Remember when summer nights brought swarms of moths to a single light bulb? When gardens shimmered with butterflies and mornings rang with birdsong? Today, what we see in nature is only a faint shadow of what once was. Rewilding offers a way back.
Looking beyond the icons
Conservation often celebrates the return of iconic animals, but the true power of nature lies in the invisible threads that connect them all. Rewilding restores these connections, reviving the natural processes that allow ecosystems to thrive. In doing so, it doesn’t just bring back individual species — it rebuilds abundance, diversity, and resilience.
Still, rewilding is sometimes reduced to a simple story of bringing back big animals. When it comes to rewilding in Europe, images of charismatic wildlife species such as bison, wolves, bears, and lynx frequently dominate headlines and social feeds. Yet these iconic species are only one part of a much larger picture.
While keystone animals do play a vital role shaping ecosystems, focusing on them alone risks overlooking the deeper purpose of rewilding — restoring the full range of ecological processes that allow nature to flourish. Saving one charismatic animal can divert attention and resources away from addressing more fundamental aspects of biodiversity decline, such as the widespread loss of abundance — the sheer number of individuals, small and large, that exist in water and on land.
While biodiversity loss is often spotlighted, the equally critical decline in bio-abundance receives far less attention. Rewilding shifts this perspective by focusing on ecological functionality and the restoration of entire landscapes, reviving nature at scale so it can look after itself once again. By enhancing key natural processes — from natural grazing and predation to scavenging and the free flow of water — rewilding not only restores the diversity of species, but also their abundance, helping whole ecosystems to heal.
Counteracting the new normal
Beyond the span of a single lifetime, changes in the natural world become difficult to grasp. This is captured by the idea of “shifting baseline syndrome”, where each generation accepts a more depleted version of nature as the norm — forgetting the richness that once existed before, and lowering expectations of what could be restored.
Today, many of us believe we still see plenty of wildlife, without realising that what we are witnessing is merely a faint shadow of what we once had. This quiet, almost invisible erosion of abundance — a phenomenon known as “nature amnesia” — is a challenge for those involved in conservation, because it dulls our sense of urgency to act.
Size matters
Wade into Scotland’s Firth of Forth today and you’ll find only a barren seabed and murky waters — a scene that might seem normal without historical context. Yet 250 years ago, this estuary was filled with oysters, each one filtering up to 200 litres of water a day. Intensive harvesting of up to 30 million oysters a year drove the species to local extinction, erasing this vital water-purifying function and disrupting the entire marine ecosystem.
To fully restore natural processes in our landscapes and seascapes, we shouldn’t overlook the smallest contributors. From hamsters, marmots, and crayfish to dung beetles, trout, butterflies — and even the countless invertebrates and soil bacteria — every species plays a role in maintaining the delicate balance and functionality of wild nature.
Consider the humble rabbit, for example. On the Iberian Peninsula, this small burrower is far more than a grazer — it’s an ecosystem engineer. By keeping shrubland in check, fertilising the soil, and promoting vegetation growth, rabbits create open spaces that support a wide range of species.
Their warrens provide shelter and nesting sites for creatures such as lizards and wheatears, while their abundance sustains predators such as the Iberian lynx and Spanish imperial eagle. Even in death, rabbits nourish scavengers like cinereous and Egyptian vultures. In every stage of life, they are a keystone of the ecosystem.
Reasons to be optimistic
Around the world, nature still dazzles us with abundance — from the wildebeest migrations of the Serengeti to chinstrap penguin colonies in Antarctica so vast they can be seen from space. Yet Europe, too, holds echoes of such spectacles: bramblings gathering in winter roosts five-million strong, starling murmurations that darken the sky, or the fleeting wonder of Hungary’s “Tisza Blooming”, when millions of mayflies erupt above the river in synchrony.
Despite the global challenges of pesticide use, soil degradation, and climate change, wildlife is remarkably resilient. When human pressures ease, nature rebounds. Across Europe, wolves, beavers, bears, and lynx are returning through reintroductions and protection, restoring balance and reminding us that abundance is not just a memory — it can also be our future.
The return of a legend
A century ago, the European bison was almost lost — the last wild animal was shot in the early 1900s, leaving only 52 in captivity. Today, thanks to reintroductions, around 7,500 roam free across Europe. While the largest herds are currently found in eastern Poland and Belarus, reintroductions in West Pomerania on the Polish side of the Oder Delta, the Romanian Southern Carpathians, and Bulgarian Rhodope Mountains, have restored this keystone herbivore to landscapes that have been without them for generations.
No other large grazer in Europe alters habitats quite like the bison. Through grazing, browsing, trampling, wallowing, and debarking trees, they create a dynamic patchwork of meadow and woodland that benefits countless species. But true ecosystem health depends on abundance at every level — from bees and dung beetles to worms — pollinating, recycling nutrients, and renewing soils alongside giants like the bison. Together, these species restore resilience and vitality to Europe’s wild places.
Towards abundance in Europe
Scaling up rewilding across Europe will help fragmented wildlife populations reconnect, supported by reintroductions and reinforcements. By letting floodplains flood, wetlands stay wet, forests grow wilder, and soils recover from chemicals, we can make space for nature to return. As species recover in both diversity and numbers, the benefits will ripple outwards — restoring ecosystems, stabilising climate, and enriching human well-being.
But beyond science lies something just as important: the wonder of abundance itself. We marvel at wildebeest migrations or monarch butterflies cloaking forests, yet Europe too can reclaim its spectacles — rivers alive with salmon, grasslands roaming with wild horses, woodlands filled with birdsong, and summer nights vibrant with crickets and nightingales.
Europe’s wild heritage may be diminished, but it’s not lost. Through rewilding, we can restore abundance, renew vital natural processes, and rekindle awe in a continent alive with wildlife once again.
Want to know more?
Much of this blog is based on a longer story entitled “Rewilding: boosting bio-abundance”, which featured in the Rewilding Europe Annual Review 2024.
Download a PDF of the story Or check out our Annual Review 2024