Rewilding – does changing nature require changing humans’ (view of) nature?

In many regions and countries, nature is under increasing pressure, but efforts are made to reduce the loss of biodiversity and to help nature recover in the future. There are different ways of doing this, and different views on which aspects of nature are important to safeguard. One promising avenue advocated by conservation biologists is rewilding aiming at promoting natural processes and biodiversity, while over time reducing human influence on the land. Rewilding affects nature, including the animals and plants that already live in the wild, as well as animals that might be released into natural areas to enable some of the sought after processes. But it also affects humans by challenging prevalent views of nature. It raises questions such as whether new nature developing is wild, and whether this matters; and whether it is acceptable if translocated domesticated animals, like many wild animals, will endure periods of hardship. Answering these questions is difficult since key concepts such as nature and animal welfare are contested and there is no common vision of what counts as proper nature management and nature protection. Therefore, there is a need for a more principled ethical discussion. The paper uses the IPBES framework of intrinsic value (nature for nature’s sake), instrumental values (nature for society) and relational values (nature as culture) to examine the practice of rewilding, using a Danish case potentially covering a significant part of state owned nature areas with public access. Emphasis on different types of value may give different views on what rewilding should deliver, and what is acceptable. Notably, there is bound to be controversy about i) balancing of values, e.g. whether animal welfare should trump consideration of nature values, or the extent to which consideration of nature values should always be assigned higher weight than consideration of human quality of life, ii) what trade-offs/compromises are seen as acceptable, and iii) whether views of nature will change over time.