© Tompkins Conservation

Looking for a great rewilding or wildlife related volunteer opportunity in your area? On this page is a growing list of rewilding volunteer opportunities. If you don’t see something in your area, please sign up to receive alerts for volunteer opportunities when they are available near you.

Do you need volunteers for a rewilding project opportunity? Please submit your project details on this form.

Rewilding volunteer opportunities can span a lot of different projects, such as:

• Watershed restoration projects
• Dam removals
• Beaver dam analogs for wetland restoration
• Surveys to collect data for wildlife studies
• Grassland restoration
• Forest restoration
• River, lake, and stream projects
• Endangered species research or field projects
• Species reintroductions
• Connectivity projects
• Illegal road removals

If you are a volunteer coordinator for a project that is a relevant rewilding volunteer opportunity, please submit your project details on this form. We’re be happy to help you get all the volunteers needed for your project!

What Is Rewilding?

Rewilding is comprehensive, often large-scale, conservation effort focused on restoring sustainable biodiversity and ecosystem health by protecting core wild/wilderness areas, providing connectivity between such areas, and protecting or reintroducing apex predators and highly interactive species (keystone species). (Read more…)

See also: Rewilding Distilled by John Davis

Why is Rewilding important?

• Because science (conservation biology) data argues that the structure, diversity, and resilience of ecosystems is often maintained by “top-down” ecologic (trophic) interactions that are initiated by top predators.
• Because the same science data argues that bigness is justified, as wide-ranging predators usually require large cores of protected wild landscape habitat for foraging, seasonal movements, and other needs.
• Because science data further argues that connectivity between cores is also required, as remaining core reserves in most regions are typically not large enough.
• Because of the moral argument that humans have a responsibility to other species to restore self-regulating and self-sustaining ecological communities.
• Because science (ecopsychology) argues that “people need nature” for the mental and physical well-being gained by experiencing nature, particularly the subjective and emotional essence of “the wild” or wilderness.