Transforming forest management through rewilding: Enhancing biodiversity, resilience, and biosphere sustainability under global change

Abstract

Forests are crucial for biodiversity, climate stability, and human well-being, yet rising pressures from climate change and conventional forestry practices threaten their resilience and sustainability. Approximately 30% of global forests are managed intensively, often as monoculture plantations, compromising biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, and ecosystem stability. Here, we propose integrating rewilding-inspired forestry as a transformative approach to restore ecosystem processes and resilience. By emphasizing trophic complexity, natural disturbances, and species dispersal, rewilding-inspired forestry can enhance biodiversity, increase resilient carbon storage, and improve social-ecological resilience. We provide practical recommendations for implementation, including fostering natural regeneration, reintroducing keystone species, and adopting assisted migration where necessary. We also discuss ecological, economic, sociocultural, and policy challenges and opportunities inherent in this urgently needed systematic transformation. We call for a global commitment to rewilding-inspired forestry as a complementary strategy to protected areas, offering a nature-based solution for stewarding sustainable forest landscapes and biosphere in the Anthropocene.