Rewilding

[5][6] Large mammals can influence ecosystems by altering biogeochemical pathways as they contribute to unique ecological roles, they are landscape engineers that aid in shaping the structure and composition of natural habitats.

[19] Rewilding was developed as a method to preserve functional ecosystems and reduce biodiversity loss, incorporating research in island biogeography and the ecological role of large carnivores.

The ultimate goal of rewilding is the restoration of functioning native ecosystems containing the full range of species at all trophic levels while reducing human control and pressures.

[32][33][34][35][36][37][38] The functional roles animals perform in ecosystems, such as grazing, nutrient cycling and seed distribution, can influence the amount of carbon that soils and (marine and terrestrial) plants capture.

It is also posited that grazing and browsing reduces the risk of wildfires (which are significant contributors of GHG emissions and whose smoke can alter the planet's albedo - the Earth's ability to reflect heat from sunlight)).

[70] Ole Martin Moen argues that rewilding projects should be brought to an end because they unnecessarily increase wild animal suffering and are expensive, and the funds could be better spent elsewhere.

Ward challenge Jørgensen's criticism and provide examples of rewilding programs which 'have been developed and governed within the understanding that human and non-human world are inextricably entangled'.

[74] David Nogués-Bravo and Carsten Rahbek assert that the benefits of rewilding lack evidence and that such programs may inadvertently lead to 'de-wilding', through the extinction of local and global species.

Governmental agencies overseeing land use and consumption are often heavily influenced by the interests of loggers, ranchers, and miners, so non-profit organizations are often at the forefront of conservation efforts, and a loss of funding could have major impacts on the protection of wildlife.

Despite efforts to balance human safety and conservation, local communities remain deeply divided, with many pushing for limits on bear numbers and more decisive action against perceived threats.

[78][79] Both grassroots groups and major international conservation organizations have incorporated rewilding into projects to protect and restore large-scale core wilderness areas, corridors (or connectivity) between them, and apex predators, carnivores, or keystone species.

[...] The result has been to put into motion ongoing rehabilitation efforts in four distinct river basins: the Elwha and White Salmon in Washington and the Sandy and Rogue in Oregon'.

Conservation groups from the United States and Canada have worked together to plan a series of marine priority areas from Baja California to the Bering Sea, allowing both nations to protect species of mutual concern.

[77] At the same time, a group based in Washington D.C. called Defenders of Wildlife began promoting protection of predators across the country, including grizzly bears, wolves, and river otters.

Construction began in 2008 to restore the area back to its original wetland ecosystem, complete with open waterways, sweet-gum swamps, prairies, and meadows of wildflowers.

[77] While planning for Fresh Kills Park, New York State initiated an even more ambitious program focused on protecting the broader ecosystem around Staten Island by restoring the Hudson River.

In 2005, the organizations involved came up with a few goals for the project: re-invigorating the river’s fisheries, improving water quality by removing contaminants, and preserving shoreline and forested habitats upriver.

The group also encouraged local people to help them monitor the population by offering a $500 reward for each photograph of a living cat taken by ranch owners who promised not to shoot jaguars on their property.

[77] In the early 1990s, the Wildlife Conservation Society proposed a plan for a major corridor project that would span from Southern Mexico down into Panama, connecting existing reserves, parks, and undisturbed forests of all seven Central American countries and the lower five Mexican states.

[77] The plan attracted a lot of controversy: indigenous peoples were concerned that their land would be taken from them to be converted into parks, and some activists claimed that the program was setting the environment above human needs.

The plan necessitated reaching agreements with numerous villages to decide what zoning for protected areas meant for the local people, how it would be enforced, and where hunting and fishing would be allowed.

In 2018, thanks to a team of conservationists and scientists, and a donation of 195,094 ha (482,090 acres) of land by Kris Tompkins, an area was converted into a National Park, and jaguar (a species that had been extinct in the region for seven decades), anteaters and giant otters were reintroduced.

[87] The red-rumped agouti and the brown howler monkey were reintroduced in Tijuca National Park (Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil), between 2010 and 2017 with the goal of restoring seed dispersal.

[89] The Cerrado-Pantanal Ecological Corridors Project was proposed in the 1990s to restore connectivity between two of Brazil’s core reserves: Emas National Park and the Pantanal, one of the world’s largest wetlands.

Another reason for wider support was because of a fund started to compensate farmers that lost livestock to the big cats that conservationists hope to protect using these corridors, and healthcare programs that provided free services to ranchers who committed to not killing critically endangered jaguars.

Organizers of the project worked on revegetating the land with native plant species, fifty of which were found nowhere else on Earth, in the hopes that they would attract wildlife back to the area.

[103][104] A reintroduction trial of the European pond turtle to its historic, Holocene range in the East Anglian Fens, Brecks and Broads has been initiated, with support from the University of Cambridge.

[121] In the 1980s, analogue species (Konik ponies, Heck cattle and red deer) were introduced to the Oostvaardersplassen nature reserve, an area covering over 56 square kilometres (22 sq mi), in order to (re)create a grassland ecology by keeping the landscape open by naturalistic grazing.

Findings from this study convinced the Nepalese government to eventually enlarge the boundaries of Chitwan and join it with its neighboring Parsa and Valmiki wildlife reserves.

TAL’s goal was to add “buffer zones” around the established parks and create pathways between them to facilitate the movement of large species like elephants, tigers, and rhino.