Rewilding complex ecosystems: Restore function not state

Abstract

Rapid global change and increasing human use of resources have led to the widespread loss and degradation of many ecosystems, and these trends are projected to maintain or even increase. Counteracting these trends requires flexible conservation approaches to maintain and restore ecosystem functioning and to enhance ecosystem resilience. We argue that rewilding, as a dynamic and low-intervention approach to conservation, can complement and support conservation efforts to protect species and habitats of conservation concern. We identify functional diversity and ecosystem complexity, natural disturbance and stochasticity, and connectivity and dispersal, as three important domains related to ecosystem processes that can be restored and maintained via rewilding. We use concepts from resilience and complexity theory to describe the ecological consequences of restoring and maintaining these process-related ecosystem aspects, and we discuss important socio-economic implications of rewilding. Finally, we provide practice-oriented guidelines for rewilding-based conservation.