which were brought back from extinction in the UK after the last eagle was shot in 1918. Birds were brought to Scotland from Norway in 1975, thanks to a reintroduction project led by the RSPB (the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) and Scottish Natural Heritage, with an objective to extend the species’ range to ensure its survival. The current UK conservation status for the eagle is amber, meaning that it is a species that has unfavourable conservation status in Europe. UK and Scottish law have been expanded for greater protection of wild birds.

Rewilding does not have to be exclusive to fauna. The rewilding of landscapes in Europe involves assistance in regeneration of habitats such as forests that were lost due to human activity and climate threats. Landscape rewilding aims to restore natural ecosystem processes by reducing human control of landscapes and using passive management techniques, although more direct intervention may be required at early restoration stages or landscapes that are very degraded. Some direct assistance includes planting native flora species and growth management.

Overall, rewilding focuses on the restoration of natural ecosystem processes, letting nature regenerate itself and maintaining a healthy relationship between human activities and the environment. However, people often require anthropocentric incentives to engage in rewilding efforts, like perceived socioeconomic benefits and ecosystem services.

Potential Benefits [Jackson Wood, 87992293]

Rewilding is a conservation philosophy that seeks to return ecosystems to their original natural state through the reintroduction of important species and keeping human intervention to a minimum allowing natural processes to resume creating self-regulating independent ecosystems (Rawski, 2023). The concept of rewilding is very progressive and challenges humans to be innovative and think outside the box when it comes to obstacles in conservation (Perino, Andrea, 2019). Rather than focusing on small-scale habitat protection alone, rewilding aims to restore entire ecological systems and the relationships between species that once maintained balance in those environments. By prioritizing natural ecological processes, rewilding allows ecosystems to recover in a way that is far more sustainable long term.

Rewilding has a vast array of potential benefits that can affect the environment in many different ways. For example, maybe the most important benefit of rewilding is an increase in biodiversity, through the reintroduction of key species like apex predators (Rawski,2023). “Reintroducing predators such as wolves or big cats can control herbivore populations, prevent overgrazing and allow plant communities to recover” (Rawski,2023). This allows for degraded habitats to be revitalized and create suitable conditions for flora and fauna to flourish (Rawski,2023).  This causes the ecosystem to become far more resilient and healthy in turn plant communities recover and provide food, shelter, and breeding grounds for a variety of organisms including insects, birds and mammals, over time this would lead to more complex and stable ecosystems, as well as doubling as a significant carbon sink, sequestering dioxide from the atmosphere and contributing to climate change mitigation. (Rawski,2023)

Properly rewilded landscapes provide essential ecosystem services including clean water, pollination and disease regulation, these services are both beneficial to humans and animals alike (Rawski,2023). Rewilding efforts have also been correlated to a boost in tourism creating economic opportunities for local communities to profit off of this long-term conservation strategy. This happens due to people being drawn to rewilded because people like to see charismatic species return and enjoy the beauty of a restored landscape (Rawski,2023).

Another important benefit of rewilding is the restoration of natural ecological processes that have been disrupted by human activity. Many ecosystems have lost their balance due to habitat degradation due to pollution and the removal of key species. When these species are reintroduced natural interactions such as predation, competition and nutrition cycling begin to function more efficiently again. These interactions help regulate populations and maintain the ecosystems health without the need for constant human management. As a result, ecosystems become more self-sustaining and resilient to environmental change. This resilience is particularly important as ecosystems continue to face increasing pressure from climate change, land development and human expansion. Although it is important to create independent ecosystems that are self-sustaining, successful rewilding requires ongoing monitoring and research to assess its impact on ecosystems and human communities as well as adapt the processes of rewilding (Rawski, 2023). A reason for humans needing to be hands-on in early stages as well as for research purposes is climate change as it poses a threat towards this conservation strategy as it can disrupt natural processes that rewilding is supposed to restore. (Rawski, 2023). An example of rewilding being an effective strategy in action is the reintroduction of gray wolves in Yellowstone in the nineties and it has had a cascading effect on the entirety of the ecosystem. The wolves aided in controlling the elk population, allowing vegetation to rebound and in turn attracting a greater variety of birds and mammals (Rawski, 2023). “This project has become the model for sustainable agriculture and conservation” (Rawski, 2023).

Overall, rewilding represents a powerful and innovative approach to conservation. Through restoring natural processes and allowing ecosystems to recover, rewilding can increase biodiversity, improve ecosystem stability, and help combat climate change through carbon sequestration. In addition, the ecological and economic benefits of rewilding demonstrate that protecting and restoring nature can also support human communities. As environmental challenges continue to grow, rewilding provides a hopeful out of the box strategy for rebuilding healthy ecosystems and ensuring that both wildlife and humans can benefit from thriving natural ecosystems.

Potential Challenges and Limitations [Robert Cole Gauthier, 88262118]

This photograph of a landscape in the Scottish Highlands illustrates the problem with heritage landscapes. Jepson argues that the barren hills in the background are seen as a heritage landscape which people are attached to and associate with Scotland rather than the more ecologically sustainable and accurate landscape of the Caledonian forest seen pictured below.

A major potential challenge with rewilding efforts is that the process is largely informed by theory rather than evidence. In what Jepson describes as a “hands-off approach” it is ultimately difficult to model what the impacts of rewilding will be, potentially leading to problems such as invasive species or rises in zoonotic diseases or a plethora of other unintended side-effects rather than traditional solutions that target and are measurable by set parameters and variables. This is especially relevant when many of the original species that roamed European wilds, for example, aurochs (Bos primigenius), are now extinct, and the effectively feral livestock replacing them might not fulfill the exact same niche.

Beyond this however, many of the challenges with rewilding are human related. For example, the potential of rewilding efforts to fundamentally alter the character of a landscape many of which have become globally iconic such as the Scottish highlands by recreating the Caledonian Forest biome makes some wary who have become attached to a rugged bare and what they see as heritage Scottish highland. Others are concerned with increased human wildlife conflict or crop damage. This particular threat has been seen in the Rhodopes Mountains of Bulgaria where depopulation has attracted increasing numbers of European brown bears (Ursus arctos arctos) causing increased conflict particularly with farmers as there was less village activity to frighten off the bears. Interestingly, this still occurred when bear populations are actively declining in Bulgaria. The ire of locals towards wildlife is only amplified if local people are not adequately consulted and do not adequately understand all stages of the rewilding process. Ganchev et al in his Bulgarian case study observed declining trust in wildlife and conservation institutions.

On the financial side, many lands in Europe are potentially unsuitable for rewilding if they are critical for food production or other industries which animals might interfere in. This is particularly relevant in Europe where so much land was initially deforested for the purpose of farmland as can be seen driving and taking high speed rail across many European countries. Returning to the unpredictability of rewilding outcomes mentioned above and tying it into human issues, many will likely be hesitant to allow rewilding if the financial impact of said policies is unclear and may lose them money, particularly if current conservation policies such as CAP that reward farmers for managing their land in an ecologically conscious way are revoked in favor of hands off management. Moreover, many European laws are currently not set up to deal with rewilding; for example, animal carcasses, while important for environmental processes, are currently designated as biohazards that need to be removed. Should this continue, scavenger species such as vultures in rewilded ecosystems will be negatively affected.

Another concern brought up by some animal rights activists is that particularly because many rewilding efforts are effectively relocating domestic livestock such as horses and cattle and setting it free, that allowing said domesticated animals to suddenly be subject to winter starvation is an animal rights violation. Ultimately, in this case, the line of when the animal transitions from domesticated to wild can be hard to pinpoint. Currently, many rewilded areas are subject to such biohazard laws as a result of many rewilded areas not being official government managed conservation spaces but rather, akin to zoos in the eyes of the government. This also sometimes leads to the separation of predator and prey species in rewilded spaces which would otherwise be together in the wild.

Many of these issues are largely a result of institutional barriers because of how European Union law is currently structured. Jepson identifies that Europe currently thinks compositionalist, meaning that conservation measures are designed to maintain balance, to preserve what is already there (even should that habitat not resemble an area's natural state as the above mentioned current state of the Scottish Highlands) and directly managed. Rewilding is functionalist and effectively the opposite of this: dynamic, passively managed and fluid. As governments are currently structured compositionally, the majority of functionalist European rewilding experiments, for example, the Oostvaardersplassen reserve in The Netherlands are privately managed by organisations or landowners in direct defiance to the status quo. Any new policy drafted in a European legislature is therefore somewhat shackled by the preexisting precedence.

Conclusion [Malcolm Loewen, 88437561]

Overall conservation and rewilding in Europe have challenges like differing economic incentives like farming, increasing development and desires to keep the ecosystem the same due to heritage yet there are more examples of its successes like the reintroduction of many species that were going extinct such as Norwegian wolves, sea eagles in the UK, and European bison as well as the increase of more wild spaces. Scientists have also bred cows to be like the already extinct auroch. There is also more support growing in the public about conservation and rewilding. All the challenges can be dealt with better policy frameworks, adaptive management and more engagement with local communities. Europe will not be the same as it was thousands of years ago but there is a possibility of Europe becoming much more wild, climate resilient and ecologically resilient.

Images from Wikimedia Commons can be embedded easily.

References

9. Rawski, A. (2023). The surprising benefits of rewilding in ecological restoration. Ukrainian Journal of Ecology, 13(7), 1-3. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2905754037?RAO=true&pq-origsite=summon&sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals

10. Perino, Andrea, et al. “Rewilding Complex Ecosystems.” Science, vol. 364, no. 6438, 2019, p. 351. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26649285  Accessed 8 Mar. 2026.