BBC article featuring lab’s work on Rewilding

As part of Natura Connect project, the lab is involved in mapping Rewilding opportunities across Europe, as well as involving stakeholders in Portugal to consider the implementation challenges of such a concept in the regulatory landscape for conservation in the country. Concurrently, the BBC just published an article about the efforts of Rewilding Portugal to restore a corridor in the eastern part of the country:

“We don’t have areas of strict conservation, only about 0.02% of the territory [in Portugal] is strictly protected,” says Bastos Araújo. Rewilding’s mission to acquire lands for nature conservation could help increase the country’s percentage of protected land, but Bastos Araújo says more needs to be done on a national level to reach EU conservation targets – such as state policies to acquire land to be protected, tax incentives for conservation and making sure that once a plot of land is classified as protected the status can’t change even if it’s sold to new owners.“

For an easier article on this topic, in Portuguese, check here.