Rewilding Futures: Shaping Tomorrow's Wild

Traditional conservation has often overlooked the urban wildlife legacy of creative ecology. However, some of the UK’s most successful nature recovery have happened in unexpected places. This shift changed the definition of "derelict land" to include post-industrial nature. The work of Landlife and the National Wildflower Centre (now homed at the Eden Project) dates back to 1975. Over the years, colleagues like John Little, Peter Leeson, Polly Moseley and Fergus Garrett, have shared a parallel evolution of thought, from green roofs and estate management to new approaches to tree planting and in cultural narratives and in world class gardens. Creative conservation is about care, community, and land ethics. Aldo Leopold, a pioneer of ecological restoration, extolled a community land ethic in the 1930s. Today, we face a need for new commons—urban and rural—a journey worth sharing.