Rewilding in biodiversiteitsbeleid en -regelgeving

: Een onderzoek naar de integratie van rewilding principes in Nederlands biodiversiteitsbeleid en -regelgeving

Abstract

Biodiversity is declining worldwide, especially in the strongly industrialized and densely populated parts of Europe. Rewilding seems to be an interesting nature conservation paradigm to help stop biodiversity degradation or even restore it. However, while putting into practice rewilding principles, issues and possible conflicts arise with current nature policies. This report describes the research results on those issues and possible conflicts. The research focused on integration of rewilding principles in current biodiversity policy of the Netherlands. The idea behind the research is that improved biodiversity policy can establish better cooperation between rewilding initiatives and stakeholders in the (rural) environment. Improved policies can create interesting opportunities for rewilding implementations and the restoring of biodiversity and ecosystem-services. The research is executed as a combination of desk study, supplemented with semi-structured interviews of rewilding and biodiversity policy specialist. The research results show several issues in biodiversity policy an comes with suggestions to mitigate the issues. The research is part of an MSc study on Environmental Sciences at the Open Universiteit of the Netherlands.

Date of Award	15 Jun 2026
Original language	Dutch
Supervisor	Raoul Beunen (Examiner) & Susanne Marieke Vogel (Co-assessor)