Two rewilding initiatives join pan-European network, expanding into Greece and Türkiye
The European Rewilding Network adds CALLISTO and Marine Rewilding Türkiye to its roster of over 100 initiatives — one focused on human-carnivore coexistence, the other on coastal ecosystem recovery. Both embed local communities in restoration governance.
Rewilding Europe’s network now counts more than 100 initiatives across the continent, with two recent additions marking its expansion into Greece and Türkiye. CALLISTO, founded in 2004, works on coexistence between people and large carnivores — brown bears and grey wolves — in Greek mountain landscapes. Marine Rewilding Türkiye, led by the Mediterranean Conservation Foundation, focuses on seascape restoration along the Turkish coast, embedding small-scale fishers and cooperatives in marine governance and enforcement.
Both initiatives exemplify a governance model that goes beyond top-down conservation: CALLISTO uses electric fencing, waste management, and community engagement to enable shared landscapes; Marine Rewilding Türkiye trains local fishers as marine rangers and partners them with scientists in monitoring and protection. “Community-based governance is central to this approach,” the initiative notes — a recognition that ecological recovery requires redistributing authority, not just funding.
The European Rewilding Network functions as a distributed learning infrastructure, connecting practitioners across borders and ecosystems. Its expansion reflects not just geographic reach but methodological diversity: from forest corridors to coastal seas, from large carnivore monitoring to seagrass restoration. As Gizem Akdoğan of Marine Rewilding Türkiye put it, the network offers a chance to “exchange knowledge on how to scale up ecosystem restoration and develop nature-based economies” — treating governance itself as a learnable, shareable practice.
The network’s growth — now spanning terrestrial and marine landscapes, from the Apennines to the Aegean — suggests that rewilding is less a singular technique than a family of approaches unified by a commitment to testing what works, in place, with the people who live there. Whether that qualifies as governance innovation or simply good practice may depend on whether such models can be institutionalized beyond the project cycle.