Knowledge Hub
A curated collection of articles, books, podcasts, and courses to deepen your understanding of urban wilding across Europe and beyond.
We Built a Wildlife Corridor Through a City (Bristol Wetland City)
Planet Wild
Short documentary showing the installation of floating vegetation islands in Bristol and the vision for the city to become a 'Wetland City'.
Conservation translocations in urban environments: State of the knowledge and future directions
Basic and Applied Ecology (Brown, Williams and Soanes, 2024)
Literature review of urban species translocation projects across the world indicating a more than 90% success rate for these projects.
Wildfire risk associated with different vegetation types within and outside wildland-urban interfaces
Calviño-Cancela et al., 2016 (Forest Ecology and Management)
A study of 26,000 wildfires in north west Spain investigates which land cover types are most associated with wildfires at the rural-urban interface. A key finding is that native woodlands are the land cover type least associated with wildfires, suggesting that rewilding and the regeneration of native woodlands would help to mitigate wildfires.
A wilder city - Connecting people and place through landscape
LDA Design
What urban wilding means from a landscape architecture perspective. Includes case studies from Paris, Berlin, London and Liverpool.
Demystifying biodiversity finance
Nature
Return-seeking biodiversity finance mechanisms that raise money for up-front investment in conservation or restoration (loans, bonds and equity) or generate revenues directly linked with biodiversity outcomes (credits).
Sean McCormack - Rewilding Urban London (Part 1)
Green Urbanist Podcast
Podcast interview about the Ealing Beaver Project in London. It explores the benefits and challenges of urban beaver reintroduction.
Identifying urban rewilding opportunity spaces in a metropolis: Chongqing as an example
Ecological Indicators (Jin, Qian and Yuan, 2024)
Proposes a method to identify Urban Rewilding Opportunity Spaces (UROS), using Chongqing, China as the study area.
Urban Rewilding: the value and co-benefits of nature in urban spaces
Arup
Provides guiding principles, featuring global case studies, to help cities implement urban rewilding initiatives.
Europe’s Big Three – Wolves, Bears, Lynx. Part 1: The Wolf’s Uneasy Return to Germany
Rewilding Earth Podcast
Podcast episode covering the history of wolves returning to Germany and the social and political response to this.
A Rewilded London: Reimagining a Wilder Future for the City
Biological Recording Company
The webinar explores historical aspects of rewilding, London as an urban space, and innovative, species-focused approaches to rewilding, as well as larger-scale initiatives.
Rewilding Cities: Why it's needed and how you can help
Mossy Earth
Brief overview of what is urban rewilding, 3 main categories of why we should rewild cities: environmental, social and economic, and case studies
8 cities rewilding their urban spaces
World Economic Forum
The article highlights how eight global cities are adopting rewilding strategies to enhance nature, biodiversity and human well-being in urban spaces.
Urban rewilding for sustainability and food security
Land Use Policy (Russo, Sardeshpande and Rupprecht, 2025)
The paper explores the social and ecological impacts of urban rewilding, outlining its benefits, challenges, and practical applications. It also suggests future directions for research and implementation.
(Re)wilding London: Fabric, politics, and aesthetics
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (Turnbull, Fry and Lorimer, 2025)
Research paper examining how the meaning of rewilding is changing as the concept is applied in urban areas such as London from a Geography studies perspective.
Community Rewilding Guide
The Scottish Rewilding Alliance
A practical guide for communities to start their own rewilding projects in a range of contexts, including urban areas. It is somewhat specific to Scotland but the principles are applicable anywhere.
Giving space back to nature in cities? A multi-scenario analysis of the acceptability of urban rewilding among local communities
People and Nature (Zoderer and Wieser, 2025)
This study surveyed 800 residents of Vienna, Austria, to understand how much they would accept different visions of urban rewilding. They found high levels of acceptable for urban forests and wildflower meadows. But some groups were less accepting, including adolescents, young adults and those living in deprived areas who have less experience of wild spaces.
Digital Ecological Restoration Toolbox
EU
Education resources on a variety of topics related to ecology and ecological restoration, including urban habitats.
Urban rewilding: Human-wildlife relations in Genoa, NW Italy
Cities (Piana et al., 2024)
Case study of Genova, Italy, where there has been an increase in the numbers of wild boar (Sus scrofa) entering the city in recent years. A survey of resident perceptions shows no clear opposition to urban wildlife but concerns about animal welfare and safety.
Biodiversity in cities needs space: a meta‐analysis of factors determining intra‐urban biodiversity variation
Ecology Letters (Beninde, Veith and Hochkirch, 2015)
An analysis of 75 cities worldwide reveals that the three most important factors for urban biodiversity are patch size (the size of a natural area / park), ecological corridors and vegetation structure. The researchers make the argument that conserving large areas for nature (greater than 50ha) is essential for promoting high levels of urban biodiversity.
Challenging Assumptions in Urban Restoration Ecology
Landscape Journal (Zeunert, 2013)
Research paper arguing that applying conventional restoration ecology practices based on historic or reference ecosystems in urban areas is often inappropriate. The author suggests embracing the reality of urban ecology, including novel ecosystems and exotic species.
Rewilding our Cities
Zoological Society of London (Pettorelli et al., 2022)
Report explores how increased urban rewilding efforts could boost wildlife and buffer city dwellers from the worst impacts of climate change. Includes case studies of urban rewilding globally.
Wilding cities for biodiversity and people: a transdisciplinary framework
Biological Reviews (Bonthoux and Chollet, 2024)
Interdisciplinary synthesis that explores the ecological mechanisms through which urban wilding can promote biodiversity in cities, investigate the attitudes and relations of city dwellers towards urban wild spaces, and discuss the integration of urban wilding into the fabric of cities and its governance.
Future novel ecologies: exploring multispecies futures in urban places through a co-design workshop
Urban Ecosystems (O’Donnell, 2025)
Presents a co-design workshop format for co-creating urban wilding projects with communities by incorporating non-human perspectives.
How to rewild a golf course (Allestree Gold Course, Derby, UK)
Natural History Museum
Short documentary exploring the practical steps of rewilding an urban golf course. Likely the largest urban rewilding project in the UK right now.
Urban re-wilding with Dr Nathalie Pettorelli
Wales Green Infrastructure Forum
Webinar recording of a presentation by Dr Nathalie Pettorelli, a key academic studying urban rewilding. She explains what urban rewilding means based on the scientific research, the difference between restoration and rewilding, and some case studies.
Beavers Secretly Restored This London Park (Ealing Beaver Project)
Leave Curious
Short documentary exploring the impacts of beavers on a London park 2 years after being reintroduced.
'Beavers In Paradise'. Official film of the Ealing Beaver Project.
Ealing Beaver Project
Short film documenting the UK’s most urban Beaver reintroduction. The Ealing Beaver Project took restorative action to rewild London and address social justice in this progressive, boundary-pushing project.
The magic of the mundane: The vulnerable web of connections between urban nature and wellbeing
Cities (Dobson et al., 2021)
A multidisciplinary study exploring how everyday urban nature shapes interactions between stressed people and stressed urban environments. Using assemblage theory, it shows how routine encounters with greenery support mental wellbeing while also revealing how institutional pressures constrain efforts to strengthen human–nature connections.
Urban river recovery inspired by nature-based solutions and biophilic design in Albufeira, Portugal
Land (Blau, Luz and Panagopoloulos, 2018)
Paper outlining a biophilic, nature-inspired approach to restoring a heavily canalised urban Southern European river. The project reconnects blue–green infrastructure, enhances local identity, and creates recreational space. By applying regenerative sustainability principles, it aims to improve wellbeing, strengthen social cohesion, and increase climate resilience through reduced heat-island effects and lower flood risk.
Urban rivers: novel ecosystems, new challenges
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Water (Francis, 2014)
Paper arguing for embracing the ecological novelty inherent to urban rivers and focusing on enhancing ecological function in these novel or hybrid ecosystems, rather than trying to return them to historic system states.
Paris’s rewilded railway line: the disused track turned into a green space for wildlife and walkers
The Guardian
Article outlining how the Petite Ceinture, a disused circular rail line in central Paris, has been partially rewilded on top of being turned into communal gardening and urban farm space.
Rewilding cities - Urban Rewilding Webinar
Rewilding Academy
Panel discussion on the benefits of rewilding cities for biodiversity, population wellbeing and resilience in a changing climate.
Can we rewild land In our inner cities?
RSK Group
Webinar with presentations and a panel discussion exploring the challenges and benefits of rewilding high-density cities as a response to biodiversity loss.
Rewilding Your Streets: transforming towns and cities for wildlife
Making Natural History
Creator of the ‘Rewild My Street’ project Siân Moxon, an architect, author and academic, discusses how rewilding on a home, garden or street level can be applied to towns and cities to reverse biodiversity decline and loss of urban wildlife while promoting residents’ health and wellbeing through contact with nature.
Urban rewilding: a panel discussion
MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative
Panel discussion on the revitalization of green spaces in cities, and what this could do for communities and to protect urban residents from the impacts of climate change. The conversation focused especially on the Boston metro area, policy obstacles to effective rewilding, issues of environmental equity, and best practices for community involvement in urban planning and design.
Urban rewilding: new vision or repackaging the old?
Yorkshire Rewilding Network
Dr Paul Jepson, a geographer and zoologist with 35 years’ experience in conservation research, policy, and management, talks about rewilding in relation to urban nature and biodiversity enhancement and discusses whether rewilding offers an opportunity for radical changes and innovation in the design and management of urban green spaces and how these can help enhance nature and mitigate climate effects.
Urban rewilding: restore your local ecosystem
Wageningen University and Research
MOOC course through EdX that tackles urban rewilding mainly with a citizen’s perspective, taking a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach.
Rewilding In Semi-Urban Environments with Stephen Mason
Wilder Podcast
Podcast interview with Stephen Mason, Community Parks Officer at Cheltenham Borough Council, who shares practical examples of what rewilding can look like in a semi-urban context.
Urban rewilding @ Plymouth
What If You Just Leave It? Rewilding Unwrapped
Podcast interview with two council members of staff about urban rewilding project Green Minds Plymouth.
Urban rewilding across London with Elliot Newton
Rewilding the World with Ben Goldsmith
Podcast interview with co-founder and director of rewilding at Citizen Zoo, Elliot Newton, about the growing urban rewilding movement and what the organisation does across London.
Wild ways: a scoping review on influencing urban-rewilding behaviour in relation to adaptations to private gardens
Cities and Health (Moxon et al., 2025)
Recognising that wilding private residential gardens in cities would make an important contribution to addressing the global biodiversity crisis and citizens’ wellbeing, this paper presents a scoping review of the existing literature on influencing intent-orientated, pro-environmental behaviours with a focus on rewilding in urban gardens, building on the authors’ preceding paper on understanding the behaviour of rewilding in urban gardens.
Where the pavement ends. Can Ghent become a truly rewilded city?
Portico
Article describing how The City of Ghent implements rewilding as leader of the EUI Innovative Action REWILD, and on the role of NGOs in bridging the divide between policy and grassroots engagement.
Growing Biodiverse Urban Futures: Renaturalization and Rewilding as Strategies to Strengthen Urban Resilience
Sustainability (Lehmann, 2021)
Paper examining how urban rewilding can help cities respond to climate warming, biodiversity loss and resource pressures. It outlines the evolution of regreening and nature-based solutions in policy and planning, highlighting rewilded areas as low-management spaces that support insects, birds and other wildlife. The author shows how rewilding contributes to ecosystem services, flood control, biodiversity recovery and cooling during heatwaves and that rewilding should be scaled up through integrated, cross-sector urban planning.
Urban rewilding to combat global biodiversity decline
BioScience (Finnerty et al., 2025)
Paper exploring species reintroductions as a pathway for restoring ecological functions and strengthening ecosystem resilience in cities. Drawing on a systematic literature review, it identifies the aims, challenges and success criteria of urban rewilding, outlines its potential to reconnect people with nature, support community engagement and reinforce cultural ties to place, and concludes by highlighting key directions for future research.
Bat boxes, 'greened' streets and bug hotels: Barcelona embraces its wild side
The Guardian
Article describing rewilding initiatives in Barcelona, Spain.
Final Report of the London Rewilding Taskforce
London Rewilding Taskforce
Recommendations on how to apply rewilding principles to the specific context of London, but the overall thinking can be applied to any urban context.
Urban rewilding has brought back beavers, hornbills and platypuses to city parks – and that’s just the start
The Conversation
Popularised, all-access version of Finnerty et al. (2025) arguing for animal-focused rewilding efforts.
How can we recover nature in our cities: rewilding, reconnecting habitats and restoring rivers
ZSL Wild Science Podcast
Podcast exploring whether the recovery of urban ecosystems is a potential solution for a more resilient planet and how urban nature can be recovered, with ZSL's experts in rewilding, reconnecting habitats and river restoration.
Symbiotic Cities with Kate Superfisky
Golden State Naturalist
Podcast interview with urban ecologist Kate Superfisky about the changes needed to make to welcome more life into our cities, how those changes would impact humans and examples from different cities around the world.
Rewilding our Cities & The Power of Plants: A Conversation with Junglefy
PROTECT
Podcast interview with Suzie Barnett, the General Manager of Junglefy – a company that researches, grows, designs, installs and maintains living infrastructure.
Angela Loder: Rewilding of cities, Human Health and Sustainable Urban Design
Share Your Green Design Podcast
Podcast interview with research scientist, strategic planner, and educator, Dr. Angela Loder, about the history, challenges and possibilities of urban rewilding.
Wild Campuses, Wild Futures
Roots and All Podcast
Podcast interview with Liz Morley, the initiator of a campus rewilding project in Nottingham, on her accessible, low-budget approach to rewilding and how it's reconnecting people with nature right where they study and work.
Diving into New York’s Billion Oyster Project with Katie Mosher
Rewild the World with Ben Goldsmith
Podcast interview with Katie Mosher about New York’s Billion Oyster Project, an ambitious urban rewilding project in the middle of one of the world’s largest cities.
How a radical experiment to bring a forest into a preschool transformed children’s health
The Guardian
Article on a Finnish daycare centre yard rewilding experiment and the increasingly strong evidence for biodiverse urban environments’ effects on human microbiomes and wellbeing.
Roundtable: Let go of some urban domestication: How would you convince the mayor to re-wild the city?
The Nature of Cities
Seventeen experts on urban biodiversity explain how they would argue for urban rewilding to local decision-makers.
Sean McCormack - Rewilding Urban London (Part 2)
Green Urbanist Podcast
Part 2 of a podcast conversation with Sean McCormack about the Ealing Wildlife Project, the reintroduction of beavers to an urban park in west London. The discussion explores the practicalities of reintroducing beavers to an urban park, rewilding vs nature restoration and the importance of partnerships and collaboration.
Rewilding Urban Parks with Lost Species - Sean McCormack, Ealing Beaver Project
Green Urbanist Podcast
Podcast interview with Sean McCormack, Chair of Ealing Wildlife Group. Sean led the reintroduction of harvest mice and beavers into urban parks in London, UK. This episode explores: - What is 'Urban rewilding' and why we should do it. - What made these projects successful. - Getting support from the community. - What needs to change to make rewilding in cities mainstream.
Wilding Campuses
Green Urbanist Podcast
A conversation about the 'Wilding Campuses' programme, led by Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS-UK), about the practicalities of applying a 'wilding' approach on highly altered and designed landscapes on educational campuses.
Urban Rewilding with Communities, with Citizen Zoo
Green Urbanist Podcast
A conversation with Elliot Newton and Ben Stockwell of Citizen Zoo, a Community Interest Company that are rewilding urban areas with communities. - What rewilding in the city means - Grazing animals in urban green spaces - Reintroducing water voles and beavers to London - Bringing white storks back to London - The challenges and opportunities of rewilding cities
Wild Cities - Lessons from cities where biodiversity thrives, with Chris Fitch
Green Urbanist Podcast
Interview with Chris Fitch, author of the book Wild Cities: Discovering New Ways of Living in the Modern Urban Jungle. The episode explores case studies of cities around the world that embrace wilder nature, including Tallinn, Tokyo, Flagstaff, Wellington and others.
Rewilding and Reconnecting Towns with the Landscape, with Stephen Mason
Green Urbanist Podcast
Interview with Stephen Mason, Community Parks Officer at Cheltenham Borough Council about: - Urban rewilding projects in Cheltenham - including meadows and orchards - Reconnecting urban areas with their surrounding landscape - How the 'rewilding' concept engages communities in biodiversity projects - Measuring the success of rewilding projects
Rewilding for Urban Flood Resilience, with London Borough of Enfield
Green Urbanist Podcast
Interview with Ian Russell and Jamie Kukadia from the watercourses team at London Borough of Enfield about: - 'Rewilding urban streets, parks and rivers. - Nature-based flood resilience and sustainable drainage versus traditional engineering. - Reintroducing beavers to London. - The benefits of conservation livestock grazing in parks and green belt. - Advice for others who want to take an urban rewilding approach.
Wilding the City, with Sophie Thompson (LDA Design)
Green Urbanist Podcast
Interview with Sophie Thompson, a landscape architect and Director at LDA Design about: - How wild nature can be brought into city streets and public spaces - The importance of working closely with local communities - Examples of LDA’s transformations of highly urban spaces into places for people and nature. - How to manage the complexities and constraints of working in cities.
Urban Rewilding
Green Urbanist Podcast
Podcast episode exploring the history of the rewilding concept, current best practice in rewilding, how rewilding can be applied to cities and case studies of active and passive rewilding in urban areas around the world.
Stakeholder perceptions and planning implications for urban rewilding as a nature-based solution in Poland
Scientific Reports (Cirella et al., 2025)
This study investigates expert and community perspectives on urban rewilding in Poland through a nationwide survey of 32 municipal environmental officials and a visual preference survey with 1,000 residents of the coastal city of Sopot. Expert responses highlight strong conceptual support for rewilding’s ecological and social benefits, but also identify persistent concerns about institutional feasibility, funding, and integration into existing planning frameworks. Community results reveal consistent public endorsement of moderate rewilding, with more cautious acceptance of intensive ecological designs in highly symbolic civic spaces.
From control to cohabitation: Social-ecological insights on urban wildness narratives
Urban Forestry & Urban Greening (O'Donnell et al., 2026)
This study explored how workshops that included walks in urban wild areas, storytelling and role playing as other species could shift participant's perspectives from disconnection to wild nature towards coexisting with it.
Wild Cities: Discovering New Ways of Living in the Modern Urban Jungle
Chris Fitch
In Wild Cities, Chris Fitch leads us around the world in search of answers, visiting pioneering cities and meeting the people working at the forefront of this issue. From the tiny urban forests in Tokyo and the star-rich skies of Flagstaff, to the meandering river of Munich and lions prowling through gardens in Nairobi, this is a globe-spanning look at how to bring nature into the places we live – and how to create the wild cities of the future.
Krater: An Untamed Oasis Built by Nature, Creativity & Socialist Commons
CityChangers
Case study of the Krater project, a community-led initiative on a, urban brownfield site in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Rewilding Dessau
DW
The German town of Dessau is responding to depopulation by purchasing abandoned urban sites and rewilding them. This article explores the project and resident’s reactions to it.
Rewilding the Ruhr: Recovering abandoned industrial sites in western Germany
WildE
This article explores the the passive rewilding of post-industrial sites in the Rhine-Ruhr urban area and the benefits that it is bringing to biodiversity and local communities.
Wild Nature in Cities: Design for a Post-Pandemic World
Timothy Beatley and JD Brown
This book collects the many stories, experiences, and innovative policies and strategies by which cities and local governments have helped to facilitate and strengthen essential pandemic-era nature connections. It makes the central point that contact with nature and the outdoors was (and is) an essential element of a healthy, resilient city. Investing in wild nature and the many opportunities to experience and enjoy will be critical for cities in preparing for the next pandemic, as well as the many other crises and stressors, small and large, that cities will face.
The Rewilding Monitoring Framework
Rewilding Britain
A guide on how to monitor ecological, social and economic impacts of a rewilding projects. It is written predominantly with rural rewilding projects in mind but it;s also applicable to most urban wilding projects.
Urban Wilding for Systems Transformation: Co-Designing Sustainable City Habitats
Trinity College Dublin
This is a recording of a research talk by Mairéad O'Donnell about her PhD research on Urban Wilding for Systems Transformation, exploring how we can fundamentally reimagine cities as shared habitats for both human and non-human species.