The concept of rewilding has been applied in various ways, from the simple restoration of a single natural process like removing livestock to allow vegetation to recover, to ambitious proposals to reintroduce long-extinct megafauna. While some applications have obvious conservation benefits, rewilding also raises legitimate concerns, especially about how renewed interactions with reintroduced wildlife like large herbivores and carnivores, might affect human wellbeing, livelihoods, and land use. Rewilding has become a popular and sometimes controversial topic within conservation circles. It has also been gaining traction and growing public and governmental interest as societies search for more holistic approaches to restoring ecosystem processes and biodiversity.

Joining me to unpack what rewilding means, and to explore the potential conflicts and compromises that come with it, is Marine Drouilly. Marine is the Regional Coordinator for Wild Cat Surveys and Research in West and Central Africa with the NGO "Panthera".

Links to resources:

• Guidelines for evaluating the success of large carnivore reintroductions - A relevant paper in Biological Conservation co-authored by Marine
• Panthera - Website of the organization Marine works for

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Multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) are negotiated by national governments, but they also include input from various societal groups. One of these groups is youth, and their role in negotiations has grown more visible and coordinated over time. But are these contributions helping to enrich discussions and inspire ambition, or simply adding another layer to already complex processes? And why have separate groups if governments are meant to represent all of their citizens? In this episode, we take a closer look at the place of youth in forums like these — and what constructive and meaningful participation looks like.

My guest is Mika Tan, advisor to the Southeast Asia chapter of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (among other roles) and a passionate advocate for youth voices in global decision-making.

Links to resources:

• Youth in international nature conservation: The example of youth participation in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) - Analysis of the extent and quality of youth participation within the CBD (German article, English abstract).
• The contradictions of youth participation for intergenerational justice in urban environmental planning - An article that critiques the politicization of the application of intergenerational justice.
• Global Youth Biodiversity Network - Website of the organization that Mika mentions in our discussion.

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One of the most popular terms in conservation these days is “nature-based solutions” (NbS). The concept is centered around the various ways in which conservation (including restoration and sustainable use) can benefit society, economy and environment. NbS are alternatives to engineered solutions to these problems, which benefit people as well as nature. Sounds straightforward, and the concept has been taken up in government policy and largely embraced by conservation science. And yet it has been somewhat divisive, for very different reasons.

Joy Ommer is scientific lead at KAJO, a Slovakia-based geoservices consultancy focused on disaster risk reduction and management. In a recent paper she and some project partners write about the importance of understanding the impacts of nature-based solutions before they are actually implemented. We discussed this and other issues around the NbS concept.

Links to Resources

• Quantifying co-benefits and disbenefits of Nature-based Solutions targeting Disaster Risk Reduction - 2022 article in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction by Joy and co-authors, which we refer to in our discussion
• Nature-based solutions: using the power of nature - Some examples of NbS on an IUCN webpage

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