In recent years, the profile of rewilding, a conservation approach emphasising reduced human interventions in ecosystems, restored ecosystem processes and autonomous nature, has increased. This has prompted critiques of how wildness, nature, and non-human co-existence with humans, are conceptualised within rewilding. Yet so far, there has been no detailed empirical exploration of the views held by rewilding advocates on what rewilding is, and how it should be done. Here we present an analysis of the views of rewilding practitioners and advocates across Europe, using Q-methodology. We identify two distinct visions, one focusing on extensive radical transformation of rural landscapes towards wilder states, and another focused on pragmatism, embracing different forms of rewilding in different places. Divisions over pragmatism versus radical transformation have not previously been identified in studies of rewilding but have critical implications for how rewilding is enacted. These differences also map onto distinct positions in whether rewilding compliments or challenges existing conservation practice. Beyond these distinctions, we find important areas of consensus, such as seeing humans as part of nature, which challenges arguments that rewilding strives for people-free wildernesses or facsimiles of past ecosystems. Overall, our analyses suggest greater coherence within rewilding than has previously been identified.

Rewilding has been hailed as ‘radical’ and ‘agenda-setting’ in the challenge it poses to mainstream conservation. This paper questions whether that is still the case, or if rewilding is now being mainstreamed and with what consequences? Our analysis focuses upon developments in Britain, up until 2018, discussing what changes have become manifest and the barriers and restraints that have been observed. As such, we evaluate the extent to which rewilding – in practice - departs from longstanding conservation sensibilities. Discussion is structured around three key questions— Who is now involved in rewilding across Britain? What they are seeking to do, in terms of how nature is conceptualised and managed (or not)? In what ways do their objectives involve people and human-centred aspirations? Our findings reveal three key differences from current conservation approaches. First, rewilding is associated with a proliferation of new actors, new mechanisms of finance and new spaces of conservation interest. Second, rewilding as an approach exhibits clear novelty in its stated aim to be nature-led and, despite challenges, attempts to work through ongoing negotiation and experimentation. Finally, rewilding is currently being advocated and pursued as an agenda for people and nature, which moves beyond earlier nature conservation paradigms of protecting nature from human influence. However, it remains to be seen whether rewilding advocates can realise their ambitions to popularise and create peopled wild spaces across Britain's landscapes.

Rewilding is a distinctive form of ecological restoration that has emerged quite publicly within environmental policy and conservation advocacy circles. One of the fundamental tenets of rewilding is its emphasis on non-human autonomy, yet empirical examples that examine non-human autonomy are currently limited. While there is a growing body of literature on the biopolitics of broader environmental conservation strategies, there is comparatively little scholarship on the biopolitics of rewilding. This paper argues that autonomy should not be used as a boundary marker to denote ‘wild’ non-humans, but as a situated condition that is variable across locations. It offers an empirical study of the biopolitics that govern the different expressions of non-human autonomy at two different locations in Scotland, where beavers have been reintroduced. The findings reveal how, depending on location and context, modes of governance related to rewilding strategies co-exist and interplay with animal autonomy and forms of power in contradictory ways.

Unsanctioned life is often categorised as ‘feral’, a value-embedded term that orders non-humans in relation to various temporal-spatial, genetic or behavioural logics. Such labelling is frequently used to marginalise risky, undesirable life and allow space for strategies of control and regulation. Feral natures, however, might also be understood as an important, though frequently ignored, form of rewilding situated where strategies of conservation and biosecurity converge. Using the example of (re)introduced wild boar (Sus scrofa) in England as ‘feral rewilding’ in action, this paper considers how the politics around their presence are contested by actors who hold different understandings of wild boar and human-nonhuman relations more broadly. After a multi-century absence, over the last three decades farmed wild boar have escaped and been deliberately released, occasionally establishing autonomous and self-sustaining populations. This is most visible in the Forest of Dean where their unfamiliar presence has increasingly reconfigured social relations. Being categorised as ‘feral’ as a strategy of governance is a contributing factor to a fraught political landscape where wild boar belonging is constantly questioned.

The last forty years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of great cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo) moving inland away from British coastlines. Britain's largest inland colony currently reside at Walthamstow Wetlands, a nature reserve and functional reservoir system in northeast London, recently branded ‘Europe's largest urban wetland'. Here, great cormorants are embroiled in contested ideas of nature. Celebrated by conservationists for their resilience and adaptability, yet hounded by anglers for launching ecological chaos on rivers and reservoirs and disrupting the balance that is imagined for urban recreational spaces. This paper argues for a more nuanced version of rewilding that acknowledges the biogeographical complexity and mobility of nonhumans in relation to radically altered ecologies and post-industrial urban environments. It uses the conceptual frame of more-than-human to examine the increased presence, mobility, and agency of great cormorants at Walthamstow Wetlands in terms of nonhuman autonomy and auto-rewilding. The findings demonstrate that the self-relocation and autonomous occupation of inland cormorants in Walthamstow are intimately entangled with human histories and activities, and that they are active alongside humans in creating novel ecosystems.

Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) aims to resolve issues of legitimacy and social justice but in practice this aim is not always met. In this article, we contribute to the understanding of the outcomes of CBNRM by drawing on the concepts of governmentality, practice, and rationalities. We apply this conceptual approach to a CBNRM project in northern Tanzania: Enduimet Wildlife Management Area (WMA). Here a conflict emerged about proposed new livestock herding regulations which were intended to address a grass shortage affecting both wildlife and the Maasai community living in the WMA. Although these regulations were designed as part of the CBNRM process, they were resisted by community members. Our analysis highlights the role of conflicting rationalities between the WMA board and community members about the causes of and solutions to the grass shortage in the ensuing conflict. Specifically, we demonstrate how these conflicting rationalities can be understood as unintended outcomes of dynamic interactions between assumptions and intentions of involved actors, formal processes related to CBNRM, and the communication and participatory strategies employed around the introduction of the new livestock herding regulations. As such, our article illustrates the value of explicitly considering the role of practice in analysing unintended consequences of conservation interventions.

Taking a coordinated, holistic approach to the governance of coastal ecosystems is widely advocated in recognition of the need to manage ecosystems as a whole. Despite commitment to approaches such as integrated coastal zone management and ecosystem-based management of fisheries, governance remains fragmented, with sectors such as environment, fisheries and forestry maintaining separate systems of governance from the national to village level. These systems include the formation of separate community-based structures, reporting directly to the respective sectoral ministry. This raises questions about how this collaborative governance approach aligns with taking a more integrated, holistic approach to management. The paper draws on findings from research in Kenya and Zanzibar-Tanzania in coastal villages where forest and fisheries management groups have been formed. The research found that the groups operate in compartmentalised ‘silos', in contrast to the interrelated ecosystems on which they depend, with little coordination of plans and priorities. In addition, these groups are not consistent in their relationship to local government, answering directly to the sectoral ministry rather than democratic local government, raising issues for accountability and sustainability. These dual challenges of a sectoral-focus and long-term sustainability must be addressed for management of ecosystems to be integrated and effective.

Local communities’ support for resource conservation projects are essential for their success. Nevertheless, in the Pacific Island countries, many community-based conservation (CBC) projects remain ineffective due to the lack of community members’ engagement. To better understand the motivations of local community members to support resource conservation projects; this research looks at the four community-based conservation sites in North Tarawa, Kiribati. We conducted semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions to investigate why community members support (or do not support) CBC. The findings reveal that while local community members are overall aware of the significance of resource conservation, they do not always support or participate in conservation projects. Indeed, the local community members’ motivation to participate in such projects are influenced by various factors, including their status in a household or community, village practices, the quality of community leadership, and their past experiences with similar projects. Our research also finds that community members become unsupportive with conservation projects when their daily livelihood activities are restricted by the projects. This research suggests that project organisers need to understand such factors and be strategic to retain community members’ support for the success of conservation project.

In the last decade, implementation of the conservation policy of Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs) as a tool for biodiversity conservation has attracted worldwide attention. In Mexico, this policy was launched as a programme called Voluntary Designated Areas for Conservation (VDAC). However, the indigenous Zapotec and mestizo people who embraced the programme do not fully understand its profound implications for their traditional livelihoods. This study aims to document and discuss the significance of conservation for the communities of the Zapotec indigenous region of Oaxaca, Mexico, with VDAC established in their territories. The research was conducted adopting a theoretical approach from Cultural anthropology and Conservation biology. We used a case study-based methodology in which qualitative data were collected through semi-structured and in-depth interviews with local decision-makers in their territories, as well as through participant observation. The results indicate that conservation is a new word for the Zapotec, implying for them a different space to the local spaces where social and cultural relationships of the community occur; it is exclusionary since conservation prohibits the traditional use of the certified areas (VDAC). Moreover, our study recorded local words in the indigenous language similar to conservation, which refer to an integral cycle of “to care-to have-to use”. The latter is related to the local traditions and worldviews: in this case, “to have” is seen as a responsibility, since use of the territory is primarily collective.

A mopane worm (Imbrasia belina) harvesting project in the Kruger National Park (KNP) was used as a case study to test whether conservation related benefit sharing has a net positive impact on multiple dimensions of human well-being. Furthermore, the study assessed whether and to what degree, sharing such benefits influenced local perceptions of conservation, a requirement for the sustainability of protected areas across the globe. The project involved 263 people from 16 villages, adjacent to the KNP, harvesting 4,688 L worms contributing the equivalent of over half of the average household income during the months of harvest. Despite paying for transport, the participants gained from the experience; instilling the feeling that the park is opening up to them, and as a result seeing the park differently. For most participants the project provided them their first opportunity to visit the park, and participants perceived this to have further contributed positively to their wellbeing as a result of the associated learning experiences. Furthermore, participants enjoyed meeting and getting to know the park staff, with these new social connections contributing positively to social wellbeing. Respondents perceived their relationship with the park to be positive and expressed hope for building on this in the future. We conclude that measuring the multiple dimensions of human wellbeing in impact assessments is beneficial, and that the social connections that are built between neighbours, protected area staff and the natural and cultural resources within protected areas as a result of such projects can have mutually beneficial outcomes both for people and conservation.