WILDCARD Project to Uncover Rewilding's Role in EU Biodiversity Goals

WILDCARD is a research initiative aimed at clarifying how rewilding can contribute to the European Union’s climate and biodiversity objectives, with direct relevance to the EU Biodiversity Strategy, the Nature Restoration Law, and the broader Green Deal. The project is notable because it moves beyond general advocacy for rewilding and instead tries to quantify ecological and socio-economic effects at scale. It begins by systematically assessing two major rewilding approaches across Europe: proforestation, which means halting forest management to allow spontaneous forest development, and natural rewilding after agricultural land abandonment. Both are described as low-cost pathways that allow natural processes to do much of the restoration work, which makes them especially relevant where budgets are limited or where passive restoration may outperform heavy intervention.

The project combines multiple methods rather than relying on a single line of evidence. It uses field observations, remote sensing including LiDAR, computer simulations of vegetation change, and economic, societal, and political analysis. This interdisciplinary design is important because the success of rewilding depends not only on ecological outcomes such as carbon sequestration and biodiversity gains, but also on land-use tradeoffs, governance constraints, and public acceptance. By integrating these dimensions, the project seeks to identify where rewilding is most likely to deliver the biggest benefits under future climate and land-use scenarios.

A particularly practical outcome is the creation of refined datasets on carbon stock and biodiversity changes following rewilding, open-access models for scenario simulation, and Europe-wide maps of potential rewilding hotspots and their impacts. These outputs can support decision-making by governments, NGOs, researchers, and land stewards who need to prioritize sites, compare intervention options, or justify restoration investments. The project is coordinated by the University of Udine and funded by Horizon Europe, which signals that rewilding is moving from a niche concept into a more operational, evidence-based restoration strategy. For practitioners, the real value lies in its attempt to translate rewilding into measurable outcomes, spatial planning tools, and policy-relevant evidence.