Rewilding means bringing back qualities that have been lost, restoring an area of land to its natural state and possibly reintroducing species that had been driven out or exterminated.
Conservation focuses on protecting and restoring current habitats and wildlife populations. It’s almost like hitting “pause” for these species. Whereas rewilding emphasizes the restoration of habitat and wildlife species that have been driven out.
There are many questions that need to be asked when rewilding landscapes with species that have been long gone and many will be unanswered, as we simply do not know everything. Should we rewild species in Canada that haven been gone for a while? We’d have to be prepared to have species live in all kinds of landscapes, even it means it’s a bit closer to home.