Healthy, free-flowing rivers governed by natural processes offer a wide range of benefits for wildlife and people. This autumn, the Oder Delta rewilding team and local partners carried out a range of measures to restore the Ina River – an important tributary of the Oder River.

Many rivers in Swedish Lapland were extensively reshaped by historical logging activities, negatively impacting the environment on a massive scale. The Rewilding Sweden team are now rewilding a stretch of the Abramsån River, with benefits for biodiversity and local communities.

Rivers are the lifeblood of Swedish Lapland. We caught up with Henrik Persson, Rewilding Sweden team leader, to discuss how rewilding is restoring these vital waterways – and their catchments – to health.

Earlier this summer, nearly 400 juvenile crayfish were released into the Verde River in the Central Apennines rewilding landscape in Italy. This is good news for this threatened species and will help to enhance the condition of the river and local ecosystem.

The Rewilding Ukraine team have been working together with local partners to restore the connectivity of floodplains in the Danube Delta since 2019. By connecting Katlabuh Lake with the Danube River, their latest efforts are a step towards revitalising an entire chain of water bodies, with wide-ranging benefits for nature, local communities and society.

The Affric Highlands rewilding team are working hard to restore river woodlands. As climate change increasingly impacts the landscape, these will connect fragments of existing native woodland, reducing flood risk, boosting fish populations, and enhancing biodiversity.

An environmental catastrophe is playing out on the Oder River. As part of a cross-border NGO alliance, the Rewilding Oder Delta team is calling for rigorous investigation, a clear focus on the river’s full-scale restoration, and the abandonment of all harmful hydro-engineering plans.

The Border Meuse initiative, which kicked off 30 years ago in the Netherlands, has seen river restoration deliver a triple win for nature and people. It demonstrates perfectly how rewilding can make socio-economic as well as ecological sense.

Ongoing measures to reconnect Lake Kartal with neighbouring lakes and the River Danube are seeing wildlife populations rebound and driving the development of the local economy.

By restoring the degraded river Lankälven, the Rewilding Lankälven project is also looking to stimulate and support activities based on local nature and culture.