The 2nd National Rewilding Symposium, with the theme ‘The Return of Wildlife’, held on 3 and 4 November at the Biodiversity Gallery, was a huge success, attracting more than 2,000 online viewers and more than 100 in-person participants per day, practically filling the venue to capacity and confirming the growing public interest in rewilding and ecological restoration in Portugal.
The 2nd National Rewilding Symposium, with the theme ‘The Return of Wildlife’, held between 3 and 4 November at the Biodiversity Gallery, was a success in terms of attendance, bringing together more than 2,000 online viewers and more than 100 in-person participants per day, practically filling the venue to capacity and confirming the growing public interest in rewilding and ecological restoration in Portugal. In addition, the discussions helped to motivate support for this approach, joint work to achieve important and increasingly urgent goals, and demonstrated that success stories in other similar contexts have enormous potential to be replicated in our country.
Over two days, researchers, experts, community leaders, representatives of public and private entities, international partners and citizens participated in debates, presentations and round tables dedicated to ecological restoration, rewilding, the return of key species missing from our ecosystems and nature-based economic development.
The symposium highlighted topics such as:
- ecosystem recovery and ecological corridors
- the role of key species and the importance of their reintroduction/reinforcement
- the social and economic impact of rewilding
- international best practices that can be applied to the Portuguese context
- involvement of local communities in rewilding initiatives
“This meeting demonstrated that rewilding in Portugal is gaining momentum and mobilisation. Our country’s natural heritage has enormous potential to respond to current environmental challenges if we give it the space and conditions to do so, with increasingly functional and complete ecosystems. This symposium showed how science, communities and private initiative can and should move forward together in this direction, and it is important to translate this support and solid foundations into action on the ground, nationally and increasingly structurally in the national strategy,” said Pedro Prata, Executive Director of Rewilding Portugal.
The results obtained through this symposium will subsequently be compiled and published in a report specifically dedicated to this purpose, so that they can be shared and used by all entities that so wish, seeking to serve as inspiration and motivation for future and short-term actions.
The symposium was organised by Rewilding Portugal, with funding from Rewilding Europe and Turismo de Portugal, through its Portugal Events programme.
Watch the first day here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjoATkg7Vsk
Watch the second day here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jRVWtp4DwE&t=1951s