What is Rewilding
What is Rewilding?
Rewilding is a long-term method for conserving and restoring biodiversity.
This scientific approach is based on the principle of restoring natural processes in self-regulating ecosystems with minimal human intervention.
Nature is full of essential processes that interact in a complex and intricate system. Even storms, wildfires, floods, disease, and dead animals contribute to creating more variation in nature - if allowed to do so.
Due to various constraints and considerations, not all natural processes can be included in rewilding. However, many can be relatively easily reintroduced.
Read more about the three most important processes here.
Large Animals
A key aspect of rewilding is the presence of large herbivores, which act as substitutes for the megafauna of the past.
Today, megafauna is either entirely or partially absent from large parts of the world. Along with the disappearance of large animals, the variation they create has also been lost. This variation historically provided habitats for many species—species that are now threatened because they evolved in interaction with megafauna and depend on the habitats these large animals create.
Although the aurochs and wild horses are extinct, their genes live on in today’s horses and cattle breeds. Rewilding, therefore, uses hardy breeds, as they can largely fulfill the same ecological roles in nature.
Wilder Water
Natural hydrology involves allowing wetlands to form naturally, governed by rainfall and flooding rather than drainage and artificial channels. This applies to habitats such as ponds, bogs, lakes, springs, meadows, and streams. Temporary wetlands—areas that flood and dry out again—are especially important for many endangered species, such as various amphibians.
These habitats have gradually disappeared as rivers and streams have been straightened and farmland and meadows drained for agriculture and forestry. A step in rewilding can therefore be to remove drainage systems and restore wetlands. Large animals also contribute by shaping and maintaining these wetland areas.
Natural Regeneration and Self-Sown Forests
Many of the country’s endangered species depend on open woodlands. In most of Denmark, forests will regenerate naturally—both due to seeds already present in the soil and the spread of seeds by wind and animals. This process creates a natural variation and biodiversity that cannot be achieved through artificial seeding.
Broad inner and outer forest edges with transitional zones are among the most species-rich natural areas in Denmark. Once again, grazing animals play a crucial role in keeping these woodlands open by eating saplings and undergrowth. Many now-extinct butterfly species were specifically dependent on such semi-open forests with clearings.