rewild

verb

re·​wild (ˌ)rē-ˈwī(-ə)ld 

rewilded; rewilding; rewilds

1

transitive + intransitive : to return to a more natural or wild state : to make or become natural or wild again

Are there garden beds, growing containers or areas under shrubs and trees where you can leave things a little less tidy? If you are able, rewild these places to support hundreds of native pollinators.

—Kara Carleton

[George] Monbiot's thesis is that to halt and reverse climate change and the global extinction crisis, we must drastically reduce the amount of land we farm, and rewild it with forests and wetlands.

—Philippa Jamieson

It overlooks what was once part of a golf course, although you would never guess, given how quickly the land has rewilded.

—Adam McCulloch

specifically : to increase biodiversity and restore the natural processes of an ecosystem typically by reducing or ceasing human activity and reintroducing plant and animal species

The reintroduction of jaguars to Iber is part of a larger effort to restore—or rewild—ecosystems in Argentina and Chile.

—Elizabeth Alberts

2

transitive : to return (an animal) to the wild

Today, efforts to conserve, breed, and rewild bison on tribal lands are being led by the InterTribal Buffalo Council …, the National Bison Association, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the Department of the Interior to name a few.

—Kelly Goles

In a first in the state, the Tamil Nadu forest department is all set to rewild a tiger cub at Monombolly forest range …

—Times of India

Examples of rewild in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In both California and Mexico, efforts to rewild our blue carbon ecosystems are coming from the ground up but need much more support from governments and carbon markets. —Serge Dedina, San Diego Union-Tribune, 21 Mar. 2024

In the cities of Brazil, a landscape architect creates abundant private gardens that rewild the terrain from which these metropolises grew. —Evan Nicole Brown, New York Times, 29 Mar. 2024

As part of the Green Initiative, the Kingdom has begun a massive conservation effort to rewild its deserts, protect endangered species, and restore native biodiversity. —Adam H. Graham, Condé Nast Traveler, 13 Feb. 2024

The group aims to rewild a 5,000-square-mile land base with the 1.1-million-acre federal Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge at its center. —Andrew McKean, Outdoor Life, 26 Oct. 2023

The organization is currently in the midst of acquiring 400,000 acres of grazing lands in the Birch Creek Valley of Idaho to rewild. —Jaden Thompson, Variety, 12 Dec. 2023

Over the next decade, the foundation will attempt to rewild and rehome 2,000 white rhinos and push for more stringent local protection for the animals. —Cameron Pugh, The Christian Science Monitor, 14 Nov. 2023

There's this destruction of green spaces, and one of the goals of Montessori, Honeypot Montessori, is to really rewild a portion of the community that the school is going to be in to create more green spaces since the green spaces are being taken away. —A. Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez, Parents, 2 Oct. 2023

These data should reveal how normal white lights affect the local animals, and whether red lights can help rewild the night sky. —Ed Yong, The Atlantic, 13 June 2022

Word History

Etymology

re- + wild entry 1

First Known Use

1990, in the meaning defined at sense 1