Cultural landscape as myth

The notion that European cultural landscapes are a "natural heritage" to be preserved is scientifically untenable. They are the result of deforestation, drainage, river straightening, agriculture, and settlement—in other words, permanent, often massive, human interventions over centuries. This dossier systematically challenges the cultural landscape narrative. Its focus is not on moral judgments, but on verifiable facts: their origins, ecological impact, and scientific alternatives.

What awaits you here

Cultural landscape: not a natural heritage, but a human creation : Why no Central European cultural landscape originated naturally, what the concept of "naturally grown landscape" obscures, and what research says about the ecological origin of these landscape types.
Ecologically impoverished stabilization systems : Why cultural landscapes only exist through constant human intervention, how they systematically suppress natural ecosystem services, and what the Krefeld study proves about the state of these landscapes.
Rewilding as a scientific answer : What process-oriented nature conservation means, how the Helmholtz Centre UFZ investigates rewilding projects in Germany and why natural dynamics create more resilient ecosystems than maintenance-intensive conservation.
European practice and Swiss examples : Where large rewilding areas are being created in Europe, what the reintroduction of bison in the Jura shows and what the European Environment Agency recommends for ecosystem restoration.
Critical counter-positions : What objections classical nature conservation raises, what the Dutch project Oostvaardersplassen teaches about the limits of rewilding, and where the ethical and political tensions lie.
What needs to change : Concrete political demands: Process protection instead of conservation through care, enhancement of natural dynamics, space for wilderness in landscape policy.
Argumentation : Answers to the most common objections to rewilding and natural processes.
Quick links : All relevant articles, studies and dossiers at a glance.

Cultural landscape: not a natural heritage, but a human creation

When conservation groups, agricultural lobbyists, or hunting associations speak of "naturally evolved cultural landscapes," it sounds like tradition, depth, and ecological legitimacy. What the concept actually describes is a landscape condition that was never natural. Central European cultural landscapes—flower meadows, heaths, riparian forests in straightened river valleys, vineyards, alpine pastures—are the product of clearing, drainage, river straightening, fertilization, grazing, and settlement. None of these forms arose spontaneously.

The term "grown" suggests biological origin and historical depth. In reality, it simply means old enough to be taken for granted. A straightened river is not "grown." A drained wetland is not "natural." A mountain meadow that is replaced by forest within a few years without annual mowing is not an independent ecosystem—it is a state dependent on human labor. The concept of the cultural landscape as natural heritage fulfills a political function: it legitimizes the maintenance of a human-made status quo by referring to supposed naturalness.

The consequences for the nature conservation debate are far-reaching. Those who treat cultural landscapes as "ancient" and "natural" conclude that altering them is destruction – whether through beavers, floodplain restoration, forest succession, or rewilding projects. This logic reverses ecological reality: Restoring natural processes is not destruction. Destruction is the suppression of natural dynamics over centuries, which has caused the decline of 76 percent of insect biomass, the disappearance of floodplains, and the collapse of waterfowl populations.

More on this topic: Hunting and biodiversity: Does recreational hunting really protect nature? and Recreational hunting and climate change

Ecologically impoverished stabilization systems

Cultural landscapes are not stable ecosystems. They are artificially stabilized states that require constant human intervention: mowing, leveling, fertilizing, draining, and felling. As soon as this intervention ceases, ecological succession begins – the natural process of recolonization by pioneer trees, shrubs, and eventually forest. What conservationists then lament as "rewilding" is, in reality, the ecosystem repairing itself.

The Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE) notes that landscapes in many regions have been adapted to human needs over centuries to such an extent that natural ecosystem services – self-purification of water bodies, natural flood protection, soil formation, pollination – have been systematically neglected. This has backfired: landscapes optimized for a single land use goal are highly vulnerable to climate fluctuations, pest pressure, and societal change.

The Krefeld study from 2017 made headlines in this context: Within 27 years, insect biomass in Germany has declined by 76 percent – even in designated nature reserves surrounded by intensively used agricultural landscapes. The finding is clear: It is not enough to maintain isolated protected areas within an ecologically impoverished matrix. The matrix itself – the agricultural landscape – is the problem.

More on this topic: Wildlife corridors and habitat connectivity and Wildlife corridors: Migrating animals have a hard time

Rewilding as a scientific response

Rewilding is not a romantic back-to-nature concept, but a scientifically grounded approach within modern restoration ecology. The core principle: Humans create the conditions for natural processes – by removing barriers, reintroducing keystone species, or abandoning intensive land use – and then withdraw. The ecosystem develops on its own. Instead of the labor-intensive preservation of a historical state, a self-regulating system with its own dynamics emerges.

The Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) is investigating in the REWILD_DE research project how river restoration, natural grazing by large animals, and coexistence with wildlife contribute to the restoration of biodiversity. The research results show that restored river sections develop a level of biodiversity in just a few years that managed riverbanks do not achieve in decades. Deadwood, bank erosion, fluctuating water levels – all the elements that agricultural landscape management combats as disorder – are the foundation of productive ecosystems.

Rewilding is not the end of human responsibility, but rather its reformulation. Instead of "What state do we maintain?", the question is: "What processes do we allow?" In practice, this means letting beavers perform their ecological engineering feat, leaving floodplains to their natural flooding cycles, tolerating deadwood in the forest, and accepting wolves and lynxes as regulators instead of replacing them with hunting quotas.

European practice and Swiss examples

Large rewilding areas are increasingly emerging in Europe. In the Polish and Belarusian parts of the Białowieża Forest – the last remaining lowland primeval forest in Europe – the potential of natural dynamics is evident: a biodiversity that managed forests cannot even come close to achieving. In Romania, extensive wilderness areas are developing in the Carpathian Mountains, home to bison, wolves, bears, and lynx. In the Netherlands, the Kraansvlak project is experimenting with free-roaming European bison in dune landscapes. In Portugal, new wilderness zones are being created in the Côa region, transforming former agricultural land into near-natural habitats.

In Switzerland, the reintroduction of European bison in the canton of Jura (Thal, SO) is the most prominent practical example. These animals perform natural landscape management functions: they open up forests by stripping bark and rubbing, creating clearings and structural diversity that benefit numerous other species. What appears to conservationists as "browsing" is, from an ecological perspective, a service: the creation of transition zones, clearings, and deadwood. The European Environment Agency (EEA) states in its recommendations for the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy that restoring functioning ecosystems is a key response to global biodiversity loss – and that this restoration must include natural processes, not just species lists.

More on this topic: Geneva and the hunting ban and wildlife management in Geneva: prevention instead of shooting

Critical counter-arguments

The rewilding concept is not without its contradictions, and these deserve serious consideration. Traditional nature conservation – particularly organizations specializing in the management of species-rich cultural landscapes – fears that natural succession will displace those open-land species that depend on extensive farming practices. Butterfly species of dry meadows, ground-nesting birds of cultivated land, and certain orchid communities co-evolved with human use. Simply leaving them to succession would destroy their habitats.

The Dutch Oostvaardersplassen project has demonstrated how difficult it is to consistently implement the principle of "letting nature take its course." When large herbivores starved en masse in the enclosed area, the project came under intense public pressure. The question of when visible animal suffering necessitates human intervention is ethically complex. Rewilding requires functioning ecosystems with sufficient space and complete food webs. Enclosed small-scale projects without large predators and without escape routes for overpopulated herbivores are not rewilding, but rather a semi-open zoo.

These tensions are not resolved by principle, but by context. In large-scale wilderness areas, floodplains, along rivers, and in mountainous regions with sufficient space, rewilding is scientifically well-founded. In small-scale, fragmented cultural landscapes with high settlement pressure, more nuanced approaches are needed: targeted management for highly specialized open-land species, combined with maximum space for natural processes where possible. The problem lies not in rewilding as a concept, but in its application without context.

What would need to change

Recognizing process protection as equal to conservation efforts: Swiss nature conservation policy is geared towards maintaining existing conditions. Ecological processes must be enshrined in federal law as independent conservation objectives. What happens naturally should no longer automatically be considered a threat.
Extracting beavers, wolves, and floodplain dynamics from the problem logic: Beavers are the most effective river restoration animals in Europe. Wolves regulate ungulate populations in a way that hunting quotas structurally cannot. These animals and processes need space, not displacement. Model motion: Sample texts for motions critical of hunting.
Public funds should be diverted from cultural landscape maintenance where it lacks ecological justification: Millions are flowing into the upkeep of landscape features that only exist because of historical use. Funding should be geared towards ecological goals, not the preservation of historical land-use patterns.
Rewilding pilot areas in Switzerland: The canton of Jura has taken a first step with its bison project. More such projects are needed, with scientific support, transparent communication, and clear evaluation criteria.
Societal debate about the concept of "nature": In Switzerland, what is considered "natural" is politically defined, usually in favor of maintaining the status quo. An honest examination of the history of cultural landscapes would place the debate about wilderness, rewilding, and ecological recovery on a more objective basis.

Argumentation

"Cultural landscapes have developed historically and are ecologically valuable."
Historical is not synonymous with natural. Cultural landscapes are the result of massive human intervention – clearing, drainage, straightening. Some of them harbor specialized species that have co-evolved with extensive farming practices. This justifies targeted management for highly specialized open-land species. It does not, however, justify treating the entire status quo of cultural landscapes as an inviolable natural heritage.

“Rewilding destroys what has developed over centuries.”
What has developed over centuries are interventions in natural systems. Succession, flooding, and deadwood are not destruction, but rather regeneration. What happens in an abandoned meadow—growth of woody plants, siltation, and insect abundance—is not an ecological loss, but a structural enrichment. The term “destruction” functions here as a rhetorical device, not as an ecological finding.

“Without management interventions, rare species will disappear.”
This is true for certain highly specialized open-land species that do indeed depend on extensive management. These groups deserve targeted management programs. However, it does not follow that cultural landscape management as a whole is ecologically necessary. The mistake lies in the generalization: not every managed landscape is worth protecting, and not every succession is a loss.

“Rewilding is too expensive and politically unfeasible.”
The costs of the status quo are rarely fully accounted for: subsidies for cultural landscape maintenance, costs for flood protection along straightened rivers, damage caused by pollinator decline, and the costs of water treatment in pesticide-laden catchment areas. Renaturalized floodplains are demonstrably more cost-effective in flood protection than engineered structures. Rewilding is not an expensive ideal, but often the more economical solution.

“Beavers and wolves only cause damage.”
Beavers create wetlands, raise the groundwater level, filter nutrients, and measurably increase biodiversity in aquatic habitats. Their “damage” is localized and can be compensated for. Wolves regulate ungulate populations, reduce browsing pressure on forests, and stabilize social structures among deer. Both species perform ecosystem functions that humans can only replace with considerable effort and never completely.

Quick links

Articles on wildbeimwild.com:

Related dossiers:

External sources:

Our claim

Cultural landscapes are not nature. They are man-made, historically developed, ecologically impoverished, and can only be maintained through constant intervention. Those who treat this state as an inviolable natural heritage are not practicing nature conservation, but rather preserving the status quo. Modern ecology is clear on this point: self-regulating ecosystems are more resilient, more biodiverse, and ultimately more valuable to humans than landscapes frozen in a historical state of use.

This does not mean the end of cultural landscape management. It means its re-evaluation: targeted management where highly specialized species need it, and maximum space for natural processes where space allows. This dossier will be continuously updated as new research findings, political developments, or Swiss best practices necessitate it.

More on this topic: In our dossier on hunting, we compile fact checks, analyses and background reports.