Against the backdrop of rising global temperatures, biodiversity decline and the impact of COVID-19, the rewilding of Europe’s cities and surrounding areas can benefit people in myriad ways. The protection and enhancement of natural forests is key to delivering such benefits.
A message from Rewilding Europe’s Managing Director Frans Schepers on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and our relationship with nature.
This year the EU will take decisions that have far-reaching consequences for Europe’s people and nature. A new set of policy papers, released today, outlines why and how European politicians should prioritise nature restoration in the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2030.
The rewilding of European ecosystems can help to tackle both the current climate and biodiversity emergencies. In a policy brief published today, a coalition of five organisations call on the European Commission to prioritise nature recovery in the EU Biodiversity Strategy post-2020.
How can the ongoing decline of European wild nature be reversed? A key paper published last week by the European Habitats Forum (including Rewilding Europe) outlines reasons why the EU’s current Biodiversity Strategy is failing and presents joint recommendations for the strategy post 2020.
To celebrate the recent relaunch of our website, Rewilding Europe is conducting interviews with prominent persons in conservation and rewilding across Europe. Following on from Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands, we are delighted to present British naturalist, nature photographer, television presenter and author Chris Packham as the second interviewee of this series.
The European Union’s multi-annual financial framework is currently being reviewed for the post-2020 period. Rewilding Europe, together with a number of other leading European conservation NGOs in the European Habitats Forum, is calling for the budget of the LIFE programme to be significantly increased, along with a range of other amendments.
This Wednesday, President Jean-Claude Juncker and the EU Commission have confirmed that the EU’s flagship nature laws – the Birds and Habitats Directives – will be saved and not rewritten and weakened, ending two years of uncertainty over the laws’ future. They have also called for a plan to better implement and enforce these laws. This is a win for the record half a million people who called on the Commission to save and enforce these laws as part of the Europe-wide NatureAlert campaign.
This November, Rewilding Europe participated at the conference ‘Innovative Financing Mechanisms for Biodiversity’ that took place in Beijing, China. The conference, organized by the European Commission and France-based environmental specialists Biotope, gathered Chinese and international conservationists and various experts from the field of nature-based economics.
To regain ground and confidence nature conservation needs policies that support rewilding. Rewilding is the biggest, most exciting idea to emerge in conservation since the 1970s. The challenge now is to create the spaces within conservation policy and politics where rewilding ideas can find expression, gain traction and be tested.