A loan from Rewilding Europe Capital (REC) enabled Finland-based Snowchange Cooperative to purchase the 110-hectare Linnunsuo wetland area in April. Situated in Finnish North Karelia, the wetland was bought from Vapo, the leading developer of bioenergy in Finland and the world’s leading peat industry business, after a year of negotiation. This groundbreaking loan is the first provided by REC to a member of the European Rewilding Network (ERN).

The Rewilding Rhodopes team were overjoyed to welcome a new baby bison at the end of April. Both mother and calf are now doing well, with the team monitoring the family on a daily basis.

The spectacular sight of Europe’s largest land animal running wild  is set to become more common in Romania’s Țarcu Mountains. After a long journey from the Avesta Reserve in Sweden, a group of nine European bison arrived at Rewilding Europe’s Southern Carpathians rewilding area on April 22 and 23. The group will eventually join free-roaming animals that have been released here over successive years since 2014.

Five years on from the foundation of Rewilding Europe, the year 2016 marked an important milestone for our young but rapidly developing initiative. Unveiled at the Wild Ways event on April 19, 2017, the Annual Review for 2016 looks back at Rewilding Europe’s major achievements over the period 2011–2016, as well as outlining our ambitions for the future.

Rewilding Europe’s first ever gathering sees team members, partners and supporters come together to review progress, look ahead to a wilder future and witness the launch of “Europe’s Five”.

Today we are delighted to announce that the European Investment Bank has provided Rewilding Europe Capital with a 6 million euro loan finance contract. This represents the first project of the “Bank on Nature Initiative”, set up by the European Commission. The signing ceremony took place in the Berlaymont Building, headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels.

Representatives of ten European Rewilding Network sites came together in March to discuss how social science and raising awareness can achieve better human-wildlife coexistence and mitigate human-wildlife conflict.

On 23 March 2017, a coalition of five organisations kicked off a new initiative to promote and strengthen the EU ecological restoration agenda. By signing a Memorandum of Understanding, Rewilding Europe, BirdLife Europe and Central Asia, WWF European Policy Office, the European Environmental Bureau and the German Institute for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), launched this 3-year initiative, funded by WWF Netherlands.

As part of an ongoing reintroduction of red and fallow deer in the area, the animals will change habitats through grazing and provide an important prey base for local carnivores and scavengers.

Last week more than 30 participants took part in a second nature and vulture-related tourism development training session in the Eastern Rhodopes, organised by Rewilding Rhodopes and the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds.