Wouter Helmer

Rewilding Europe – Nijmegen, Netherlands

Wouter Helmer, co-founder and Director of Rewilding Europe, is described as ‘an instigator of modern ecology, a brilliant and connecting thinker and a great communicator.’ His understanding of ecosystems and ‘trust’ in natural processes, the connection with relevant socio-economic factors, and his cooperation with a wide range of (often non-conservation oriented) partners has generated many successes.

Not in words, but by pioneering and demonstrating such new concepts in practice, has delivered meaningful rewilding initiatives in the Netherlands and beyond. One of his main achievements is his contribution to rewilding Dutch rivers, connected to flood protection and recreation. Pilot projects starting in a few areas in the late 1980-ies, became mainstream river management concepts, and resulted in the Dutch appreciating and enjoying their floodplains much more than ever before.

Wouter announced that the financial contribution connected to his Groeneveld Award would be used for supporting a European bison breeding centre in the Veluwe area in the Netherlands. Here, this species will be reintroduced in spring 2016; the animals are part of the European Wildlife Bank, managed by Rewilding Europe. With this funding, the right genetic composition of the bison herd, training guides and involving local entrepreneurs will be supported.

Guided by this vital traditional knowledge, the collaborators rewilded Linnunsuo successfully, creating a haven for biodiversity while also, over time, transforming the wetland from a carbon source into a carbon sink.

Healthy peat bogs store 10 times more carbon on average than any other ecosystem. But when mining churns them up, the carbon dioxide escapes. Before 2017, the disturbed 110-hectare (272-acre) Linnunsuo peatland released about 400 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. Once rewilded, these emissions stopped and, in the future, as new plant and animal life continues taking hold, it will sink about 100 metric tons of the greenhouse gas into its soils for storage.

Although Linnunsuo is relatively small, its sweeping achievement has already inspired other rewilding projects throughout Finland and Scandinavia, and the hope is that local communities will initiate similar schemes throughout the Arctic.

“Rediscovering ourselves as hunters and gatherers in a modern Europe, but this time hunting pictures and gathering experiences, means reconnecting with wilder nature in a new way. We should thereby take the angle of wildlife ecology, which provides new insights in developing new and dynamic concepts for European ecosystems’’.

Publications: Rewilding Europe: A New Strategy for an Old Continent; Connecting modern societies with wilder nature through development of nature-inclusive economies; Measuring rewilding progress; Governing with nature: A European perspective on putting rewilding principles into practice

Video 1) Interview (Dutch with CC)
Video 2) Rewilding Rivers

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Website: Rewilding Europe