Five critical questions we should ask of rewilding projects - and that social science can help us answer

1. Engaging conservation decision-making with critical aspects of social science canenhance the equitability of conservation practice by recentring issues of socialand environmental justice.

2. Using rewilding as a conservation case in point, we identify five foundationalquestions to ask of rewilding projects to help align rewilding decision-making withjustice principles.

3. We unpack these questions through five rewilding case studies: YellowstoneNational Park (USA), Oostvaardersplassen (NL), Knepp Wildland (UK), AlladaleWilderness Reserve (UK) and Carpathia (RO). Applying different social sciencedisciplines—history, anthropology, political ecology, human geography and soci-ology—we explore rewilding's socio- cultural and socio-economic dimensions; as-pects that underpin rewilding decision-making, but that remain under-representedin the literature as well as in praxis.

4. We show that the decisions made in these rewilding projects not only impactecosystems but are also deeply connected to people and societies, making theminseparable from issues of social justice. In addition to the ecological goals, wehighlight the social motivations driving these projects and consider what societymight gain or lose—beyond increased ecological dynamism and species recovery.

5. Bringing in different disciplinary perspectives helps us better understand the keypolitical issues and debates raised by rewilding projects. We argue that this ap-proach is essential for achieving both ecologically effective and socially just bio-diversity governance.