“Make Ecocide An International Crime Now” sign on the tarmac at a rally against climate change – Ivan Radic,Flickr
Progress towards the recognition of ecocide as an international crime
A motion (motion 061), supported by the Wildlife trusts among other environmental groups, invites IUCN members to support the recognition of ecocide as an international crime. Supporters, including wildlife trusts CEO Craig Bennett, argue that recognition would ensure that no actor can cause severe, widespread or long-term harm to nature without facing criminal consequences. Proponents have argued for decades (including a notable 10-year campaign led by barrister and green ambassador Polly Higgins) that international recognition of ecocide as a crime is essential if we are to collectively mitigate global environmental crises and protect nature. The motion will be considered at the next IUCN World Conservation Congress, set to take place in Abu Dhabi, UAE, in October.
Restrictions on the use of lead ammunition in Britain
Almost all shotgun pellets and bullets containing lead are to be banned in the UK under restrictions which will be phased in between 2025- 2028. The persistence of the usage of lead in shooting has led to the death of an estimated 100,000 waterfowl each year, alongside countless other grit-eating birds, raptors and scavengers. The new restrictions have been welcomed by environmental groups and are consequent to a decades long campaign. The story up to this point was covered in British Wildlife Volume 36.4.
Image from Gulf Oil Spill Bird Treatment in Louisiana provided by International Bird Rescue Research Center. Photo by Brian Epstein via IBRRC, Flickr
The global impact of chronic oiling
The Guardian and Watershed Investigations have revealed damning statistics which underly a lack of understanding of the extent of oil spills in global seas. Extensive research, through the analysis of hundreds of thousands of satellite images over a five-year period shows that only 474 of more than 90,000 oil slicks from ships were reported to authorities between 2014 and 2019. The figures suggest that the extent of anthropogenic oil pollution has been grossly underestimated.
Lost jellyfish rediscovered
A species of stalked jellyfish, Depastrum cyathiforme, that had not been seen anywhere globally for more than 40 years and had never captured on camera has reemerged in the Outer Hebrides.
Naturalist, Neil Roberts, took the first photographs of the thistle shaped jellyfish in 2023. Its rediscovery, revealed by British Wildlife magazine, has been confirmed by a follow-up search that successfully located another individual. Marine naturalists have called for further exploration to establish whether populations exist outside of South Uist, around wider Britain and mainland Europe.
Proposal to reintroduce Eurasian Lynx to Northumberland
A draft proposal for a trial reintroduction of Eurasian Lynx to Kielder Forest, Northumberland has been released by the Lynx UK Trust. The organisation ‘s previous application to reintroduce lynx to the same site in 2018 was rejected by then incumbent environment secretary Michael Gove. He cited the proposal’s failure to properly address the ‘social feasibility’ of reintroduction as reason for rejection. A trial release of lynx may be ecologically feasible but concerns relating to the potential of sheep predation persist. Tony Juniper of Natural England has stated that are introduction of lynx “should be looked at” but “we need more engagement to understand how communities that would be living with these animals would be able to continue with what they do”. Paul O’ Donohue, CEO of the Lynx UK Trust, believes that further attempts to engage farmers and stakeholders would be a waste of time, stating “sheep farmers will never change their position on lynx reintroduction, making more calls for more engagement utterly futile”. Meanwhile, Lynx for Scotland, a separate charitable organisation has coordinated a 100page report which seeks to address the concerns of farmers and other stakeholders, they hope to release a substantiated proposal in the future if social and ecological feasibility for lynx reintroduction can be established.
Image by Jon Glitterberg
Environment
Peatland Protection
Danes Moss, a lowland raised bog on the outskirts of Macclesfield, is among the scarcest and most threatened habitats in the UK. The carbon storage capacity of the deep peat is invaluable and the open bogland hosts a biodiverse flora and fauna. With disregard to the habitat’s ecological significance, the peatland continues to be targeted as a site for housing development.
A recent planning application from Cheshire East Council has been withdrawn following a campaign from the Danes Moss Trust. CEC have cited ‘incompatibility with its climate and peatland policy’ as reason for the turnaround. The withdrawal has been positively received but campaigners and stakeholders remain braced for a revised proposal. If passed without amendment, ‘part 3’ of the proposed Planning and Infrastructure Bill could make it easier for developers to build on Sites of Special Scientific interest (SSSI) such as this.
The Fens, Cambridgeshire was once Britain’s largest wetland and has been almost completely drained to facilitate traditional ‘dry’ agriculture and the growth of cereal crops. The Great Fen, between Peterborough and Huntington, represents part of a peatland restoration project within the Fen county and along with four other sites across Europe, has been selected for a wet farming or ‘paludiculture’ trial.
Under the project banner of ‘PaluWise’, the wet farming operation will run for four years under close monitoring. It aims to establish whether rewetted peatlands can be agriculturally productive whilst retaining the biodiversity and carbon storage capacity unique to wetlands.
Policy
UN Ocean Summit 2025
Representatives from nearly 200 countries met in Nice, France to discuss marine protection. The summit has culminated in fifty countries ratifying the High Seas Treaty, an international agreement to conserve and sustainably use high seas which lie outside of national jurisdiction. The fast tracking of the treaty has been welcomed as a positive development but significantly China and the US have not agreed to ratify.
Commitments made at the summit represent a small step in the right direction but silence from global superpowers and a litany of feeble sentiments like Emannuel Macron’s announcement that France will “limit” bottom trawling and seek to protect just 4% of its metropolitan waters- shows that we are a far cry from meeting marine protection targets.
A study from Dynamic Planet has suggested that 85 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) would need to be notified every day if there is any chance of meeting the 30 x 30 target (an agreement to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030). This figure increases with every passing day of inaction.
Although the term was initially coined in the 1990s, ‘rewilding’ has come to dominate conservation thinking in the last fifteen years. This seemingly paradigmatic shift was consequent of a growing perception that a vision of planetary future should not merely appease a bare minimum criterion for ecological longevity. Instead, conservationists should envision an ecologically prosperous future that supersedes the conditions of the present or the recent past. Many of the initiatives enacted under the banner of ‘rewilding’ may be seen as the attempted actualisation of this vision.
Six years have passed since Citizen Zoo’s original Rewilding Symposium in 2019. This period has seen a rapid acceleration in the global recognition of rewilding alongside the now widespread presence of rewilding initiatives. The growth and support of the rewilding movement has coincided, of course, with the continued acceleration of global biodiversity loss and the increasingly unignorable impacts of anthropogenic climate change. The common philosophy across the sometimes-disparate presentations of participants was that the process of actively reinstating biodiversity is inextricably tied to the viability of our planetary future.
Rewilding Futures played host to a globally diverse set of speakers from organisations including Rewilding Chile; Rewilding Europe; Rewilding Britain; Gorongosa National Park (Mozambique), Blue Marine Foundation; The Wildlife Trusts and Rewilding Argentina.
This year, the University of Cambridge played host to the conference, bringing together leading voices to tackle pivotal issues in the field and discuss the future of rewilding in the coming decades. Key highlights for me were as follows:
Carnivore Reintroductions
Luigi Boitaniasked, ‘What role for wolves in Europe?’ – a fascinating presentation which argued for the conservation status and continued legal protection of wolves across the continent. The recovery of the species has been successful across swathes of Europe, and this has raised questions of the potential down listing of the species. Most interestingly, the presentation pulled into question the oft perceived justification for wolf reintroduction – their capacity to create a trophic cascade of top-down ecological restoration. The speaker argued that this justification has been historically overstated in the same way that their potential to prey on livestock has been underplayed. For Boitani, we must acknowledge that our desire for the presence of wolves is based on our perception of the species’ intrinsic value and simultaneously the real concerns about livestock predation must be mitigated.
A presentation from Scotland: The Big Pictureprovided a summary of their efforts in working towards a reintroduction of Eurasian Lynx in Scotland. Similarly to Boitani’s consideration of wolves in Europe, they also acknowledged that the carnivore’s potential to prey on livestock has been understated by previous groups who have lobbied for lynx reintroduction. Most importantly, Scotland: The Big Picture acknowledged the necessity of garnering support from stakeholders who may be impacted by the presence of lynx. The organisation’s more clearheaded approach to the possibility of lynx reintroduction in Scotland marked a stark contrast to the mysterious and illegal releases in the Cairngorms which preceded the conference.
Perhaps the most contentious presentation of the event came from the Colossal Foundation– a Texan initiative that claims they are enacting a process of Thylacine ‘de-extinction’. A mandated project will see the Tasmanian Tiger, extinct since 1936, re-animated and playing a significant role in future Tasmanian ecology. This, alongside their programme of Woolly Mammoth ‘de-extinction’, could be perceived as representing the boldest outreaches of the rewilding movement. Pragmatists within the conference raised concerns about the detrimental implications that this unprecedented project, the mandate of which transcends ordinary legal barriers to reintroduction, could have on Tasmanian ecology.
Land for rewilding: Legal mechanisms and Ownership
The Lifescape Projectoffered an analysis ofthelegal mechanisms used to secure land for long-term rewilding, such as conservation covenants in England and conservation burdens in Scotland. Their talk Using Novel Legal Mechanisms to Secure Land for Rewilding: Lessons from across UK and Europeoutlined the ways in which various mechanisms allow or impede the long-term dedication of land for rewilding. Utilising cross comparison case studies from across Europe, this talk encouraged innovative and collaborative approaches to improving land use legislation.
Similarly, Ted Theisinger’sworkshop To Own and Control: The Future of Land Governance Structures in Scotland and Beyondpresented an interesting consideration of the future of conservation in Scotland. Scotland is one of the most depleted terrestrial landscapes and simultaneously has one of the most concentrated structures of land ownership in the world. Throughout the workshop, participants considered the ways in which existing legislative instruments define the parameters of conservation within the context of Scottish land ownership. The workshop oriented toward imagining a future where non-human voices were interwoven into considerations of what to do with our lands and seas.
Among the many intriguing discussions of individual sites where rewilding is enacted was Andrew Osborne’shistorical ecology of Chat Moss, a 36km square area of lowland raised bog in Salford. The presentation traced the history of Chat Moss over the last 200 years, including industrial habitat destruction which resulted in a significant loss of flora and fauna in the area. The talk highlighted the work of restoration projects dating back to the 1980s, driven by the imperative to preserve carbon stored in the peat and encourage carbon sequestration. Consequentially, the last forty years have seen the translocations of many species into the area, including the recent reintroduction of the Large Heath Butterfly (Coenonympha tullia).
Marine Rewilding
Another highlight was theBlue Marine Foundation’spresentation Rewilding the Seas: A modern odyssey of hope and challenge. Charles Clover outlined the work of the Blue Marine Foundationand looked to answer the question: why rewild the sea, which in comparison to land, is seemingly already wild? The presentation argued that the principles of sea rewilding are essentially the same as that of land, to bring back lost and depleted species to our oceans and restore ecosystems that have been harmed by human activities?– simply by stepping back and letting nature repair the damage, or by reintroducing species/ restoring habitats.
While aspects of rewilding remain deeply contentious and there continues to be a vast diversity in perspectives of what rewilding should and could be, the most substantial thematic takeaway is that rewilding has galvanised people in a way that traditional conservation approaches have not.
In 2025, the impacts of anthropogenic climate change and unprecedented biodiversity loss are met with deterministically inactive governing bodies across the globe. In many ways things seem more hopeless than ever before, yet actors within the conservation field understand that without hope there can be no inspiration for change.
The revolutionary potential of the rewilding movement has come to represent the last beacon of hope for a viable future for people and nature – a possible catalyst for change.
