Who we are.
We are a grassroots group of ordinary people, backed by some of the world's leading climate scientists and ecologists. As the climate and extinction crisis worsens, we’re setting our long-term vision on 50% of the country being rewilded by 2050. That's a big goal, so we’re starting by asking the country’s biggest landowners to urgently commit to ambitious rewilding projects to get us started.
But where did it all start? In 2021, Wild Card's co-founders discovered two unbelievable facts. The first was that Britain, an island of self-professed nature lovers, is in the bottom 10% of global nations for biodiversity. The second was that land ownership in Britain is more unequal than almost any other nation on earth with 50% of our land owned by less than 1% of the population. We realised these two things couldn't be a coincidence. And yet none of those big well-funded nature charities that your gran gives money to each month were being brave enough to hold Britain's biggest landowners to account. We knew we had to act.
Today we have three missions:
1. To persuade the UK's largest landowners to rewild 50% their lands by 2050.
2. To persuade the UK government to adopt policies that give communities the power to control and rewild their local landscapes.
3. To help everyone in our country realise our deep and sacred interconnection with nature.
Our campaign tactics are joyous and creative and we do everything we can to unite rather than divide. Peasant or duke, we're all going down with the ship unless we can save the nature we depend on.
But where did it all start? In 2021, Wild Card's co-founders discovered two unbelievable facts. The first was that Britain, an island of self-professed nature lovers, is in the bottom 10% of global nations for biodiversity. The second was that land ownership in Britain is more unequal than almost any other nation on earth with 50% of our land owned by less than 1% of the population. We realised these two things couldn't be a coincidence. And yet none of those big well-funded nature charities that your gran gives money to each month were being brave enough to hold Britain's biggest landowners to account. We knew we had to act.
Today we have three missions:
1. To persuade the UK's largest landowners to rewild 50% their lands by 2050.
2. To persuade the UK government to adopt policies that give communities the power to control and rewild their local landscapes.
3. To help everyone in our country realise our deep and sacred interconnection with nature.
Our campaign tactics are joyous and creative and we do everything we can to unite rather than divide. Peasant or duke, we're all going down with the ship unless we can save the nature we depend on.
Our value statement.
- We are joyful and welcoming. Creativity, silliness and humour are our weapons.
- We are uncompromising. We believe that more-than-human-life has a right to exist without human exploitation in a state of true wildness.
- We don’t accept tradition as an excuse. It is the duty of each generation to reforge traditions that are inhumane and unjust.
- We welcome everyone. We do not tolerate bigotry, and we stand in solidarity with all oppressed peoples.
- We recognise the complexity of the issue. We know that reaching a half-wilded country will take time, but believe it’s essential to aim big and to start now.
- We want a just transition. Rewilding gives us the opportunity for people and nature to work together for mutual benefit to progress towards a more sustainable future.
Who funds us.
Until very recently we were completely run by volunteers and powered by a tiny handful of crowdfunder donations from our supporters. In 2023 we received our first grant funding in the form of some visionary small grants from Gower Street, The Frederick Mulder Foundation, The Climate Majority Project, The Network for Social Change, The Movements Trust and the Lister Trust. To these foundations and to all our supporters on Chuffed - thank you for believing in our vision of a wilder, fairer Britain!
Meet our coordinators.
We are citizen's movement and so far nearly 200,000 people have taken part in our campaigns. Coordinating that rewilding rabble are a tiny team of hardworking, nature obsessed campaigners: