This year’s third European Rewilding Network webinar saw 17 participants from seven European countries discuss the return of European rivers to their natural, free-flowing state.

The signing of a five-year strategic partnership agreement between the two organisations signals their ongoing commitment to European nature restoration. Focusing on a number of key areas, the new cooperation will work towards tangible outcomes in support of wilder European nature.

Inviting widespread public support, the objective of the campaign is to keep the EU’s Water Framework Directive as rigorous as possible. With many EU member states failing to meet the targets of the directive, rewilding can help to improve the health of European water ecosystems and guarantee sustainable supplies of freshwater.

The plan, which involved constructing dykes around the Middle Oder wetland in Poland, would have had a catastrophic impact on biodiversity and negatively impacted the work of Rewilding Europe and its partners. The rest of Poland’s inland waterways programme will hopefully now be abandoned.

Rewilding Europe is delighted to welcome an important new member to the European Rewilding Network. Working to protect the Vjosa River, Save the Blue Heart of Europe – Albania is overseen by the NGO EcoAlbania and is the first project to join from this country. The addition takes the number of network members to 62, distributed right across Europe.

With only 40 percent of Europe’s waterways in good condition, a new study published today calls for tens of thousands of redundant dams and other barriers to be removed to help restore rivers and lakes – boosting wildlife populations and benefiting communities across the continent. A new initiative called Dam Removal Europe aims to start an era of dam removal.

Complementing river restoration work in its own operational areas, Rewilding Europe will collaborate with partner organisations in this new initiative to campaign for and support the removal of dams from European waterways. In this way we can scale up river rewilding across the continent.