Routledge Handbook of Rewilding (Routledge Environment and Sustainability Handbooks)

This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the history, theory, and current practices of rewilding.

Rewilding offers a transformational paradigm shift in conservation thinking, and as such is increasingly of interest to academics, policymakers, and practitioners. However, as a rapidly emerging area of conservation, the term has often been defined and used in a variety of different ways (both temporally and spatially). There is, therefore, the need for a comprehensive assessment of this field, and the Routledge Handbook of Rewilding fills this lacuna. The handbook is organised into four sections to reflect key areas of rewilding theory, practice, and debate: the evolution of rewilding, theoretical and practical underpinnings, applications and impacts, and the ethics and philosophy of rewilding. Drawing on a range of international case studies the handbook addresses many of the key issues, including land acquisition and longer-term planning, transitioning from restoration (human-led, nature enabled) to rewilding (nature-led, human enabled), and the role of political and social transformational change.

Led by an editorial team who have extensive experience researching and practising rewilding, this handbook is essential reading for students, academics and practitioners interested in rewilding, ecological restoration, natural resource management and conservation.

Sally Hawkins is an environmental social scientist at the University of Cumbria, UK. She is a core member of the IUCN CEM Rewilding Thematic Group and a founding trustee of the Lifescape Project.

Ian Convery is Professor of Environment & Society at the University of Cumbria, co-chairs the IUCN CEM Rewilding Thematic Group, and is chair of IUCN CEM Western Europe.

Steve Carver is Director of the Wildland Research Institute at the University of Leeds, UK, and Co-Chair of the IUCN CEM Rewilding Thematic Group.

Rene L. Beyers is a Research Associate in the Beaty Biodiversity Research Centre at the University of British Columbia, Canada.