Data supporting Embedding Rewilding in Policy: Perspectives on Overcoming Barriers and Unlocking Opportunities

1. Rewilding initiatives are increasing in number across Europe and the UK in response to a growing awareness of substantial nature depletion, despite a lack of policy, guidance, and legislation.2. Ongoing transformations of UK environmental policies offer a “policy window” in which rewilding could become established as a key strategy for nature recovery.3. Here, we present the results of discussion sessions held as part of a British Ecological Society Policy Training workshop. A total of 46 participants, academics, practitioners and young people interested in rewilding attended. Our discussion focused on three pre-determined thematic discussion sessions: i) barriers to rewilding and trade-offs; ii) species reintroductions; iii) facilitating rewilding in policy. Using thematic analysis, four emerging cross-cutting themes were identified from our workshop discussions: (a) environmental stewardship &amp; public engagement, (b) cross-policy approaches, (c) incentivising rewilding, and (d) an evidence-base for rewilding.4. <i>Policy Implications: </i>Given the UK’s considerable biodiversity loss, restoring ecosystem processes and function on a large scale is increasingly urgent, and operationalising rewilding through supportive environmental policy structures should be a key priority for government.