Ecological restoration and rewilding: two approaches with complementary goals?

• Published in: Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society Vol. 99; no. 3; pp. 820 - 836
• Main Authors: Mutillod, Clémentine, Buisson, Élise, Mahy, Gregory, Jaunatre, Renaud, Bullock, James M., Tatin, Laurent, Dutoit, Thierry
• Format: Journal Article Web Resource
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.06.2024; Wiley
• Subjects: Animals; Anthropogenic factors; Complementarity; conservation biology; Conservation of Natural Resources - methods; Ecological function; Ecosystem; ecosystem engineer; ecosystem function; Ecosystem recovery; Ecosystem restoration; Ecosystems; Environmental restoration; Environmental Restoration and Remediation - methods; Environmental Sciences; Environmental sciences & ecology; General Agricultural and Biological Sciences; General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology; Life Sciences; Nature conservation; paradigm; Recovery; restorative activities; Sciences de l’environnement & écologie; Sciences du vivant; ecosystem engineer; ecosystem function; conservation biology; paradigm; restorative activities
• ISSN: 1464-7931; 1469-185X; 1469-185X
• DOI: 10.1111/brv.13046

ABSTRACT As we enter the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) and address the urgent need to protect and restore ecosystems and their ecological functions at large scales, rewilding has been brought into the limelight. Interest in this discipline is thus increasing, with a large number of conceptual scientific papers published in recent years. Increasing enthusiasm has led to discussions and debates in the scientific community about the differences between ecological restoration and rewilding. The main goal of this review is to compare and clarify the position of each field. Our results show that despite some differences (e.g. top‐down versus bottom‐up and functional versus taxonomic approaches) and notably with distinct goals – recovery of a defined historically determined target ecosystem versus recovery of natural processes with often no target endpoint – ecological restoration and rewilding have a common scope: the recovery of ecosystems following anthropogenic degradation. The goals of ecological restoration and rewilding have expanded with the progress of each field. However, it is unclear whether there is a paradigm shift with ecological restoration moving towards rewilding or vice versa. We underline the complementarity in time and in space of ecological restoration and rewilding. To conclude, we argue that reconciliation of these two fields of nature conservation to ensure complementarity could create a synergy to achieve their common scope.