WILDCARD
Revealing the contribution of rewilding to the EU’s climate and biodiversity goals
All over Europe, nature is making a comeback. Now it’s time to assess the effects!
The WILDCARD project is unveiling the contribution of two major rewilding approaches to tackling the climate and biodiversity crises. We also collaborate closely with local stakeholders in key rewilding areas across Europe to enable change through rewilding strategies.
WILDCARD is funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme with a budget of €8,9 million and by the Swiss government with a contribution of €1,2 million. It runs from January 2024 to December 2027 and is implemented by 16 partners in 9 European countries.
What is rewilding?
Rewilding is about letting nature do the job of repairing degraded and damaged ecosystems. It’s about reinstating natural processes that would have occurred in the absence of human activity.
The goal is to create self-sustaining and wilder natural areas that support a wide range of native plants, animals and microorganisms, reversing the potential negative impacts of intensive human management.
In WILDCARD, we focus on scientifically assessing two main rewilding approaches: the rewilding of abandoned agricultural lands and the halting of forest management (proforestation).
What we do
WILDCARD is identifying priority areas where rewilding achieves the most benefits for the climate, biodiversity and society.
We are, for the first time, quantifying such benefits at the European scale by combining satellite and field data from hundreds of locations across the continent. At the same time, the project is establishing a fruitful dialogue with local people and decision-makers through the WILDCARD Rewilding Forum.
Project
objectives
News & Events
When forests thrive: nature conservation, culture and change in Friuli Venezia Giulia
Blogpost by Gesche Schifferdecker What happens when forests are left…
Rewilding Knowledge Science–Policy Event
25 November 2026 | Comet Louise, Brussels The EU Nature…
Wildcard study site recognised as one of Italy’s first old-growth forests
Pian de le Stele, one of WILDCARD’s proforestation study sites…