In the Rhodope Mountains, agricultural subsidies are promoting the intensification of grazing, which is negatively impacting nature and local rewilding efforts. The local team are determined to keep advocating rural policies that allow people to make better use of the socio-economic benefits that rewilding can provide.
Enhancing natural grazing, a key component of rewilding, can deliver multiple benefits. The arrival of a second herd of Tauros in the Iberian Highlands rewilding landscape in Spain is therefore good news for people and wildlife.
A herd of 10 Przewalski’s horses – the last truly wild horse – has been released in the Iberian Highlands rewilding landscape in Spain. Having arrived in May, the animals will soon roam free across an extensive area, where they will help to reduce the risk of wildfire, enhance biodiversity, boost nature-based tourism and environmental education, and improve the conservation status of this endangered subspecies.
Hungary is a country just beginning its rewilding journey, and so we are delighted to welcome the Pentezug initiative, which aims to rewild open grasslands using semi-wild grazers with minimal human intervention.
Restoring the world’s wildlife populations through rewilding would deliver a huge range of benefits to people and nature. While there are many challenges to the scaling up of such rewilding, a newly published paper outlines measures that might help to overcome them.
The dunes, moors and marshes of the French southwest coast were once widely grazed by feral bovines. The newest member of the European Rewilding Network is restoring the influence of large herbivores here, enhancing biodiversity and helping to maintain the site’s characteristic patchwork of habitats.
The Taurus Foundation, dedicated to creating a substitute for the extinct aurochs that is best able to thrive in contemporary natural grazing schemes and wild landscapes, has become the latest organisation to join the European Rewilding Network. Julia Mata, the European Rewilding Network Coordinator, celebrated the news, saying, “This certification is long overdue. The Taurus foundation has been doing amazing work on the Tauros Programme, and we are very happy to welcome them into the European Rewilding Network.”
In the Iberian Highlands rewilding landscape in Spain, the local rewilding team are working to reintroduce wild and semi-wild herbivores. By enhancing natural grazing, this is increasing biodiversity, reducing wildfire risk, and helping to regenerate natural forest.
Today, global warming is increasingly affecting people and nature across the world. Rewilding is a great way of enhancing the climate change resilience of landscapes and communities.
A new grant from the Cartier for Nature foundation will support rewilding in both the Southern Carpathians and Iberian Highlands, with a primary focus on the reintroduction of free-roaming herbivores.