Collettivo Rewild Sicily set out the mission to make Sicily, the largest island of the Mediterranean, a greener, more conscious and wilder place. We do that by shifting towards a pro-rewilding culture through tangible actions on the ground. Our tools are agroforestry, anti-wildfire measures, grazing systems, citizen science and wildlife monitoring. We are bottom-up, starting with people and local ecological knowledge truly rooted in its territory for more nature in Sicily and rewilding as an ally in the future to come.
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Our Projects
WHAT WE ARE CURRENTLY UP TO
Let's free River Pollina
We are mapping small dams and river barriers,
and restoring crucial eel habitat.
Prescribed Burning
Fire against fire
Birds, Bats and Butterflies
For Rural Futures: A Nature-based Solution in the Madonie Mountains
WHAT WE've done so far
Forest of the Seven Heavens
We are growing an edible forest designed to prevent wildfires.
Sicily's Indigenous CyberTrackers
We gathered local ecological knowledge from and with hunters, shepherds and forestry workers using CyberTracker.
Common Grounds
We are inviting local communities to co-create a territorial plan focusing on preventing wildfires and promoting regenerative grazing.
Rewildfires
With our first free research project we explored opportunities for rewilding in Sicily, focusing on wildfires and regenerative grazing with international experts.
Rewilding Guides Training
We trained 12 nature guides from Sicily on wildlife tracks and signs as well becoming true rewilding nature guides.
What the Rewilding?
There are many definitions out there – this one works for us: Rewilding is a conservation strategy focused on restoring and revitalizing natural ecosystems by reintroducing native species, promoting biodiversity, and allowing natural processes to occur with minimal human intervention. Through actions such as habitat restoration, species reintroduction, and landscape connectivity enhancement, rewilding aims to create self-sustaining and resilient ecosystems that benefit both wildlife and people.
our focus areas
Fire and Land
We work in wildfire prevention, enabling local communities to approach fires safely when needed and reappropriate the element of fire as an integral part of the Mediterranean land- and culture-scape.
Water and Salt
Water is life. And water is a scarce source in Sicily. We work on freeing our rivers and look into the intrinsic connections between water, rivers, the sea and its people.
Cultured Landscapes
The Mediterranean is far from wild. It has been a cultured and cultivated landscape since thousands of years. We valorize local traditional knowledge and land management as well as moving towards a practice of agroecology.
our favourite resources
📚 Books
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Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life by George Monbiot, 2014 |
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Rewilding: The Radical New Science of Ecological Recovery by Paul, Jepson and Cain Blythe, 2020 |
🎧 podcasts
- Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life by George Monbiot, 2014
George Monbiot’s ‘Feral’ is a game-changer, exploring rewilding’s power to transform both nature and human life. Through captivating stories and bold ideas, Monbiot shows how bringing back key species and restoring habitats can revive ecosystems and enrich our own lives. It’s a must-read for anyone who believes in a wilder, more connected world.
🤓 Scientific articles
- Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life by George Monbiot, 2014
George Monbiot’s ‘Feral’ is a game-changer, exploring rewilding’s power to transform both nature and human life. Through captivating stories and bold ideas, Monbiot shows how bringing back key species and restoring habitats can revive ecosystems and enrich our own lives. It’s a must-read for anyone who believes in a wilder, more connected world.
🍿 films & docs
- Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life by George Monbiot, 2014
George Monbiot’s ‘Feral’ is a game-changer, exploring rewilding’s power to transform both nature and human life. Through captivating stories and bold ideas, Monbiot shows how bringing back key species and restoring habitats can revive ecosystems and enrich our own lives. It’s a must-read for anyone who believes in a wilder, more connected world.
Meet our Team
We are a colourful bunch of passionate people who co-founded the Collective. Since then extraordinary members and volunteers join our journey.
co-founders
Enrico Guzzo
Co-founder & Ecologist
Enrico has specialized in raptors and birds of prey. He is one of Sicily’s few designated ecologists doing monitoring for environmental evaluation. His happy place is dangling down on steep cliffs peaking into the secret world of raptor’s nests. He is also the collective’s handyman and a wonderful partner in crime.
Luisa Sausa
Co-founder & Ecologist
Luisa has a background in nature education and feels home in dark caves – a true speleologist. She is the collective’s critical thinking voice and trouble shooter in the field work.
Salvatore Bondì
Co-founder & Ecologist
Totò is an ornithologist from head to toe. Together with Enrico he spends days out in the field providing solid reports on environmental evaluation. Also permaculture and agroforestry design keeps him up at night. He is a wonderful group facilitator and educator always having the perfect metaphor ready to do its magic.
Hanna Rasper
Co-founder & Designer
Hanna brings her design perspective into rewilding projects. She has a background in design for social impact, future studies, and science communication. In the collettivo she orchestrates behind the scenes in project management and communication. She has a weak spot for creepy critters.
Associates
Giovanni Oliveri
Forest scientist & barman
Giovanni does not only feel home in the academic world of forest science, but also knows how to get his hands dirty in the mossy soils of wooden tree habitat. He loves to nerd out on GIS systems, measure tree circumferences, and dig into local ecological knowledge.
Agata Garsia
Soil biologist & nature guide
Agata is passionate about ecosystems, sharing knowledge, and caring for them. She enjoys exploring nature, collecting wild seeds, and foraging. As the east-coast arm of the Collettivo, Agata supports grant writing and project strategy, using her structured mind, expertise, and creativity to maintain the mental health of the project department.
Ettore Zaffuto
Natural scientist & birder
When he is not snoozing in the trees, Ettore spends his time listening to birds. A naturalist who specializes in the relationship between the urban environment and birdlife, he is also a hiking guide, science popularizer, and national champion of sad puns.
Eliza Dernovska
Financial operator & theaterist
Eliza has a background in the art of theater polyglotting between Ukraine, the US, UK, Netherlands and Italy. With her experience from systems thinking, operations and finance she keeps a cool head with administration and strategic decisions. Her heartbeats step up a beat in front of THE perfect excel table.
Stefano Coco
Filmmaker & reality augmenter
Stefano is a true multi-media wizard disguised as drone pilot, underwater filmer, documentarist, virtual reality maker, and graphic designer. He not only creates beautiful imagery, but makes the rest of the collettivo feel like true digital dinosaurs.
Mathia Coco
Photographer & nature guide maker
Mathia captures the natural world with his lens into stunning photography and documentary films ranging from independent local to prestigious National Geographic productions. With his gentle way he integrates perfectly into any context of humans and critters. Mathia also forms each year the new cohort of nature guides of West Sicily. He shapes the collettivo’s stories and narratives with this very special sprinkle mixing pragmatism and utopia.
Helen Hecker
Journalist, reportage & Social Media
Helen combines her talent for precision, investigation and engaging narratives with her passion for nature and the great outdoors. She weaves the various threads of Collettivo’s work together in compelling storytelling on Social Media, the press and all other portals where we communicate with the world out there.
Trainee
Frederik Bertnsen
Antropologist, farmer & ex-cavalryman
Frederik made his way to Sicily from the far North of Denmark. He is in his final year of the Master Degree Human Ecology at the university of Lund. During his full-time traineeship he has quickly become an integral part of Collettivo and filled a dozen notebooks with field notes – while being unstoppable once he holds a hoe or some stainless steal torx in his hands.
Get involved
We try to live up to the true meaning of a collective and are more than happy if you want to join our journey, partner with us, or support our work. There are many ways to get involved, we’re looking forward to meet you!
Make a donation
You can make a donation with a simple bank transfer to our bank account or also use the Paypal button. You can make a one-time donation or also sign up for monthly or yearly scheduled support. If you require a donation certificate please do get in touch. Thank you for your support!
Collettivo Rewild Sicily ETS
IBAN: IT48C0623004605000015524913
BIC: CRPPIT2PXXX
“Erogazione libera”
Adopt a Tree
We are growing an edible forest designed to prevent wildfires.
…or come visit us at the fantastic co-working space of neu noi!
Via Alloro 64, 90133 Palermo
Contact
ciao@collettivorewildsicily.com
collettivorewildsicily@pec.it
CF: 97377190828