Defining rewilding for Scotland's public sector: research findings

5. Discussion: A definition of rewilding for Scotland's public sector

This chapter proposes a working definition of rewilding provided by the report's authors. The definition is intended to be positive and accessible. It is relevant both within the Scottish context and in relation to international work to develop and define rewilding.

This chapter builds on the literature review and workshop findings to propose a working definition of rewilding for use by Scotland's public sector. The definition is intended to be positive and accessible, and is relevant both within the Scottish context and in relation to international work to develop and define rewilding.

This chapter also outlines the basis of the proposed definition, and considers its potential use in relation to the wider context of 'rewilding' guidance and principles, and its relationship with other terms and concepts.

A proposed definition of rewilding for Scotland's public sector

The below definition is designed so that the first sentence can be used by itself, whilst the additional sentences emphasise points that are particularly relevant in a Scottish context:

"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."

This definition is intended to be positive, accessible, and also compatible with the definition and principles of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Rewilding Thematic Group and the main other international group relevant to Scotland, the European Rewilding Network.

Basis of this Definition

The definition proposed above takes into account the following points from the evidence review and workshop:

• Rewilding should be understood as part of a family or spectrum of approaches to landscape and nature management;
• What sets rewilding apart from other approaches is its strong emphasis on restoring ecosystem functioning and achieving relatively autonomous natural processes;
• Rewilding can be associated with reintroducing plants and animals, and/or restricting people's access to landscapes, but this should not be assumed;
• Rewilding processes and goals should support a Just Transition, so must engage with and reflect the concerns of society, especially local communities;
• To promote accessibility, a definition should be short, positively phrased and also avoid use of specialist terms;
• However, the definition should be compatible with and used in reference to current internationally endorsed definitions and expert guidance on rewilding.

This definition is proposed by the report authors; it has not been directly endorsed by workshop participants.

Supporting the definition through principles to guide rewilding

This definition should be used in reference to and within the context of wider guidance and principles for 'rewilding', as outlined in Chapter 3. The IUCN Rewilding Thematic Group and European Rewilding Network have both set out principles and further guidance on rewilding (see Table 1). This should be consulted in conjunction with existing guidance on the Scottish Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement (Scottish Government, 2022d). This guidance is complementary in its focus on how to engage and work with communities in land management and decision-making.

Table 1 groups these two sets of principles into five key themes, which are each a necessary part of working and planning for rewilding:

1. aspire for autonomous natural processes;

2. plan in terms of spatial context;

3. learn from the past but also look forwards;

4. work with and for people; and

5. manage adaptively.

Sources of information: for the Rewilding Thematic Group, Carver et al. (2021); IUCN (2021); IUCN CEM RTG (2021) and for the European Rewilding Network, Rewilding Principles. Principles from both are phrased as in Table 1 in Jepson (2022) but with a different ordering.

Rewilding's relationship with other terms and concepts

Many of the themes and principles in Table 1 are not unique to rewilding. For example, the need to enable adaptive management is widely supported across the environmental management literature (for example, Williams & Brown, 2014). This highlights commonalities with other approaches to landscape management, beyond the focus on achieving autonomous or self-sufficient natural processes. The workshop participants recognised this, and noted that it would be useful to receive guidance on how the spectrum of different terms and concepts relate to each other and to rewilding.

Several sources have suggested how rewilding relates to other terms and concepts in nature management and conservation (for example, Carver et al., 2021; Gerwing et al., 2023). Whilst there is no single authorative version of how terms relate to each other, these sources make clear that some terms overlap in their meaning (for example, rewilding may be seen as very similar to restoration) and indicate underlying issues by which the terms may be differentiated, including goals for ecosystem management (for example, the degree to which nature's autonomy is sought), settings in which they are relevant (for example, 'regeneration' is more often used in agricultural systems) and the extent to which human activity is still expected in the system (for example, 'urban ecology' is used to discuss strengthening nature's presence in towns).

A full review of how ecology, nature and landscape management terminology relates to rewilding is beyond the scope of this report, but in Annex 3 we highlight some useful guidance that already exists on this subject.