Healthy, vibrant rivers sustain people and nature. By removing dams, reflooding wetlands, reversing channelization and releasing wildlife, Rewilding Europe and its partners are restoring rivers in the continent’s rewilding landscapes.
Jon Juarez
The Importance of Wild Waters
Rivers harbor the richest biodiversity on Earth and provide a wide range of essential benefits to humans and nature. Healthy, free-flowing rivers are well connected to the surrounding landscape and provide a wide range of habitats for wildlife species. They can also purify water, reduce the risk of downstream flooding and increase resilience to climate change.
However, most European rivers are now degraded – polluted, channelized and fragmented by dams, dikes and weirs. These changes have resulted in severe declines in biodiversity and water quality, as well as the loss of large areas of floodplains and wetlands. As climate change brings new challenges, we urgently need to develop a new relationship with water – once again accepting it into our landscapes and Do what we can to rewild it.
james shooter
Arthur de Bruyne
Remove dam
Work with our rewilding team Partner landscape portfolio Across the continent, Rewilding Europe is working to restore rivers and their surrounding areas on an ever-increasing scale. We hope that by showing how rivers can be brought back to life and the wide-ranging benefits this brings, we can inspire others to follow in our footsteps.
Restoring rivers wild means giving them the space and freedom to manage themselves, restoring them to health through dynamic natural processes such as the free flow of water and flooding. One of the most effective and cost-effective methods is to remove dams. In recent years, with the financial support of the government open river planRestoration Teams in several restoration landscapes across Europe's Rebuilding Wildlife Organization have stepped up efforts to revitalize rivers by removing artificial barriers.
Jon Juarez
Liberation of Central Apennine Rivers
October 2024, Rebuilding the Apennines The team supervised Remove five small dams Originating from the 44-kilometer-long Giovinco River, which flows from south to north Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Parkin my heart Central Apennines Italian wild landscapes. As a result, the 11-kilometre stretch of the river is flowing freely again for the first time in decades.
Building on this success, a 30-meter-long dam on the Liri River, into which the Giovinco River flows, was removed in September 2025. This intervention frees up just over 11 kilometers of the Liri River and marks another important step in restoring natural waterways and enhancing connectivity for aquatic and riparian wildlife.
“In the central Apennines, it’s crucial to remove the dams that are really blocking the rivers,” said Mario Cipollone, leader of the Apennines rewilding team. “Removing these barriers allows rivers to breathe again and better support nature and people. In the face of climate change, we must treat free-flowing freshwater as a precious resource to be cherished.”
“In the face of climate change, we must treat free-flowing freshwater as a precious resource to be cherished.”
Mario Cipollone
Head of the Apennine Mountains Reconstruction Team
Support the return of wildlife
Restoring the free flow of water in the Giovinco and Liri rivers reopens migratory routes for vulnerable and important aquatic species, such as White Claw Crayfish and Mediterranean trout, while benefiting a range of other wildlife. On the Giovinco River, trout have repopulated the upper reaches where the lowest dams were removed.
The Apennine Rewilding Team's river restoration work goes beyond dam removal and continues to release Mediterranean trout and white-clawed crayfish to complement the natural return of both species. Starting from 2021, established Crayfish Breeding Center Across the landscape, nearly 8,000 juvenile white-clawed crayfish were released into local rivers, while surrounding 4,000 juvenile Mediterranean trout released In partnership with the Zompo Lo Schioppo Nature Reserve, the Romito River, a tributary of the Liri River, will be fed in 2025. The team also removed approximately 400 invasive Atlantic brown trout from the Romito River to aid the Mediterranean trout's comeback.
Breaking down barriers in the Nordic taiga
Work to remove the dam also frees up the river and enhances aquatic biodiversity in the area nordic coniferous forest Swedish wild landscape. In 2025, with funding from the Open Rivers Initiative, Rebuilding Sweden The team oversaw the removal of three dams in the Vindel river basin – Mjösjödammet, Fräkentjärnsdammen and Malsjödammen – restoring 102 kilometers of free-flowing waterways. This follows Remove four dams Demolition is scheduled for 2024 in the same watershed, with two others scheduled for 2026.
Most of the dams removed in the Wendel River Basin are legacies of Sweden's long history of industrial-scale forestry, with many rivers channelized and dammed to enable logs to float downstream. In some places, wooden floors were laid along the riverbed to facilitate the passage of wood, further disrupting the natural processes of the river.
“Almost every river here was once cleared of natural obstacles and dammed to float timber,” said Isak Edström, field officer for Rewilding Sweden. “Those days are long gone – we are now on a mission to bring the Nordic taiga rivers back to life.”
Jon Juarez
Jon Juarez
Towards a living river
In addition to removing dams, Swedish rewilding teams are also doing other work to help rivers heal – Remove wooden floor and returning boulders and stones to the river bed. In 2025, the team restored four rivers in the Wendel catchment – Rödån, Brokbäcken, Abramsån and Kamsjöbäcken – with a total length of more than two kilometers.
Like the Apennine Rewilding Team, the Swedish Rewilding Team is committed to supporting the return of wildlife through targeted releases. As part of wider river restoration efforts, 200,000 juvenile brown trout released Through Rewilding Sweden, local municipalities and fisheries management organizations including Wendlaf Fisk (Wendell River Fisheries Foundation). The overall goal is to create well-connected, vibrant waterways with abundant trout populations that not only help revitalize nature but also provide economic benefits through sustainable fisheries, helping people and rivers thrive together.
Expand scale
Healthy rivers are important lifelines, not just waterways. By working with nature rather than trying to control it, river rewilding offers cost-effective, long-term solutions to some of today's most pressing environmental and social challenges – promoting biodiversity, buffering against climate change and improving human well-being. That’s why Rewilding Europe works to expand the rewilding of rivers across the continent.
in its many combat landscape – From the central Apennines to the Nordic taiga and beyond – Rewilding Europe and its partners are helping to heal rivers. The ultimate goal is for dynamic rivers to manage themselves – regenerating old habitats, creating new ones and supporting abundant wildlife through dynamic natural processes. To learn more about how you can support river rewilding, visit our river reconstruction Page.
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