Urban Wilderness in Central Europe: Rewilding at the urban fringe

Wilderness is a popular con-cept in central Europe, al-though extensive naturalareas where human management haseither never occurred or ceased centuriesago are lacking. Wilderness areas tendto be small and isolated, and often cur-rently in the process of rewilding;therefore, wilderness and rewildingmust be viewed in a specific central Eu-ropean context. As Leopold (1942)notes about the value of small wilder-ness: “One of the symptoms ofimmaturity in our concept of recre-ational values is the assumption, frequent amongadministrators, that a small park or forest has no place forwilderness. No tract of land is too small for the wildernessidea. It can, and perhaps should, flavor the recreationalscheme for any woodlot or backyard.