This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the history, theory and current practices of rewilding.
Rewilding offers a transformational paradigm shift in conservation thinking, and as such is increasingly of interest to academics, policymakers and practitioners. However, as a rapidly emerging area of conservation, the term has often been defined and used in a variety of different ways (both temporally and spatially). There is, therefore, the need for a comprehensive assessment of this field, and the Routledge Handbook of Rewilding fills this lacuna. The handbook is organized into four sections to reflect key areas of rewilding theory, practice and debate: the evolution of rewilding, theoretical and practical underpinnings, applications and impacts, and the ethics and philosophy of rewilding. Drawing on a range of international case studies the handbook addresses many of the key issues, including land acquisition and longer-term planning, transitioning from restoration (human-led, nature enabled) to rewilding (nature-led, human enabled), and the role of political and social transformational change.
Led by an editorial team who have extensive experience researching and practising rewilding, this handbook is essential reading for students, academics and practitioners interested in rewilding, ecological restoration, natural resource management and conservation.
SECTION 1 THE EVOLUTION OF REWILDING
- Introduction: What is rewilding? / Sally Hawkins, Rene Beyers, Steve Carver and Ian Convery
- The emergence of rewilding in North America / Mark Fisher and Steve Carver
- The emergence of rewilding in Europe / Alexandra Locquet and Steve Carver
- Ecological restoration and rewilding: Integrating communities of practice to achieve common goals / Cara R. Nelson
- Developing a framework for rewilding based on its social-ecological aims / Sally Hawkins
SECTION 2 THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF REWILDING
- Trophic cascades as a basis for rewilding / T.J. Clark and Mark Hebblewhite
- Species reintroductions and taxon replacements / Mark Stanley-Price
- Cores & corridors: Natural landscape linkages to rewild protected areas and wildlife refuges / Jonathan Carruthers-Jones, Adrien Guette and Andrew Gregory
- Mapping wildness and opportunities for rewilding / Steve Carver
- Measuring success in rewilding: Ecological overview / René Beyers and Antony R.E. Sinclair
- Measuring success in rewilding? Coping with socio-ecological uncertainties in rewilding projects / Meredith Root-Bernstein
- Rewilding ‘knowledges’: Blending science and indigenous knowledge systems / Lisa Fenton and Zoe Playdon
- Rewilding: A legal perspective / Adam Eagle, Alex Cooper, Rob Espin and Jack Gould
SECTION 3 APPLICATION AND IMPACTS OF REWILDING
- Rewilding case study: Yellowstone to Yukon / Jodi Hilty, Charles Chester and Pamela Wright
- Rewilding case study: Carrifran Wildwood / Stuart Adair and Philip Ashmole
- Rewilding case study: Going wild in Argentina, a multidisciplinary and multispecies reintroduction program to restore ecological functionality / Emiliano Donadio, Talía Zamboni and Sebastián Di Martino
- Rewilding case study: Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique / Rob Pringle and Dominique Gonçalves
- Rewilding case study: Restoring Western Australia’s rangelands: Mutawa/Kurrara Kurrara / Ian Kealley and Neil Burrows
- Rewilding case study: Forest restoration: conservation outcomes and lessons from Terai Arc Landscape, Nepal / Ananta Ram Bhandari and Shiv Raj Bhatta
- Rewilding case study: Monitoring natural capital and rewilding at the Natural Capital Laboratory, Birchfield, Loch Ness / Chris White, Emilia Leese, Ian Convery, and Philip Rooney
- Eco-civilisation provides new opportunities for rewilding in China / Yue Cao, Zhicong Zhao, Rui Yang, Steve Carver, and Ian Convery
- Restoring what we’ve lost: Lessons from evolutionary history for rewilding and coexisting in landscapes with predators / Joanna E. Lambert and Joel Berger
- Rewilding and farming: Could the relationship be improved through adopting a three compartment approach to land use? / Julia Aglionby and Hannah Field
- Unseen connections: The role of fungi in rewilding / David Sattori and Matt Wainhouse
- Rewilding and human health / Heather VanVolkenburg, Rene Beyers, Cara Nelson, Liette Vasseur, Angela Andrade, Ian Convery and Steve Carver
- Rewilding, the wildlife trade and human conflict / René Beyers and Sally Hawkins
- Rewilding children and young people: The role of education and schools / Heather Prince
- Wild adventure: A restorying / Chris Loynes
SECTION 4 WILDER VALUES: THE ETHICS AND PHILOSOPHY OF REWILDING
- Wilder values: The ethics and philosophy of rewilding / Kate Rawles (section editor)
- Rewilding from the inside out: A personal commitment to other animals and their homes during the Anthropause and afterwards / Marc Bekoff
- Rewilding and cultural transformation: Healing nature and reweaving humans back into the web of life / Peter Taylor, Alan Watson Featherstone, Simon Ayres, Adam Griffin and Eric Maddern
- Wild democracy: Ecodemocracy in rewilding / Helen Kopnina, Simon Leadbeater, and Anja Heister
- Rewilding and the ethics of place / Martin Drenthen
- Knepp Wildland; the ethos and efficacy of Britain’s first private rewilding project / Simon Leadbeater, Helen Kopnina and Paul Cryer
- Human rewilding: Practical pointers to address a root cause of global environmental crises / Georgina Maffey and Koen Arts
Ian Convery is a Professor of Environment & Society at the University of Cumbria and co-chairs the IUCN CEM Rewilding Thematic Group.
Sally Hawkins is an environmental social scientist at the University of Cumbria, UK. She is a core member of the IUCN CEM Rewilding Thematic Group and a founding trustee of the Lifescape Project.
Steve Carver is Director of the Wildland Research Institute at the University of Leeds, UK, and Co-Chair of the IUCN CEM Rewilding Thematic Group.
René L. Beyers is a Research Associate in the Beaty Biodiversity Research Centre at the University of British Columbia, Canada.
"Over the course of three to four decades, rewilding has progressed from a rather obscure concept associated with radical environmentalism to a well-accepted and even mainstream paradigm for comprehensive ecosystem restoration worldwide. This handbook, edited by four founding members of the IUCN Rewilding Thematic Group, is a much-needed overview of the history, theory, practice, and debate surrounding rewilding."
– Reed F. Noss, Ph.D., Florida Institute for Conservation Science, Conservation Science, Inc.
"A much-needed source of information and inspiration for the growing community of people working to help Nature heal, the Routledge Handbook of Rewilding teaches us how to restore missing species, including large carnivores and other keystone species; reconnect wildlife habitats; expand wilderness and parks; and coexist with all our neighbours, wild and human. "Rewilding" has taken root and ramified widely in the decades since North American wilderness champions coined the term; and this book – which will challenge as well as motivate all readers – shows how the varying branches of work can rewild lands and waters from Scotland to Argentina, from Australia to the Yukon."
– John Davis, Executive Director, The Rewilding Institute (rewilding.org)
"With only 2-3% of land and sea functionally intact, rewilding is as necessary as it is exciting, and presents us with the opportunity to both address the past and current damage done by human "development" as well as to create a new relationship between ourselves and nature. This book comes at a pivotal time, framing the history, practice, practitioners and promise of the rewilding work that is essential to addressing the twin crises of climate breakdown and the extinction emergency. Rewilding is a pathway to a new and hopeful future.'
– Magnus Sylvén, Co-Director, Global Rewilding Alliance (GRA) and Vance G. Martin, WILD Foundation; GRA; Wilderness Specialist Group (IUCN/WCPA)
"This book provides rich and diverse contribution to our understanding of the theory, principles and practical application of rewilding from around the world."
– Rebecca Wrigley, Rewilding Britain