Global Charter for Rewilding the Earth
Advancing nature-based solutions to the extinction and climate crisis.
The Rewilding Academy has endorsed the Global Charter for Rewilding the Earth, an outcome of the 11th World Wilderness Congress process. This important new Charter was officially launched in April 2020.
100+ organisations from across the world have endorsed the Charter, representing a network of +3500 partners covering local communities, landowners, Indigenous Peoples, communities, land trusts, multinational development banks, private banks, NGOs, philanthropists, agencies, corporations, international organizations, and research institutions. The endorsing group also covers some of the world’s largest ecosystem conservation and restoration initiatives.
The Charter and supporting documents were submitted as part of the draft implementation strategies of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. This was done “on behalf of the informal Global Alliance of Rewilding Expert Practitioners. The Global Charter for Rewilding the Earth was developed by experts within the global conservation community preparing for the 11th World Wilderness Congress.
Vision of the Global Charter for Rewilding the Earth
“We believe that the world can be more beautiful, more diverse, more equitable, more wild. We believe that nature’s innate resilience, bolstered by human care, can initiate an era of planetary healing. In that future time when the world is whole and healthy, undammed rivers will run to the sea, their estuaries teeming with life. Following ancient patterns, whales and warblers will migrate unmolested through sea and sky. From tiny phytoplankton to tallest redwoods, all Earth’s creatures will be free to pursue lives of quality, and humanity will thrive amidst nature’s abundance.”
Objective of the Charter
We must keep wild that which is still wild and accelerate rewilding efforts in areas that have been diminished. By creating an interconnected system of wild habitats capable of supporting life’s full variety and richness—implemented through voluntary, participatory actions of individuals, nongovernmental organizations, businesses, and governments—degraded lands and waters will be restored. Such a system would support human welfare by contributing to climate stability, clean air and water, pollination services, beauty, physical and mental health, moral satisfaction, and other life-supporting services that undergird flourishing human communities.
In a spirit of hopefulness for the future of life, the Global Charter for Rewilding the Earth calls on individuals, communities, nongovernmental organizations, corporations, governments, and other institutions to advance efforts to protect remaining large wild areas and to support rewilding projects around the world. A global rewilding movement—embraced by the broadest spectrum of constituencies and encouraged by governmental policy—can ultimately weave wondrous blue and green ribbons of wildness that wrap the Earth in beauty, offering the promise of a better future, with freedom and habitat for all.
