The following articles will give you a well rounded overview to what is meant by reforestation.

We have a range of reforestation projects that include the restoration of illegal clear cuts, areas destroyed by wildfires & former agriculture lands devoid of biodiversity.

Reforestation Projects

The following articles will give you a well rounded overview to what is meant by rewilding.

All of our rewilding projects have as their main aim to maximise the restoration of wilderness and the promotion of biodiversity.

Rewilding Projects

Restore wildlife habitats and support biodiversity.

On a stunning 15 km stretch of Portuguese coast two special cliff plants found nowhere else on earth are facing extinction. One threat is the spread of the ice plant, an invasive species that can have a devastating impact on the ecosystem. Another issue is that many park visitors are unaware that rare plants exist here and so may not take enough care to protect them. A further challenge to conservation is access. The endangered plants are perched on steep cliff faces making access to monitor them difficult.

To address these challenges we are organising invasive plant removal events. Helping hands are coming from local rock climbers and cavers, joining us as volunteers united by their passion to protect local biodiversity. These events are also a way of spreading awareness and engaging different groups in a dialogue about what can be done for these species. For the monitoring, we will be using a drone to detect the rare plants and to document changes in the vegetation as a result of our efforts to remove the invasive ice plant.

By protecting these precious plants we are helping reduce biodiversity loss and trying to treasure nature in all its glorious forms. 

Invasive plant removal and community engagement

We are organizing events with local volunteers to help remove the invasive ice plant from the area where it is competing with the rare cliff plants. This is done by manually pulling the plants and removing them from the area. With these events we are aiming to:

stop the invasion before it spreads further and control efforts become unfeasible;

take direct action to restore diverse cliff plant communities (similar efforts have been successful elsewhere);

spread awareness about these species to prevent any damage by park visitors;

encourage dialogue between all the groups involved in protecting, studying and enjoying the area.

Monitoring with a drone and photogrammetry

We will be capturing drone images to survey inaccessible cliffs and ensure we have the evidence needed to guide our conservation actions. We expect the technology will have multiple uses: 

detecting the presence of rare plant species in hard to access locations;

monitoring the distribution of the invasive ice plant and use this data to coordinate removal events; 

monitor the vegetation before and after ice plant removal to check if the vegetation is recovering as expected or if further intervention is needed.

We've described the project itself above, but read on to see why this is so important.

Learn more about how and why we want to protect these plants

For some plants, the cliffs of Cabo Espichel are the ideal refuge from human disturbance and from other species that would outcompete them elsewhere. Two of these plant species have their entire global distribution restricted to this 15 km stretch of coastline and have been listed as endangered in the recently published Red List of Vascular Plants of continental Portugal. 

Convolvulus fernandesii is a species of vine that grows on the cliff faces and at their base, sometimes climbing over other plants and shrubs. It puts out beautiful white flowers in the spring and in the summer its bright green leaves turn yellow. It is extremely rare with the latest estimate putting the total number of mature individuals at 500. 

Euphorbia pedroi is a sub-succulent plant that is adapted to dry conditions which can attain up to 2m in height and more than 2m in width. Its leaves have a very distinct tone of green before they are shed every year during the heat of summer. Although it appears to be more numerous than C. fernandesii, there are only three known subpopulations in the area and it is unclear to what extent these are connected. 

The extreme scarcity of each of these plants makes this a worthwhile mission to ensure their uniqueness remains instead of losing them forever.

Threats that are thought to be affecting both species include:

increases in the frequency and intensity of droughts; 

the spread of the invasive ice plant (Carporboruts edulis).

Take a look at this special vegetation that can only be seen here. The final image shows the spread of the invasive 'ice plant'.

Other than the two narrow endemics, this part of the coast is very rich in plant diversity with about 1400 plant species recorded. Some of these are rare in Portugal and have been identified as a conservation priority by the Portuguese Botanical Society including:         

One serious threat for these rare species is the spread of ice plant (Carpobrous edulis) in the area. This is an invasive succulent plant that forms dense mats which change the soil composition and displace native species that have been evolving together for millennia. It can spread rapidly on dunes and coastal cliffs wiping out entire plant communities. As in other European countries, the species was introduced in Portugal during the 1900s because it was thought to help prevent coastal erosion. It is currently widespread along the Portuguese coast. 

Rock climbers are among the people that spend the most time exploring these cliffs and so are more likely to encounter these rare species. By spreading awareness among the climbing community we want to help reduce the chances that someone will damage these plants due to a lack of knowledge. What’s more, rock climbers are comfortable navigating these hard to access locations so they make ideal volunteers to help us plan and carry out interventions in the area. Having said this, everyone is welcome to join and we hope to get a wide range of people excited about plants and other cliff-dwelling biodiversity!

Using a drone for cliff plant monitoring 

Current methods for monitoring these rare endemic species are very time consuming making it impractical to carry out population surveys with the accuracy and frequency needed to detect population trends and threats. Both species have a very narrow range but their habitat is very hard to access. 

If no other monitoring approach is used, we would have to invest substantial time in continuously monitoring these populations. Accurate population size estimates would require very thorough sampling using abseiling and rock climbing techniques. Other than being logistically complex, this type of survey would be intrusive and could inadvertently disturb the cliff ecosystem. 

To address this, we are using a drone to capture high resolution images which can later be processed to detect where the individuals of each species are present. After being validated and refined, we hope this approach will provide a reproducible and cost effective way to monitor the abundance and distribution of these rare species. 

We also aim to use the drone and photogrammetry software to create orthophotomaps of the areas where C. edulis is to be removed. The resulting maps will help to plan the removal events but, more importantly, they provide a baseline scenario for monitoring the impact of this intervention on native vegetation. By creating the same maps every year, we hope to capture the process of recolonization by native vegetation. These surveys may demonstrate the success of the intervention or a failure of native plants to recolonize the area which would suggest that assisted revegetation may be appropriate. Finally, we expect the maps will prove useful as a way of identifying C. edulis resprouts that could be missed otherwise.

The partnerships making this project possible

We are getting all kinds of partners together for this project. The local rock climbing community and the cavers from NECA are contributing as volunteers with their local knowledge, sweat and hard work in our invasive plant removal events. 

Pix4D, a drone mapping software company, will be helping us process the drone imagery for our monitoring objectives. 

The Portuguese Botanical Society is contributing with their expertise and the local park authorities (ICNF) are helping ensure our efforts fit into the broader conservation strategy for this protected area. 

To help save plant species that exist nowhere else on earth, we are working with volunteers from the rock climbing community to remove an invasive plant from sea cliffs in Portugal.

Saving Rare Sea Cliff Plants in Portugal

Ireland was once the most forested country in Europe. Today it has just 11% tree cover, only 2% of which is native forest. Working with our tree planting partners Hometree, our Reforesting Ireland project seeks to reforest and rewild a 60 hectare property in an area that currently has no wild forests.

Tree planter.jpeg

At our Reforesting Ireland project we plant Scarlett willow (Salix alba), goat willow (Salix caprea), grey willow (Salix cinerea), osier willow (Salix viminalis), alder (Alnus glutinosa), downy birch (Betula pubescens), European hornbeam (Carpinus betulus), common hawthorn (Cratageus monogyna), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), rowan (Sorbus aucuparia), holly (Ilex aquifolium), blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), common oak (Quercus robur) and sessile oak (Quercus petraea).

Hen harrier (Circus cyaneus), pine marten (Martes martes), brown hare (Lepus europaeus) are all present in the area. To learn more about these species, head over to our wildlife in Ireland or rewilding Ireland guides. 

The Irish, descendants of the Gaels, which means forest people, have worshipped trees longer than they’ve believed in God.

Centuries of deforestation for agriculture and timber have reduced Ireland’s once extensive native woodlands to small, isolated remnants. Old native woodlands can still to be found in areas of thin soils unsuitable for agriculture, but today, the country is known for its landscape of open, green pastures instead.  

Legend has it that a squirrel could traverse through the tree canopy from the North of Ireland to the far South without ever touching the forest floor.

Sadly, it was these rich woodlands, particularly the robust oaks that were prized by England for the construction of its cathedrals, the reconstruction of London after the Great Fire and its naval fleets between 1600s – 1800s. Large areas of old growth forests were decimated by the English and never replaced.

Ireland's native woodlands are mostly made up of colourful broadleaf trees like oak, ash, alder and birch. A healthy, thriving forest provides vital habitat for a diversity of flora and fauna, including great spotted woodpecker, narrow-leaved helleborine, wood millet, red squirrels and Ireland's rarest native mammal, the pine marten.

In response to legal requirements to reduce carbon emissions, the Irish government is primarily funding the planting of non-native conifer monocultures. These monoculture forests cause soil acidification, create excess sediment in rivers, and are often devoid of wildlife. These lucrative plantations also price small farmers off the land.

Ireland was once the most forested country in Europe, now it's the least! Our Foraois Reforesting Ireland project aims to reverse this trend through native tree planting interventions.

Foraois | Reforesting Ireland

It brings us great joy to communicate the impact of this rewilding project. At the centre of its purpose is a small mammal adored across the UK – the water vole. Once found in abundance in our rivers, this loveable riverside dweller has sadly lost a big part of its population. Read on to find out the causes of its decline, why water voles are so important to their ecosystem, and how we helped in the effort to restore their numbers.

Despite its small size, the water vole (Arvicola amphibius) has a large role to play in shaping its ecosystems. As small as a rat but more similar in looks to a beaver, water voles are important ecosystem engineers, creating complex riparian habitats through their burrowing and feeding behaviour to support a host of other plant and animals. 

Unfortunately, the water vole is one of the UK’s fastest declining mammals. In the 1990’s, the population crashed by 90% and many populations disappeared altogether. Ambitious reintroductions projects have since been established to restore water voles to areas where they are missing, and we’re excited to be supporting this important work. 

Kielder, in the north of England, was once home to a thriving population of water voles before the population went locally extinct in the 1980s. Thanks to the hard work of the Northumberland Wildlife Trust, Forestry England the Tyne Rivers Trust, water voles have been returned to the area once again after an absence of around 30 years. 

Over 1,500 water voles have been bred in captivity at a specialist facility in Devon and released into Kielder as part of the Restoring Ratty project. In June 2021, we supported their work to release a further 177 water voles, providing funding to help transport voles from the breeding centre to the release site. 

Learn more about why we have helped water vole reintroductions

One of Britain’s most threatened mammals 

The water vole is thought to have disappeared from 94% of its former range in the UK. 

Habitat loss and inappropriate wetland management as a result of agricultural intensification has played a significant role in the decline of the water vole. But it was the introduction of the North American mink (Neovison vison) that really pushed water voles to the brink. 

American mink became established in the UK after escaping and being deliberately released from fur farms. They have since wiped out entire populations of water voles across the UK. The reason water voles are so vulnerable to predation by this new predator is because they have no natural defences to protect themselves. The water vole’s usual tactic to escape predation is to dive underwater and kick up a ‘smoke screen’ of dirt, but mink are strong swimmers and can smell underwater, making this strategy ineffective. 

Another tactic is to run into their burrows but female and juvenile mink are small enough to fit. In winter, when adult water voles and their offspring take shelter in their burrows, a mink can wipe out the entire population. 

A keystone species - positively impacting others

Water vole conservation is important for the continued survival of the species in the UK. It is also important because water voles play an important role in the wider ecosystem. As a keystone species, water voles create the conditions for other animals to thrive. They increase habitat complexity and plant community diversity through their burrowing and grazing behaviour. Their decline therefore, has the potential to reduce habitat complexity and plant diversity in riparian areas. They are also an important prey species for a number of Britain’s most charismatic predators, including otters, marsh harries and golden eagles. 

The public has been drawn to the battle to save 'ratty' the water vole, a character in the classic novel Wind in the Willows. We hope that being part of the collective effort to win this battle will spark more imagination - to see this animal settle safely in our waterways once more.

To learn about more rewilding interventions around Britain, browse through our other rewilding projects.  If you want to explore articles written about a range of rewilding topics, head over to our rewilding blog.

Supporting Water Vole Translocation led by the Northumberland Wildlife Trust

Water voles were once plentiful in UK waters, but are now battling to survive. Mossy Earth's contributing to reintroductions through this translocation project.

Translocating water voles to help reestablish a beloved British mammal

Assisting in the effort to restore one of Britain's beloved mammals.

In Namibia, the region we are working in was once home to three species of vulture that are now locally extinct. The cape vulture (Gyps coprotheres), lappet faced vulture (Torgos tracheliotos) and white backed vulture (Gyps africanus) are globally endangered, with the latter being critically endangered, as a result of serious anthropogenic threats, including poisoning through contaminated livestock and a lack of wild prey. To provide a safe and reliable source of food and encourage the return of these magnificent and ecologically important species, we are supporting our partners Oana, to establish a 'vulture restaurant'. This means we are providing a reliable and clean source of food for them. Over time, we hope this will encourage these species to reclaim their former haunts, to safeguard the future of these endangered species and restore a vital ecosystem service to the landscape. It would also provide significant ecotourism potential for Oana to continue to restore and rewild the Namibian landscape. This project is supported by our wonderful business partners Inlumi. 

Though these three species are locally extinct, a tracking project has recently recorded some birds visiting the area. The purpose of this project is to encourage them to return and remain in the area in the long term.  A suitable site for the ‘restaurant’ was identified to maximise the chances that any passing vultures could see the bait. The site was also chosen so that it can be visible from a nearby viewing spot to support wildlife-based tourism and increase awareness of the plight of these vultures. Goats will be sourced from the local community conservancy, where the majority of people rely on goats as a source of income. Recent droughts are causing some livestock deaths due to lack of available grazing and by sourcing reproductively inactive goats, Oana will be contributing towards local livelihoods and reducing waste. Camera traps have been installed at the site to monitor activity at the site. The funds will be used to source carcasses on a month basis for two years.

Learn more about the context behind this project

These vultures face an onslaught of threats from human activity. Accidental and intentional death from poisoned carcasses on farmland and by poachers, habitat loss, nest disturbance and destruction from expanding human settlement, collision with power lines, drowning in reservoirs and the reduction in wild ungulates (their preferred prey choice) have been identified as major threats to the survival of these species. They are also under threat from their use in traditional medicine. In some areas, it is believed that the heads, or brains, of vultures provide special powers.

By supporting the return of these species, we would not only be helping expand the range of endangered species, we would also be restoring a natural process vital for the health of the ecosystem. Vultures are natural garbage collectors and help keep the environment clean. By disposing of dead carcasses that would otherwise rot, they help keep the environment free from disease. 

To provide a safe and reliable source of food and encourage the return of endangered vultures, our partners Oana, would like to build a vulture restaurant. 

Building A Vulture Restaurant

Supporting the Return of Endangered Vultures

Our partners Alladale Wilderness Reserve have an inspiring vision for their 10,000-hectare reserve in the Scottish Highlands. They are trying to restore the reserve to its former self - a variety of landscapes brimming with biodiversity. This project will be helping to discover what wildlife is already there and how we can welcome back more. 

The Alladale team have already done great work to restore and rewild the reserve through reforestation, peatland restoration, sustainable deer management, species reintroductions and more. 

With support from The European Nature Trust and NatureSpy, Alladale undertook a three-month camera trapping project in Summer 2021 to gather a detailed inventory of the species on the reserve. To support this project, Mossy Earth intern, Charlotte, processed and analysed the data collected by the camera traps to identify the species that were recorded.

30 camera traps were installed across the reserve’s main habitat types- pinewoods, broadleaf woodlands, heathland and peatland, and grassland. Each camera ran for approximately three months and was set to record 30 second video clips. What we saw gave us great joy and inspiration.

Overall, an impressive 56 species were recorded. Among these were a number of species of conservation concern. These included dotterel, ring ouzel, black grouse, golden eagle, red squirrel, water vole, pine marten and mountain hare. 

The diversity of species recorded demonstrates the importance of the reserve in supporting many of the UKs vulnerable species. With repeated monitoring, it will be possible to detect changes in species composition through time as Alladale continues to restore habitats and return missing species. 

From these initial results, it seems that pinewoods, broadleaf woodlands and grasslands support a high diversity of species when compared to heathland habitat. However, heathland is important for a number of specialist species, with the endangered dotterel only found there, along with mountain hare, ptarmigan and several birds of prey including golden eagles. These findings emphasise how vital diverse habitat types are to sustaining these specialist species and biodiversity in general.

The results provided by this survey will enable the reserve team to have a better understanding of which species are present and where, to help guide future management decisions and monitor changes over time. It also provides a wealth of engaging communication and marketing material for the reserve to inspire others and increase awareness of the value of rewilding. 

The Hidden Lives of Scottish Wildlife Revealed

The results from our camera traps at Alladale Wilderness Reserve are back and reveal just how important the reserve is for biodiversity in Scotland.

Monitoring Wildlife at Alladale Wilderness Reserve

A promising snapshot of the reserve's wildlife on camera.

In October 2019, we launched our reforesting Scotland project to restore the Caledonian forest in the Scottish Highlands. So far we’ve planted 12,000 native trees at Alladale Wilderness Reserve.

The reforesting Scotland project aims to restore and diversify the native pinewood habitat. Scots pine and downy birch saplings are being planted in open areas while less common food-producing broadleaf species are being planted in existing planting schemes to enrich and diversify the growing woodland. River banks are being planted with species such as alder and bird cherry to help stabilise the river bank and create vital riparian woodland habitat.

To compliment the reforestation activities, we have developed the following rewilding interventions for the area: monitoring of Atlantic salmon and construction of eagle nest platforms.

Pine sapling.jpg

We plant Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), downy birch (Betula pubescens), juniper (Juniperus communis), hazel (Corylus avellana), holly (Ilex aquifolium), European crab apple (Malus sylvestris), common hawthorn (Cratageus monogyna), alder (Alnus glutinosa), bird cherry (Prunus padus), Elder (Sambucus nigra) and Wych elm (Ulmus glabra).

Twinflower (Linnea borealis), black grouse (Lyrurus tetrix), golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris), Scottish crossbill (Loxia scotica), pine marten (Martes martes) and Atlantic salmon (Salmon salar) are all present in the area.

Historically, much of the Scottish Highlands were covered in a forest of majestic Scots pine and colourful broadleaf trees, home to a diversity of plants and animals. Today, the landscape is largely devoid of these unique woodlands and many of the species that once thrived here have been lost. Our aim is to undo some of this damage and restore the empty glens and rewild the Scottish Highlands to rich, biodiverse, wild woodlands.  

The Scottish pinewoods are a globally unique habitat due to the absence of any other conifer tree, other than Scots pine, within the woodland. These woodlands support some of the UK’s rarest plant and animal species like the beautiful and delicate twinflower, the elusive wildcat and the impressive capercaillie. Restoring native woodlands in all their beautiful complexity will help return Scotland to wilder, richer state that a variety of species, including humans, can enjoy.

At the end of the last Ice Age, much of the Scottish Highlands were covered in woodland, mainly composed of Scots pine and birch. Around 4,000 years ago, the climate began to change. The natural tree line lowered, peat bogs expanded and woodland cover began to decline.

At around the same time, humans began to significantly change the landscape around them. Trees were felled to make room for crops and graze livestock, to harvest timber and fuelwood. By the 1700s, the great Caledonian Forest was reduced to small, isolated pockets of the Highlands. Much of the wildlife that thrived here, like lynx, bears and wolves, were lost.

In the 18th and 19th century, when much of the landscape had already been cleared of forests, estate owners began to clear the land of people. Known as the Highland Clearances, local people were forcibly evicted from their homes, entire villages were cleared, to make way for sheep grazing. Today, a combination of sheep farming, unsustainable numbers of deer and intensive land management for sporting purposes is restricting the ability of native woodlands to regenerate on their own. Reforestation with native species is therefore vital to restore this unique habitat.

In 2019, we launched our reforesting Scotland project to restore the Caledonian forest in the Scottish Highlands.

Reforesting Scotland

Seaweeds are of immense value for marine ecosystems. Kelp, the largest of them all, form spectacular underwater forests that provide habitat for fish, clean the water and sequester carbon. Unfortunately, large swaths of these subaquatic forests have disappeared from the coast of many European countries. Although many factors appear to be contributing to this trend, there is still a lot we don’t know about the ecosystems engineered by seaweeds and this makes it difficult to carry out effective conservation and restoration work. We have partnered with SeaForester to make large scale restoration of seaweed forests along the coast of Portugal a reality. To start the process we are implementing a kelp restoration trial.

Kelp are large brown seaweeds belonging to the order Laminariales and are widely known for the impressive subaquatic forests that they form. In order to bring back these kelp forests to the areas from which they have disappeared it is important to test and refine available techniques. 

This project involves carrying out a trial to test the “spore bag” seeding technique to bring back golden kelp (Laminaria ochroleuca) to the coast of Cascais, Portugal where it used to be very abundant. Reproductive structures of the plant are collected from donor populations, placed in mesh bags and attached to the rocky reef identified for restoration. The idea is for the spores to be released from the reproductive structures, to settle on the underlying bedrock and create new patches of kelp forest.

The world’s shallow coastal areas, where sunlight penetrates, are the cradles of the ocean. Here seaweed forests grow supporting a rich and diverse assemblage of marine fauna and flora by providing highly productive three-dimensional habitats. In addition to reducing the loss of biodiversity in oceans, kelp forests also provide ecosystem services by reversing acidification, an important part of climate change mitigation.   

Unfortunately, European seaweed forests are disappearing at an alarming rate. Although we lack the data to figure out the actual causes for this decline, these are likely to be important drivers in many areas:

Climate change affecting water temperatures

A build up of sediment as a result of both human and natural causes 

Increases in herbivory rates due to overfishing and its impact on coastal ecological communities

Unlike land-based deforestation which has received a lot of attention, the loss of marine forests tends to go mostly unnoticed. This may be due to the fact that the underwater-world is out of sight for most of us and its deterioration is therefore not as obvious. As result, there are still very few seaweed restoration projects in Europe and there is a great need to develop greater know-how in this area. This is where our partnership with SeaForester comes in to restore these 'forgotten forests'.

SeaForester is an initiative that aims to reverse the alarming disappearance of seaweed forests in the world in order to safeguard the oceans’ vital role of carbon sequestration, maintaining fish stocks and securing the planet’s wellbeing. Along the coastline of the municipality of Cascais they are pioneering the work to identify the reasons for the decline in seaweed populations and to test seeding techniques. Therefore this project will not be carried out in isolation but will be integrated with other efforts to restore the area with community involvement from Club Naval de Cascais (CNC).

Thanks to our members we are able to get this initial research project off the ground, where previously there's been difficulty securing funding. With this support, action-based research like this can snowball into large-scale restoration of kelp forests - our ultimate aim. 

Pioneering seaweed restoration work in Europe

Bringing back the Lost Kelp Forests of Europe - Project Vlog

Kelp restoration trial is a rewilding project designed to test the spore bag technique to bring back kelp to areas from which it has disappeared. 

Kelp Restoration Trial

On the central California coastline in the ecologically precious estuary and salt marshes of Elknorn Slough resides an ‘Ecosystem Superhero’ who needs our help. The Southern sea otter (Enhydra lutris nereis), aka the California sea otter, is a subspecies of otter currently vulnerable to human disturbances. Without intervention not only will this wonderfully unique species be in danger, but we also risk losing their vital services in maintaining ecological balance. Inaction could drastically alter biodiversity in the region. 

This project has been co-funded by our members and Not Just Tavel's Climate Heroes programme.

Following the fur trade, sea otters are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List and the southern sea otter subspecies is listed as threatened under the US Endangered Species Act, having undergone rapid population decline in the early 1900s. Today, the Southern sea otter faces daily threats from sharks, toxins, diseases, and human disturbances. 

To combat the impacts of human disturbance, this project assesses the impact of increasing marine recreation users to sea otters living in Elkhorn Slough, an estuary just north of Monterey Bay. The data gathered will then be used to inform future management decisions and ensure that otters can safely inhabit the slough. 

Elkhorn Slough is a region along the Central Coast of California that is home to a recovering population of Southern sea otters. The slough also hosts human visitors wishing to kayak, stand-up paddleboard, scuba dive, and participate in other marine recreation activities. As a result of the initial COVID-19 lockdown, marine recreation increased significantly at the start of last year. On the one hand, whilst it’s encouraging to know more people want to engage in nature, many first-time visitors are unaware of specific protocols used to reduce their impact on the surrounding wildlife. Consequently, there is a clear need to understand impacts and take action before irreversible damage is done. Wildlife disturbance is a huge concern of major conservation agencies, yet data correlating increased human disturbances to harmful impacts on wildlife is very rare to come by. 

Sea Otter Savvy is an on-the-ground organization on the Central California coast dedicated to fostering awareness and stewardship of this issue amongst the coastal community. The impact of the pandemic on its funding has meant this organization urgently needs support. Therefore, at Mossy Earth, we are supporting them in monitoring, measuring, and assessing the impact of the increased marine recreation on sea otters in the slough. Our members will cover the purchase of a camera trap to monitor visitor numbers and a stipend for a local university student to analyze the data. These data will be used by Sea Otter Savvy to inform stakeholders of best practices for mitigating the effects of crowds to the sea otters and other surrounding wildlife. 

Learn more about why we are restoring sea otter populations

As Sea Otter Savvy puts it, sea otters are “ecosystem superheroes.” These furry friends play a critical role in their marine ecosystems as a predator keystone species. This is an ecological term given to species who have a profound impact on their ecosystem by keeping its prey in check, without them trophic cascades can be destabilized and ecosystems suffer. Kelp forests and seagrass beds, maintained by healthy sea otter populations, provide a home for hundreds of fish species, nursery habitats for invertebrate species, and carbon storage that can combat climate change. 

When sea otters are removed from a kelp ecosystem

Sea otters are a species that many other creatures in the ecosystem depend on, and their disappearance would have drastic consequences. Marine invertebrates can swarm a habitat and cause imbalance. Sea urchins are one such invertebrate who feed on kelp, without predators controlling their numbers, they can decimate kelp forests.  Another is crab, who feed on sea slugs – a species that graze on eelgrass and keep its blades free of algae and hence, healthy. By consuming large amounts of these invertebrates, sea otters control their populations and protect these important ecosystems.

Sea otters may be fierce predators but they have a number of physiological characteristics that make them particularly vulnerable to disturbance.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, the booming fur trade took a serious toll on sea otter populations, as they were hunted to near extinction. Once residing continuously along the North Pacific Rim, southern sea otters have now reclaimed only about 13% of their historic range. These extant sea otter populations demonstrate low levels of genetic diversity, resulting in relatively weak populations. On top of this, sea otters have unique physiological characteristics that make them particularly sensitive to disturbances. For instance, sea otters spend much of their time resting to conserve energy to forage, and even small disturbances can severely disrupt this critical resting period. This is especially the case for sea otter mothers who need up to double the energy to provide for their young so swimming away from approaching humans exerts extra precious energy. Sea otters also lack the layer of blubber that many marine mammals possess, leaving them with little ability to store their precious energy as fat.  Understanding the threats that various human disturbances pose to these incredible creatures, then, is tremendously important to ensure that current and future populations can survive and thrive. 

If you are keen to find out more about marine rewilding or rewilding in general, head over to our kelp restoration trial project page and rewilding blog.

Sea Urchins Are Taking Over the Ocean Floor: Here is Why

California's sea otters are vital to kelp forests and seagrass beds ecosystems. This project aims to address a recent threat to their population.

Restoring California’s Sea Otter Populations

Researching the impacts of human disturbance

Romania's Carpathian Mountains are home to some of Europe’s last remaining truly wild forests and the largest population of bears, wolves and lynx. Sadly, this ecosystem hangs in the balance due to years of illegal logging. Our goal is to restore the barren clear cuts that threaten these forests. In partnership with Foundation Conservation Carpathia we are working to restore clear cuts in the Romania's Southern Carpathian Mountains. 

Brown bear.jpeg

We plant Norway spruce (Picea abies), silver fir (Abies alba), wych elm (Ulmus glabra), rowan (Sorbus aucuparia), European ash (Fraxinus excelsior), Norway maple (Acer platanoides) and European beech (Fagus slyvatica).

Brown bear (Ursus arctos), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), grey wolf (Canis lupus), European bison (Bison bonases) and Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) are all present in the area.

On the ground at our project area in the Southern Carpathians

Reforesting the Southern Carpathians

The Southern Carpathian Mountains in Romania have some of the most intact ecosystems in Europe. These mountains are a treasure of biodiversity and a shared heritage that should remain for future generations to enjoy peacefully.

Old growth forests in Europe have become extremely scarce, the Carpathian Mountains represent the biggest unfragmented area of virgin forests in Europe. The Carpathians are home to the largest populations of large carnivores in Europe including bears, wolves and lynx. The area is home to an extraordinary range of endemic species as well.

Camera trap footage of wildlife in winter in the Southern Carpathians

Winter Camera Traps Souther Carpathians

The communist People’s Republic of Romania formed through Soviet occupation of the country following World War II. During this era, thousands of people suffered under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Romania's wilderness, in comparison, faired quite well. It was seemingly protected from the kind of exploitation experienced throughout other areas of Europe at the time and acted as a refuge for species that were declining across Europe. It is believed Ceaușescu, being a less than capable hunter, is the reason for the comparatively high number of bears in the Carpathian Mountains today. Big game hunting was extremely limited during this time, and permits were granted almost entirely to the Communist Party members. Unable to shoot many bears, his trusted aides also launched a re-population programme so that he had a better chance of killing one, alleviating them from his tempers.

After the collapse of the Romanian economy in the 1980s and the fall of the Communist government, Romania's national forests were restituted to private owners. Newly privatised and communal forests have continued to be clear cut at an alarming rate ever since. At the same time, the democratization of hunting has caused dramatic declines in wildlife populations. Although there is rising awareness about the dramatic situation of some of the last old-growth forest in Europe, reforesting action needs to be taken now, as logging continues to destroy these precious areas.

Our reforesting the Southern Carpathians project seeks to turn the tide on illegal clear cuts by restoring one of the most wild ecosystems in Europe.

Reforesting The Southern Carpathians

Healing clear-cuts in Europe's last remaining wilderness

In April 2020, we launched our project to restore one of the last remnants of Central Europe’s floodplain forests. With our local partner Broz, we are planting trees along the Danube river in Slovakia.

The project aims to restore this unique forest and conserve the diversity of fauna and flora that inhabit the area. By planting open areas with native trees, such as poplars, elms and maples, we are working to increase forest cover and habitat availability for species like the locally endangered black stork, the charismatic beaver and the rare large copper butterfly. Floodplain forests are an important carbon sink and their restoration has the potential to sequester a large amount of carbon and contribute to the fight against the climate crisis.  

Slovakia saplings.jpeg

Silver poplar (Populus alba), black poplar (Populus nigra), European ash (Fraxinus excelsior), narrow-leafed ash (Fraxinus angustifolia), European white elm (Ulmus leavis), field elm (Ulmus minor), common oak (Quercus robur), Norway maple (Acer platanoides).

European pond turtle (Emys orbicularis), black stork (Ciconia nigra), stag beetle (Lucanus cervus), large copper (Lycaena dispar).

One of the most endangered forest habitats in the world, today, only 5-20% of the Danube floodplains are forested. They grow along rivers and streams and are characterised by an intricate dynamic flooding and dry periods, a variety of different water conditions (slow flowing, fast flowing, standing and quick drying water bodies) and high groundwater. These diverse conditions mean the forests can support a diversity of species. They also play an important role in filtering and cleaning water supplies and providing natural protection against floods.

The unique floodplain forests are home to a diversity of mammals, like the Eurasian river otter and beaver. They are also an important habitat for birds, with a high density of species comparable to other forest types. The locally endangered black stork and white-tailed eagle nest on the tall trees while the black woodpecker occupies the natural cavities in the tree trunks. With over 60 fish species, 109 molluscs and thousands of insects species, these forests are teeming with life. Among the busy communities of these forests, you can find the rare stag beetle and beautiful large copper.

Unsustainable forest management has caused the destruction and degradation of huge swathes of the native Danube floodplain forests. Traditional management practices has focused on maximising wood and pulp production, through large scale clear-cuts, the removal of top soil as well as the planting of hybrid poplars and other non-native tree species. A lack of food and shelter in these non-native monocultures means they are unable to support the diversity of species found in native forests. Harvested at an age of 20-40 years, these forests are unable to reach maturity. Old trees in which woodpeckers and other birds could nest are entirely absent, as well as the dead wood that many insects and fungi rely on. The rich native herbs, fungi and trusses of the undergrowth are also unable to re-establish in that time period.

Humans have severely altered the hydrology of the area and caused significant damage as a result. The Danube floodplain habitats rely on healthy rivers and waterbodies as well as periods of flooding and high groundwater levels. However, decades of regulating watercourses, construction of dams and draining of flooded areas, has left these unique floodplain habitats in poor condition and a fraction of the size they once were. With increased temperatures and decreasing rainfall brought on by the current climate crisis, the future of this unique habitat is at even greater risk.

The Danube floodplain forests cover only a fraction of what they did in the past. Our Restoring The Floodplain Forests project seeks to reverse this damage.

Slovakia - Restoring The Floodplain Forests of the Danube

Like many European countries, Spain is undergoing a process of widespread land abandonment. For decades, the landscape in Andalucía has been shaped by grazing by both wild and domestic herbivores. The current trend of abandoning livestock grazing activities and removing livestock from the landscape is having serious consequences for the open and semi-open habitats that many species there thrive on, such as wild rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and red-legged partridges (Alectoris rufa), important prey species for the endangered Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus). As open areas become dense with vegetation, they also become more at risk of forest fires. The European bison (Bison bonasus), or wisent, is the largest herbivore in Europe and is considered a keystone species, having a profound impact on the landscape through its grazing and trampling behaviour. Listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN red list, their reintroduction to the Spanish landscape could have profound benefits for restoring these vital habitats and supporting the range expansion of the rare European bison. 

Tracking Europe's most southerly population of Bison

In October and November 2020, 18 bison were reintroduced to the El Encinarejo property by the dedicated owners and bison experts at the European Bison Conservation Centre of Spain. This project is intended to act as example to others in Spain of a more sustainable approach to land management and nature and species conservation. Detailed monitoring of the impacts of the bison on the landscape, habitat use, foraging behaviour and species interactions will be carried out to gather this vital information. By demonstrating how European bison behave in a Spanish ecosystem, with minimal human interference, the project hopes to ultimately inspire and inform further reintroductions on large properties in the Andalucian region and beyond. 

To support the project at El Encinarejo to gather the data they need, Mossy Earth is sponsoring the purchase of a GPS collar and three camera traps. The GPS collar will gather detailed data on their movements across the landscape. The camera traps, placed strategically at important sites, such as wallowing sites, where bison repeatedly roll around for grooming purposes, will provide important behavioural data. 

Learn More About the Context Behind this Project

Similar to the North American bison (or American buffalo), the European bison has suffered a dark history at the hands of humans. After decades of over-hunting and habitat loss, only two populations survived in Europe by the 20th century. One was in the remote Northern Caucasus Mountains of Russia and another was in Poland’s Białowieża Forest, where a herd of around 600 bison remained. The last wild bison were killed during World War I and the Russian revolution, but thankfully a few individuals survived in captivity. Efforts to reintroduce bison back to the wild began in the 1950s in Poland and thanks to further captive breeding and reintroduction efforts, like the one underway at El Encinarejo, there are now around 6,000 wild and semi-wild bison in Europe living in Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, The Netherlands and elsewhere.

Reintroductions are an important mechanism for expanding the range of European bison and safeguarding the long-term survival of the species, but they also have the potential to contribute to the restoration and sustainable management of grassland and semi-open habitats in Europe. Just like the American bison, European bison can help create and maintain grasslands and semi-open forests, supporting a wealth of insects and birds, through their foraging. Other ungulates benefit too, due to the landscape engineering work of the bison. They also disturb and aerate the soil through their wallowing and trampling behaviour and fertilize the land through their dung.

Contributing to the Area’s Ambitious Rewilding Goals

The intervention area encompasses what’s known as a dehesa landscape, a multifunctional agroforestry landscape comprising a mosaic of open grasslands with scattered evergreen trees, including oaks, and areas of more closed canopy. It is home to a number of conservation priority species such as the endangered Iberian Lynx, the vulnerable Spanish Imperial Eagle (Aquila adalberti) and near threatened Cinereous Vulture (Aegypius monachus). The bison monitoring efforts are part of an ambitious landscape-level approach that aims to restore this unique habitat and conserve the rare species that call El Encinarejo home. 

The Reintroduction of European Bison in Spain hopes to drive widespread changes to landscapes abandoned by livestock activities. This rewilding project will monitor bison movements using GPS collars and camera traps.

Monitoring Reintroduced European Bison in Spain

In the summer of 2019, we set out to implement another rewilding project - GPS tagging griffon vultures in the Côa Valley in northern Portugal. Since July 2019 we have been supporting this vulture conservation intervention in collaboration with our partners, Rewilding Portugal, at the location of our Wildfire Restoration project. The detailed behavioural data acquired through this project is already providing answers to questions that before were only a matter of speculation. 

On the ground report: GPS Tagging Griffon Vultures

Learn more about why we are tagging Griffon vultures and vulture conservation.

The scarcity of wild herbivores in western Iberia means that griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus) tend to feed on the abandoned carcasses of domesticated animals such as cattle and sheep. This makes them particularly vulnerable to changes in livestock farming practices. In 2001, following the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis (“mad cow disease”), the European union prohibited the abandonment of livestock carcasses in the field to prevent spread of the disease. The reduced food availability contributed to the decline of vulture populations in the area. 

Since then, however, the Iberian population has shown an impressive comeback. In the Côa valley, there were less than 10 breeding pairs during the 1990s and this number rose to 74 by 2015. The comeback to the areas was facilitated by the protection of suitable nesting habitat within the Faia Brava reserve. However, the key driver for the resurgence of griffon vultures throughout the Iberian Peninsula appears to have been a relaxation of the EU policy which once again allowed farmers to leave livestock carcasses in the field. 

Spain reverted it’s legislation before Portugal did. This explains a previous finding that vultures tagged in Spain clearly avoid Portuguese territory. In Portugal, abandoning livestock carcasses in the field became legal again in 2017 but obtaining the required permissions is a highly bureaucratic process which means that few farmers have changed their practices. 

Although the griffon vulture population in the Coa Valley has been monitored in the past, we could only guess where the vultures were foraging and what they were feeding on. This is where our vulture conservation project comes in by sponsoring the GPS devices required to track the movement patterns of griffon vultures.

These solar powered devices transmit precise geographical information without the need to recapture the individuals and have built in accelerometers which provide additional information about the way in which the vulture is moving at a given moment in time. This data can be used to determine when the vulture is resting, flying or foraging.

Moreover, this data can be used to identify the time and location of likely feeding events. By going to the field and looking for signs of feeding (such as carcass remains and vulture feathers), these feeding events can be confirmed and we can obtain information about what the vultures were feeding on, which in turn aids future vulture conservation efforts.

Contributing to the area's ambitious rewilding goals

This work of GPS tagging griffon vultures is part of a larger project that is currently being implemented in the region. The project "Scaling Up Rewilding in the Greater Côa Valley" is being led by Rewilding Europe and focuses on reinforcing a 120,000-hectare wildlife corridor that will improve connectivity in the landscape between the Malcata mountain range and the Douro Valley. This project is financed by the Endangered Landscapes Programme, which is managed by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative and funded by Arcadia, a charitable fund of Peter Baldwin and Lisbet Rausing.

Carlos Pacheco, raptor expert at ATNatureza.

GPS tagging the vultures will allow us to see whether the birds are feeding mostly on the carcasses of domestic livestock, or also on wild herbivores, and how often they visit vulture feeding stations, which will ultimately enable us to improve the management of food sources for the birds and support the restoration of trophic chains.

This interactive map was created with the data from 4 of the Griffon vultures tagged in the summer of 2019. You can follow the journey of each individual and see the distance travelled up to that point (by clicking on the bird's icon).

GPS tagging vultures gave us invaluable insight to the birds’ foraging behaviour. The data will support the restoration of food chains & future vulture conservation.

GPS Tagging Griffon Vultures

The fairy cave in Bosnia and Herzegovina has never been explored, but it is not untouched. It lies within one of the world’s cave biodiversity hotspots, likely to provide habitat to unique and mysterious cave-dwelling animals. The aim of this expedition is to be the first explorers to discover what lurks in the depths of this cave, survey its biodiversity and help avert a conceivably dark fate – their extinction. The timing of this expedition is critical, the surrounding karst field has already been damaged by the operation of one of the country’s largest coal-fired power plants. Now, plans to expand the plant could end up drying up these caves or contaminating its waters, potentially causing the eradication of species that nobody has ever known existed. Surveying this special habitat presents an immensely exciting opportunity from a scientific perspective, but the ultimate goal is to use this data to fight for its protection. To achieve this, we are joining forces with the most committed teams in the region who are the main voice pushing for change. 

We Explored Unknown Caves in Bosnia - Here is What We Found!

In June 2021 we set out on an expedition to survey the biodiversity of an unexplored underwater cave in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The team included expert biospeleologists, cave divers, cave mappers as well as members of the  Croatian Institute for Biodiversity (HIB), local activists from the Center for the Environment (CZZS) and some of us at Mossy Earth. There are two main reasons why we planned this expedition.  The first relates to addressing knowledge gaps about biodiversity. It is very hard to protect species if we don´t even know they exist and to assist the recovery of endangered species if we don't know their distribution. This part of the world is a hotspot for cave biodiversity and so by surveying an unexplored cave here we may find species that are new to science. The second reason was that this site is threatened by plans to expand a nearby coal-fired power plant and relevant data was urgently needed by local activists to inform their campaign to protect this unique habitat. 

The expedition took place over 3 days and can best be described as a frenzy of scientific exploration. We documented the process and some of the preliminary findings in the video above and the team is currently summarising the results into an expedition report. 

This was the first time anyone has ever ventured into this uncharted corner of our planet - a feat which wouldn’t have come about were it not for the funding provided by mossy earth members and the hard work of the cave divers from the HIB and the team from CZZS. Their devotion and passion to preserve a national heritage that remains undiscovered have given us this chance to bring to light what’s been left in the dark. 

The mysteries of cave life and why they matter 

Cave dwelling species show unusually high levels of endemism which means that they tend to be found only within a very small range. Some species exist only in a single cave. In an age when few can truly pioneer exploration of this kind; where we have the sense that no stone has been left unturned on our planet; cave divers continue to discover new species on a regularly basis! This thrilling opportunity is what drives the teams persistently working to safeguard these national treasures. Although this is part of what makes biospeleology so captivating it also creates a problem for conservation. Since there are many unexplored caves, there are several species which have not yet be identified. If these caves were completely isolated from the world aboveground and from the damage we are creating at the surface level, this might not be a huge problem. However, they are actually very sensitive habitats. The artificial manipulation of a water courses or the contamination of inflowing water for example, can destroy cave habitat in an instant and cause the extinction of species that no human being has yet seen. This is what makes this challenge so important to us and although we are fighting against the tide of the pollution crisis, there is real hope we can rescue these precious cave creatures. 

Our Projects

Reforestation

Rewilding

Saving Rare Sea Cliff Plants in Portugal

Foraois | Reforesting Ireland

Translocating Water Voles

Building A Vulture Restaurant

Monitoring Wildlife at Alladale Wilderness Reserve

Reforesting Scotland