By: Alex Collins
A walk through Europe’s rural lands
When hiking through the farmlands of northern Portugal, you’ll no doubt be taken aback by their beauty and serenity. However, take a closer look and you may notice the remains of a once thriving agricultural landscape, now lying increasingly empty in the wake of farmland abandonment. Here, unplanted fields, boarded windows, and absent livestock often mark the signs of a farming operation gone cold.
These scenes are becoming increasingly common across the continent, with the European Commission estimating that by 2030, a total area the size of Croatia will have been abandoned.
Whilst this may be considered a tragedy, some environmental experts and activists instead see an opportunity. These are the advocates of rewilding, which is proposed not only to benefit nature and climate, but also to bring back jobs.
What is Rewilding?
An approach to environmental conservation that lets nature take care of itself, allowing it to naturally shape land and sea, repair ecosystems, and restore degraded landscapes.
– Definition by Rewilding Europe
However, keeping abandoned farmland out of production may seem counterintuitive at first glance, so how can rewilding support rural areas? And firstly, why might it need to?
The need for rural revival
The exodus of people from rural landscapes is a trend we’ve seen over many decades, with 120 million hectares of cropland already abandoned across Europe since 1990. Small farmers are increasingly unable to compete with larger and more efficient operations that can continuously improve their production, even in the face of declining government subsidies.
As smaller farms continue to decline, young people in rural communities have fewer local job opportunities. This makes cities all the more attractive as an alternative, promising a more vibrant social life alongside further education and higher-paying employment.
The trends of farmland abandonment and rural depopulation threaten the viability of rural communities, and the environment around them too. Traditional agricultural practices often support unique flora and fauna, which may disappear if farming stops. In Portugal and beyond, land abandonment can also drive a negative spiral of increased fires, soil erosion, and water loss. This does not paint a promising picture for the future of rural Europe.
Interestingly, however, research published by the EU Science Hub suggests that the vast majority of abandoned farmland will remain unused over the coming decade. So maybe, just maybe, we can reframe this challenge to explore how it might also present an opportunity for a brighter – albeit different – future.
Working towards a wilder future
The proponents of rewilding say that it could provide just the solution. But how? Can rewilding really bring back life to these rural areas, when they’ve relied on agriculture for so long?
One spark of hope comes from Northern Portugal’s Greater Côa Valley. Lying just west of the Spanish border, the region has seen trends of farmland abandonment even greater than most other rural European areas. However, with over 100,000 hectares now set aside for conservation and Rewilding Portugal at the helm, the landscape is undergoing a transition like never before.
A key part of the plan is purchasing land purely for rewilding, whilst the region’s remaining landowners are encouraged to manage their land in a more nature-friendly way. This should create corridors between the rewilded areas, allowing wild animals to move and migrate more freely.
And so far, the project has been a great success. Wildlife in the region such as wild boar, vultures, eagles, and even Iberian wolves, has been making an exciting comeback. Also, last year, the Tauros – a proxy for the aurochs (a long-extinct species of wild cattle) – was successfully reintroduced to the land. Together, these animals help support a more balanced and resilient ecosystem.
But rewilding doesn’t just offer rewards to nature, as the newfound wildness in the Greater Côa Valley has attracted increasing numbers of eco-tourists into the region. Along with these tourists has come a boom in rural hotels and guesthouses, as well as local products like honey and craft beer.
With this new, nature-based economy under development, young people have finally started returning to the region.
Portugal’s Greater Côa Valley isn’t the only success story, either, as diverse landscapes across the continent – from Bulgarian mountains to German river deltas – are undergoing similar efforts to rewild their ecosystems and create sustainable local economies.
So what’s the catch?
Of course, rewilding alone is no silver bullet, and the return of wildlife is not all plain sailing. Recovering wolf populations, for example, increasingly risk conflict with farmers across Europe, who desperately need to protect their livestock from predation. Equally, many nature-based businesses are still only young, and it’s hard to tell whether they’ll truly stand the test of time.
Nonetheless, one thing is certain. Rewilding has the exciting potential to offer declining rural communities a newfound sense of hope. One that, if acted on, could drive a sustainable transition from abandonment to abundance on a continental scale.
