Reconnecting

& Rewilding

the Heartland

Our Approach

The Mississippi River Watershed is vast, spanning from Pennsylvania to Montana and Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico. Heartland Rewilding will tackle this immense watershed by breaking it down into regions. Our initial efforts will focus on the heart of the Heartland: Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. Previous work in these states has identified several large core habitat regions and potential corridors between them that are essential for successful rewilding efforts: the Loess Hills, the Driftless Area, and the Ozark Region.

Heartland Rewilding works with a network of environmental organizations and government agencies to provide the strategy, staff, and resources needed to connect and protect wildlands and advocate for reform in conservation policies and practices using sound science. We are building a framework for rewilding large landscapes across the entire Mississippi River watershed.

For more information contact

Kelly Borgmann,
Programs & Outreach Manager
KellyB@Rewilding.org

Our Focal Regions

The Midwest has lost more than 90% of its pre-colonization wildlands. Heartland Rewilding aims to reverse this trend and rewild the heart of North America.

Why Rewilding

Rewilding happens when an area once again has biological and ecological cohesion. It is a critical step in promoting and restoring self-regulating ecosystems. This can mean many different things to different people. At Heartland Rewilding, we often discuss how rewilding is a sliding scale ranging from no to high levels of human intervention, with many possible actions and definitions. The goal is to decide how you can contribute to the rewilding movement.

Research shows that rewilding is the best way path to healing Earth and slowing climate change. Increasing biodiversity and ecosystem health and resiliency will create a better, cleaner world for us all.

Join Heartland Rewilding and everyone involved in the rewilding movement by learning how you can protect and connect nature. Together we can create a world where humans and wild nature thrive.

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