Traditionally, nature conservationists are not trained in business development and entrepreneurship. It is often assumed that nature conservation related professions are guided by ecological and sustainable principles which, therefore, define the educational design of nature conservation curricula. However, the uncertain financial contexts for nature conservation and persistent competing claims by diverse stakeholders concerned, require alternative professional competences to address current conservation challenges.

Last week Juan José Negro, director of the Doñana Biological Station visited the Western Iberia rewilding area. Together with researchers Juan Calderon and Fernando Ibáñez from the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) they spent time at the Biological Reserve Campanarios de Azaba.

Rewilding Europe is very excited to announce that Liberty Wildlife Fund, a private foundation in The Netherlands, has decided to support Rewilding Europe for a period of three years.

An episode of the Dutch TV programme “Kanjers Van Goud” (Heroes of Gold) that was filmed in our Western Iberia rewilding area, is now available for watching online.

We continue to make steady progress as we seek to develop businesses which will support our rewilding objectives. We’re working both to identify and support existing businesses which are relevant to our rewilding areas – and also to design some new businesses where we feel there is an opportunity to create something different and complementary.

A herd of 24 Retuerta horses, coming from the Doñana biological station in southern Spain, were released in the Campanarios de Azaba reserve on July 27. The release was possible thanks to the Rewilding Europe initiative and the collaboration between the Nature and Man Foundation and the Doñana Biological Station.

Rewilding Europe aims to rewild at least one million hectares of Europe by 2020, consisting of ten areas, each at least 100,000 ha, which together reflect a wide selection of European regions.

One of the programme goals of Rewilding Europe is “by 2020, rewild 1 million ha (10,000 km²) across 10 places in Europe covering different regions and biomes, including areas of both land and sea”. The rewilding concept was introduced at the “EC Presidency Conference on Wilderness and Large Natural Habitat Areas” in May 2009, and the participants were invited to submit nominations for potential model areas.

Since the beginning of our work in Western Iberia last year, a lot of attention has been given to bringing back wildlife, including rewilding horses and bovines. To scale up the efforts in the Faia Brava Reserve in north-eastern Portugal, a 25,000 ha area along the Côa River has been selected for the return of Iberian ibex, red deer and roe deer.

Different editions from the January GEO magazine are now available as free download! In 2011 Anke Sparmann, author of GEO Magazine, travelled across European nature reserves. Her story was the cover story in 11 countries from Brazil to Slovakia and from Spain to India.