1. How does the council define rewilding?
The council hasn’t formally considered the term rewilding and attempted to define it. It is not an agreed upon term in scientific literature where the focus of the meaning changes and its more widespread adoption in the English language has not made it any clearer. The term is perhaps most usefully applied when there is an approach to land management of reducing the extent and frequency of human intervention in favour of reestablishment of ecological processes. This may be (but isn’t solely) achieved through the reintroduction of species, particularly those that have anthropogenic cause of extirpation, with the idea being that these will introduce a ‘self-willed’ trophic cascade of ecosystem recovery. The ecological processes to be created need not be clearly known or defined as goals at the beginning of rewilding but success might be measured by the removal of the need for human intervention to maintain a habitat and/or an increase in biodiversity from a previously depleted state.

2. Do you have any current or planned policies/initiatives on rewilding? If yes, can you provide details of these?
Current statutory duties and responsibilities for local authorities regarding nature tend to frame the subject using terms such as biodiversity, priority habitat, priority species, and nature recovery. The term rewilding (with its ambiguity) is not useful to use in policies. However, this does not mean that the council will not seek species reintroduction where appropriate (which could fall into the definition of rewilding). It does not mean that the council will not seek benefits to nature on a widespread/landscape level. It is likely that the merits of these initiatives will continue to be assessed through the lens of biodiversity net gain, local nature recovery strategies, and biodiversity action plans for the near future.
It is desirable for the council to restore ecosystem processes in its greenspaces where this leads to a reduction in costs for ongoing maintenance of the sites. However, this needs to be balanced with the multiple user needs for these spaces and the objective of supplying public open space which may come into conflict with pure rewilding through human disturbance.

3. Have you set aside any budget or funding for rewilding?
No. Budget is not classified as to whether it is supporting a rewilding project or not. It may be that projects that support biodiversity enhancement could be classified as rewilding (such as re-introduction of grassland wildflower species) but these would more traditionally be termed restoration because most of the sites that we manage retain some form of human intervention for their maintenance. It is not that the council will not fund projects that meet a rewilding definition but it will look at all cases on their individual merits.