Seeing the bigger picture – monitoring rewilding

Although, we might intrinsically know that the landscape is changing, how can we convey these amazing changes to someone who’s never experienced rewilding firsthand? How can we really show that rewilding is restoring nature and having wider beneficial impacts on individuals and communities? What can we do to strengthen the case that rewilding is a viable route to restoring our lands and seas?

At Rewilding Britain we frequently get asked these sorts of questions, particularly by members of the Rewilding Network, who are rewilding land and sea at almost 1,000 sites across Britain. And the answer – in part, at least – lies in monitoring and collecting high-quality data.

What is monitoring?

Monitoring is the systematic collection of data, at regular intervals over time, using a standardised approach. People have been monitoring nature in one way or another for hundreds of years. 

The Victorians were pretty good at it, emerging from a fascination with collecting and documenting all sorts of natural history, from the plant hunters to the collection and classification of species by Linnaeus back in the 18^th century. Gamekeepers of Victorian Britain would keep logs of the wildlife controlled on the land (see below).

Why does monitoring matter for rewilding?

Rather than focus on restoring specific habitats or species, rewilding aims to reinstate ecological processes, such as disturbance (e.g. of the habitat by grazing animals), complexity (e.g. of vegetation structure and food webs) and dispersal (e.g. of species through the landscape). So by its very nature, rewilding requires a different approach to monitoring from those used within traditional conservation. 

Rewilding is defined by an absence of fixed targets or end points and the way it embraces uncertainty. This makes having a robust monitoring methodology all the more important. Not only can data help tell the story of rewilding, but it can also inform a site’s rewilding strategy and help gauge progress along the rewilding journey, providing insights into what is and isn’t working.

Examples of where monitoring has already led to breakthroughs in our shared understanding of rewilding include:

• Wild Ken Hill, where ground-based monitoring has revealed how quickly plant diversity can recolonise in lowland areas [2] 
• Carrifran, where the diversity of bird species has increased with the changing vegetation structure [3]
• Knepp Castle Estate, where the return of the magnificent purple emperor butterfly has been linked to the emerging sallow scrub that’s been allowed to thrive [4]
• The River Otter, where the monitoring of changes in peak flows and water quality before and after beaver reintroductions helps demonstrate the important role these animals have in our landscape for slowing the flow of water through the landscape, providing benefits in drought conditions and reducing peak flows downstream [5, 6]

By our definition, rewilding very much includes people and, by monitoring these wider benefits, the relationship between letting nature lead and thriving communities can be evidenced. Through our own data gathering across Rewilding Network sites, we’ve been able to show a fivefold increase in jobs in projects led by members in Scotland since rewilding began, and in England and Wales they’ve doubled [12].

A new era in monitoring

Since those early Victorian collectors started their wildlife records, monitoring ecological changes has developed beyond recognition. Advances in technology mean that today ecologists can even monitor landscape level changes remotely without having to physically collect data themselves.

One such method is the use of camera traps, which are now used as a reliable way to monitor more elusive species or behaviours. These devices can be left in place for weeks, continuously recording activity without the need for constant human presence. Alongside ground-based observations, remote sensing techniques such as satellite imagery and drones can provide fantastic insights into how landscapes become more complex with rewilding.

Another exciting development is acoustic monitoring. Recording sounds emitted by animals, such as bats, birds and small mammals, has already proven to be a powerful ecological monitoring tool. Today, researchers can even detect levels of worm activity underground and interpret this as a measure of soil quality [9]. Recording whole soundscapes – i.e. all the sounds emitted from a given landscape – is also developing as a technique to infer changes in biodiversity or habitat quality [10]. 

Beyond its use in collecting ecological data, acoustic monitoring also serves as a useful tool for helping people reconnect with nature. Sharing the sound of rewilding with people and how this changes over time can be powerful and makes for great engagement with stakeholders and wider communities alike – for it’s vital that we bring people along on the rewilding journey with us. The innovative Wilding radio at Knepp is a University of Sussex project that transmits real-time acoustics above and below the beaver pond, allowing people to tune in to the wonderful sounds of rewilding.

These remote sensing techniques can support ground-based observations and provide fantastic insights into how landscapes shift and change and become more complex with rewilding [7]. For example, satellite imagery has been able to show, that land in rewilding in the English lowlands has led to significant increases in the productivity and health of the ecosystem over a given period. In a nutshell, it measures greenness, by detecting the density of vegetation and whether it’s under stress, indicated by a value derived from the ​‘Normalised Difference Vegetation Index’ (NDVI). Similarly, LiDAR technology (Light Detection and Ranging) can evidence changes at the landscape scale, for example, the expansion of new vegetation through natural regeneration over time [11]. This method uses light to measure variation in the physical structure (e.g. height) and extent of the vegetation.

Rewilding Britain’s Monitoring Framework

With so many techniques out there, it can be challenging for rewilding practitioners to navigate the rich but complex world of monitoring. We’re often asked by members of the Rewilding Network which aspects of monitoring they should focus on and how they should collect data in a way that would help demonstrate change. 

Accurate, standardised data collection on the ecological, social and economic impacts of their rewilding project can aid with so much – from guiding the direction of their project to informing stakeholders and accessing certain funding streams. At a basic level, monitoring is an important safeguard against any unintended consequences on a site. In short, if practitioners are not collecting data throughout the project, they can’t pick up the myriad shifts taking place in the landscape which might not be immediately visible, but which are important to know about early on in the process.

It’s in response to these needs that Rewilding Britain is developing a Rewilding Monitoring Framework specifically for rewilding in Britain. Firmly grounded in science, the framework is designed to enable practitioners to accurately track changes at land-based rewilding projects using a standardised approach, with consistent metrics across all dimensions of rewilding (ecological, social and economic). We’re lucky enough to be working closely with a group of pioneering rewilders from across the Rewilding Network, as well as engaged academics, who have been helping guide the development of the framework. Five Network members are currently piloting the framework at their sites across Britain so that this scientifically credible approach results in a highly usable tool in practice. 

We’ll be sharing part one of the framework, which covers ecological metrics, with members of the Rewilding Network in autumn 2024. The final framework – complete with social and economic metrics – will be completed in 2025. We’ll also be evolving the framework for marine-based rewilding projects. 

Our hope is that by adopting a standardised approach, the framework can contribute enormously towards making the significant ecological, social and economic transformations attributable to rewilding much better evidenced and understood. With the ability today to monitor the things that are too small or big for us to see with the human eye – from underground worm activity to changes in vegetation structure over time – collecting robust data is essential in helping us see the bigger picture.