Imagine a world where nature recovers on its own, rivers flow freely, forests thrive, and animals roam their habitats. This is what rewilding is all about—a conservation strategy that allows nature to regenerate and function autonomously. Now, imagine all this happening without compromising the supply of food, timber, fuel, and biodiversity products. It may sound like a distant dream, but fortunately, it is not. This process is already underway, and at the IDB, we are working to make it a reality!
The International Union for Conservation of Nature defines rewilding as “the process of rebuilding, following major human disturbance, a natural ecosystem by restoring natural processes and the complete or near complete food-web at all trophic levels as a self-sustaining and resilient ecosystem, using biota that would have been present had the disturbance not occurred.” Trophic levels are the links we learned in school as the “food chain.” That is, each link in the ecological pyramid corresponds to a trophic level.
Simply put, rewilding is a conservation approach that aims to restore and protect natural processes and wild areas, allowing ecosystems to regenerate and ideally become self-sufficient.
Rewilding Latin America and the Caribbean
The IDB has incorporated strategies that bring territories closer to wild conditions in operations related to agriculture, biodiversity conservation, tourism, and disaster risk management, such as:
- Connect, Connect, Connect: The concept of ecosystem connectivity was introduced by Canadian ecologist Gray Merriam in 1984. With human activity, ecosystems have been fragmented into small patches where many species can no longer find enough food, shade, or other conditions to thrive. However, when these fragments are connected by corridors that allow the movement of animals (and with them, seeds, pollen, and more), the natural stability of the fragments increases significantly. The creation of corridors has been a strategy used by the Bank to increase the resilience of protected areas, the sustainability of agroecosystems, and to reduce the frequency of natural hazards and the vulnerability of populations to them. For example, at the IDB, we have worked with the Government of Colombia and the private sector to create corridors between protected areas, in oil palm cultivation zones, the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta basin, and priority areas for the Peace Agreement.
- Restore, Recover, Rehabilitate: The three R’s refer to different levels of restoring an ecosystem to its original state. If we can bring a degraded area to its near-original state in terms of species present and the services the system is providing, we talk about restoration. If we bring it to a midpoint, allowing the natural process to continue on its own, we recover it. When degradation makes it impossible to return to the original state, we can facilitate the establishment of an alternative natural system that provides some ecosystem services; this is rehabilitation. We have applied these efforts to recover lost wild elements in various projects, such as tourism interventions where wild areas are part of the experience. For example, with the Government of Bahia (Brazil), the Salvador de Bahia Tourism Development Program included the repopulation of the area with native vegetation, specifically restinga, which acts as a barrier against sea advancement in beach areas. Through the program, replanting techniques have been developed and implemented, along with the creation of a restinga nursery to generate seedlings for replanting in other coastal areas of the city.
- Produce Sustainably: Some productive systems allow for simultaneous increases in productive and environmental benefits. Therefore, the IDB has promoted the implementation of agroforestry systems, silvopastoral practices, soil conservation practices, and general awareness of sustainable practices in agricultural production. In these productive systems, elements of the original ecosystem are replenished and additional elements are used to conserve soils and recycle organic matter, helping to prevent erosion, increase fertility, and improve soil productivity. Currently, the Bank is working with South American governments on a Sustainable Cattle Platform in the Americas, an institutional mechanism which will measure and monitor the regional advances in this matter and its evolution over time, as well as promote faster and broader dissemination of clean, climate-friendly technologies, and accelerate the transition to systems with higher levels of economic, social, and environmental sustainability.
The Benefits of Rewilding
With actions like these, we ensure that crucial benefits are generated for the health of our planet and human well-being:
- Biodiversity Restoration: The reintroduction of key species can have positive cascading effects throughout the ecosystem, helping to restore ecological balances and providing ecosystem services such as clean water and air resources and climate regulation.
- Climate Change Mitigation: Healthy ecosystems act as carbon sinks. For example, forest restoration allows for the capture of large amounts of carbon dioxide.
- Revitalization of Local Economies: Nature tourism, conservation, and land management promote the creation of new jobs and income for communities.
At the IDB, we are committed to ecological restoration, recovery, and rehabilitation. By returning space to wild systems, we can generate a greater positive impact on the environment, laying the foundations for building a more resilient and prosperous future in the region.
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