What is Urban Wilding?
Urban wilding means managing urban spaces in a way that fosters biodiversity, restores natural processes and promotes coexistence between people and wildlife.
Our Definition of Urban Wilding
Urban wilding is an approach to stewarding urban nature to restore ecological processes and promote healthy ecosystems with minimal human control.
Urban wilding promotes biodiversity, climate resilience, community wellbeing and human-wildlife coexistence.
Benefits of Wild Urban Spaces
Biodiversity
Creating wild places fosters biodiversity in a time when it's in severe decline.
Climate Resilience
Wilder spaces can reduce flooding and cool the air on hot days, making cities better to live in.
Health & Wellbeing
Interacting with nature daily is proven to reduce stress and anxiety and boost long-term health.
What's involved in an urban wilding project?
Reducing human control and maintenance
Urban parks and gardens are typically managed intensely to maintain a certain aesthetic. Think of your local park — it probably contains large areas of mown lawn and some ornamental flower beds. These landscape design features are only possible with lots of ongoing human maintenance like mowing and weeding. They also prevent more biodiverse natural habitats from emerging like meadows, wetlands and woodlands.
That's why wilding projects always aim to step back from intensive management and let nature lead. In urban areas, some level of maintenance is always needed to ensure safety for communities and show that the site is being cared for.
Habitat creation and 'renaturalisation'
Rewilding has been described as 'a marathon with a sprint start'. If a site has been highly altered by human activity, it can make sense to start the wilding process with some pretty intense activity before stepping away and letting nature lead.
If a thriving wildflower meadow is your goal, sowing native wildflower seeds can set you up for success. If a woodland ecosystem makes sense but you don't want to wait years for natural regeneration, you might plant some young trees to kickstart the process.
Most urban waterways have been buried underground or put in concrete channels over the centuries. 'Renaturalising' streams and rivers is a great way of undoing the mistakes of the past and creating the conditions for rich aquatic habitats.
(Re)Introducing appropriate species
Once habitats are established and human management has stepped back, many wilding projects introduce missing species. These species can help to manage habitats and create space for more biodiversity.
Urban wilding is not about introducing dangerous animals into cities. Instead, urban wilding projects aim to introduce safe native species where it's appropriate to do so. Examples include:
- Bringing beavers onto urban watercourses to manage wetland habitats and reduce flood risk.
- Using heritage breeds of livestock to manage grasslands in a way that mimics their wild ancestors.
- Releasing insects or small mammals who play important roles like dispersing seeds and feeding predatory birds.
Rewilding v Wilding
Rewilding is an approach to restoring large areas of rural land based on historical records of past wilderness. In urban areas, it's usually not possible or appropriate to do this. Urban spaces are often small and disconnected from the wider landscape. They also need to fulfil lots of diverse needs.
Urban wilding isn't about creating wilderness, but the underlying philosophy of 'rewilding' and 'wilding' is the same: to let nature flourish, restore natural processes and enjoy the benefits of a wilder world.
