Go wild with travel content
The concept of rewilding, whereby individuals or organizations endeavor to return nature to a wilder state, with little or no influence from humans, has ironically become of great interest to humans. Traveling ones. Rewilding has been gaining popularity in the Majority World over the last decade, spurred on by ecologists’ reports that restoration of biodiversity was becoming urgent. We all heard about the need to protect the bees, but this was just the tip of the iceberg for many ecologists.
The international movement of rewilding
The movement of rewilding gained international recognition and much-needed support when the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration in 2021 was launched alongside the first-ever World Rewilding Day on March 20. The exploitation of Earth’s natural resources has hit a tipping point and in order to defend against climate change, we need rewilding projects to create biodiverse areas that act as havens for wildlife but also as potential carbon sinks.
Rewilding and sustainable tourism
The irony is that rewilded areas are also now becoming attractive to the tourism industry, with travelers being invited to visit, learn from and most importantly perhaps, support these rewilded areas financially. This can be seen as controversial. However, if travelers are well informed about the reason why rewilding zones are being opened up, the long-term benefits can be ecologically, economically and educationally positive. Rewilding is sustainable tourism at its most delicate and, therefore, one that destinations need to understand before communicating with their target markets.
Rewilding projects around the world
These are just some of the leading rewilding projects going on around the world. There are proactive pockets all over the place, from small parks to vast landscapes and we invite you to share these with us and show ways in which your organization or destinations has, or would like to include these in your travel content marketing. Go wild and reach out to us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
Rewilding Europe
Rewilding Europe is a not-for-profit group with the aim of creating extensive rewilded landscapes in at least ten European regions. Their website is a fount of knowledge, sharing case studies from places we can first explore on Google Earth to get an idea of the lie of these magnificent lands. Areas such as the following: the Greater Côa Valley in northern Portugal with river gorges and ancient oak forests that lie between the Douro River and Malcata Mountains; the taiga forests and Arctic regions of Swedish Lapland; the vast wildlife regions of the Carpathian Mountains in Romania, home to wolf, Eurasian lynx, brown bear, wild cat, red deer and many more; and in contrast, the Mediterranean’s Velebit Mountains in Croatia with canyons, cliffs, waterfalls and uninhabited plains proffering promising zones for rewilding.
Photo by Staffan Widstrand for Rewilding Europe
Importantly for tourism, part of Rewilding Europe’s mission is also to “explore new ways for people to enjoy and earn a fair living from the wild.” They are experts in presenting the business case for the wild, promoting the idea that responsible rewilding can generate tourism jobs and income. Consequently, they have undertaken training of expert rewilding guides who work for their own travel agency, the European Safari Company. It is also interesting to note the take-up from tour operators of rewilding projects, responsible tourism company Much Better Adventures being a prime example of going off-piste with their products.
Rewilding of Yellowstone National Park
Described as one of the world’s most successful rewilding projects, wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s. This was a world first, taking place in the USA’s first national park where the carnivore had become a victim of the park’s success. The park’s last wolf pack was killed by park rangers in 1926. The gray wolf has now been rescued from near extinction and, as a result, the predator is playing its role again in the natural way of things in Yellowstone.
Rewilding is not without controversy of course, especially when mythology around wolves is added into the mix. However, this is where informed educational content comes into play. In Yellowstone, the message needed to get out there that the ecosystem had lost its equilibrium due to the loss of wolves - coyotes ran rampant, elk populations grew and with that trees were lost through overgrazing. Without trees birdlife suffered, beavers disappeared, and so on. It’s a chain reaction in nature as we all know.
“While the restoration of wolves in Yellowstone has cost about $30m, wolf ecotourism brings in $35m annually, in an economic boom for the surrounding communities.” - Cassidy Randall, The Guardian newspaper.
UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030
UNEP is working with the Global Rewilding Alliance and other organizations to support rewilding projects around the world to “help stem catastrophic biodiversity loss.” They started this decade with a fauna fanfare, when an adult jaguar and her two cubs were released from captivity into Argentina’s Gran Iberá Park, with a plan to reintroduce nine in total. This is the first time jaguar have roamed in the park in seventy years, after they were hunted into near extinction. The successful release is a multi-stakeholder effort with Rewilding Argentina and Tompkins Conservation as two of the other main players. This shows just how many organizations are investing in rewilding at the moment and are planning to do so well into the future.
UNEP invites people to get involved from around the world with their rewilding projects over the decade, making this the perfect opportunity for destinations to think about their product and content potential. From peatlands to farmlands, urban landscapes to seascapes, rewilding is happening. See their hashtag #GenerationRestoration.
Prairies of Montana and Colorado
The prairies of Montana and Colorado have notoriously been cleared over the years for cattle ranching purposes, which may have been good for our burgers but less so for nature’s great beasts. The American Prairie Reserve, Montana and Southern Plains, Colorado have both worked tirelessly to buy up redundant farms and restore the land to its former glory. As well as protecting and restoring natural habitats, they are reintroducing bison, protecting prairie dogs, grassland birds and cougars, black bears and black-tailed prairie dogs. The Southern Plains project was inspired by Dan Flores’ award-winning book, American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains, in which he says: “What we did to the Great Plains was not some admirable conquest. It was a myopic, chaotic, unthinking destruction, and, I think, immoral.”
Reintroduction of red wolves in North Carolina
In May 2020, four adult red wolves and four puppies, born under supervised conditions, were released into the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina. This has been a carefully planned rewilding project, with the red wolf pups being monitored from afar to see if the wild female adopted them as her own. The project has been deemed a success, and a big breakthrough to keep these creatures back from extinction given that, in 2019, there were no known red wolf pups born in the wild at all, the first time that has happened in over three decades.
Great Green Wall, the continent of Africa
An initiative that started in 2007, the Great Green Wall (GGW) is one example where walls between countries can restore life not suppress it. This vast project aims to plant indigenous plants and trees, creating a natural wall of 8000km (approximately 5000 miles) across the continent of Africa. It has taken root in the Sahel region, at the south of the Sahara Desert and a region which has been particularly drastically hit by climate change, desertification, drought, famine, conflict and migration. As part of the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals the GGW aims to “restore 100 million hectares of currently degraded land, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon and create 10 million jobs in rural areas.” When all 8000km are planted, the view from space will be a very different one given that it will be the Earth’s largest living structure. GGW is great, green and wonderful but do you have space to create a green wall in your destination?
Photo provided by GGW (The Great Green Wall)
“The Great Green Wall is about development; it’s about sustainable, climate-smart development, at all levels. Each of the 30 countries developed national action plans. That is the biggest achievement, because now they own it. It’s about ownership, and that has been the failure of development aid, because people were never identified with it. But this time they identify. This is our thing.” - Elvis Paul Tangam, African Union Commissioner for the Sahara and Sahel Great Green Wall Initiative.
Marine rewilding
Restoration of the world’s coral reefs is starting to kick in with the urgency that is needed. It is tricky to refer to these are rewilding projects as it is harder to control human presence in marine environments due to international shipping and fishing traffic, which is a whole other area of ecopolitics. One ongoing marine restoration project with a strong tourism connection is in Florida. Florida Keys’ Coral Restoration Foundation involves transplanting indigenous corals grown elsewhere, projects that both divers and land volunteers can contribute to. An excellent example of tourism cooperation with this restoration project can be seen on the Florida Keys and Key West DMO website, which refers to the Coral Restoration Foundation and other ecological projects.
The local community of the Isle of Arran has pioneered the first community-led Marine Protected Area (MPA) in Scotland, an area that has been subject to a lot of mass fishing. Within this MPA, a small area of Lamlash Bay was designated as a ‘no-take’ zone by the community. It was ultimately left to rewild and now, over a decade since the project began, lobster and scallop numbers have quadrupled and also substantially grown in size. This is one of many marine rewilding projects undertaken by Rewilding Britain. The Isle of Arran is also reintroducing other species including the black bee and the black grouse, as managed by Arran Trust, an organization doing prolific work and not gaining the presence they deserve on local tourism sites.
Top tips on incorporating rewilding into your travel content
Identify local rewilding projects
Seek content collaboration with rewilding project owners
Research and educate yourself on restoration, rewilding and biodiversity in your region
Create a content strategy around rewilding destinations in partnership with all relevant stakeholders
Create or highlight other existing content on regional biodiversity in your area, or nationally, in order to create good linkage
Create written and quality video content that tells the stories of local rewilding experts, their passions and beliefs, as well as reactions of visitors to these places
Engage with international rewilding communities to share your regional stories and content
Seek out places to create sustainable rewilding projects and be a pioneer in this regard. It’s time for tourism to lead on rewilding.