Rewilding

Rewilding is a conservation strategy that restores autonomous ecological processes by reintroducing species that drive trophic cascades — particularly large predators and ecosystem engineers — then stepping back to allow natural disturbance regimes, dispersal dynamics, and succession to operate without ongoing management. Unlike traditional conservation, which seeks to preserve existing states, rewilding accepts that historical baselines are irrecoverable and that the goal is functional autonomy rather than compositional fidelity. The approach carries genuine risks: introduced species may become invasive, trophic complexity may produce unpredictable outcomes, and the political economy of land use may resist the large-scale connectivity that rewilding demands. Rewilding is less a proven technique than a philosophical wager that ecosystems know their own business better than managers do.