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.

Making urban spaces wilder can bring so many benefits to urban communities and wildlife:

🦉 Creating wild places fosters biodiversity in a time when it's in severe decline.

😎 Wilder spaces can reduce flooding and cool the air on hot days, making cities better to live in.

🌱 More biodiverse and complex habitats are more resilient to droughts and storms.

💚 Interacting with nature on a daily basis is proven to reduce stress and anxiety and boost our long term health.

Urban wilding is a positive way of responding to the climate and biodiversity crises in towns and cities. Plus it’s great fun!


What’s involved in an urban wilding project?

Urban wilding projects come in many forms but they typically involve these aspects:

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. This might include cutting down trees that are at risk of falling over or cutting some areas of grass for recreational use while letting others grow long for biodiversity.

A green space that's been allowed to 'grow wild' with very little maintenance, resulting in a complex grassland habitat with regenerating trees.

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. Each project is different and the extent of your ‘sprint start’ will depend on your goals and budget.

A wildflower meadow created in a public park. Great for pollinators!

(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. 

Rewilding often conjures images of charismatic species being reintroduced to vast landscapes. In urban wilding, the principle is the same but it's adapted to the urban environment. Urban wilding is not about introducing dangerous animals into cities. Instead urban wilding projects aim to introduce safe native species where its appropriate to do so.

Sometimes, introductions are a way of bring species who would thrive in the space but might have trouble migrating there by themselves. 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 into wilded spaces who play important roles like dispersing seeds and feeding predatory birds. 

Urban beavers have been introduced to cities like London. 

What's the difference between Rewilding and 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 like providing areas for sport, culture and recreation. So, if we want cities to be wilder, we have to acknowledge that we will often be creating a new kind of wild - what ecologists call ‘novel ecoystems’.

To reflect this, we like to drop to ‘re-’ prefix and call the process ‘wilding’.

Urban wilding isn’t about creating wilderness, it’s about making urban spaces wilder in big and small ways.

That being said, 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.

How you can get involved

We're crowdsourcing the first map of urban wilding projects across Europe. Check it out and add your own project.

Urban Wilding Projects Map

Consider joining our Wilding Partners programme if you need support with your own urban wilding project. 

Wilding Partners

We're fundraising for our startup costs. Consider supporting our work through a donation. 

Donate