Contemporary agriculture faces a critical challenge: how to provide enough food for a growing population while reversing widespread environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and negative climate impacts. Although agricultural intensification has significantly increased yields in recent decades, it is also one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation and climate changeMoreover, biodiversity loss itself undermines agricultural productivity, for example through loss of pollination, reduced biological control of pests and reduced soil capacity to retain water and nutrients. It is therefore essential to find ways to improve the sustainability of modern agriculture by restoring nature to the agricultural landscape.

One breakthrough strategy that is gaining momentum is the “rewilding” approach. While rewilding projects typically focus on restoring ecological processes such as dispersal (the spread of species), trophic complexity (food webs), and stochastic disturbances (random events), often through the reintroduction of keystone species or the removal of human infrastructure, the principles of rewilding can be adapted to any type of landscape. This opens up the possibility of applying them to agricultural areas while maintaining some level of food production.

Resources they propose multi-level approach, which goes beyond simple division into intensive agriculture or pure natural areas (the concepts of “land sparing” versus “land sharing”). This approach integrates the principles of rewilding into the agricultural landscape by combining two main elements:

• Creating wilder ecosystems in separate, designated areas: It is recommended to allocate at least 20 % of soil to nature to increase resilience, biodiversity and ecosystem services. Although this land is temporarily lost from agricultural production, it can provide benefits to the remaining agricultural land. These benefits include the provision of services such as soil protection, pest control and pollination, which can increase food production and partially compensate for the loss. Restoration of these areas can be achieved through passive (spontaneous) rewilding or active interventions such as tree planting or the reintroduction of key species.
• Implementation of more sustainable agricultural methods in adjacent areas (so-called agricultural matrix): This includes approaches such as precision agriculture, ecologically intensive agriculture and extensive agriculture. These methods allow more biodiversity to be retained in the agricultural matrix. For example, precision agriculture uses modern technologies to reduce environmental impacts. Ecological intensification includes elements such as flower belts to promote pollination or support predator populations to control pests. Extensive agriculture, in turn, incorporates the principles of traditional, organic, conservation or regenerative agriculture that support biodiversity and ecological processes. In addition, small, species-rich landscape features such as hedgerows, forest islands and ponds can significantly enhance dispersion in the agricultural landscape and complement corridors connecting designated wild areas.

This multi-level approach is particularly relevant in the context of climate change and its impacts. The sources highlight that:

• Trophic rewilding, a strategy using the translocation of species (especially megafauna) to restore trophic interactions, can provide natural solutions for the climate (natural climate solutions).
• Climate-related stochastic disturbances such as droughts, heat waves and frosts, are essential and will occur in agricultural lands affected by rewilding.
• Rewilding can provide natural solutions for managing other disturbances such as forest fires. For example, restoring extensive livestock or wild herbivores can reduce fire susceptibility in abandoned ecosystems. Careful siting of rewilding measures on river floodplains, such as restoring geomorphology and removing levees, can even reduce the risk of flooding in other, populated areas.

Total Restoring dispersion, trophic complexity and stochastic disturbances in agricultural areas is likely to lead to synergistic interactions, which will increase ecological resilience, biodiversity and ecosystem services. Connectivity features can facilitate the recolonization of landscapes by keystone species, which in turn can contribute to regulating stochastic disturbances such as fires. This approach is particularly beneficial in intensive and degraded agricultural areas where biodiversity is low and where ecological collapse is at risk, with the loss of production from set-aside land being partly offset by increases in ecosystem services.

In conclusion, agricultural rewilding represents a key approach to maintaining food production in a way that is sustainable for people and the planet in the long termIt goes beyond simple paradigms and offers a comprehensive solution for creating biodiverse, resilient and functionally connected agroecological landscapes. Spring

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment

Glossary of key terms

• Agroecological landscape: A landscape that is managed to integrate agricultural production with ecological processes and biodiversity at different levels.
• Biodiversity: The diversity of life on Earth at all levels, from genes to species to ecosystems.
• Dispersion: The process by which organisms move from one place to another, which is crucial for the spread of genes and species.
• Ecological integrity: The extent to which an ecosystem is intact, functional, and maintains its original species composition and processes.
• Ecosystem services: The benefits that humans derive from ecosystems, such as pollination, pest control, water purification, and soil fertility.
• Ecologically intensified farming: An approach to agriculture that increases production and biodiversity by utilizing ecological processes, often through the support of beneficial organisms and natural cycles.
• Ecosystem resilience: The ability of an ecosystem to withstand disturbances and recover to its original or similar state.
• Extensive farming: Agricultural systems with low input intensity and often low production per unit area, but which can support high biodiversity.
• Intensive agriculture: Agriculture that uses high inputs (e.g. fertilizers, pesticides, mechanization) to achieve high yields.
• Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework: An international convention with goals related to restoring degraded ecosystems and improving the sustainability of agriculture.
• Land sharing: A concept where land is managed for agriculture and nature simultaneously, often with a compromise in both productivity and biodiversity.
• Land sparing: A concept where areas of land are reserved for either intensive agriculture or nature conservation.
• Agricultural matrix: Areas of land that remain in agricultural production within the wider landscape, as opposed to designated natural areas.
• Precision farming: Using modern technologies (e.g. GPS, sensors) to optimize agricultural practices, such as fertilizer and pesticide application, to increase efficiency and reduce environmental impact.
• Rewilding: A process-oriented approach to ecosystem restoration that focuses on restoring key ecological processes, such as trophic interactions and stochastic disturbances, to create self-regenerating and resilient ecosystems.
• Stochastic disturbances: Unpredictable natural events (such as fires, floods, droughts) that are a natural part of ecosystem dynamics and can contribute to heterogeneity and resilience.
• Trophic complexity: Networks of relationships between species (food chains and webs) that describe the flow of energy and nutrients in an ecosystem. Higher complexity often means greater stability and resilience.
• Trophic rewilding: A rewilding strategy that involves the reintroduction of key species, often megafauna, with the aim of restoring trophic interactions and cascades in an ecosystem.
• Multi-scale approach: A strategy that considers and integrates management at different geographical and ecological levels, from local agricultural fields to regional landscapes.