Towards a holistic approach to rewilding in cultural landscapes

Abstract In recent years, rewilding has been attracting growing attention as novel, process‐oriented concept supporting ecosystem restoration and biodiversity conservation. Rewilding aims to strengthen the adaptive capacity of ecosystems by restoring natural processes and withdrawing anthropogenic interventions. Yet, diverging understandings, conceptions and definitions of rewilding result in a somewhat fuzzy concept. So far, the scientific discussion focused primarily on biological and ecological effects and success factors of rewilding. However, particularly in Europe, which is characterised by densely populated areas and a long history of landscape cultivation, rewilding affects also socio‐economic and socio‐cultural dimensions Based on a synthesis of current scientific publications, we argue that rewilding should be understood as an increase in wildness, that is restoring the autonomy of natural processes and self‐sustaining ecosystems in order to overcome the improper dualistic understanding of human‐nature relationships in which humanity is outside of nature. We identify knowledge gaps and emphasise the need for inter‐ and transdisciplinary research on rewilding to develop a holistic approach to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration. In this context, we particularly emphasise the temporal dynamics of changes in landscapes, which are often long‐term and therefore difficult to monitor, the openness of rewilding processes and the associated uncertainty about end states, as well as the complexity of human‐nature relations and the associated value pluralism. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.