Rewilding: opportunities for boosting large-scale biodiversity restoration in Europe

Abstract

Failures of conservation policies in place to revert the current loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services urge to expand conservation approaches by seeking new opportunities for harmonizing nature restoration and social and economic needs. Rewilding has emerged as an ambitious solution to restore the integrity of ecological communities, emphasizing the need to switch from policy goals mostly focused on structural components of biodiversity such as species and habitats, towards a more comprehensive consideration of ecosystem processes and the role of species in maintaining these processes. However, contrasting perspectives on the implementation of rewilding goals, as well as misinterpretations of its ecological foundations, have obscured the debate about whether rewilding should be included or not in the conservation agenda. In this talk, I will discuss the benefits of a pragmatic approach to rewilding for boosting large-scale and long-term visions for biodiversity restoration in Europe, while taking advantage of opportunities provided by socio-economic changes and policy opportunities, such as land abandonment and the potential to contribute to the goals of Green Infrastructure. I will present rewilding as a multi-faceted concept that focuses on (1) increasing the functional ecological connectivity of habitats, (2) promoting more sustainable and biodiversity-rich food webs, and (3) allowing space for natural disturbances. Furthermore, I will make a case for the implementation of an European-scale rewilding strategy that is based on the identification and spatial assessment of the current state, the opportunities, and the risks and limitations of a rewilding approach. This advocacy has the ultimate goal of promoting the adoption of a proactive biodiversity restoration agenda at the EU level that explicitly incorporates rewilding principles.