A new European hub, Rewilding Knowledge, is bringing together rewilding research and knowledge to bridge the gap between academia, policy and rewilding action.
Rewilding Knowledge has been developed through a collaboration between three EU Horizon projects, wildE, REWRITE, and us, WILDCARD. While Horizon projects are time-bound, the platform Rewilding Knowledge will ensure that our findings remain accessible to policymakers, land managers, and researchers long after the projects conclude.
Across Europe, a range of different management approaches and tools are enabling nature to adapt to a changing world and drive the restoration of habitats and ecosystems on land and at sea. Rewilding approaches are bringing benefits to climate and biodiversity while addressing the needs of local communities.
Rewilding Knowledge aims to advance both academic and practical understanding of how rewilding science can address the climate and biodiversity crises and support nature restoration across Europe. This research and knowledge has been developed through three rigorous Horizon Europe-funded projects, with high-quality outputs aiming to build a future where rewilding plays a key role in supporting nature restoration and climate adaptation.
By bringing together the latest curated, robust scientific evidence from trusted and reputable sources in Europe, Rewilding Knowledge ensures users can rely on the quality and credibility of the information provided.
Key features include news, blogs, a searchable resource repository featuring reports and policy guidance, videos and podcasts. More content will continue to be added as the site expands and new knowledge and research becomes available.
Built on a foundation of collaboration and connection, Rewilding Knowledge welcomes projects and initiatives from the European rewilding science community to explore opportunities for knowledge sharing and partnership.
Powered by Oppla, Rewilding Knowledge is part of a wider global knowledge network bringing together the latest research on natural capital, ecosystem services and nature-based solutions.
200 million football fields are the size of agricultural areas abandoned in Europe since the 1990s, especially in regions like the Iberian Peninsula, the Alps and the Carpathians mountains. What to do with all this land? In many cases the alternative is to “rewild”, which means promoting natural processes whilst minimizing human management. This can be achieved differently: One option is to let landscape evolve naturally with eventually, abandoned agricultural fields turning into forests (called “passive rewilding”) and forests that were managed reaching their full ecological potential (called “proforestation”). Meanwhile, another option is to reintroduce emblematic and locally instinct species like the beaver or the lynx (called “trophic” or “active rewilding”). However, people, and especially local communities, do not always welcome these changes.
Overall, rural, older and farming respondents typically opposed rewilding and preferred traditional land management. This was mostly because these communities are attached to the land and livelihood they grew up in, and they perceived rewilding as a threat to those. Meanwhile, younger and urban individuals, such as tourists, were usually more positive towards the conversion of abandoned agricultural areas into forests. When criticizing rewilding, people mostly dreaded impacts on the landscape (e.g. homogenizing the landscape or increased fire risk), and on economic activities (e.g. reducing food production). Feelings of fear or unsafety were also often mentioned along with feeling of injustice, specifically concerning active rewilding. Indeed, some people felt that wildlife and wilderness were prioritised over already marginalised humans.
Figure: Agricultural abandonment hotspot map with location of data collection sites of the case-studies. The agricultural abandonment hotspots were determined by combining data on both projected and existing abandonment. Map lines delineate study areas and do not necessarily depict accepted national boundaries.
To limit this feeling and conflict in general, we found that practitioners should focus on trust building, stakeholder engagement and financial support (e.g. subsidies which are powerful tools to promote acceptability). For the successful and fair re-naturalisation of abandoned agricultural areas, we advocate for better alignment between actors’ perspectives and rewilding objectives. In fire-prone regions for example, many oppose passive rewilding because it can fuel fire risk (more shrubs and vegetation that dries out in summer). Meanwhile, using active rewilding can limit this risk (e.g. herbivores consume the inflammable vegetation) and consequently reduce the conflict.
For next steps in research, more studies on perceptions are needed in the Carpathians and Baltic regions, which face strong yet more recent abandonment (20 to 30 years later than the Alps because agricultural abandonment only started after the Socialist period). In addition, while many papers look at attitudes towards active and passive rewilding, we mostly lack studies towards “proforestation” (passive rewilding of managed forests).
Lastly, timeline is crucial. Interestingly, some studies showed that people feared less Bisons after their reintroduction. This illustrates that attitudes are dynamic and evolve with knowledge and experience, particularly in the case of rewilding which can take decades to unfold and involve uncertainty. As such, we need more long-term understanding of perceptions with studies in later-stages of rewilding processes.
Reference: Jeanroy, C. G., Smith, A. M., & Verburg, P. H. (2026). Perceptions of rewilding in European abandoned agricultural lands. Landscape and Urban Planning, 274, 105715. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.LANDURBPLAN.2026.105715
Featured image: Rewilding of former agricultural land in Friuli Venezia Giulia (photo: Alessandro Foscari)
What happens when people leave the land, when forests return on their own, or when nature refuses to follow our expectations? Our four new episodes of WILDCARD: The Forest Game take listeners on a journey through some of Europe’s most fascinating ecological transformations, revealing how landscapes, wildlife, and even microscopic organisms are reshaping the continent’s future.
In Episode 5, Natural Reforestation in Portugal, we travel to the remote Trás-os-Montes region, where abandoned farmland is gradually becoming forest. This largely unplanned process, driven by demographic and economic change, represents one of Europe’s largest reforestation phenomena. Yet the story is far more complex than a simple return of trees. Through local voices and scientific insights, the episode explores how people, forests, and changing rural landscapes continue to interact.
Episode 6, When Nature Surprises Us: The Steppe That Refused to Become Forest, challenges one of the most common assumptions about ecological succession. After fifty years of observation, ecologist Karel Prach discovered that an abandoned field in the Czech Republic did not become forest as expected. Instead, it developed into a valuable grassland ecosystem supporting rare steppe species. The episode highlights the importance of adaptation, long-term observation, and humility when working with nature.
In Episode 7,The Invisible Architects, the focus shifts beneath our feet. Following devastating wildfires on Mount Vesuvius, researchers uncovered a hidden world of bacteria, fungi, and soil organisms that drive ecosystem recovery. These microscopic communities rebuild soil health, recycle nutrients, and create the foundations without which forests regeneration could not take place. Their work may be invisible to our eyes, but it is essential for successful rewilding.
Finally, Episode 8, Where Wolves Walk: Natural Reforestation and the Return of Wildlife, explores the dynamic relationship between regenerating forests and wildlife. As forests reconnect fragmented landscapes, animals expand into new territories, creating ecological corridors across Europe. Yet wildlife are not merely beneficiaries of restoration; they actively shape the forests themselves through browsing, seed dispersal, and predator-prey interactions. Rewilding emerges as a continuous dialogue between animals and landscapes.
Together, these four episodes reveal that rewilding is neither simple nor predictable. Forests, grasslands, wildlife, and soil organisms all play interconnected roles in shaping Europe’s future landscapes. Through compelling stories and cutting-edge science, WILDCARD: The Forest Game invites listeners to discover how nature recovers when humans step back and observe.
Produced within the WILDCARD project, the podcast combines scientific expertise with engaging storytelling to bring Europe’s rewilding revolution to life. Whether you are interested in ecology, restoration, conservation, or the future of European landscapes, these episodes offer fresh perspectives on the surprising ways nature responds to change.
Our innovative new online exhibition is inviting audiences to experience rewilding through a different lens – one shaped not by data alone, but by creativity, emotion, and shared reflection. Launched in collaboration with the Meander Magazine and the REWRITE project, the “Rewilding through Art” initiative brings together science, culture, and artistic expression in a unique virtual gallery hosted by Meander magazine: www.meandermagazine.earth/rewildingthroughart
The exhibition stems from a simple yet powerful set of questions: what does rewilding mean to individuals and communities, and how can it reshape both landscapes and mindsets? The response was striking. More than 80 submissions from artists, researchers, and citizens across 19 countries offered diverse interpretations – from ocean installations and satellite imagery to sculptures made of forest materials. A jury combining expertise from art, ecology, and environmental practice selected 12 standout works, reflecting a wide range of perspectives. While the exhibition originated as a physical installation in a forest setting in Freising, Germany, in February 2026, it now lives on through its online format, making these reflections accessible to a broader audience.
The virtual gallery highlights how art can deepen engagement with environmental issues, creating space for dialogue and new ways of seeing. Complementary to presenting rewilding as a purely scientific concept, the exhibition reveals it as a cultural and emotional process – one that reconnects people with nature and with each other.
How does rewilding speak to you? Why does it matter to you or your community? How can rewilding transform both landscapes and mindsets?
These were the questions we asked ourselves as we started our collaborative “Rewilding through Art” initiative between the WILDCARD and the REWRITE projects. These were also the questions we put forward, to invite anyone with a story, image, or idea about rewilding to share their vision with us. Our goal? An immersive exhibition in the forest with the vision to bridge art, science, and culture. And a virtual gallery with Meander, a new magazine for bioregional culture, slow living, and regenerative futures, who became a collaborating partner along the way.
An invitation that resonated
First of all, it was beautiful to see so many people – artists, citizens, NGOs, researchers – excited about the initiative and sharing the Open Call via their social media channels. Within a few weeks, our LinkedIn account had >200 more followers from several disciplines and fields of work – from rewilding practice to the creative sector. As submissions started coming in, we were even more astonished – there are so many ways to interpret and reflect upon “rewilding”: statues that are being sunk into the ocean, beautiful satellite images of rewilded areas, animal sculptures in real-life sizes created out of forest-based materials, installations in rivers, just to mention a few. While we were hoping to receive between 20 and 30 submissions, we ended up with more than 80 artwork submissions, coming from creatives from 19 countries.
Perspectives in dialogue: the jury
Our jury brought together a remarkable mix of perspectives from art, science, and environmental practice. Evgenia Emets is an artist, poet, and filmmaker whose work explores forests, biodiversity, and community engagement through installations, visual storytelling, and ecological performances. Tom Greenwood, founder and editor of Meander, draws on a background in marine biology and strategic design to connect ecological thinking, regenerative culture, and systems change through his magazine. Giorgio Alberti, Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of Udine and coordinator of the Wildcard project, focuses on forest resilience, carbon dynamics, and climate mitigation. Cintia Organo Quintana, Associate Professor at the University of Southern Denmark and contributor to the REWRITE project, bridges research, teaching, and conservation with her work on plant ecology, biodiversity, and ecosystem restoration. Sara Chiba, consultant and EU project coordinator at Prospex Institute, specializes in stakeholder engagement and bringing diverse perspectives into environmental solutions.
Deciding on the final selection proved extraordinarily challenging. In the end, rather than the planned ten, the jury chose twelve artworks. This decision was not only linked to the exceptional quality of the submissions but also the need to honor the diversity in perspectives and expertise within our jury, ensuring that every voice was able to contribute to the conversation.
From concept to forest floor
However, if we thought selecting was a tough call, we were surprised how much effort it took to actually plan an exhibition in the forest, that was supposed to be part of the “Rewilding Forum” organized by WILDCARD. Permissions from the local forest service had to be granted, proper material needed to be selected, a local printing service had to be found, and a van was rented to bring the artworks to the forest. And easels. Most of us didn’t even know that word in English, but without easels, there would be no outdoors exhibition.
When we – colleagues from Prospex Institute, artist Evgenia Emets, and I – finally stood in the Freising forest on 25th February, it was a moment of pride and excitement. We didn’t notice it was freezing cold (-2 degrees), but we enjoyed the mystical dust in the woods. We didn’t mind carrying the heavy artwork (and the easels) several hundred meters, but we were on a mission to make the careful selection visible – and we expected a big group of around 60 visitors, consisting of rewilding practitioners and scientists, stakeholders from policy, nature conservation, and the creative sector. Setting up the artwork was a muddy experience, but the work looked beautiful in the forest. With us were also three of the twelve artists, that were selected to present their work on the spot, while we had nice introductions prepared for the other artworks and their creators. And then the Rewilding Forum participants came and split into smaller groups to enable a more in-depth exchange.
Everyone started with visiting the three artists who joined the exhibition to introduce their work: Angelina Kumar, Diana Takacsova, and Inna Zrajaeva, who was representing Feral Malmö, a studio dedicated to reimagining relationships between people and nonhuman nature.
Angelina Kumar was the first to present. She is an artist, researcher and educator whose interdisciplinary practice connects ecology, community, and care. Her participatory sculpture “Hyphae of Kindness,” made from mycelium and fabric, draws on fungal networks to explore reciprocity, kindness and interdependence. When she told us how difficult it was for participants in her work to identify “acts of kindness” for themselves, it was obvious that the forest exhibition group was touched and reflecting about what kindness meant to them. Questions evolved around the contributors to the installation – it was open to the public – and to the knowledge these contributors gathered both about fungal networks and artistic practice. The stakeholder group was impressed with Angelina’s approach of expanding rewilding beyond landscapes to social and emotional renewal through a collaborative, artistic process.
Diana Takacsova was the second presenter. As aresearch-driven photographer and National Geographic Explorer, she explores environment, identity, and human relationships to place. With her project “Like a Flowing Path” she uses social documentary photography to show ecological restoration and cultural change in Slovakia’s inland Danube delta since 2022. The researchers in the group were interested in her collaboration with the scientists working in the Danube delta, and Diana shared her appreciation of their openness to “invite her into their boat”. She also emphasized how important it is for researchers to make their work visible, and documented it in a visually attractive way to highlight both biodiversity recovery and human stewardship within this transforming landscape.
The third artist was Inna Zrajaeva, representing Feral Malmö. She presented us with a photography of beautiful tiles designed in a Portuguese Art Nouveau style as part of a public workshop hosted at the Aveiro Ceramic Biennial in 2025, called “Rewilding the Salinas”. Inna Zrajaeva explained that during this workshop, participants were invited to paint species inhabiting the salinas today, focusing on four representative species and learning about their ecology through accompanying booklets and discussion with a scientist. Interestingly, we learned from the artist that people were more open to listen while they were painting – which led some Rewilding Forum participants to reflect upon their engagement strategies. We learned that sea pickles should not be harvested intensively, and that the European eel is facing extinction. Through “Rewilding the Salinas,” Feral Malmö highlighted the interplay between art, learning, and ecological awareness. In the Freising forest, Inna invited us to reflect on our role in nurturing resilient ecosystems and celebrating the species returning to these restored habitats.
All other artworks were then presented by us, the people leading the smaller groups of Rewilding Forum participants. While the audience was listening to our speeches and admiring the diverse artwork, we could see that it was not the same as listening to the artists themselves, and we reflected if it would be possible to increase the budget to invite more artists to travel next time.
An immersive space for reflection
What most participants – including myself – realized, is that art has a unique way of opening a reflective space that facts alone rarely manage to do for us. In the quiet of the forest, surrounded by images, stories, and shared curiosity, something shifted: conversations deepened, perspectives widened, and connections formed – between people, disciplines, and ways of seeing the world. What began as an exhibition became a living dialogue, where science met emotion, and knowledge met imagination.
Rewilding, we realized, is not only about restoring landscapes; it is about restoring relationships – between humans and nature, but also among ourselves. Through art, complex ideas can become tangible, and learning can emerge not as instruction, but as exchange. People listened differently and found common ground in unexpected places.
In this space, art did more than communicate – it connected. It invited us to pause, to question, and to imagine other worlds together. And perhaps that is where transformation begins: not only in changing ecosystems, but in rewilding how we think, feel, and relate to one another.
Are you curious to explore rewilding and the selected artworks yourself? The Exhibition Gallery, featuring 12 compelling responses to our Open Call, just launched on Meander magazine with diverse artworks for you to see, sense, and engage with.
On Rewilding Day 2026, our attention turns to WILDCARD’s Czech case study: Šumava National Park in southwestern Czechia, a landscape where nature is taking the lead. The National Park is one of Central Europe’s largest forested areas, stretching across borders with Germany and Austria.
Our new video shares insights about the history of this forest area, political and ecological objectives, and societal expectations: While some residents embrace the vision of wild forests, others see unmanaged landscapes as damaged or neglected.
Despite differing perspectives, our Czech study shows that attitudes are slowly shifting. Dialogue, experience, and exposure to regenerating areas are helping to build understanding and trust. Šumava offers a powerful reminder: rewilding is not “just” about ecosystems – it is also about people, perceptions, and the long-term vision of living with nature rather than controlling it.
Last week, our second annual WILDCARD meeting of took place in Freising from February 25–27, 2026. The three-day event brought together consortium partners to reflect on progress and shape the next phase of research on rewilding, forest dynamics, and climate resilience across Europe.
Hosted by Technical University of Munich, our exchange opened with field visits to the Echinger Lohe experimental site and Freising Forest, where our colleagues joined experts from the Bavarian State Institute of Forestry for an exclusive tour of a strict forest reserve, exploring long-term monitoring, nitrogen deposition impacts, ash dieback, and lasting legacies of historical land use. Our group also engaged with the WILDCARD Art Exhibition – an inspiring reminder of the importance of connecting science and society.
Artwork of Diana Takacsova (photo: Evgenia Emets)Artwork of Angelina Kumar (photo: Fabio Castelli)Group entering the foest (photo: Evgenia Emets)
Back on campus, discussions focused on advances across different work streams: biodiversity and carbon monitoring, economic and policy integration, and communication and management. In dedicated modelling sessions our colleagues highlighted progress with LandClim, FlamMap, and ForClim, strengthening links between disturbance dynamics, proforestation and afforestation pathways, and large-scale scenario development. Strong emphasis was placed on harmonising dendrometric, biodiversity, soil, and remote sensing datasets, and on integrating above- and belowground processes.
The Young Researchers’ Spotlight showcased cutting-edge studies on rewilding perceptions, drought resilience in unmanaged forests, agroforestry optimisation, microbial–carbon trade-offs, LiDAR-based structural indicators, and tree-related microhabitats – demonstrating the scientific depth and interdisciplinary strength of the consortium.
The meeting concluded with strategic discussions on policy briefs, cross-WP integration, and future milestones. Together, we reaffirmed WILDCARD’s shared ambition: delivering robust, policy-relevant science to support biodiversity recovery, climate mitigation, and resilient European landscapes.
Today, on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the we celebrate the contributions of female researchers who are advancing knowledge and innovation in rewilding and ecosystem restoration across Europe.
Sara Cazzaniga, a Postdoctoral Researcher at ETH Zurich, studies the invisible yet powerful world beneath our feet: soil microbes. While rewilding often focuses on visible changes in landscapes and wildlife, Sara’s work uncovers how bacterial and fungal communities drive ecosystem recovery from the ground up. By linking below-ground microbial processes to above-ground ecological outcomes, her research helps ensure that soil biodiversity is recognized in policy and restoration strategies, providing essential evidence for informed decision-making.
Lena Lopez, a PhD researcher at the Technical University of Munich, is driven by the potential of science to catalyse coexistence between humanity and nature. As part of WILDCARD, she models land allocation scenarios for rewilding and proforestation across the European Union. Her work explores how different land-use pathways can support biodiversity while considering social and economic dimensions, contributing valuable insights for policymakers and landowners.
Lucia Seebach, a researcher at the Forestry Research Institute of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, brings a lifelong passion for environmental protection and geoecology to WILDCARD. Inspired by experiences in wild landscapes and national parks, she focuses on forests with the potential to become wild again. By accompanying natural forest development and studying ecosystem processes, Lucia’s research highlights the resilience of nature and the importance of giving ecosystems time and space to recover.
Together, Sara, Lena, and Lucia exemplify the interdisciplinary and forward-looking science at the heart of WILDCARD. Their work not only advances understanding of rewilding but also provides evidence to support sustainable land-use policies and biodiversity conservation. On this day, we proudly recognize their contributions and encourages the next generation of women and girls to pursue careers in science and environmental research.
The Rewilding Arts Initiative, coordinated with REWRITE, has received an inspiring wave of creative contributions from across Europe. A total of 84 artists from 19 different countries took part, offering a rich and diverse collection of works that reflect the growing intersection between art and ecological restoration.
The submissions span an impressive range of artworks. Paintings, drawings, and photography form the core of the collection, complemented by sculptures, videos, collages, and audio works. Together, these pieces demonstrate how artistic practice can engage with environmental themes in multiple sensory and conceptual ways, inviting audiences to experience rewilding not only as a scientific or policy-driven process but also as a cultural and emotional journey.
Many of the works explore rewilding approaches across diverse ecosystems, with a strong focus on forests and marine environments. Through visual storytelling, experimental forms, and poetic interpretations, the artists reimagine landscapes in recovery, highlight the resilience of nature, and communicate the urgency and beauty of ecological restoration. Their contributions show how art can play a crucial role in shaping public imagination, fostering empathy for natural systems, and opening up new narratives around coexistence and regeneration.
The first exhibition of selected works will take place on 24 and 25 February in a forest near Munich, as part of the upcoming Rewilding Forum. Up to ten pieces will be displayed in this immersive outdoor setting, allowing the artworks to interact directly with the natural environment they reference. Following this debut, the artworks will travel to WILDCARD’s Case Studies in 5 European countries, extending their reach to new audiences and contexts.
To further amplify these voices, the initiative will launch a dedicated social media campaign, sharing the artworks and the stories behind them with a broader public. Looking ahead, selected pieces will also be featured in the Meander Magazine in summer 2026, ensuring that the project continues to inspire conversations at the intersection of art, ecology, and rewilding.
This remarkable response from artists across Europe underscores the power of creative practice in shaping how we think about nature and restoration. The Rewilding Arts Initiative not only showcases creative excellence, but also builds a vibrant, cross-disciplinary platform where art becomes a catalyst for ecological imagination and action.
Across Europe, landscapes are quietly changing. Mountain farms and pastures are being abandoned, forest management is easing in some regions, and climate and policy pressures are reshaping how land is used. For some, these trends raise concerns. For others, they open a powerful question: where could nature return, at scale, if we let it?
Rather than asking where rewilding should happen, this work asks a more grounded question: where is rewilding most likely to happen, given social, economic, and environmental change? The answer provides a much-needed baseline for understanding Europe’s rewilding potential – and for shaping future policy and restoration strategies.
Seeing opportunity in land-use change
Rewilding in WILDCARD is not a single process. It emerges through different pathways: when agricultural land is abandoned and forests naturally grow back; when managed forests are allowed to mature and develop more natural structures (proforestation); or a large step towards rewilding can be taken by going from intensive agricultural use to new mixed-use forests where ecological needs are explicitly addressed.
First main pathway to wilder forests in Europe: Agricultural abandonment can trigger rewilding from croplands/grasslands/mosaics toward more natural forest states, either by shifting into a combined-objective forest (some continued management alongside recovery) or by moving into close-to-nature forest through more hands-off rewilding.Second main pathway to wilder forests in Europe: Proforestation, instead, focuses on existing forests, reducing management so plantations or multi-use stands mature into close-to-nature forests.
To capture this complexity, researchers explored eight future scenarios that reflect different development pathways for Europe. These scenarios cover both the IPCC Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and the IPBES Nature Futures Framework, ranging from business-as-usual futures to more ambitious, policy-driven nature restoration pathways. More particularly, the IPCC Shared Socioeconomic Pathwaysdescribe different ways society, economies, and governance might develop in the future, from current trends to transformative change. The IPBES Nature Futures Framework adds perspectives on how humans value and interact with nature. Together, they offer a comprehensive picture of how Europe’s landscape could evolve, visually showing how different socio-economic choices and visions of nature we prioritise can shape future land-use patterns.
At the heart of the analysis lies the CLUMondo model, a spatially explicit land-use model that simulates how land systems evolve under changing demands, policies, and biophysical conditions. The model projects land-use changes across Europe from 2020 to 2050, at a fine resolution of 1 km², allowing researchers to zoom from continental patterns down to regional detail.
Mapping Europe’s rewilding hotspots
Despite the diversity of futures explored, a striking pattern emerges from the WILDCARD work: forest recovery is an important feature in almost all scenarios.
The strongest signals appear along Europe’s major mountain systems – the Alps, Pyrenees, Carpathians, and the Dinaric–Šar–Pindus arc – where steep terrain, lower agricultural profitability, and existing forest cover create favourable conditions for natural regeneration. These landscapes form the backbone of Europe’s potential rewilding corridors.
Different processes dominate in different regions
Proforestation is most common in areas with relatively large and not very intensively managed forests, where reduced intervention allows forests to develop toward near-natural conditions.
Agricultural abandonment and rewilding are most likely in marginal farmland, particularly in Southern and Central Europe, where retreating agriculture opens space for forest regrowth.
Combined-objective forests emerge on previously cultivated lands mainly in Central and Eastern Europe, where land is released from agriculture but remains partially managed for multiple benefits. While not rewilding per se these transitions make an important contribution to a wilder Europe.
When these processes are combined, they reveal a coherent continental picture: rewilding potential clusters in uplands and less productive landscapes, while Europe’s intensively farmed lowlands largely remain under production.
Graphic: Total rewilding probability map of Europe, representing areas with different levels of agreement across all eight land-use change scenarios. The maximum probability is reached when the conversion from croplands (arable and permanent), grasslands, mosaics and managed forests to close-to-nature forest occurs in all eight scenarios
Why policy matters
One of the most important insights comes from the “SSP2 – Planned Rewilding scenario” developed by WILDCARD researchers. Here, rewilding is not left entirely to chance. Spatially guided towards areas of potentially high ecological importance and good chances on rewilding success, policy-supported measures produce more connected and coherent forest recovery patterns than spontaneous abandonment alone. In other words, how we guide rewilding matters as much as where it happens.
These first maps do not offer final answers – and they are not meant to. Instead, they provide a continental baseline: a shared reference point for exploring trade-offs, biodiversity outcomes, and climate benefits in the next phases of WILDCARD. As future deliverables refine these scenarios and link them to ecological and social outcomes, one message is already clear: Europe’s forests of the future are taking shape now – and understanding where nature can return is the first step toward letting it thrive.
