The Scottish Government has published the main findings of research investigating debates around the term ‘rewilding’, its relevance in a Scottish context, and a working definition of the term suitable for use by the public sector in Scotland.

Rewilding is a very new term, a shared understanding of the term could therefore help organisations, including Scotland's public sector and NGO's, to have a consistant definition and approach. 

Based on an evidence review and workshop on rewilding, this report proposes a new definition of rewilding for use by Scotland's public sector.

"Rewilding means enabling nature's recovery, whilst reflecting and respecting Scotland's society and heritage, to achieve more resilient and autonomous ecosystems.

Rewilding is part of a set of terms and approaches to landscape and nature management; it differs from other approaches in seeking to enable natural processes which eventually require relatively little management by humans.

As with all landscape management, rewilding should be achieved by processes that engage and ideally benefit local communities, in line with Scotland's Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement, to support a Just Transition."

The Scottish Rewilding Alliance has called on the Government to declare Scotland the world’s first Rewilding Nation, and commit to start the process of rewilding 30% of Scotland’s land and sea by 2030.

Full Report here