Transforming challenges into opportunities

In conservation, the focus is often on responding to threats to nature and biodiversity. The aim is to reduce pressure on nature and protect it. But rewilding is different – it's not about reducing threats to nature, but harnessing opportunities to restore it.

Many threats offer opportunities and if we look for opportunities the world around us might look different.

So, there is a key question that needs to be asked at the start of any rewilding journey. How can we turn challenges into opportunities? How can we bring seemingly opposing interests together and co-create a way forward by providing innovative solutions?

Here are a few examples of how rewilding transforms challenges into opportunities.

Rural depopulation and land abandonment

Rural depopulation is often seen as a problem because of its negative environmental, socio-economic, and cultural impact. Trends such as diminishing employment prospects, increasing dependency on subsidies, and the erosion of social cohesion and cultural heritage, mean areas and communities affected by rural depopulation often face a very unsustainable outlook.

But less pressure on the land also provides new opportunities for nature and wildlife populations to recover. New nature-based economies can be built on recovering natural assets, providing jobs and income that enable people to stay in and repopulate communities. The return of young people and families to such communities can breathe new life into areas and generate pride in the natural landscape.

Flooding

The regulation of rivers and increasing periods of heavy rainfall mean the risk of hugely damaging floods has grown along many European rivers. Rewilding can lead to win–win situations by giving rivers more space to flow naturally.

The removal of embankments helps to restore river dynamics and other natural processes, which can:

• allow alluvial forests to come back on land that seasonally floods
• reduce flood risk for towns and villages by retaining more water in the flood plain
• create recreational areas
• enhance biodiversity by creating different water dynamics and habitats that provide nursing, feeding or nesting grounds for many species.

This approach has been used on many Dutch river floodplains with hugely beneficial results.

Forest management

Europe has very little natural forest left, however forest cover has increased by 5.5% since 2020 (Eurostat, 2024). Many of these new forests have been planted, while in mountainous areas most of the regeneration has happened spontaneously as grazing pressure from livestock is removed. Bringing back large wild and semi-wild herbivores in such places can create healthy, functional mosaic landscapes that are rich in biodiversity, less susceptible to catastrophic wildfire, and more resilient to factors such as climate change and disease.

Wildlife comeback

Europe has witnessed the comeback of many wildlife species since the 1970s, thanks to legal protection, habitat restoration and reintroduction efforts. From beavers, otters, red deer and wild boar, to lynx, eagles, wolves and vultures, this comeback is very encouraging as it proves that nature can bounce back if we let it (Ledger et al., 2022). Since many Europeans have become accustomed to the absence of wildlife (see shifting baseline syndrome in Module 1) they are now struggling to find ways to live with it. As a holistic approach, rewilding supports people to understand the return of wildlife, protect themselves and their assets, and find new ways to benefit from their new situation. Nature recovery can support the growth of nature-based tourism businesses, which provide jobs and income to rural communities, creating economic incentives for people to live alongside wildlife once again.

Cities and urban places

Many cities are becoming less comfortable places to live due to climate change. Concrete and stone buildings, asphalt, and pavements without vegetation are becoming increasingly inhospitable places as summers become longer and hotter. By greening cities with wilder urban parks, trees, flowers, and free-flowing waterways, we can lower temperatures, support the return of wildlife and enhance the health and wellbeing of urban residents.