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Push to ‘rewild’ the wastelands of Europe

Rewilding — a hands-off approach to restoring and protecting biodiversity — is increasingly considered for Europe. What exactly does this entail?

Most fawns are born with their fur covered with white spots. Image by Jud McCranie via Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4.0
Most fawns are born with their fur covered with white spots. Image by Jud McCranie via Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4.0

Rewilding is a process of environmental management focused on restoring natural ecological processes and reducing human influence on landscapes. his may include providing connectivity between such areas and protecting or reintroducing apex predators and keystone species. Several recommendations have been made around the world to spread the rewilding process more widely. This includes plans that have been developed by the European Union.

The argument for ‘rewilding’ is that the process could be used to restore the ever-expanding areas of abandoned agricultural land throughout Europe. So, instead of mud and rubble a more biodiverse wilderness is created. The call has been made by the European Commission, drawing up a new research study.

Not all environmentalists support rewilding. Arguments against include the possibility of altered disease ecology and associated human health implication, unexpected ecological and sociopolitical consequences, establishment of programs to monitor suites of species interactions and their consequences for biodiversity.

With the European focus, in terms of the land available for such a project it is extensive. Active cropland and other agricultural areas has decreased by approximately 19 percent in Europe between 1950 and 2020. Much of this land stands idle.

In setting out the case for returning this land to its natural state (‘rewilding’) the European Commission states: “The benefits include reduced loss of money through subsidies, proliferation of diminished native species, reforestation, and the restoration of ecosystem services provided by wilderness.”

These aims are supported by non-profit groups like Rewilding Europe, based in Nijmegen, Netherlands. This organization works with governments and farmers with the aim of creating rewilded landscapes. Currently there are some ten different regions across Europe as active rewilding projects. One such example is with reintroducing European bison and the elk into the Netherlands.

To show what might happen, a research group has constructed a series of predictive models. This is based on a digital map showing the potential ‘wilderness quality’ of different regions. Wilderness quality is described as a measure of how readily different areas can be transformed to a more natural state. This is drawn from the following criteria:

  • Various biodiversity metrics, such as an increase in the abundance and diversity of plant or bird species;
  • Artificial light at night;
  • Human accessibility;
  • Proportion of harvested primary productivity;
  • The role of landscape: from the topography and river systems to the soil and underlying geology;
  • Deviation from potential natural vegetation.

To be suitable, an area will need to have low levels of each of the measures. In particular, altered land-use, such as providing more space for rivers to follow their natural temporal and spatial dynamics, are considered to play an important role in recipes for successful rewilding.

Sorting through the various data points is important since there is not a ‘one-size fits all’ approach to rewilding. This is because understanding about how these complex and sometimes contradictory pathways interact (and in particular when they synergize or compete with one another).

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Written By

Dr. Tim Sandle is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for science news. Tim specializes in science, technology, environmental, business, and health journalism. He is additionally a practising microbiologist; and an author. He is also interested in history, politics and current affairs.

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