Cases

I lead Berlin's StadtNatur Initiative, and this question sits at the centre of almost every project I design. When we convert a vacant lot or brownfield into a functioning ecosystem, we immediately face a tension that no textbook resolves: how much human use can a recovering habitat absorb before it stops being a habitat? On one side, the ecological argument is clear. Urban soils are compacted, polluted, and fragmented. Native pollinators, birds, and small mammals are hanging on in remnant patches that get trampled, picked, and disturbed the moment they become popular. A genuine rewilding project needs periods of low human disturbance — letting spontaneous vegetation establish, allowing dead wood to accumulate, keeping dogs out of ground-nesting bird areas. In some of our Wild Corridor Network sites in Lichtenberg, we have seen that the first two years of restricted access produced a measurable increase in insect biomass and bird species richness. When we opened the gates, those gains plateaued. On the other side, the community argument is just as compelling. Berlin is a dense city where working-class families, migrants, and young people have few places to be outdoors that are free, safe, and nearby. A rewilded lot that is fenced off for ecological recovery becomes another piece of exclusionary green space — the exact dynamic that drives green gentrification. If ecological restoration becomes a justification for restricting access, we risk creating nature reserves that only the ecologists and the adjacent middle class can enjoy. The people who live next to these sites — often in the most underserved neighbourhoods — deserve to use them. They already have fewer parks per capita than the city average. This is not a technical question with an optimal answer measured in species counts. It is a value question about who urban nature is for and what ecological recovery means when humans are the keystone species of every urban landscape. I am asking this community to deliberate because I have seen otherwise excellent rewilding projects fail not from poor ecology but from poor community integration — and I have seen projects ruined for wildlife by design choices that prioritised recreation over every other function. There has to be a better way to hold both commitments.