Conservationists have rewritten the rules on rewilding, and it requires a fundamental shift in the way humans relate to nature.

Once seen as a radical approach to conservation, the concept of rewilding has matured since it emerged in the 1990s to provide new hope for the world’s rapidly declining biodiversity.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has released landmark new Rewilding Guidelines that provide a framework for the complex and often misunderstood conservation method.

CQUniversity Sustainability Lecturer Dr Sally Hawkins was one of 10 core rewilding experts who consulted with more than 100 scientists, conservationists and environmentalists from around the globe to develop the new guidelines.

The guidelines were released at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi this month.

Dr Hawkins says rewilding is not the absence of human influence but a recognition of non-human agency within ecosystems.

“Rewilding is quite a confusing concept to many people,” Dr Hawkins said. 

“It is essentially large-scale ecological restoration considering nature’s dynamics and instead of focusing on protected areas or single species, rewilding looks at the functional links across ecosystems.

“So rather than locking nature away in these protected areas, it’s trying to achieve more of a shared landscape so humans and nature can coexist and thrive.”

Over the past 50 years, the average size of global wildlife populations has decreased by more than 70% and scientific data indicates that less than three per cent of the terrestrial part of the planet is still functionally intact.

Dr Hawkins says rewilding is a direct response to the world’s biodiversity crisis.  

Some of the measures that can be adopted in rewilding include the reintroduction of lost species and creating connections between protected areas so species can move more freely.

One of the more well-known examples of rewilding projects include the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative that spans five US states and two Canadian provinces and includes the reintroduction of grey wolves, the reconnection of isolated grizzly bear populations and the rebuilding of caribou herds.

Dr Hawkins says the new rewilding guidelines offer structured, flexible guidance to help conservationists navigate the complexities of rewilding and are a call to action to governments, decision-makers and individuals to create a more biodiverse future. 

“There is a philosophical aspect to it as well in that it requires people to accept wild things in their landscape and a shift towards more eco-centric thinking that doesn’t prioritise humans over other species on the Earth.”

Dr Hawkins moved to Australia from the United Kingdom 18 months ago after completing a PhD in rewilding policy through the University of Cumbria. 
 

Rewilding in Australia

Whilst there are rewilding projects underway in Australia, Dr Hawkins said the term has not been widely used here because of colonialized notions of the word ‘wild’ and its insufficient recognition of the contributions and rights of indigenous communities to healthy eco-systems.

However, the shift in thinking about human roles in the landscape that rewilding encourages is closely aligned with Indigenous Australian concepts of Caring for Country — which emphasise reciprocal relationships, stewardship, and deep cultural connections to land, so rewilding can learn from Indigenous knowledge system. 

Dr Hawkins says Australian rewilding examples include the Gondwana Link project in south-west Western Australia and the lungtalanana (Clarke Island) project in the Bass Strait which is being led by the Pakana community through the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre in collaboration with the University of Tasmania and WWF-Australia’s Rewilding Australia program. 

“Rewilding must be context-specific so how it is applied will be very different in England than it is in Australia and even within Australia how it’s applied on a small island will be different to the desert,” she said. 

Dr Hawkins says the guidelines will help support the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People’s ambitious target to protect 30% of land and oceans by 2030.