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Publication - Research and analysis

Defining rewilding for Scotland's public sector: research findings

Published
4 July 2023
From
Director-General Net Zero
Directorate
Environment and Forestry Directorate
Part of
Farming and rural
ISBN
9781835210642

Main findings of research investigating debates around the term ‘rewilding’, its relevance in a Scottish context, and to propose a working definition of the term suitable for use by the public sector in Scotland

View supporting documents Supporting documents

Annex 3. Relating Rewilding to Other Terms and Concepts

This annex illustrates some examples of how rewilding has been related to other terms and concepts in conservation and environmental management.

One set of ideas on the relationship between rewiding and other concepts comes from the the IUCN Rewilding Thematic Group. Carver et al. (2021) propose a diagram (Figure 3) which distinguishes the degree of 'human modification' of landscapes as guiding the degree to which one may expect to be able to reduce human control or dominance – suggesting that rewilding is not an appropriate term in highly modified environments, where instead terms such as 'urban ecology' or 'conservation of cultural landscapes' should be used. Within the rewilding workshop, the presentation given by Ian Convery and Steve Carver also presented the continuum in Figure 4.

Figure 3 'The Wilderness continuum', from Carver et al 2021
Figure showing the 'Wilderness Continuum' (Carver et al 2021) with continuum of human modification (increasing anthropogenic modification) contrasted with degree of naturalness and remoteness (increasing ecological integrity and quality).
Figure 4 Extract from presentation given by Steve Carver and Ian Convery during their presentation during the workshop, which is adapted from Carver et al (2021).
Figure showing scale from remediation to rehabilitation, to ecological restoration, to rewilding, to secondary wilderness.

Most recently, Gerwing et al. (2023) have provided a decision tree to help clarify and choose terms related to restoration ecology. Their definition of rewilding is broadly compatible with the definition proposed above. The decision tree (Figure 5) and their description of the terms within it (Table 2) are copied below.

Further work to articulate the range of terms in use in Scotland that are related to conservation, nature, ecological and/or landscape management may be a useful reference guide for many purposes, not solely related to rewilding.

Figure 5 Copy of figure 1 from Gerwing et al 2023. "Decision tree clarifying relationships between key terms within Restoration Ecology based upon project goals (scope)."
Figure showing a Decision tree clarifying relationships between key terms within Restoration Ecology based upon project goals (scope)'. Terms included are ecological restoration, rewilding, landscape restoration, intra-ecosystem restoration, reclamation and rehabilitation.
Table 2. Copy of Table 1 in Gerwing et al. (2023) "Summary of table of proposed restoration definitions"
Term Proposed definition
Reclamation The process of making severely degraded habitat fit for cultivation of a state suitable for some human use
Rehabilitation Management actions that aim to reinstate a level of ecosystem functioning on degraded sites, where the goal is renewed and ongoing provision of ecosystem services rather than the biodiversity and integrity of a designate native reference ecosystem
Ecological restoration The process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed to benefit native biodiversity
Rewilding The process of rebuilding, often following major human disturbance, a natural ecosystem(s) by restoring natural processes and the complete or near complete food web at all trophic levels as a self-sustaining and resilient ecosystem using biota that would have been present had the disturbance not occurred
Landscape restoration Activities that seek to recover landscape-level ecological integrity by focusing on the restoration of landscape structure, dynamics and function, with a particular focus on restoring critical interactions between ecosystems or landscape units
Intra-ecosystem restoration Activities that target a limited subset of ecosystem components, with efforts constrained within a single ecosystem and landscape unit
Ecological reclamation Activities that aim to assist the recovery of an ecosystem, species, or community to states outside those predicted by native reference models, or divergent from the variety of conditions observed in native and (or) nearby reference habitats
Reference condition restoration Activities that aim to assist the recovery of an ecosystem, species, or community to states with those predicted by native reference models or within the variation of conditions observed in native and (or) nearby reference habitats

Contact

Email: socialresearch@gov.scot

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