Rewilding

Your opinion at the start - stage 1/6

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Supporters of rewilding assert massive benefits. Opponents reckon these benefits are overstated, and/or outweighed by the disadvantages.

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Researched and written by Perry Walker

Drag these using the arrow symbol () so that they are in order, most preferred at the top

  • I am strongly in favour of rewilding
  • I am neutral about rewilding
  • I am slightly against rewilding
  • I am slightly in favour of rewilding
  • I am strongly against rewilding

What is rewilding and why does it matter?

Rewilding means to restore land to its natural uncultivated state. Rewilding is based on the principle that nature knows best when it comes to protecting itself. But due to the damage we have already done to the natural world, it needs a helping hand to recover to the point where it can do that. Across Europe, we’ve lost massive amounts of native flora and fauna that are essential to keeping our ecosystems balanced.

Rewilding means taking actions like reintroducing species that have disappeared, allowing forests to regenerate and preventing the fragmentation of rivers.

In the documentary, A Life On Our Planet, Sir David Attenborough spent an hour journeying through the enormous biodiversity loss the world has experienced during his 94 years. Then asked, “So what do we do?” His answer:“To restore stability to our planet we must restore its biodiversity, the very thing that we’ve removed… We must rewild the world.”