In the thirty-ish years since rewilding was conceived, it’s gone from a niche concept to a global movement. Projects have sprung up worldwide, people and organisations have started rewilding their natural spaces, and the idea has gone mainstream. The positives are endless – more biodiversity, nature getting back into balance, and wilder places all over the world.

Goodnature has been deeply involved with rewilding for almost 20 years – it was a key driver of our trap development from the beginning. Through that time, we’ve worked with rewilding organisations and conservation groups close to home in New Zealand and further afield – including Hawaii, Scotland, Canada and the US. Using our innovative pest control systems, these groups can minimise introduced mice, rats and other pests in the wild spaces they’re trying to protect. We’re proud of our contributions to rewilding and keen to find new ways to help wherever we can.

With climate change increasing pressure on our environment, what’s happening in the rewilding space? The movement seems to be shifting its focus to the intersection of climate change and biodiversity. As the rewilding concept has become more mainstream, it’s also being applied to urban conservation and biodiversity projects – it’s no longer just about massive national parks or predator-free islands. And, as always, technology and innovation play key roles in rewilding work around the world. Here’s what you need to know:

Where did rewilding start?

Conservationist Dave Foreman is credited with coining the phrase ‘rewilding’ back in 1992 – he founded the North American Rewilding Institute shortly afterwards. His definition of rewilding was about restoring natural environments, connecting wild places across the world, and helping wild species regain their natural patterns of distribution and abundance. This early approach to rewilding often focused on returning large predator species to their natural environments, with the idea that they could help control invasive species and get nature back into balance.

Rewilding in the early days

Reintroducing the Gray Wolf to Yellowstone National Park was one of the first successful rewilding efforts in the US. Wolves had been hunted to extinction in the 1920s, and the absence of this key predator had a ripple effect on the park ecosystem. Deer were rampant, which led to overgrazing, reduced plant biodiversity, and the loss of smaller species that relied on those plants. In 1995 and 1996, the project team introduced 70 Canadian wolves to the park to rebalance the park environment. The result was a success – the wolves reduced the deer population, restoring native flora, which triggered a gradual return of birds and beavers. The beavers’ dams helped re-establish habitats for otters, ducks and muskrats, which serve as food sources for predator species like foxes and badgers. In 2021 – 35 years after the project – Yellowstone has a population of around 500 wolves and an ecosystem functioning as it should.

Other early rewilding efforts involved returning trout to South London’s Wandle River, restoring bison populations in Romania and other parts of Europe, and reintroducing native beavers to waterways in Wales and Scotland.

While reintroducing extinct or vulnerable species is still part of rewilding, the definition has shifted since Dave Foreman’s time. The focus is no longer on apex predators and physically reintroducing lost species; rewilding work is about removing introduced species and damaging elements from an environment so all parts of an ecosystem can swing back into balance on their own.

What’s changing in the rewilding space?

With climate change wreaking havoc on delicate ecosystems worldwide, rewilding is more important than ever. The movement seems to be shifting in several ways, with an increased focus on cities and urban rewilding, grassroots organisations making change in their local environments, and innovative tech being used to drive change.

Here’s a look at some of the exciting rewilding work happening right now:

Boosting biodiversity in Hawaii

Hawaii, a US State, has a rich, diverse plant, bird and animal ecosystem. As an island group like New Zealand, its unique ecology evolved independently and included few natural predators. This left it vulnerable to introduced pests, predators and human impacts. More recently, the islands have dealt with devastating wildfires linked to climate change, significantly impacting the natural environment.

The good news is that conservation and rewilding groups are doing fantastic work across Hawaii’s islands, including a project to protect the near-extinct Honeycreeper bird, wetland restoration, and shielding ground-dwelling native birds from rats and rodents.

Many of Hawaii’s rewilding projects focus on pest removal, as introduced rats, mongoose, other rodents and feral pigs cause severe damage to bird and plant life. While Goodnature can’t help with pigs, our humane rodent traps are part of restoration projects all over Hawaii, helping minimise pest populations so delicate systems can regain equilibrium.

Restoring wild spaces in cities

One cool trend that aligns with our vision is urban rewilding. We’ve seen more and more city councils and urban organisations commiting to rewilding recently. New York City’s High Line gardens are bringing much-needed native plants, flowers, birds and bees back to busy urban spaces. Delhi’s Biodiversity Parks aim to restore natural ecosystems and sequester carbon. London has declared itself the world’s first National Park city, to make the city greener, wilder and healthier for its human and animal inhabitants.

On a smaller scale, rewilding is also happening in gardens and tiny urban spaces all over the world. Sometimes called ‘micro rewilding’, this can involve individual gardeners planting natives, trapping pests, and avoiding pesticides, or collective community efforts to rewild shared spaces.

In Aotearoa/New Zealand , there’s an inspiring wave of urban trapping happening as the country works toward its Predator Free 2050 goal. Forest and Bird is doing its part to promote pest trapping to protect native birds in Auckland. The organisation works with the council, forest management officials, and a volunteer network to control pests around the city – often with the help of Goodnature traps. In Wellington, the aptly named Capital Kiwi project is working to remove pests and restore wild Kiwi to urban backyards - and one of every two traps used is a Goodnature A24.

In London, the Wild West End project aims to bring birds, bees and bats back by rewilding parks and creating a network of green ‘stepping stones’ across the city. The environmental protection project is a partnership between local councils, the Crown and property developers. It’s a promising sign that local governments and bigger organisations are getting on board with the rewilding mission.

Another example is the ‘world’s first rewilding centre’, which opened recently near Loch Ness in Scotland, in a 10,000-acre forest that has been painstakingly replanted and restored since 2008. It’s designed to inspire public engagement with rewilding – with walking trails, an education centre and opportunities to connect with nature.

Tech innovation in the rewilding space

Tech is a factor in many rewilding projects around the world. The Rewilding Europe project uses GPS collars to monitor reintroduced bison. Trap photos from Italy’s Central Apennines rewilding area are fed into a public platform to help with species identification. In the UK, a new Rewilding Innovation Fund has been launched to support emerging projects and new ideas in rewilding. In 2024, nine projects were funded, including an initiative that will use drones and AI to identify opportunities for rewilding in Devon and a Northumberland project that uses listening devices to record and identify wildlife patterns in remote places. And Goodnature’s own clever, connected traps help remove pests and track rodent population levels in projects all over the world.

Of course, most rewilding happens on a much smaller scale, with grassroots campaigns and community groups chipping in to make change in their local environments.

Want to get involved? Join your local trapping group to fight invasive species in your suburb, or find a community farm or garden. These orgs – like Kelmarna Farm and Grow Forrest Hill in Auckland, and Mangaroa Farm in Wellington’s Upper Hutt – don’t just drive planting and biodiversity in urban spaces, but give people a chance to connect with the natural world. There are also groups dedicated to planting natives and removing weeds from urban areas - Urban Ark is a great example.

The takeaway is, there’s a lot of grassroots work happening out in our communities, and a lot of ways to get involved with rewilding. We find that getting involved makes people more likely to appreciate the natural world around them, which motivates them to take further action.

Where do we go from here?

What does all this change mean for Goodnature? As climate change continues, pest removal will be even more critical. Milder winters can lead to substantial population explosions in mice, rats and other invasive species, so we must keep looking for new ways to keep pests under control. Our brand-new mouse trap is a great example, and we have more innovation where that came from.

In New Zealand, that could mean shifting our focus back to possums, as these invaders cause some of the worst damage to our forests and birds. It could mean broadening our reach in a major way with connected pest control options. Imagine if urban trapping groups and rewilding organisations could share information or learn about pest control through our app?

Protecting our planet has always been our focus, and that’s not going to change. Increasing threats to biodiversity and natural space will inspire us to work harder. We’ll continue to supply trapping systems to rewilding and conservation groups, keep educating the public about the damage caused by rats, mice and toxins, and focus on the truly inspirational work happening worldwide.

It all ties back to our original mission. As our co-founder Craig Bond puts it: “Build products that enable people to protect the natural environment, rewild their environment, however big or small, and do that without negatively impacting the planet.”

Innovation in a small package

We’ve talked about rewilding on a colossal scale, but our latest innovation is – literally – tiny. The new Goodnature Mouse Trap fills a gap in our product range, helping us target the house mouse - a small but damaging pest species that can wreak havoc in your home, and have a surprising knock-on effect on the biodiversity in your backyard.

The clever new indoor trap includes a rechargeable battery, super-precise targeting, a long-lasting lure, and a connected app that lets you monitor kills remotely. It’s a simple, sustainable alternative to poisons and toxins, helping you remove mice from your home without worrying about causing further harm to pets and family indoors, or backyard biodiversity outdoors.

Every little bit counts when it comes to making the world greener and wilder.

Want to get involved with rewilding in your own space? Get your clever little mousetrap here.