Rewilding Europe has signed a major financial partnership with the Ecological Restoration Fund. The funding will support and scale up practical rewilding and enhance the work of the European Wildlife Comeback Fund, thereby helping to realise the ambitions set out in our “Strategy 2030”.
Amplifying impact
An exciting new financial partnership with the Ecological Restoration Fund is set to give Rewilding Europe a major boost in its efforts to make Europe a wilder place. It will see the UK-based charity provide 9 million GBP (around 10.4 million euros) in funding over the next three years. This will primarily be used to support and scale up work in Rewilding Europe’s portfolio of rewilding landscapes, with a focus on amplifying restoration efforts. It will also support wildlife comeback in these landscapes and across Europe through the work of Rewilding Europe’s European Wildlife Comeback Fund, which began supporting releases in 2023.
“This is very significant funding and we are deeply grateful to the Ecological Restoration Fund for the trust they have placed in us,” says Rewilding Europe Executive Director Frans Schepers. “It will help us take a major step forward in achieving the objectives set out in our “Strategy 2030”. This is a tremendous opportunity to increase the scope and impact of our own rewilding work across Europe, support our landscape partners, and upscale the European rewilding movement, which is good news for nature, climate and people.”
Wide-ranging support
The new funding will strengthen the capacity of Rewilding Europe’s landscape teams and increase the number of rewilding interventions they are able to carry out. The teams will work to further increase ecological resilience and functionality within their landscapes, for example, by reflooding and restoring the water dynamics of wetlands, rewetting peatlands, enhancing natural grazing with large herbivores to create highly biodiverse mosaic landscapes, and supporting non-intervention management with local partners and authorities.
Support for the European Wildlife Comeback Fund will see the release of keystone wildlife species scaled up across Europe, with a focus on large herbivores (such as European bison and Przewalski’s horses), carnivores (such as Eurasian and Iberian lynx), scavengers (such as cinereous and griffon vultures), and a variety of other species from various taxonomic groups (such as raptors, beavers, small mammals, and even insects such as dung beetles). This will deliver benefits to nature and people and demonstrate that practical rewilding is possible at scale, inspiring others to join the rewilding movement. This is vital if we are to realise the huge potential of rewilding and the wide range of benefits that it offers.
Critical partnerships
The Ecological Restoration Fund supports work that protects biodiverse hotspots, rejuvenates degraded landscapes and promotes local environmental activism. The focus is on re-establishing nature’s essential interconnections, while fostering cultural, social and economic opportunities for the communities inhabiting those landscapes.
Rewilding Europe’s financial partnership with the Ecological Restoration Fund exemplifies the growing level of support for rewilding from both the corporate and philanthropic sectors. We warmly invite all those organisations with the ability and desire to make Europe wilder to become our financial partner, with a range of partnerships available.