Abstract
Rewilding has emerged rapidly as a response to accelerating ecological degradation, prompting the development of theory of change (ToC) models intended to support its uptake across socially and politically contested landscapes. Existing rewilding ToCs have largely prioritised social acceptance, governance alignment, and institutional learning as primary causal drivers, reflecting the challenges of early adoption. However, under conditions of advancing ecological decline, such approaches risk producing procedural or participatory success without guaranteeing biophysical recovery.
This paper advances an ecological-integrity–led theory of change for rewilding that begins from ecological limits rather than social tolerance. Ecological thresholds, land-use suitability, and system functionality are treated as non-negotiable foundations that shape, rather than respond to, human decision-making. Within this framework, compromise is re-conceptualised as a conscious decision to constrain recovery, rather than a neutral or enabling outcome of negotiation.
Success is evaluated through direction of travel toward ecological integrity and system autonomy, rather than agreement-based or proxy indicators. Governance is positioned as adaptive to ecological requirements, with explicit failure thresholds that trigger redesign rather than dilution. The resulting model provides a means of distinguishing genuine ecological recovery from greenwashing, strengthening accountability and aligning rewilding outcomes with the scale and urgency of contemporary ecological loss.
Introduction
The initiation of ‘Guidelines for Rewilding’ IUCN, 2025 ([1]Carver et al., 2025) came about largely because of a reasonably rapid take-up or engagement in ‘rewilding’. With it came a lack of clarity as to what rewilding was and was not. This piece is not concerned with that debate but much of the research involved in compiling the guidelines revealed substantial diversity in how rewilding has been interpreted and applied. At the same time, scientific evidence has continued to demonstrate that ecological resilience is eroding at speed.
The Theory of Change for rewilding ([2]Hawkins, 2023), was developed to support this, and it therefore accurately reflects the current context, taking a pluralistic view, to encourage early uptake within a social-ecological framing. It relies on human willingness to engage and on relatively high levels of ecological literacy among stakeholders to secure acceptance of the underlying scientific rationale, yet it does not account for the ecological consequences where such willingness or literacy is absent.
Despite their strengths in facilitating early uptake, socially led theories of change for rewilding require caution in their application. Under conditions of accelerating and widespread ecological degradation, such sequencing risks subordinating non-substitutable ecological thresholds to negotiable social processes. As a result, rewilding initiatives may achieve high levels of participation, coexistence, or governance alignment while remaining ecologically insufficient, delayed, or reversible. This limitation is not a failure of intent but of causal structure.
Because land-use systems are shaped by socio-economic and political drivers that may diverge from ecological recovery requirements ([3]Lambin et al., 2003), decision-making under conditions of ecological decline must be structured so that ecological limits define the boundaries within which social negotiation can occur.
Ecological systems do not respond incrementally to social compromise, nor do they recognise negotiated baselines where biophysical limits are exceeded. Without an explicit failure condition grounded in ecological integrity, socially driven theories of change remain vulnerable to dilution, proxy success, and the perpetuation of land-use practices incompatible with recovery. Traditional conservation monitoring is often narrowly framed, with poorly defined indicators and limited capacity to aggregate data across programmes, leading to ineffective impact assessment and a reduced ability to track genuine ecological recovery ([4]Stephenson, 2019). This vulnerability can only be addressed by re-ordering causality so that ecological realities define the boundaries within which social adaptation and governance must operate. Here, governance refers to the policy, regulatory, and institutional systems — from local to international levels — that structure land-use, wildlife management, and environmental decision-making.
[5]Rockström et al (2023) work is useful for understanding planetary overshoot and the need for ecological recovery at scale. The work frequently refers to ~50% of nature remaining, but this is frequently referring to vegetation cover rather than ecological intactness. Whilst [6]Plumptre et al (2021) ecological integrity assessments apply stricter criteria (including functional and faunal integrity), revealing that truly intact ecosystems constitute only a small fraction of the planet. This highlights the magnitude of the recovery task.
Evolving the Theory of Change to accommodate ecological realities
Social-cultural contexts:
Current social–ecological systems research emphasises the intertwined dynamics of human decision-making and ecological processes in addressing sustainability challenges of the Anthropocene ([7]Currie et al., 2024).
The original Hawkins et al model should be credited for its suitability for an early stage take up approach, for its sensitivity to politically fragile contexts, for its recognition of institutional learning phases and for its context-specific awareness geared at avoiding rather than creating any potential hostility.
It is therefore best understood as a social transition model aimed at enabling rewilding, rather than as a framework designed to guarantee ecological recovery outcomes.
Taking this socio-cultural starting point is a valuable acknowledgement of the challenges associated with behaviour change but it risks a range of elements that hinder ecological recovery.
Key concerns associated with this approach include, first, the subordination of ecological processes to social dynamics. Second, ecological tipping points are disregarded rather than acknowledging them as non-substitutional factors. Third, natural autonomy though referenced is only in concept form not operationally. Fourth, predator conflict is framed as a social problem rather than a land use problem and fifthly, there is no explicit ‘failure’ baseline from which to revert to ensure ecological recovery outcomes are achieved.
Ecological realities:
As a complement to this social-cultural model designed to optimise acceptance, governance and early uptake, this model leads with ecological integrity and is geared towards biophysical recovery results with social adaptation for optimised ecological sufficiency & system recovery.
The Ecological Integrity Led – Rewilding Theory of Change for Ecological Recovery
Ecological Integrity led Theory of Change Model:
The model explicitly incorporates ecological thresholds, land-use suitability assessment, governance response, monitoring, and redesign feedback loops, thereby operationalising ecological integrity as a causal driver rather than an emergent outcome.
Monitoring, compromise, and accountability within an ecological-integrity–led ToC
This approach draws on principles of adaptive management, in which monitoring and feedback inform iterative learning ([8]Holling, 1978). However, under conditions of ecological overshoot, adaptive processes must be bounded by explicit ecological thresholds to prevent negotiated baselines from drifting below recovery requirements.
As indicated in Fig. 1, monitoring is a foundational component of the ecological-integrity–led theory of change and is embedded from the outset of the recovery process. Indicators are selected to reflect change toward ecological recovery, increasing system autonomy, and reduced requirements for management or intervention. A fully functioning system should, over time, require progressively less management; systematic monitoring and analysis therefore provide an evidence base for assessing movement from managed toward less managed or autonomous system states, where ecologically appropriate.
Where social constraints continue to limit recovery, monitoring serves an additional diagnostic function by identifying the points at which social, institutional, or land-use factors impede ecological progress. This enables targeted learning, improved ecological literacy, and, where possible, social adaptation better aligned with system recovery. Alternatively, monitoring may reveal that recovery goals are being consciously constrained. In such cases, compromise should be explicitly acknowledged rather than implicitly absorbed into revised baselines.
Where full ecological recovery is deemed unachievable, a qualified rationale should accompany this determination, including a clear articulation of the risks, trade-offs, and consequences involved. By naming the implications of compromise, decision-making processes become more transparent and accountable. This enables responsibility to be tracked where critical ecological thresholds are approached or exceeded. Such clarity is typically absent in frameworks that rely primarily on human-centred objectives, where short-term or narrowly defined successes may obscure longer-term system degradation.
By making recovery trajectories, failure conditions, and compromise explicit, this approach supports a more accurate and operational understanding of coexistence, grounded in ecological sufficiency rather than negotiated tolerance alone. Reframing coexistence in this way enables a more honest positioning of human activity and governance in relation to planetary limits, linking decision-making to ecological outcomes that are either favourable or unfavourable for recovery. In doing so, transparency functions not as an ethical add-on, but as a structural requirement for aligning rewilding practice with ecological integrity under conditions of accelerating environmental change. This recognition of ecological thresholds is consistent with the planetary boundaries framework, which demonstrates that biophysical limits are non-negotiable and that transgression risks destabilising Earth-system processes ([9]Rockström et al., 2009). In this context, the IUCN definition of rewilding provides a means of understanding ecological recovery as the restoration of ecological integrity, grounded in the re-establishment of natural processes and system autonomy.
This paper does not seek to define site-level suitability criteria, prioritisation algorithms, or cost–benefit thresholds for rewilding. Instead, it establishes a conceptual framework within which such tools can be developed without subordinating ecological recovery to negotiable social baselines.
The conceptual differences between socially led and ecological-integrity–led theories of change are summarised in Table 1.
Table 1: Conceptual differences between social-led and ecological-integrity-led Rewilding Theories of Change.
| Dimension | Hawkings socially-led Rewilding ToC | Ecological-Integrity-led Rewilding ToC |
| Primary objective | Enable rewilding to happen in context landscapes | Ensure rewilding works ecologically |
| Causal Driver | Social acceptance, governance, alignment, learning | Ecological limits, trophic recovery, system function |
| Role of Society | Central driver of change | Adaptive responder to ecological reality |
| Role of Ecology | Emergent outcome of good process | Non-negotiable foundation |
| View of Compromise | Necessary and iterative | Bounded by ecological thresholds |
| Natural Autonomy | Normative aspiration | Operational requirement |
| Treatment of Land use | Negotiable through dialogue | Suitability-dependent, some uses must cease |
| Approach to grazing | Manage better / adaptively | Withdraw where incompatible with recovery |
| Predator conflict framing | Social conflict requiring coexistence tools | Structural land-use conflict requiring redesign |
| Metrics of success | Participation, learning coexistence | Trajectory towards integrity (function, autonomy) |
| Failure condition | Rarely explicit | Explicit and measurable |
| Vulnerability | Rare (ambiguity, proxy success) | Low (intensity-gated outcomes) |
| Best use case | Early adoption, fragile political contexts | Landscapes in ecological decline or recovery urgency |
The comparison highlights the distinction between socially led and ecological-integrity–led theories of change. The latter is more likely to deliver recovery sufficiency rather than partial improvements that fall short of overall system-level recovery. This is not to say that such approaches lack value, but their outcomes should be clearly qualified and quantified.
Conclusion
Rewilding has emerged at a moment of accelerating ecological decline, when the margin for error between intent and outcome has narrowed substantially. Theories of change that prioritise social acceptance and institutional learning have played an important role in supporting early uptake, particularly in politically sensitive contexts. However, acknowledging that ecological degradation is advanced, such approaches risk producing procedural success without delivering recovery.
This paper has advanced an ecological-integrity–led theory of change that re-orders causality by placing ecological limits, system function, and land-use suitability as non-negotiable foundations for rewilding. Within this framing, social processes and governance mechanisms are not diminished but repositioned as adaptive responses to biophysical reality rather than arbiters of it. Success is defined not by agreement or participation alone, but by demonstrable movement toward ecological integrity and system autonomy.
By making failure conditions explicit and grounding evaluation in direction of travel toward recovery, this model provides a means of distinguishing genuine rewilding from approaches that risk dilution or greenwashing. In doing so, it clarifies responsibility, strengthens accountability, and aligns rewilding practice with the scale and urgency of contemporary ecological limits. It should assist practitioners in contextualising appropriate goals and limits in relation to explicit recovery objectives. Rewilding that is guided by ecological integrity is not less socially engaged, but more ecologically honest — and therefore better equipped to deliver durable recovery alongside complementary approaches suited to broader social and cultural contexts.
Box 1. Definitions and conceptual framing
Biophysical systems science refers to Earth system science and ecology as applied to coupled physical–biological systems, including feedbacks, resilience and thresholds that regulate climate, hydrology, productivity and biodiversity. It treats ecosystems as biophysical life-support systems rather than solely as social amenities or economic assets.
Ecological integrity is the extent to which ecosystems retain their characteristic structure, composition and function, including key ecological processes and faunal completeness required for trophic regulation. Integrity implies low anthropogenic pressure, minimal fragmentation and persistence of native biota and system dynamics.
Ecological recovery is the process of rebuilding degraded ecosystems such that biodiversity, ecological functions and regulating processes recover sufficiently to restore resilience and reduce the risk of crossing critical ecological thresholds. Under conditions of planetary overshoot, ecological recovery denotes a deliberate trajectory toward restoring stable, self-regulating ecosystem dynamics through pressure reduction, habitat recovery, connectivity, and restoration of ecological processes.
Failure thresholds are predefined ecological limits or conditions that trigger redesign or reassessment if recovery trajectories are not being met.
Greenwashing is the presentation of environmental initiatives as successful while underlying ecological conditions remain insufficient or unchanged.
Proxy Indicators measures used in place of direct ecological metrics that may suggest progress without demonstrating ecological integrity or system recovery.
Social–ecological framing recognises that humans govern landscapes and therefore shape ecological outcomes through for example, institutions, incentives or cultural norms. However, under overshoot conditions this framing is often applied as if ecological and social objectives can be balanced through negotiation alone, treating ecological limits as discretionary. In an ecological recovery context, social–ecological governance must be explicitly aligned with biophysical thresholds and the restoration of ecological integrity, rather than prioritising short-term human preference.
System Autonomy the capacity of an ecosystem to function and persist without ongoing external management or corrective intervention.
[1] Carver, S., Convery, I., Hawkins, S., Hertel, S., Fallon, J., Lyons, K., Beyers, R., Locquet, A., Derham, T., Kun, Z. (Eds.). (2025). Guidelines for rewilding. IUCN
[2] Hawkins, S., Convery, I., & Carver, S. (2024). Developing guidelines and a theory of change framework to inform rewilding application. Frontiers in Conservation Science 5, 1384267. doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2024.1384267.
[3] Lambin, Eric & Geist, Helmut & Lepers, Erika. (2003). Dynamics of Land-use and land-cover change in tropical regions. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 20. 49205-41.
[4] P.J. Stephenson. (2019) The Holy Grail of biodiversity conservation management: Monitoring impact in projects and project portfolios, Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation, Volume 17, Issue 4, Pages 182-192, ISSN 2530-0644, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pecon.2019.11.003.
[5] Rockström, J., Gupta, J., Qin, D. et al. Safe and just Earth system boundaries. Nature 619, 102–111 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06083-8
[6] Plumptre AJ, Baisero D, Belote RT, Vázquez-Domínguez E, Faurby S, Jȩdrzejewski W, Kiara H, Kühl H, Benítez-López A, Luna-Aranguré C, Voigt M, Wich S, Wint W, Gallego-Zamorano J and Boyd C (2021) Where Might We Find Ecologically Intact Communities? Front. For. Glob. Change 4:626635. doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2021.626635
[7] Currie, Thomas E., Borgerhoff Mulder, Monique, Fogarty, Laurel, Schlüter, Maja, Folke, Carl, Haider, L. Jamila, Caniglia, Guido, Tavoni, Alessandro , Jansen, Raf E.V., Jørgensen, Peter Søgaard and Waring, Timothy M. (2024) Integrating evolutionary theory and social-ecological systems research to address the sustainability challenges of the Anthropocene. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 379 (1893). ISSN 0962-8436
[8] Holling, C.S. (1978). Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781932846072
[9] Rockström, J., et al. (2009). “Planetary boundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity.” Ecology and Society, 14(2), 32.