Rewilding the land: experts offer keys to reducing moral conflicts

Rewilding or renaturalisation is an increasingly recurrent issue in conservation biology and ecology, and is often presented as a solution to anthropocene problems such as accelerated climate change, ecosystem deterioration, biodiversity loss or damage to global health. It seeks to regenerate natural ecosystems by restoring ecological functions, biodiversity and food webs, and by limiting human pressure on the territory and the exploitation of other species. On the one hand, science shows that rewilding can provide several key benefits to address the current ecological crisis. On the other hand, there are public opinions that systematically reject this practice. Even so, it is not all advantages, nor are there only disadvantages, and sometimes rewilding in an ethical manner involves a choice between controversial trade-offs.

With the aim of focusing on this area, a team of experts created a new guide entitled A Roadmap for Ethical Rewilding in the Anthropocene, which allows identifying both the benefits and moral conflicts that may arise in the process of rewilding with the aim of trying to carry out a conservation practice that is more ethical with everyone: humans, animals and the environment.

It is the first guide to be published in Spain and has been translated into English to reach an international audience. The document, synthetic and easy to read without sacrificing technical rigour, can be useful to a wide and diverse audience, from students and people interested in the subject to academic researchers, politicians and public administration agents, conservation biology professionals and, especially, rewilding practitioners.

The new tool is the result of the project “Ética del Rewilding en el antropoceno: comprendiendo los escollos de regenerar éticamente lo salvaje” [Ethics of Rewilding in the Anthropocene: understanding the pitfalls of ethically regenerating the wild], led by Cristian Moyano, researcher of the Margarita Salas programme in the Department of Philosophy of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) at the time of the project, and currently postdoctoral researcher Juan de la Cierva of the Institute of Philosophy of the CSIC. In addition, Marta Tafalla (Department of Philosophy of the UAB), Filka Sekulova, (Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the UAB at the time of the project and currently at the UOC), María José Guerra (Universidad de la Laguna), Fernando Arribas (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos), Deli Saavedra (Rewilding Europe) and Pablo Serra (Universidad Pontificia de Comillas) also actively participated. Numerous researchers from other universities and research institutions also collaborated, including Sandra Saura (CREAF and also UAB), Jorge Riechmann (UAM), Adrián Almazán (UC3), Alicia Puleo (UVA), José María Rey (UAH), and Arnau Tolrà (UB).

Concept connected to the land and future-oriented practice

The guide is divided into three sections: the first, on the concept, forms and scope of rewilding; the second, on how this practice can affect non-human beings; and the third, focused on discussing the involvement of people to carry out renaturalisation processes.

The researchers are committed to exploring translations into other languages that can offer a concept more closely linked to the territory and with less risk of colonial projection, and to applying different methodologies depending on the territorial scale, which can range from a vast natural area to a small anthropised public space. They stress the importance of being future-oriented and enhancing the autonomy and ecological functions of natural ecosystems, rather than worrying about bringing back species that are distant in time. "Ecological restoration can occur through the reintroduction of functional analogues that converge in sociocultural acceptance, political and legislative protection, and sensitivity to the changing context of the Anthropocene," they note.

Ethics with non-human species

The guide also brings to the table the biases that may be behind the species to be recovered, such as prioritising for unscientific reasons, or obtaining more support for projects, and the need to weigh these constraints to achieve the intended results.

The experts call for the need for "compassionate conservation" towards animals that are sometimes demonised and accused of harming human activity, or that have arrived in new areas and have adapted, probably for anthropogenic reasons that should be made visible and transformed. It is necessary to study alternatives in the culling that can facilitate coexistence with wildlife: "if there are alternatives, the moral problem becomes a problem with solutions", they point out. Furthermore, given that only 4% of the biomass of mammals on the planet corresponds to wild animals (the rest is distributed between human beings, 36%, and above all herds, 60%), they add that "we have the duty to decrease to allow the rest of the species to develop and to be able to carry out the ecological functions necessary for the maintenance of life".

In processes of reintroducing species in a territory, the guide addresses the legal aspects and margins of action in the positive intervention in nature, which can affect the food web dynamics and spoil the success of the ecological regeneration process. And, in any case, it is necessary not to prioritise animal care based on economic or tourist interests: "respect for the welfare of all animals must be of equal importance", emphasise the researchers, who agree that "any assistance in nature must be carried out with caution, respecting the sovereignty of all other species and knowing the ecological effects it will cause".

Tips on how to become more involved

In the last section of the guide, the experts provide a series of recommendations aimed at human communities that may be involved in rewilding processes and that would help to achieve successful practices.

With regard to local communities, it is necessary to provide adequate information on the rewilding procedures, with an understandable and respectful communication with local knowledge, to attend to the needs and concerns of the population and to involve them in the whole process.

As for the people who put rewilding into practice, it is necessary to offer opportunities for a more egalitarian composition of human teams, favouring positive discrimination of women in those cases where there is a "structural injustice or an initial imbalance".

In the final pages, the experts explain how greater interdisciplinarity in the teams, incorporating experts in fields such as anthropology, social psychology, philosophy and ethics, politics, law and economics, would allow a multidimensional approach to rewilding processes and increase the likelihood of their successful implementation.

Project website: https://era-ceres.com/

Link to the guide (in English and in Spanish): https://era-ceres.com/index.php/recursos/