The Wildness(t)räume Exhibition: A Glimpse into Europe’s Wilderness Future
The Wildness(t)räume exhibition at the Nationalpark-Zentrum Eifel invites visitors to experience the beauty and complexity of the Eifel National Park’s ecosystems while offering a vision of what Europe’s nature could look like under the EU Nature Restoration Law. Although not the central theme, the exhibition illustrates the kind of transformation the law aims to bring about across Europe.
Discovering Wilderness: Visitors to Wildness(t)räume are immersed in the native forests, wetlands, and waterways of the Eifel region. Interactive displays and sensory experiences invite exploration—whether it’s touching the soft fur of a beaver, learning about the lives of insects through magnified views, or feeling the textures of animal models. The exhibition provides an in-depth look at how wilderness thrives when left to natural processes, and this journey helps visitors understand the vital role that such landscapes play in sustaining biodiversity.
The Eifel National Park serves as an excellent model of wilderness restoration, where nature is allowed to evolve without human interference. This concept of rewilding is at the heart of the EU’s Nature Restoration Law.
The EU Nature Restoration Law: A Vision of the Future The exhibition showcases what the EU Nature Restoration Law aims to achieve in other areas of Europe. The law sets ambitious targets to restore degraded ecosystems, with a commitment to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030, with an even broader goal of restoring all ecosystems in need by 2050. This includes forests, wetlands, grasslands, and marine areas, with a focus on creating resilient habitats where wildlife can flourish.
Though Wildness(t)räume focuses on the Eifel region, it serves as a microcosm of what Europe could look like if the goals of the Nature Restoration Law are fully realised. The exhibition illustrates the importance of protecting and expanding wilderness areas, much like the 11,000 hectares restored in the Eifel National Park, to ensure the survival of endangered species and promote ecosystem health.
A Blueprint for Restoration: By walking through the Wildness(t)räume exhibition, visitors gain insight into the broader efforts taking place across Europe to restore nature. The displays highlight the types of ecosystems and species that will benefit from rewilding and restoration efforts outlined by the EU law. These efforts include restoring rivers to their natural flows, reforesting degraded lands, and allowing natural processes such as the return of large herbivores and predators to shape landscapes.
While the exhibition showcases the natural beauty and success of the Eifel National Park, it also provides a hopeful glimpse of what could be achieved across Europe—where more areas are given the chance to regenerate and return to a natural state. The European Union’s nature restoration goals aim to replicate these successes on a much larger scale, creating a network of restored wilderness across the continent.
