Measuring rewilding progress

Abstract

Rewilding is emerging as a promising restoration strategy to enhance the conservation status of biodiversity and promote self-regulating ecosystems while re-engaging people with nature. Overcoming the challenges in monitoring and reporting rewilding projects would improve its practical implementation and maximize its conservation and restoration outcomes. Here, we present a novel approach for measuring and monitoring progress in rewilding that focuses on the ecological attributes of rewilding. We devised a bi-dimensional framework for assessing the recovery of processes and their natural dynamics through (i) decreasing human forcing on ecological processes and (ii) increasing ecological integrity of ecosystems. The rewilding assessment framework incorporates the reduction of material inputs and outputs associated with human management, as well as the restoration of natural stochasticity and disturbance regimes, landscape connectivity and trophic complexity. Furthermore, we provide a list of potential activities for increasing the ecological integrity after reviewing the evidence for the effectiveness of common restoration actions. For illustration purposes, we apply the framework to three flagship restoration projects in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Argentina. This approach has the potential to broaden the scope of rewilding projects, facilitate sound decision-making and connect the science and practice of rewilding.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Trophic rewilding: consequences for ecosystems under global change’.

A commentary on rewilding in Europe

“…To date, progress in rewilding projects has generally been measured either in qualitative terms, or in ways that make it difficult to compare across space and over time. Under the banner “Measuring Up,” Rewilding Europe () suggested “as European rewilding initiatives multiply” so “monitoring and mapping tools have become more essential.” Perhaps more pointedly, Rewilding Europe () argued “a framework for quantifying rewilding progress has been long overdue.” Torres et al () have proposed a “novel approach for measuring and monitoring progress in rewilding,” which looks to assess “the recovery of processes and their natural dynamics.” More specifically, Torres et al () provided a list of 18 indicators, tied to particular restoration activities to measure rewilding progress within projects and provided a simple scoring scale for each of these indicators. Rewilding Europe () reported that this technique “should provide a significant boost to our efforts and help to guide rewilding work in future years.” That said, it remains to be seen if all project officers working on the range of rewilding ventures within Europe will have the expertise and resources to regularly measure and monitor progress.…”

Trophic rewilding: impact on ecosystems under global change

“…However, this may falsely suggest that rewilding is without ambition and measurable output as a classical evaluation of targets is not possible in open-ended management. To overcome this challenge Torres et al [66] developed a rewilding scale, through which rewilding progress can be measured. The rewilding scale evaluates the recovery of processes and their natural dynamics based on decreasing human influence on ecological processes and increasing ecological integrity of the ecosystem [66].…”

Rewilding forestry

“…Wynne-Jones et al 2018). Despite these ongoing debates, areas of consensus are emerging These are that rewilding is guided foremost by an aspiration to enhance ecological function and trophic complexity and that this should be achieved by means of reductions in human management (Biermann and Anderson 2017;Torres et al 2018).…”