Towards a Wilder Anthropocene: co-existence and the emotional politics of rewilding
- ianthornhill0
- 18 minutes ago
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Joe Glentworth, 12th August 2025
As part of the MSc NR3 programme, I’ll be convening the Rewilding Principles and Practice unit (read more here). Students will examine the emergence of rewilding as a radical, yet deeply debated, global movement. We’ll explore the key ecological underpinnings of rewilding via case studies such as Yellowstone’s trophic cascade dynamics, megafaunal rewilding proposals, and ambitious landscape-scale restoration efforts across Europe and the Global South. Our work will be supported by contributions from leading researchers and practitioners working on topics including megafauna ecology, continental-scale ecological connectivity, and the ecological practicalities of running species reintroductions and lots more!
But rewilding is never solely about ecological processes. At the heart of this unit, and central to my own research, are the social, cultural, and political dimensions of rewilding. These are underpinned by critical questions: How are ideas of wildness, authenticity, and nature shaped by different worldviews? Who stands to benefit from rewilding efforts, and who might be excluded? And what happens when visions of rewilding come into contact with existing land rights, rural livelihoods, and deeply rooted place-based identities?
Reflections from South Tyrol and Trento
To ground these questions, consider South Tyrol in the Italian Alps, a region I am currently exploring this summer with my family as I write this blog. Here, high mountain pastures and alpine meadows form a unique mosaic shaped by cultural practices such as transhumance; the seasonal movement of livestock to higher elevations and traditional haymaking. These meadows and pastures, far from untouched wilderness, are cultural landscapes, the result of generations of land care. They also support some of the richest wildflower diversity in the Alps (Ghirardello et al., 2022).
These landscape practices are celebrated in the annual Almabtrieb festivals, when cattle, horses and goats descend from the mountains via heard driving and local communities mark their return with traditional food, music, and ritual. It’s a reminder that cultural tradition is closely linked to biodiversity in the area (Image 2).
At the same time, these landscapes are witnessing the return of once-absent wildlife. Since 2010, wolf (Canis lupus) populations in South Tyrol have grown steadily as a result of natural range expansion, with seven packs and over 75 individuals reported in 2023 (Trebo et al., 2025). But this has come with considerable concerns. Wolf-related compensation payments exceeded 99,209E in 2023 alone, e.g., due to loss of livestock illustrating the financial and social costs involved.
The cultural memory of co-existence has not endured in South Tyrol's land management, as a long gap followed the extirpation of top predators like the wolf, which largely disappeared from the region during the 1920s and shaped the culture of land management.
Bear (Ursus arctos) sightings have also increased around areas like Trentino following reintroduction efforts in the 1990s. Originally regarded as a conservation success story, the reintroduction of bears was portrayed positively by many in the area. However, over time, some bears were framed as 'problem bears' due to occasional conflicts with humans including property damage and rare but serious incidents involving injury and even loss of life. These tragic events understandably raised concerns and sparked public protests as well as emergency management responses. Some called for radical measures including the removal of bears altogether. Yet just as society does not respond to deaths caused by vehicles by banning driving, the solution is not to eliminate the species but to focus on education, improved infrastructure, and thoughtful wildlife management. Coexistence requires careful planning.
Emotions and Coexistence
The financial costs and concerns over safety make this debate significant and often urgent for many communities. Yet beneath these practical concerns lies a deeply political and emotional tension, closely tied to people’s identities and their connection with these landscapes which cuts across the rewilding literature (e.g., Wynne-Jones, 2022). Recent studies in the South Tyrol area show, for instance, that feelings like fear, anger, fascination, and empathy shape public attitudes toward wolf management (Trebo et al., 2025). These emotions also vary across social lines, within communities and across places in diverse ways. For instance, a study in Slovakia by Franchini et al. (2024) found that women, while more fearful of bears than men, were also more supportive of conflict mitigation strategies. Meanwhile, older and less-educated residents, particularly those living in areas with permanent bear populations, tended to express stronger negative attitudes and greater support for lethal control. Importantly, these attitudes were shaped not only by direct experience but also by levels of trust in institutions and perceived exclusion from decision-making processes. These findings highlight how emotions are entangled with power, knowledge, and place-based identity.
Media narratives play a key role too.
In another comparative study, Berti & Castelló (2025) analysed how the return of bears in Trentino and the Pyrenees was framed in newspapers and documentaries. Print media tended to further politicise the issue by driving a one sided agenda, and rarely engaged with diverse emotions at play, illustrating that rewilding debates unfold not only on the land but also through media representation.
As conservationists increasingly call for coexistence between people and wildlife, the term risks being diluted. As Shaikh (2025) argues in her recent blog, coexistence is now frequently co-opted; used by NGOs and policymakers to mask power imbalances, impose top-down agendas, or dismiss local resistance.
If coexistence is to mean more than a feel-good slogan for those outside of the communities impacted, it must be reclaimed as a genuinely negotiated and justice-oriented process. That means acknowledging place-based knowledge, listening to emotional experiences, and designing management approaches that serve both ecological goals and cultural realities, recognise that people and wildlife act very differently in different situations.
These are exactly the kinds of tensions we’ll be exploring at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) Annual Conference later this month, in our two-part session Geographies for a Wilder Anthropocene, co-convened with Anna Gilchrist and Matt Watson (University of Sheffield). We’re delighted to welcome speakers including Paul Jepson, Virginia Thomas, Bahar Dutt, Steve Carver, Brenda Maria Zoderer, Jennifer Dodsworth, Kim Ward, Emma Cary, and Sophie Wynne-Jones.
Together, we’ll explore how geography and rewilding can serve as spaces of transformation, not only restoring ecosystems but also reshaping how we think about justice, land, emotion, and power.
If you’re attending RGS 2025, we’d love to see you there. And if not, join us online or follow along as we continue to share reflections through this blog and through our teaching on the MSc.
I'm Joe Glentworth (LinkedIn) a lecturer and researcher in Nature Recovery and Rewilding, now working at the University of Manchester, on the new MSc in Nature Recovery, Restoration and Rewilding with Anna Gilchrist, Ian Thornhill and Emma Shuttleworth. I’m hugely excited by the content we’re lining up.
References
Berti, C. and Castello, E. (2024). Fear of the bear? Rewilding, rural agencies and politics in two documentaries in Trentino and the Pyrenees. Poetics, 103, p.101890. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2024.101890
Franchini, M., Švajda, J., Uhrín, M., & Prokop, P. (2025) People and bears: Evaluating public attitudes to foster human–carnivore coexistence in Slovakia. Hystrix, the Italian Journal of Mammalogy. Available at: http://www.italian-journal-of-mammalogy.it/pdf-204361-124733?filename=People%20and%20bears_.pdf
Ghirardello, L., Walder, M., de Rachewiltz, M., & Erschbamer, G. (2022). Cultural sustainability from the local perspective: The example of transhumance in South Tyrol. Sustainability, 14(15), 9052. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159052
Tosi, G., Chirichella, R., Zibordi, F., Mustoni, A., Giovannini, R., Groff, C., ... & Apollonio, M. (2015). Brown bear reintroduction in the Southern Alps: to what extent are expectations being met?. Journal for Nature Conservation, 26, 9-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2015.03.007
Trebo, S., Cary, E., & Wartmann, F. M. (2025). Emotions shape attitudes towards wolf conservation management in the Italian Alps. European Journal of Wildlife Research, 71(1), 7. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-024-01885-1
Shaikh, A. (2025). When ‘coexistence’ is co-opted in conservation practice. Undark. Available at: https://undark.org/2025/07/17/opinion-coexistence-conservation-misused/
Wynne‐Jones, S. (2022). Rewilding: An emotional nature. Area. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12810