The Five Principles of Urban Wilding
Authored by Cecilia Lindstrom for the Urban Wilding Hub
In this article, we set out our definition of urban wilding and the five principles for successful urban wilding projects.
What is urban wilding?
Rewilding has entered mainstream vocabulary in recent years, prompting a shift in how we perceive our relationship with nature. Typically associated with remote, vast landscapes such as the Scottish Highlands, Patagonia, or Swedish Lapland, rewilding centres on returning large tracts of land to a wilder, self-sustaining state, where ecological processes can unfold with minimal human intervention.
At its heart is a recognition of the intrinsic value of all species and the importance of embedding ecological integrity within our civic and cultural systems. As successful rewilding projects have shown, when we let nature lead, communities benefit in return through improved health and wellbeing, cultural vibrancy, and opportunities for livelihoods that align with ecological recovery.
Increasingly, rewilding principles are being applied in towns and cities. We call this ‘urban wilding’, an approach to rewilding tailored to smaller, more fragmented spaces with higher pollution levels, heavy footfall, and close proximity to transport, housing, and infrastructure. We prefer to drop the ‘re’ prefix to emphasise the creation on new forms of wildness rather than a return to a past baseline; urban wilding is less about reinstating what once was and more about enabling function: embracing novel ecosystems suited to present-day conditions.
As most people in Europe live in urban areas, urban wilding also provides opportunities to build resilience to climate change, create nature-based jobs, and reconnect communities to nature, with proven health and wellbeing benefits.
As a relatively young discipline, there is no widely agreed definition of urban wilding. At Urban Wilding Hub, we have formulated the following (working) definition, that guides our work:
Urban wilding is an approach to stewarding urban nature to restore ecological processes and promote healthy ecosystems with minimal human control for the benefit of wildlife and urban communities.
Urban Wilding Principles
The term ‘urban wilding’ is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘urban greening’ or other traditional approaches to urban landscape management. However, urban wilding is really something different; it’s a paradigm shift that challenges our long-standing beliefs of what urban nature can and should be. We have formulated five urban wilding principles to clarify what makes urban wilding special, offering guidance for successful projects.
Developed by synthesising established rewilding guidelines from IUCN, Rewilding Britain, and others, the principles adapt those frameworks to the realities, constraints, and opportunities of urban environments.
Principle 1: Restore natural and evolutionary processes to create functional ecosystems requiring minimal human management
Urban wilding is ultimately about weaving functional ecosystems back into the urban fabric and restoring the living systems that support countless species and ecological processes. It does this by re-establishing the natural and evolutionary processes that cycle nutrients, build soil, regulate water, and maintain structural diversity, enabling ecosystems to sustain themselves with minimal ongoing management.
These processes emerge when vegetation is allowed to grow, decay, and regenerate; when soils are left undisturbed to rebuild microbial communities; and when habitats develop the natural features that support wildlife, such as fallen wood, varied vegetation heights, and uneven, non-uniform edges. Reduced mowing, pruning, and pesticide use create the conditions for ecological succession, resilience, and species interactions to re-establish.
Some intervention remains necessary in cities to ensure safety, inclusivity, and alignment with human use, but the intention should be to step back and allow natural dynamics to come to the fore. Across parks, brownfields, rooftops, and overlooked spaces, a wilding approach creates ecosystems that regulate themselves, respond to climate stresses, and deliver the life-supporting functions and ecosystem services on which urban resilience depends.
Image: A wilding approach would allow trees to reproduce naturally as shown here. In public spaces, tree saplings like these are often removed by maintenance workers.
Principle 2: Support biodiverse, seasonal, and complex habitats
Urban wilding creates habitats that are structurally complex and constantly changing, enabling a far greater range of species to flourish than in uniform, manicured landscapes. Complexity arises through variety: tangled vegetation, open patches of bare ground, shaded understorey, sunny edges, wet hollows, dry banks, standing deadwood, fallen branches, and accumulations of leaf litter. Each element supports different organisms – fungi, beetles, amphibians, pollinators, birds – together forming a layered, interdependent system.
Seasonality is central to this richness. Habitats change markedly over the year: ponds fill and empty, appearing muddy or dry before bursting with aquatic life; meadows grow tall, seed, collapse, and decompose; leaf litter blankets the ground in winter, feeding soil communities that drive nutrient cycling. These shifts are not signs of neglect but ecological processes that create niches for species adapted to wet or dry periods, early spring emergence or late-season decay.
By embracing this dynamic character – including messier, transitional states – urban wilding supports resilient, multi-species ecosystems that respond to weather, urban impacts, and climate. The result is a living habitat mosaic, far more ecologically productive than static ornamental green space.
Image: Wild spaces often feel 'messy' or 'overgrown'. A wilding approach embraces this complexity and abundance.
Principle 3: Reinstate lost ecosystem functions through species reintroduction or human analogues
Urban wilding seeks to restore the ecological roles once played by species that are now absent or diminished. Where feasible, carefully managed reintroductions can reinstate these functions: grazing animals such as sheep, goats, ponies, or cattle can maintain open habitats, enrich soils and create structural diversity through browsing and trampling. Historically, such animals were common in city parks and can again serve as natural, low-cost ecosystem engineers. Beavers, too, are increasingly recognised for their ability to create wetlands, slow water flow, and enhance biodiversity.
Where species reintroduction is not possible, humans can mimic keystone behaviours – scything instead of grazing, creating leaky dams to regulate water, or disturbing soils to stimulate regeneration. These analogues sometimes echo traditional landscape management methods, but as purposeful ecological interventions that replicate lost processes.
By reinstating these functions, urban wilding restores the dynamism, structure, and complexity that underpin healthy ecosystems, helping urban landscapes become more resilient, productive, and ecologically robust.
Image: Beavers have been successfully reintroduced in cities like London and urban communities across Europe successfully co-exist with wild beavers.
Principle 4: Promote coexistence and reciprocity between people and wildlife
Urban wilding invites people to rethink their role in the ecosystem, shifting from managers of nature to participants within it. Coexistence challenges long-held expectations of what urban nature “should” look like. Wild nature is untamed, dynamic, and imperfect; it moves through successional stages that can appear messy or unkempt to the human eye. A wilding approach asks us to welcome wildlife in everyday spaces, embrace wilder aesthetics, and recognise that thriving biodiversity enriches human life. This should be supported by subtle, strategic management that ensures spaces feel safe, intentional, and welcoming without compromising ecological integrity.
Wilding projects are most successful when co-created with communities, landowners, stakeholders, and decision-makers, ensuring that spaces are socially just, culturally grounded, and resonant with local identity. Place-based knowledge plays a vital role. Listening to residents – the experts of their own environments – helps shape interventions that feel meaningful and inclusive. Citizen science initiatives deepen this relationship, enabling people to monitor wildlife, observe change, and influence future decisions through evidence and stewardship.
Reciprocity emerges when people experience nature not merely as a backdrop, but as a living system they help sustain. Through education, shared visioning, and hands-on involvement, wilding empowers urban communities to care for their landscapes, so nature can in turn care for them.
Image: Wild spaces are an opportunity for nature connection and education with local communities.
Principle 5: Deliver nature-based solutions for urban resilience
Urban wilding brings ecological function back into cities, strengthening their resilience to climate and environmental pressures. Vegetation, soils, and water systems act as natural infrastructure: reducing the urban heat-island effect, filtering air pollution, and moderating extreme temperatures during increasingly hot summers. Tree canopies provide shade, quieten noise, and store carbon, while wild plant communities cool the air through evapotranspiration.
Water-sensitive habitats – including wetlands, rain gardens, swales, and restored river corridors – help cities adapt to more frequent heavy rainfall. They slow, store, and filter water, reducing flood risk while supporting biodiversity. In many cases, these interventions outperform engineered solutions, offering multifunctional benefits at lower cost.
Urban wilding can also support sustainable food-growing spaces, reconnecting people with the origins of their food and improving local nutrition literacy. Collectively, these nature-based solutions make cities healthier, safer, and more liveable, improving the daily experience of residents while strengthening long-term climate resilience.
Image: An urban nature reserve provides a place to cool down during a hot summer day.
References and further reading
IUCN: Guidelines for rewilding
Rewilding Europe: What is Rewilding?
Rewilding Britain: What is Rewilding?
Bonthoux, S. and Chollet, S. (2024), Wilding cities for biodiversity and people: a transdisciplinary framework. Biol Rev, 99: 1458-1480. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.13076
Want to make cities wilder?
See how you can get involved in our work.