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Guiding principles for rewilding

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journal contribution
posted on 2025-04-01, 04:02 authored by S Carver, I Convery, Sally Hawkins, R Beyers, A Eagle, Z Kun, E Van Maanen, Y Cao, M Fisher, SR Edwards, C Nelson, GD Gann, S Shurter, K Aguilar, A Andrade, WJ Ripple, J Davis, A Sinclair, M Bekoff, R Noss, D Foreman, H Pettersson, M Root-Bernstein, JC Svenning, P Taylor, S Wynne-Jones, AW Featherstone, C Fløjgaard, M Stanley-Price, LM Navarro, T Aykroyd, A Parfitt, M Soulé
There has been much recent interest in the concept of rewilding as a tool for nature conservation, but also confusion over the idea, which has limited its utility. We developed a unifying definition and 10 guiding principles for rewilding through a survey of 59 rewilding experts, a summary of key organizations’ rewilding visions, and workshops involving over 100 participants from around the world. The guiding principles convey that rewilding exits on a continuum of scale, connectivity, and level of human influence and aims to restore ecosystem structure and functions to achieve a self-sustaining autonomous nature. These principles clarify the concept of rewilding and improve its effectiveness as a tool to achieve global conservation targets, including those of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Finally, we suggest differences in rewilding perspectives lie largely in the extent to which it is seen as achievable and in specific interventions. An understanding of the context of rewilding projects is the key to success, and careful site-specific interpretations will help achieve the aims of rewilding.

Funding

Category 3 - Industry and Other Research Income

History

Volume

35

Issue

6

Start Page

1882

End Page

1893

Number of Pages

12

eISSN

1523-1739

ISSN

0888-8892

Location

United States

Publisher

Wiley

Publisher License

CC BY-NC-ND

Additional Rights

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Language

eng

Peer Reviewed

  • Yes

Open Access

  • Yes

Acceptance Date

2021-02-26

Era Eligible

  • Yes

Medium

Print-Electronic

Journal

Conservation Biology

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