The escalating and widespread impacts of human activities on biodiversity urges for the adoption of more ambitious approaches for large-scale biodiversity restoration. Rewilding has emerged as one such approach that pursues the recovery of wildlife and self-sustained ecosystems while tapping into opportunities for reconciling nature restoration in socio-ecological systems. Rewilding focuses on the recovery of trophic interactions in wildlife, natural disturbance regimes, and dispersal processes as three key ecological processes determining the integrity and resilience of ecosystems. Building on this process-oriented definition, we present a novel assessment of the ecological integrity of European landscapes and the opportunities for boosting ecosystem restoration through rewilding principles.
Results/Conclusions
We developed a novel "wildness" indicator by combining spatially explicit measurements of trophic downgrading, landscape fragmentation, and the intensity of human management of ecosystems. The indicator was applied to Europe in order to assess the current degradation state of ecosystems and to identify possible configurations of connected networks of priority areas for rewilding. Building on predictive species distribution models, land use projections, and optimisation analyses, our assessment aims to support green infrastructure and restoration policy through identifying the opportunities and limitations for advancing in each of the three axes of rewilding. Furthermore, the framework presented here can accommodate conservation objectives at multiple spatial scales and across different socio-ecological contexts.