Google Trends data showed that interest in rewilding has steadily increased over the past five years. There's been a sustained spike in recent months.

If you're unfamiliar with rewilding, the concept is straightforward: restoring ecosystems to how they were before humans intervened and using nature's cues to manage the outdoors.

A 2023 MIT Technology Review profile quoted a book's slightly more poetic description of the process, advising readers to "conjure up the ghosts of missing megafauna in [their] minds."

It's commonly discussed in the context of transitioning to a natural lawn or rewilding yards and other personal outdoor spaces. But as Rewilding Europe recently demonstrated, there are bigger fish to fry on that front.

Yards and monoculture lawns aren't the only green spaces that have been incrementally yet drastically affected by human activity. Major ecological systems, such as rivers, have gradually been altered both inadvertently and intentionally.

Earlier this year, Indigenous teenagers embarked on a historic journey down the recently undammed Klamath River to celebrate this culturally significant waterway's restoration.

As Rewilding Europe noted, rivers are home to "some of the richest biodiversity on Earth and provide a wide range of essential benefits to both people and nature." European rivers have been "degraded" by pollution and "fragmented by dams, dykes, and weirs," the group added.

As such, the organization collaborated with partners and stakeholders across Europe to begin rewilding the continent's vital network of rivers. This involved removing dams and other artificial barriers and restoring riverine habitats.

Last October, Italian conservation group Rewilding Apennines removed five dams across 44 kilometers (27.3 miles) of the Giovenco River. The group restored the river's natural flow for an 11-kilometer (6.8-mile) stretch. 

The effort inspired another dam removal in 2025, restoring an equivalent stretch of the Liri River. Mario Cipollone, who leads Rewilding Apennines, explained that artificial rerouting interventions "choke rivers" and imperil one of Earth's most critical resources.

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"Demolishing these barriers allows rivers to breathe again and better support nature and people. In the face of climate change, we must treat free-flowing freshwater as a precious resource to be cherished," Cipollone observed.

Native trout species have already recolonized portions of the Giovenco, a testament to the immediate benefits of rewilding.

Rewilding Sweden undertook similar efforts in the Nordic Taiga. Seven dams have been removed thus far, and two scheduled to come down in 2026.

Isak Edström, field officer for Rewilding Sweden, said the team was just getting started.

"Almost every river here was once cleared of natural obstacles and dammed to float timber. Those days are long gone — and our mission now is to bring the rivers of the Nordic Taiga back to life," Edström pledged to Rewilding Europe

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