Free rewilding guide launched to mark World Rewilding Day and Spring Equinox

Gosia Buzzanca

As the days finally begin to outpace the nights and World Rewilding Day is marked around the globe, Wild Mosaic  –  a digital rewilding platform built to make nature restoration accessible to everyone – launches its most ambitious public initiative to date: a free, user-friendly comprehensive guide to rewilding for complete beginners.

As the guide puts it: “You don’t need land. You don’t need specialist knowledge. You just need to know where to start.”

The timing is both hopeful and urgent. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth, sitting in the bottom 10% globally for biodiversity intactness. Half of all UK biodiversity has already been lost. Wildlife populations worldwide have declined by an average of 69% in just fifty years, and just 4% of mammals on Earth are now wild — the rest are humans, livestock and pets. And yet four in five Britons — 83%, according to YouGov polling in June 2024 — actively support rewilding and believe far more should be done, with 75% backing an increase in rewilded land to at least 5% of Britain’s surface area. The gap between public appetite and practical action has never been more stark. Wild Mosaic’s eBook is designed to close it.

A Personal Guide to Rewilding: Small Steps to Redevelop Our Natural Intelligence” is a practical, chapter-by-chapter introduction to rewilding written by Wild Mosaic founder and social entrepreneur, Jon Conradi, who came to rewilding not through a career in conservation, but through despair at the scale of environmental loss — and found in it a genuine source of hope.

The guide covers everything from how to rewild your garden in a single afternoon (leaving an unmown corner, allowing key ‘weeds’ that are nature’s friend to grow, the key species to add to deliver the best foundation for a thriving garden ecosystem, adding a container pond, cutting pesticide use), to how to take rewilding action in public spaces — from road verges to parks — alongside a directory of real rewilding sites to visit across the UK. 

Each chapter moves from understanding to action, and the guide is rooted in a central philosophy: approach rewilding with the principle of experimentation. Try something and observe. Play – with the wilder world as your partner.

Jon Conradi, Founder, Wild Mosaic, says, “Rewilding isn’t just about land — it’s about people. Wild Mosaic exists to prove that everyone can participate in bringing nature back, wherever they live. Our eBook is the starting point. The movement does the rest.”

Rewilding is a movement that catalyses change. It is about supporting biodiversity and rebuilding our connection to nature — bringing life back to land, and wildness back to people’s lives. A deeper connection to each other and to the life all around us. As Jon Conradi puts it: “Together, we are greater than the sum of our parts.” The eBook is structured across three core sections:

Rewilding Land

From the science of biodiversity and why it matters, to a hands-on guide for rewilding your garden this spring: leaving an unmown corner, adding a wildlife pond (even a half-barrel counts), introducing native wildflowers, cutting pesticide use and connecting your garden to your neighbours’ for maximum impact. Includes a directory of the UK’s best rewilding sites to visit, from Knepp Estate in West Sussex to beaver reintroduction sites across Devon, Cornwall and Wales.

Rewilding Ourselves

Addressing the disconnect from nature that underlies the biodiversity crisis. Covers how to rebuild natural intelligence — learning ten birds, identifying common trees, following the seasons — alongside the science of nature connection. University of Derby research led by Professor Miles Richardson has found that people with stronger connections to nature are significantly happier, an effect four times larger than that associated with socioeconomic status. Includes a curated toolkit of free apps: Merlin Bird ID, iRecord, iNaturalist, PlantNet and the Encounter app.

How Do I Take Action?

A clear, practical framework for every situation: whether you have a garden, no outdoor space, time, money, or influence at work. Closes with the #Wild3Words challenge — an invitation to adopt a 3×3 metre patch of local land, observe it through the seasons, and share findings with a growing national community of citizen scientists.

The guide is free to download here: A personal guide to rewilding: redevelop your natural intelligence.

Wild Mosaic and Wilder Pentwyn Farm, Radnorshire, Wales 

Wild Mosaic is a digital rewilding platform that gives anyone – regardless of whether they own land, have time to volunteer, or live near the countryside – a personal, ongoing connection to rewilding in the UK.

At its first project managed by Radnorshire Wildlife Trust at Wilder Pentwyn Farm, Wales, subscribers can choose their own 3x3m tile which is transitioning from decades of sheep pasture into a mosaic of wildflower meadow, emerging woodland, and new wetland habitats.

Each tile has its own unique three-word address. From that moment of adoption, Wild Mosaic subscribers receive regular updates – from wildlife sightings to photographs and field notes – showing exactly what is growing, arriving, and changing on or around their plot. Wild Mosaic’s four subscriber plots sit across the site – two lower plots near a stream and the River Lugg, two higher plots in a buttercup field corner and among veteran trees.

For more information on Wild Mosaic and its first project at Wilder Pentwyn Farm, Wales, visit https://www.wildmosaic.eco/

Download A Personal Guide to Rewilding here.