ReWild4Wildlife – Rewilding Europe’s Instagram Photo Contest – needs your finest photos!

Swedish Lapland’s rich natural resources can form the basis for a vibrant and sustainable local economy.

This October, Rewilding Rhodopes organized a special training course on the management and development of wildlife watching enterprise and wildlife photography in Madzharovo, Bulgaria. The training was part of the LIFE Project “Conservation of black and griffon vultures in Rhodope Mountains” (LIFE Vultures), and connected more than 30 participants that gained valuable knowledge, exchanged experiences and ideas.

Over the last two years, a new venture into wildlife watching and simultaneous wildlife research led to the construction and set up of two wildlife hides in the Velebit Mountains. This summer the hides opened their doors to the public and have already shown to be a success in various fields. As an attractive new nature travel offering, the hides are a small but relevant step forward to further develop a nature-based economy in Croatian Velebit Mountains.

This November, the eighth web-based seminar of the European Rewilding Network took place. Members of the network shared valuable experiences on how to increase the tourism value of wild nature and wildlife. The seminar addressed the benefits that can arise from nature-based tourism for nature, wildlife as well as for local communities. One of the highlights was to learn how local people benefit from wildlife photography in the Iberian Peninsula.

After a long day of travel, five Rewilding Europe team members from Velebit (Croatia) and Eastern Carpathians (Poland) arrived at the Kuikka base camp of Wildlife Safaris Finland. Here, we would spend the next two days with experienced wildlife photographer Lassi Rautiainen, learning about his highly successful wildlife photographic and tourism business, with the aim of attaining a better understanding of the operating standards and finer details behind Finnish wildlife watching.

Rewilding Europe has now released the second edition of its “Wildlife Watching Hides – a practical Guide 2.0”, the only available publication on the market for info about how to design and build professional wildlife watching tourism hides.