Summer 2026 Rewilding Circle Newsletter
Welcome to our first Rewilding Circle Newsletter, your seasonal in-depth connection to rewilding. In this issue, we’re taking a deep dive into the topic of species reintroductions, as well as sharing recent updates on Rewilding Britain’s work.
Catch up on the recent Roundtable
Thank you to those who joined us for our Species Reintroduction Roundtable in July. It was great to hear how much you enjoyed the smaller breakout rooms and having a chance to chat with our experts.
Next Rewilding Circle Webinar
Our next Rewilding Circle Roundtable will be on 22 September where we will be looking at extreme weather and rewilding. The conditions that we’re seeing through climate breakdown are bringing with them increasingly extreme weather, we’ll explore the role rewilding has within landscapes under pressure. These online sessions are free to join.
Rewilding the system: Summer 2026
Systems change is central to Rewilding Britain’s work. Here are just a few ways our team are creating the conditions for rewilding to thrive and changing the systems that govern our land and seas.
Public
Following recent media articles linking wildfires with rewilding we’ve been setting the public record straight on how rewilding can actually future-proof us from extreme weather. We’re now collaborating with allies to demand urgent action from governments to take rewilding seriously and retore nature to keep us safe. Amongst this, our usual work continues as we prepare to respond to the new Natural History GCSE proposal, as making sure future generations understand rewilding will be crucial for them to access the training they need to pursue future rewilding careers.
Power
We continue to build relationships and conversations to keep rewilding moving up the policy agenda. In June, we collaborated with the Missing Lynx Project to make sure every MP and Peer at Westminster celebrated International Lynx Day by sending them cards and information leaflets about this incredible species following our successful lynx drop in day for MPs. In July, we launched Rewilding Our Waters in an Era of Offshore Wind, a report which addresses how we can still influence the ecological and social legacy of the rapidly growing industry of offshore wind to kickstart a transition into wilder seas.
Practice
July was all about discussion and sharing learnings with our Rewilding Network. We hosted a forestry knowledge exchange as well as nine other webinars for practitioners covering diverse topics, from large herbivore reintroductions to rewilding offshore wind farms to how to engage and train the next generations of rewilders. Earlier this spring, we launched Britain’s first Rewilding Monitoring Framework — through a collaboration with rewilding practitioners and experts across multiple sectors to develop a robust system for measuring ecological, social and economic change across rewilding sites.
Deep dive: species reintroductions
Species reintroductions are often the first thing people think of when they hear rewilding. But why are they needed, what makes Britain a special case and which species might we see in future? Settle in for our deep dive into species reintroductions.
Britain’s centuries of persecution, deforestation, pollution and habitat destruction have driven many of our native species to extinction or severe decline. All species affect and interact with the wider ecosystem and each loss has an impact, but the loss of some species has a bigger impact than others. Without these keystone species the sheer diversity and abundance that Britain’s land and seas can support has shrunk dramatically.
Human interventions can mimic natural processes in the short-term at significant cost, but to restore full ecosystem function we need keystone species back in place. For much of mainland Europe, restoring habitats encourages species to return if they are still present locally, but as an island Britain will not see the natural return of beavers, elk, bison or lynx — which should each be playing an important role in Britain’s ecological processes. Even for species which may return on their own such as storks, eagles and oysters, the urgency of the nature and climate crises means that we cannot afford to wait decades for healthy, viable populations to return without intervention. Reintroducing species helps our land and seas to heal faster by restoring the natural processes they support.
There are already many successful reintroduction projects happening across Britain. In our skies apex predators such as white-tailed eagles once again play a crucial role in ecosystem dynamics and nutrient cycles, beavers are engineering our river systems for resilience to drought and flooding, and oysters are beginning to once again filter our estuaries and create important marine habitats. But there are many more species on our horizons.
European beavers
European beavers are one of nature’s most awesome ecological engineers. Across Britain we’re seeing the impact their return is having on our lakes and rivers. Their activities of building dams, digging canals and creating deadwood nurture habitats that support many other species, above and below the water. For example young salmon have been shown to grow faster and in better condition in areas where these herbivores live.
Needing a mix of freshwater habitat and lots of woody vegetation, beaver territories are a minimum of a couple of hectares, but size depends on food availability. Their first step is to build dams, creating the ponds where they construct their lodges which provide safety close to their favourite foods of grass and trees.
The benefits of beavers go beyond just boosting the local biodiversity. Dams prevent sediment from soil erosion in surrounding field being lost into the sea, meaning carbon and nutrients are trapped and water quality downstream improves.
It’s also well-known that beaver dams slow the flow of water, helping reduce the impact of heavy rainfall and flooding. A fantastic example of this is the beaver reintroduction in Ealing, where the downstream Greenford station has not flooded for three years since beavers moved into the wetland.
Less well-known are the benefits beavers offer in drought conditions. Wetlands shaped by beavers slowly release water into surrounding soils and downstream, even in dry conditions, which helps to keep wider landscapes lush. This significantly reduces the risk of fire within beaver habitats and it enables river and stream corridors to act as fire breaks from one side of a valley landscape to the other. Studies in Canada show that where beavers are active there was 60% more open water present during drought than prior to beavers’ return. Early research indicates similar benefits in Britain which could have significant impacts for farmers who are adapting to our changing climate.
What is Rewilding Britain doing for beavers?
Thanks to decades of campaigning beavers are now recognised as a native species across Britain. Rewilding Britain continues to advocate for the importance of beavers with policy-makers as more release licences are granted and this incredible species spreads. In Scotland the largest wild population lives in the Tay catchment while Purbeck Heath in Dorset was the location for the first English wild beaver release under new licences in 2025. In Wales numbers are still low but the Welsh Government announced in September 2024 that it supports moving towards managed reintroductions.
For Rewilding Britain collaboration is key to making progress across the movement. We’re an active partner in many beaver working groups helping to shape best practice and our Rewilding Network continues to be an important place for land managers to share beaver knowledge and bring practitioners together through webinars and forum discussions.
A Rewilding Innovation Fund grant from Rewilding Britain is supporting Trees for Life (whose mission is to rewild the Scottish Highlands). Their work with communities and partners ensures beavers are reintroduced to habitats where they can thrive, creating biodiversity-rich, carbon-storing wetlands that will support other wildlife and help combat the climate emergency. Our funding will help to identify appropriate release sites, connect with the community and assess the likely impact beavers would have on surrounding land.
Large herbivores
Large wild herbivores have been missing from British landscapes for thousands of years. These species helped to shape our ecosystems, affecting the type of habitat available and in turn which species can survive and thrive. Herbivore-driven processes also affect the amount of carbon stored in plants and in the soil below. They even change fire dynamics by affecting the amount of flammable material in an area. Research by Rewilding Europe found that where there was a mix of cattle, horses and bison, both wild and semi-wild, wildfires were less likely.
Like beavers, European elk are major ecosystem engineers and have a profound impact on their environment. As woodland foragers and wetland grazers, they promote natural regeneration of woodland and maintain open clearings. While both species frequent freshwater wetlands, Britain hasn’t had a habitat containing both beaver and elk in over 4000 years.
Unlike other herbivores, the aquatic nature of elk means they are uniquely placed to provide natural grazing of reedbeds which would reduce the need for human management if reintroduced. Elk occupy a large and varied home range, depending on food availability, covering anything from several to hundreds of square kilometers. As the largest living deer species their reintroduction would need to be carefully managed and is currently limited under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act (DWAA).
The return of wild European Bison to Britain would be a landmark moment for nature restoration but this is also limited by the DWAA. Unlike their American relatives, the European bison’s head is set higher, reflecting their love for both grass and tree grazing. This keystone species creates mosaics of habitats; including both grassland glades within forests and trampled sand baths which create niche habitats for pioneer plants, insects and reptiles.
Bison form family groups and small herds of around 10 in number and have been successfully reintroduced to relatively small nature reserves in Europe, suggesting sites anywhere from a few tens, to hundreds or thousands of hectares will be suitable.
What is Rewilding Britain doing for large herbivores?
Through the Large Herbivore Working Group, we collaborate with peers across ecology, academia and the veterinary sector to respond to the challenges and opportunities of reintroducing native herbivores. This expertise can then be shared throughout our Rewilding Network and also used to inform policy-makers of how these incredible creatures might benefit our landscapes in future.
Our Rewilding Innovation Fund and Challenge Funds have both supported projects at the cutting edge of large herbivore reintroductions in Britain:
- In 2023 our inaugural Challenge Fund supported Kent Wildlife Trust to explore how to scale up areas where large herbivores such as bison could roam freely, collaborating with communities to for a landscape-wide initiative.
- In 2024 our Innovation Fund supported Nattergal to explore the feasibility of reintroducing elk to their High Fen Wildland rewilding site in Norfolk.
- In 2025 Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Wildlife Trusts were also awarded Innovation Fund support to assess the potential to bring elk into two beaver enclosures in Nottinghamshire.
- In 2025 the South England Bison Project have received an Innovation Fund grant to explore the feasibility of returning bison to Dorset.
Through these feasibility studies Rewilding Britain is helping to build the evidence needed for both bison and elk reintroductions and provide guidance to interested practitioners. Critically, the studies can build on earlier learnings and look at reintroduction implications across the whole of Britain so that other projects can use them as blueprints and policy-makers can see them as credible, transformative solutions to the many challenges nature and climate face.
Eurasian lynx
Eurasian lynx were once widespread across Britain, most recently in Scotland. A secretive and shy animal, lynx live in woodlands. As a predator, they play a key role in keeping ecosystems in balance. Through faeces, urine or scrapes, lynx leave scent marks that advertise their presence. This keeps animals such as deer on the move, which helps reduce overgrazing and allows tree saplings and other vegetation to establish.
These shy cats are just under a metre long and reach impressive speeds of nearly 70kph. They prey directly on roe deer (which are overabundant in much of Britain) but also eat foxes, rabbits, hares, rodents and birds. Carcasses left by lynx are important for nutrient cycles as they provide food for other species and help fertilise the soil as they decay.
Like large herbivores, the return of lynx would need careful planning. But looking at successful reintroductions in similar places in Europe it is clear that living alongside lynx is possible and can bring many benefits to local communities through tourism. In Britain several projects are working to create a clear pathway to the return of the lynx through both extensive community engagement and clarifying the legal framework that would be needed.
What is Rewilding Britain doing for this critical next phase for lynx reintroduction?
Rewilding Britain is supporting both Lynx to Scotland and The Missing Lynx Project to secure the historic government licences needed to make this a reality. Both projects have previously been supported by the Rewilding Innovation Fund which resulted in careful public consultations and habitat modelling. We know it’s essential to build a powerful and credible public narrative to prepare the way for the first successful licences. Rewilding Britain will continue to support these two projects, ensuring that policy-makers, decision makers and key stakeholders are primed, informed and supportive at this pivotal stage.
Get in touch
As a Rewilding Circle member your generous support is making all of the above possible — thank you. If you’d like to know more about species reintroductions, or wider Rewilding Britain work, please do book a chat with me or drop me an email on jennifer.few@rewildingbritain.org.uk.
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