We are excited to announce the release of Rewilding Europe’s first promotional film today, presenting our vision for a wilder Europe. Take a few moments and travel with us to some of the rewilding areas in which we work, learn about the historic opportunities for rewilding, and how this can benefit both nature and people.

This July, after an in depth review, Rewilding Europe received the official charity recognition from the Dutch Bureau of Fundraising Organisations (CBF). Rewilding Europe now carries the CBF’s Seal of Approval for meeting the formulated criteria with regard to the disbursement of funds, governing board, policies, fundraising and accountability.

To regain ground and confidence nature conservation needs policies that support rewilding. Rewilding is the biggest, most exciting idea to emerge in conservation since the 1970s. The challenge now is to create the spaces within conservation policy and politics where rewilding ideas can find expression, gain traction and be tested.

On May 26, Swedish Marie-Claire Cronstedts Foundation announced its support for rewilding of Lapland’s rivers by presenting a grant to Rewilding Lapland Foundation. The funding will complement already approved funding by the Swedish Postcode Foundation for the restoration of fish spawning areas at Trollforsen, Pite River, and boost field activities in Lapland.

At Rewilding Europe, we love to share our accomplishments with you. In the latest Annual Review for the year 2015, you will read about the encouraging progress we made to make Europe a wilder place. A year in which a lot of action happened in moving forward with our exciting initiative.

Today, Rewilding Europe published a ‘Policy Brief’ written and researched by Frans Schepers of Rewilding Europe and Paul Jepson of the University of Oxford, calling for an enabling policy space for rewilding as a new and complementary conservation approach in Europe. Rewilding has caught the scientific and public imagination but needs a more supportive policy environment to achieve its conservation impact. Rewilding is a logical next step in an on-going process of EU nature policy development and the ‘Policy Brief’ identifies areas where rewilding principles can extend and reinvigorate European nature policy.

This Monday, Rewilding Europe and WWF Romania agreed to join forces in the Danube Delta. The organisations signed a new agreement based on a joint vision for the delta, and agreed on key areas of cooperation. The common goal is to help develop the Danube Delta as one of the finest, best-protected and most famous nature destinations of the whole continent. To achieve this, wetland restoration, boosting local nature based economics, support enabling policy developments and conservation legislation, and combining communication efforts are the main elements of the cooperation.

We are excited to announce that on 15 April, Rewilding Europe was accepted to become a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources – IUCN. Rewilding Europe was one of the 22 new members approved by the IUCN Council meeting last week.

Ulrich’s journey towards becoming the Team Leader of the Oder Delta German team began in the legal realm. As a lawyer specialized in Environmental Law, he was directly involved in the set-up of the Lower Oder Valley National Park. During his work, he has experienced resistance of local residents to new legislation if they felt excluded from the process; an experience that has strongly shaped his views on conservation and community involvement.

In April 2015, Rewilding Europe offered two internship positions for a desk study to collect information about wildlife in rewilding areas, in particular on the larger mammals and birds. Out of many applications received, one student and a volunteer were selected: Anna Luijten and Jelle Harms from The Netherlands. The goal of the study was to obtain an overview of the key species, their numbers, distribution, trends, habitat preferences and populations estimates. In this blog you can read how it is being an intern at Rewilding Europe.