EFFECTS OF REWILDING IN FORESTS AND AGRICULTURAL LANDS ON CARBON SEQUESTRATION AND DIVERSITY

Project Information

WILDCARD

Grant agreement ID: 101081177

DOI

10.3030/101081177

EC signature date 14 December 2023

Start date 1 January 2024

End date 31 December 2027

Funded under

• Climate, Energy and Mobility

Total cost

€ 8 946 199,75

EU contribution

€ 8 946 199,75

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI UDINE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WILDCARD (EFFECTS OF REWILDING IN FORESTS AND AGRICULTURAL LANDS ON CARBON SEQUESTRATION AND DIVERSITY)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Reaching net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 is central to the European Green Deal and the Paris Agreement. While renewable energy and energy efficiency are vital, they must be complemented by carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategies. Nature-based solutions — especially those leveraging Europe’s shifting land-use patterns — offer promising, low-cost climate mitigation and biodiversity co-benefits. The WILDCARD project explores two underutilized strategies: natural rewilding of abandoned agricultural land and proforestation (allowing forests to reach ecological maturity without intervention). These are increasingly relevant as land abandonment rises and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 pushes for more strictly protected areas.

WILDCARD delivers the first comprehensive, multi-scale assessment of how these strategies contribute to carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and ecosystem resilience. It integrates field data, remote sensing, dynamic vegetation modelling, and soil and microbial DNA analysis to track how rewilding transforms carbon stocks above and below ground. It also evaluates how impacts vary across regions, time, and scenarios. Beyond biophysical dimensions, WILDCARD addresses political, economic, and social dynamics — exploring public perceptions, governance, trade-offs with low-intensity farming, and socio-political barriers. Stakeholder engagement runs throughout, from site-level interactions to a Europe-wide Rewilding Forum. The project applies discourse analysis, institutional mapping, and surveys to understand how citizens and decision-makers perceive rewilding, what resistance may arise, and which policies or innovations could enhance acceptance and implementation. WILDCARD will inform both science and policy by identifying where rewilding delivers high benefits with minimal trade-offs. Policy recommendations will support EU climate and biodiversity frameworks, and results will inform IPCC, the European Environment Agency, and upcoming EU policy cycles.

In its scale and ambition, WILDCARD aligns with Horizon Europe’s climate mission and Cluster 5’s Destination 1 goals. Its outputs — including open-access datasets, models, policy briefs, and stakeholder roadmaps — will equip Europe to tackle the climate-biodiversity nexus with interdisciplinary, evidence-based solutions.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In its first 18 months, WILDCARD made significant progress in assessing carbon stocks and sequestration through forest expansion on abandoned agricultural land and proforestation. WP1 developed baseline land-use change scenarios at 1 km2 resolution, identifying areas suitable for rewilding based on socio-economic and climate projections aligned with EU policies.

WP2 and WP3 collected extensive empirical data from two major European networks: EuFoRIa (focusing on proforestation) and a set of chronosequences tracking natural reforestation of abandoned agricultural land. These networks span hundreds of sites representing diverse forest types, land-use histories, and rewilding stages. The resulting datasets quantify above- and below-ground carbon stocks, vegetation structure, and biodiversity, including soil microbiomes assessed via eDNA. In parallel, WP2 and WP3 launched high-resolution landscape-scale case studies (~50 km2, 30×30 m resolution) in key European ecoregions. These serve as dynamic ecological laboratories where models such as LandClim and FlamMap are applied to simulate ecosystem recovery and resilience under natural disturbances and climate change.

WP4 and WP5 build on these case studies to explore the social acceptability of rewilding across broader territories with varied land uses and governance settings. More specifically, WP4 completed a literature review identifying key knowledge gaps, and launched targeted surveys involving EU citizens, policymakers, and local communities. These efforts are supported by a stakeholder engagement framework (WP5) tailored to the socio-political and ecological contexts of the five selected case studies (Italy, Switzerland, Romania, Belgium, and the Czech Republic), which align with the WP2 and WP3 landscape case studies. Stakeholder mapping (WP5) was completed, enabling continuous engagement at both local and EU levels through interviews, forums, and workshops aimed at raising awareness, improving acceptability, and supporting participatory decision-making. The first EU-level WILDCARD Rewilding Forum is scheduled for October 2025. Dissemination activities include a project website, LinkedIn presence, a YouTube playlist, and a podcast series (with four episodes released). Several scientific publications have also been produced.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

WILDCARD initiated Europe’s first integrated rewilding potential assessment (WP1), mapping areas likely to undergo abandonment or proforestation under three Nature Futures Framework (NFF) scenarios: Nature for Nature, Nature for Society, and Nature as Culture. For the first time, these foresight scenarios are linked to quantitative assessments of rewilding’s carbon and biodiversity outcomes, addressing a major knowledge gap.

The project is finalizing high-resolution data collection on above-/belowground carbon stocks and multi-taxa biodiversity (WP2 & WP3), enabling unique modelling of ecosystem recovery trajectories across Europe’s ecoregions.

WILDCARD also advances knowledge of rewilding’s legal, economic, and governance dimensions. A review of laws in eight countries shows rewilding is rarely explicit in legislation, though existing tools (e.g. incentives, voluntary forest withdrawal) can be leveraged. Legal fragmentation highlights the need for EU-wide harmonization.
Cross-scale surveys and interviews with landowners, forest managers, and civil society (Tasks 4.2.2 & 4.2.4) are delivering critical insights into perceptions, resistance, and acceptance of rewilding. A novel WP5 framework addresses socio-ecological trade-offs — like heritage loss, human-wildlife conflict, and wildfire risk — tailored to each of the five socio acceptability case studies.

WILDCARD also pioneers a spatially explicit economic assessment of rewilding opportunity costs. This integrates EFISCEN-Space, the EU Forest Industry Database (EUFID), GIS-based routing (QGIS/QNEAT3), and a Python tool to identify least-cost timber transport routes and quantify trade-offs between biomass extraction and ecological restoration. This provides a decision-support tool that balances ecological goals and economic considerations across Europe’s forested landscapes.