INTRO: As a contribution to the symposium "Rewilding prospects for reconciling biodiversity restoration and human well-being", this presentation will contribute to understand the definitions of rewilding as used by practicioners, and their visions on controversial aspects of rewilding implementation proposals.
MERITS: The main merit of this presentation is its attempt to syntetize the different perspectives that practicioners have on rewilding by using a methodology that has been already successfully applied by the same authors for understanding scientists possitions in relation to "new conservation" perspectives.
CRITIQUE: No major weaknesses
DISCUSSION: This presentation presents a novel and very much needed analysis of the opinions of rewilding practicioners about what does "rewilding" actually mean, and how it is/should be implemented. Being rewilding a concept with many different definitions, it will help to identify the diversity of expectations of these practicioners and, eventually, contribute to conciliate different perspectives around the practice of rewilding.
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INTRO: The manuscript offers a useful overview over current debates on the concept of rewilding. This overview ranges from the fundamental debate why rewilding should be done over the ongoing debate about how it should be defined and how it should be achieved. The study aims at providing these debates with empirical data on current opinions on the rationale, definition, and feasible approaches to rewilding.
MERITS: The discussions about a definition of rewilding and about possible approaches to it is an ongoing debate in the conservation community. In my opinion, a study that gathers and analyses the opinions of rewilding actors from different fields (i.e. science, policy, practice) will be a useful contribution to this debate by informing, and potentially framing both the discussions and future rewilding actions.
CRITIQUE: I don't see any weaknesses or problems with this manuscript.
DISCUSSION: This research can provide an important insight into the current opinions on rewilding. The authors included the views of different actors of the rewilding community and tried to cluster them in an attempt to reveal common grounds and areas of debate. This research can therefore be a valuable starting point for further discussions, and may help to develop guidelines for future rewilding projects.
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INTRO: This manuscript aims to understand what rewilding advocates and practitioners in Europe think and feel about the concept of rewilding.
MERITS: The manuscript presents a brief but careful review of the most current literature regarding the debate over what rewilding is and what should or should not be the goals of rewilders. Furthermore, the manuscript proposes a very innovative methodology (called Q-method) to understand the subjectivities of rewilders. Finally, the proposed manuscript relies upon a socio-psychological approach to study rewilding for conservation, thus, aiming to provide a deeper understanding of the topic than the mostly ecological perspective that tends to govern conservation science (1).
CRITIQUE: Many readers may be unfamiliar with what Q method is. The manuscript can be more informative with a brief description of such methodology. Also, I miss some preliminary results or, at least, some expected results
These two small concerns can be easily resolved by adding two or three sentences that, I believe, can make the manuscript and its implications more appealing.
DISCUSSION: I think that this methodology can be very useful to identify problems related to different expectations about rewilding, which, in turn, will help to find the most optimal solutions to the identified problems and/or conflicts of interest. The authors may consider including in the manuscript something in this regard.
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INTRO: This work seems to contribute to the general discussion on i) what is rewilding, ii) for what rewilding projects should be encouraged, and iii) how rewilding actions should be implemented.
MERITS: ~~It is important to recognize that there is not a single definition of rewilding that accommodates the views of all researchers and practitioners working on this topic. In this sense, the work that will be presented in this talk seems a good exercise of transparency and will motivate interesting discussions.
CRITIQUE: This abstract has no relevant weaknesses and problems. It is concise and quite clear.
DISCUSSION: ~~The next logic question is: how should we move forward from here? It would be nice to see some thoughst and ideas on this question towards the end of the presentation.
