Rewilding: A step towards restoring African wildlife and rangelands

What is Rewilding?

Rewilding emphasizes the restoration of ecosystem processes through the reestablishment of wild species, their roles, and interactions. Instead of just protecting what's left, rewilding aims to return ecosystems to their natural complexity, disturbance and dispersal.  

Components of Rewilding

Species reintroduction: Bringing back species that were previously extinct or reduced in a particular region. This often includes mammalian carnivores, which play a vital role in the direct and indirect regulating of ecosystems. Restoring the structural and functional complexity through large native herbivores maintain natural dynamics in ecosystems, regulating the vegetation structure and succession, nutrient cycling, fire regimes and enhance ecosystem carbon persistence.

Habitat restoration: Revitalizing degraded habitats by promoting natural processes through natural climate solutions such as forest or grassland regeneration from sustainable land management, improved grazing management, reseeding abandoned agricultural land, controlled burning, invasive species clearing etc.  Restoring grassland biodiversity benefits both wildlife and communities dependent on them while accelerating soil-carbon sequestration.

Natural processes: Allowing nature to take its course.  This can mean letting rivers flow freely, natural succession of forests and abandoned farmland, or fires burn (under controlled conditions).

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The Need to Rewild:

Over the past century, human activities have drastically altered natural landscapes. Large-scale land-use change and increasing resource demand has resulted in large-scale biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. The loss of biodiversity, their ecological roles and subsequent processes, diminishes complexity and resilience in ecosystems resulting in loss of ecological integrity and capacity to provide the services we depend on as well as the ability to recover from perturbations. This degradation affects wildlife and compromises human well-being. The climate and biodiversity crises are inter-linked with an urgent need to find ways to maintain safe and operating planetary boundaries.  

Biodiversity: Rewilding helps in restoring the full spectrum of life in a particular habitat. A rich biodiversity ensures resilience against diseases, climatic changes, and other environmental challenges.

‍Ecosystem services: Healthy and functioning ecosystems provide invaluable services, such as clean air, pure water, pollination of crops, and natural pest control.

Socio- ecological and economic systems: Thriving natural ecosystems support thriving local economies. For indigenous and local communities, the land is depended upon and connected too, holding ecological, cultural, spiritual and economic significance. Integrated landscape management uses the landscape approach that places livelihood considerations alongside environmental, driving and influencing each other. Successful rewilding in Africa involves local communities. They play a role in protecting wildlife, and in return, they can benefit from ecotourism and sustainable natural resource management.

While the ecological benefits of rewilding are evident, its socio-economic impact, particularly in fostering inclusive wildlife economies, is profound. By intertwining community upliftment with ecological restoration, rewilding becomes a multi-faceted solution, paving the way for sustainable development. For us rewilding is not just about bringing back certain species or letting nature run its course; it's about establishing a balance where humans and nature can thrive side by side. Especially in regions like Africa, with its rich biodiversity and cultural heritage, rewilding is a vital step toward sustainable and harmonious future. It is clear that both people and nature are interwoven, and the success of one is intricately linked to the other.

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