Our achievements

Sandra Bartocha/Wild Wonders of Europe

Our main achievements in 2021

We officially welcomed the Affric Highlands to our rewilding landscapes portfolio. This is an ambitious landscape-scale rewilding initiative developed by rewilding charity Trees for Life and other Scottish partners. The aim is to support nature recovery in this landscape, which stretches from Loch Ness on the east coast of the Central Highlands to Kintail in the west, boosting habitat connectivity, wildlife diversity, and social and economic opportunities.
In the Ukrainian part of the Danube Delta, significant progress was made restoring wetlands and steppe. A total of 13,610 hectares were put under natural grazing regime, with kulan and steppe marmot on the Tarutino Steppe and Konik horses in the outer Danube Delta. Dykes were removed and channels opened up, restoring connectivity and water flow, with interventions on Ermakov Island, Lake Katlabuh and Lake Kartal.
At the request of the EU, and based on a Europe-wide analysis, GrazeLIFE provided 45 practical recommendations to support extensive grazing with large herbivores. Such grazing can help to protect and restore vegetation mosaics with high levels of biodiversity and carbon sequestration in soil and vegetation. In December, GrazeLIFE came to an end with a successful online seminar, attended by 335 participants from over 35 countries.

Rewilding Europe and WWF Romania have been working to reintroduce European bison in the Southern Carpathians since 2014. Rewilding efforts, involving multiple translocations and releases, saw the area’s free-roaming bison population grow to over 100 animals in 2021, representing the largest bison population in Romania. Impressive results were achieved, thanks to an EU LIFE grant.
The recovery and further expansion of the black and griffon vulture populations in the Bulgarian-Greek cross-border area of the eastern Rhodope Mountains exceeded expected results. The cinereous vulture population remained stable, while the number of griffon vulture pairs increased from 91 at the beginning of the project to 117 pairs in 2021, as part of efforts to restore the area's entire food web.
We made great progress in reducing threats and improving habitat for this impressive bird species at 27 sites across Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Ukraine. Efforts included field research, stakeholder involvement, improvement of nesting conditions, and reducing the risk of collisions with power lines, together with educational activities to inspire community pride and support, raise awareness, and build engagement.

We began exploring the new concept of ‘rewilding credits’ (going beyond carbon) with the support of KPMG and other experts. A first pilot has been set up with the UK-based company Exodus Travel as 'client' to secure a wildlife corridor in the Central Apennines. We expect to take the rewilding carbon credit concept much further in 2022, with significant potential for growth and additional pilots.
Thanks to an unexpected but hugely welcome 1 million euro grant from the Dutch Postcode Lottery for Rewilding Europe Capital, we were able to enlarge our investment facility to a total amount of 7.5 million euros. This has been used to finance development of the Rewilding Training Tourism programme and hide development in the Velebit Mountains, and to start offering ‘repayable grants’ to entrepreneurs for very early-stage business development. Two small REC loans (to Flor Alta and Matreira in Portugal) were concluded.
Supporting rewilding enterprise is critical to the growth of local nature-based economies, with enterprise networks delivering faster growth. Based on landscape business plans developed in previous years, Rewilding Portugal worked to establish the Wild Côa Network, while Rewilding Apennines organised successful ‘Rewilding Weeks’ to bring entrepreneurs together. Both landscapes are making good progress, with a growing number of rewilding enterprises.

Last year saw the rewilding movement experience steady growth, coinciding with the launch of the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, the celebration of the first World Rewilding Day, and Rewilding Europe's tenth anniversary. Estimates show that we reached at least 77 million people based on media publications about our work (representing year-on-year growth of 33%). We also saw engagement growing, with online donations (up 250%), online followers (up 30%), and newsletter subscriptions (up 19%) all growing.
Partly due to the Covid pandemic, but mostly because of growing interest, we connected with a wide range of audiences through a series of online webinars and symposia. We organised more than 10 such events, involving many hundreds of participants from dozens of countries.
In 2021, many of our teams in the rewilding landscapes increased their communications efforts to strengthen engagement with local stakeholders. Among others, these included the opening of a rewilding centre (Greater Côa Valley), photo exhibitions (Ukraine and Croatia), organising 'Rewilding Weeks' (Central Apennines), and myriad local meetings and gatherings. The Oder Delta, Central Apennines and Rhodope Mountains rewilding landscapes all launched their own websites, presented in their national languages, as well as in English.

In 2021, we developed a new strategic plan for our next decade of efforts, encompassing bold and ambitious objectives for the year 2030. This new Rewilding Europe Strategic Plan 2021-2030 (‘Strategy 2030') was co-produced with the rewilding team leaders, and approved by the Supervisory Board in November.
We saw 14 new members join in 2021, taking overall membership to 77 across 27 countries. We organised four well-attended online seminars, addressing natural grazing, rewilding principles, vulture comeback, and our methodology for assessing rewilding progress. In November, a face-to-face meeting was held in the Central Apennines of Italy, involving 36 rewilding practitioners from 12 different countries.
Our three-stage programme aims to professionalise and scale up nature-based tourism in Europe, with each stage including an assessment and 'Rewilding Certificate' for participants. The programme is designed for guides, hospitality and tourism entrepreneurs, and other local partners in rewilding landscapes. In 2021, a total of 111 people received training.