The war in Ukraine is taking a terrible toll on people and nature. Yet despite facing many challenges, the resilient Rewilding Ukraine team continue to see their efforts bear fruit.

Representing the first ever translocation of Konik horses into the Danube Delta, the shipment of 23 animals travelled by road from Latvia to the Ukrainian village of Orlovka. By helping to create and maintain mosaic landscapes, their grazing will help to boost biodiversity in the Danube Delta rewilding area.

The campaign, conducted as part of the Dam Removal Europe (DRE) initiative, saw nearly 20,000 euros contributed by Dutch donors. This will fund the removal of 10 obsolete dams from the Kogilnik River in the Ukrainian part of the Danube Delta. The dismantling programme, which is set to begin this summer, will bring significant and wide-ranging benefits to local people and wild nature.

An inaugural grant from the newly established Endangered Landscapes Programme will enable Rewilding Europe and local partners to scale up rewilding efforts across an expansive area of wetland and steppe in the transboundary Danube Delta area. This will bring huge benefits to wild nature and a wide range of local stakeholders.

Rewilding isn’t only about nature – it’s about people too. The support, trust and passion of local communities will always be vital to the success of rewilding projects, regardless of scale and location. Gaining that support means ensuring that people can earn a fair living from the wild, and reaching out and building relationships through effective stakeholder communication.

Golden jackal numbers are now increasing in the Danube Delta. Rewilding Europe has undertaken a preliminary local study to examine jackal behaviour and gauge people’s attitudes towards this resilient carnivore.

Rewilding Europe is delighted to announce that rewilding activities in the spectacular Danube Delta, Europe’s second largest wetland, will now extend into Ukraine. This follows the signing of a partnership agreement with Rewilding Ukraine, a newly established local NGO.

We are delighted to announce that the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Netherlands will continue supporting Rewilding Europe for another three-year period. This generic support will help us to deliver on our objectives, both at a central level, and in individual rewilding areas.

This year the Danube Delta region experienced one of the harshest winters on record. Temperatures plummeted to -20°C, encasing landscapes in a thick coat of frozen water. Răzvan Crimschi, the Rewilding Officer of our Danube Delta team, lives in the Romanian village of Sfântu Gheorghe. Here he shares with us the experience of life in the delta’s spectacular winter landscape.