Guiding Principles

A partnership for a wilder world.

The protection and restoration of wildlife and ecosystems is critical to the health of our planet. That’s why Re:wild and the Colossal Foundation are committed to using all of the tools available to restore species on the brink of extinction.

But how we do this is just as important as why we are doing it.

Together we are putting the right guardrails in place and making sure that we are using Colossal’s de-extinction technology to restore balance to the planet to the benefit of all life on Earth.

International Best Practices

As part of this partnership, Re:wild and Colossal will be guided by the IUCN SSC ‘Guiding Principles on Creating Proxies of Extinct Species for Conservation Benefit,’ the IUCN SSC guidelines for reintroductions and other conservation translocations, and other global guidance documentation that the IUCN SSC or other institutions create.

We are in uncharted territory and will have to go step-by-step, at each stage making sure everything is legal, ethical, and beneficial to people and our planet.

Upholding the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities

Re:wild works with more than 500 partners around the world in more than 80 countries to conserve more than 460 million acres of the wild, benefitting 33,000+ species. The partnership with Colossal will also be wildly collaborative, drawing on and in support of this vast network of local partners, including conservation organizations, governments, local communities, and Indigenous peoples.

Critically, in the process of rewilding, the partnership is committed to working in lock-step with Indigenous peoples and local communities, consistently upholding Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), which is a right that the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples established and that aligns with Indigenous peoples’ universal right to self-determination.

Wildly Collaborative Reintroductions

From Tasmanian Devils to Cuban Crocodiles, Re:wild also has a history of working with local and international partners on successfully reintroducing and translocating threatened species, carefully following the guidelines of the IUCN SSC Conservation Translocation Specialist Group. The work to restore threatened species and the grants the partnership provides to partners across the world will adhere to these guidelines.