Working with mayors and communities to help shape a wilder future

Scaling up wildlife comeback

Across Europe, a quiet but powerful transformation is underway. While much of the continent’s nature remains under pressure, some iconic wildlife species are making a remarkable comeback. Populations of animals such as bears, wolves, and lynx continue to rise, supported by conservation measures that include rewilding. A wide range of other species, such as beavers, bison, and white-tailed eagles, are also doing well.

Looking to the future, it is essential that all animals and plants across Europe are given the best opportunity to recover and adapt to external factors such as climate change. Accelerating and widening wildlife comeback in Europe can improve the health and functionality of entire ecosystems, delivering a huge array of benefits to nature and people – from the natural regeneration of forests and rebalancing of food webs, to the rejuvenation of rural economies, enhancement of carbon storage and crop pollination, and improvement of human health and well-being.

Towards co-prosperity

While the benefits of wildlife comeback in Europe are clear and compelling, the situation on the ground is often more complex. When wildlife populations do start to recover, it often brings challenges – this is particularly true when it comes to large mammals such as bears and bison, which are often perceived as a threat to people, property, and other animals.

Looking at the bigger picture, two questions arise. How can we learn to live with resurgent wildlife populations, and how can we move from situations where wildlife is merely tolerated, to ones where both people and wildlife can thrive together?

Co-prosperity represents a shift in mindset: an evolution from situations where conflict is managed, to ones where wildlife comeback generates lasting benefits for communities and nature alike. Thriving together isn’t just a vision. It’s a practical goal, grounded in trust, local leadership, and the belief that nature in Europe can recover.

Guidelines for enhancing co-existence

Europe is an incredibly diverse continent, which means measures that enable people and wildlife to share space successfully will vary widely from place to place. Ensuring people can live alongside and thrive together with bears in the Central Apennines of Italy, for example, requires a different approach to ensuring people and Dalmatian pelicans can flourish together in wetlands across Southeastern Europe. However, there are still underlying principles and processes that can help local people determine the best approaches and practical measures for their local context.

At the end of May, Rewilding Europe convened a co-existence workshop in the Central Apennines rewilding landscape in Italy. The event was supported by an Advancing Restoration Knowledge grant from the Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme, and attended by representatives of the Rewilding Apennines, Rewilding Oder Delta, Rewilding Romania, Rewilding Rhodopes, and Rewilding Portugal teams, as well as Rewilding Europe’s Central Team. The overarching aim was to use the significant experience and expertise of the attendees, and consult with local people who are already thriving alongside wildlife, to develop widely applicable guidelines for elevating the way people and wildlife live together across Europe.

Local-level engagement

National policies to promote human-wildlife co-existence – involving government-led measures such as damage prevention and compensation – can and do have a positive impact. But to effectively ensure people and wildlife can prosper together also requires a bottom-up, community-based approach, grounded in the reality of how people interact with that wildlife on a daily basis. This is the essence of the wildlife-smart community model, which Rewilding Europe and local partners are applying in a number of rewilding landscapes.

One of the key takeaways from the workshop in the Central Apennines was that co-existence actions at a local level play a critical role in enabling people and wildlife to thrive together, and that these actions need to be agreed and understood by the community members themselves. Experience from Rewilding Europe’s rewilding landscapes has shown that reaching out to a wide range of local stakeholders and engaging them in conversation and shared decision-making about the best way to live alongside wildlife – and rewilding-related issues more generally – is absolutely essential to achieve lasting positive outcomes.

Meaningful, ongoing communication ensures people in communities feel their opinions are being heard and helps to counter misinformation and politicisation, which often cloud debates about wildlife comeback.

Empowering local leadership

Another takeaway from the workshop was that conversations about wildlife and people require strong local leadership, and that community leaders such as mayors and staff at municipal offices have a critical role to play in this. This is why Rewilding Europe has signed a partnership with the Mayors of Europe, a network organisation that builds bridges between all European mayors so that they can exchange information about best practice in a wide range of areas.

As leaders in their communities, European mayors are in a unique position to lead positive dialogue on how to share space with wildlife at a local level. Through the new partnership, Rewilding Europe will provide them with information and inspiration, enabling them to support the return of wildlife in the best way possible and ensuring wildlife comeback generates benefits for as many stakeholders as possible. At the same time, it is important that Rewilding Europe gains insights into the needs and interests of mayors, so that we are able to offer appropriate guidance and support as they take the lead on co-existence issues.

“Rewilding is not only about restoring landscapes, it’s also about restoring relationships,” says Svetlana Tesic, co-founder of the Alliance of European Mayors. “It’s about re-awakening our connection to the natural world and re-imagining the future of our communities. When people and wildlife learn to share space again, we create more than ecological balance – we create hope, resilience, and a deeper sense of belonging. This partnership is rooted in the belief that Europe’s future can be both wilder and wiser, where the return of nature becomes a shared story of co-existence, care, and renewal.”

Moving forwards

As part of their new partnership, Rewilding Europe and the Mayors of Europe have agreed a joint action plan that lays out goals and actions for the next year. Rewilding Europe will use the outputs of the co-existence workshop in the Central Apennines, together with feedback gathered from mayors, to put together online, interactive guidance about living with wildlife, which will then be disseminated across the Mayors of Europe network and beyond in 2026.

“How people perceive wildlife varies between villages, streets, and even within the same household,” says Amy Duthie, Rewilding Europe’s Head of Upscaling. “This means we need to listen to local people and help them find ways to share space with wildlife in a mutually beneficial way.

“We’re thrilled to be working with the Mayors of Europe because local leaders are critical to achieving this. With National Nature Restoration Plans now being drawn up by countries across Europe, this is the right time for local leaders to be recognised and supported in the essential role they play in enabling nature recovery.”

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• Thriving with nature
• Wildlife-smart communities
• Rewilding and wildlife comeback