Rewilding Futures: Shaping Tomorrow's Wild

Our increasingly urbanized world is bad for our health, with congestion, higher crime rates, pollution, increased levels of inequality and social exclusion commonplace. We also know that lower exposure to Nature leads to reduced mental and physical health – but recent evidence suggest another, perhaps more primordial, connection. Emerging evidence suggests that reduced contact with diverse microbial communities in urban environments may contribute to immune dysfunction and related disease. Further studies are starting to suggest that rewilding degraded ecosystems could potentially restore at least some microbial diversity, possibly reversing these effects. This forward-looking activity aligns with the Health and Wellbeing theme and explores this hypothesis – it includes three parts: a presentation summarizing the link between microbial diversity loss and health, a discussion inviting examples of rewilding's effectiveness, and a group activity. Participants will brainstorm strategies to implement urban rewilding for health, addressing challenges like funding, policy integration, and measuring success.