Can restoring great thundering herds of woolly beasts to the Arctic help solve climate change and boost biodiversity?

We think so! We think the impact might be massive.

We are doing the research to verify it works and building the tools and partnerships to make it happen on the scale needed.

“If it came to pass, it would be the single largest solution or potential solution of the one hundred described in this book”

— Project Drawdown

Our mission: To scientifically test and responsibly implement “Arctic rewilding” as a nature based solution to mitigate climate change and biodiversity decline.

Arctic rewilding is the reintroduction of large mammals into northern ecosystems in order to restore the crucial lost ecosystem functions their extinct relatives provided – eventually on the scale of millions of bison, horses, elk, musk oxen, etc. Scientific evidence indicates that this could significantly reduce global climate warming while simultaneously slowing the loss of climate warming induced Arctic biodiversity. Moreover, it could improve food security, enhancing climate resilience for Northern peoples. Research at scale – i.e., over large areas with many animals – is imperative.

Potential climate impact is on the order of taking 1.5 billion cars off the road (all cars on earth) upon full implementation.

The Science: The reintroduction of large numbers of large animals to the far north can 1) slow permafrost thaw (a major source of greenhouse gas emissions), 2) pull additional carbon out of the atmosphere and sequester it in the soil, and 3) increase the proportion of solar energy reflected from the surface directly back to the atmosphere (albedo). The growing evidence-base includes a recent modeling paper indicating that Arctic rewilding could prevent up to 80% of permafrost thaw in areas of high animal densities. This is significant, as permafrost contains 1.5x more carbon than all living forests on Earth and the thaw has already begun. Team members recently published a paper in Science showing that large herbivores slow warming-caused biodiversity decline. See more on our Science page.

Media about Arctic rewilding:

Subscribe to our newsletter