Presentation short abstract

This paper examines rewilding at Anklamer Heath in the Oder Delta, where peatland rewetting, wildlife resurgence, and ecological self-governance reconnect landscapes once split by the German–Polish border, revealing multispecies futures beyond nationalist and human-centered histories.

Presentation long abstract

This paper analyzes rewilding at Anklamer Heath (Anklamer Torfmoor), a peatland on the Szczecin Lagoon whose modern form began with an unplanned 1995 dyke breach that allowed long-drained land to re-flood. Now a core site within the cross-border Rewilding Oder Delta (ROD) initiative—supported by Rewilding Europe and funded by the Deutsche Postcode Lottery—Anklamer Heath epitomizes efforts to restore natural hydrology, rewet peatlands, revive migratory routes for fish, birds, and mammals, and allow ecosystems to self-organize with minimal human intervention.

The ROD reconnects ecologies that have been repeatedly reshaped by the German–Polish border, which was contested after World War II, hardened during the East German era, and reopened with EU integration. This paper contrasts European rewilding with American traditions exemplified by national parks, where human stewardship underwrites preservationist ideals. In the Oder Delta, by contrast, rewilding projects cultivate spaces where humans are meant to recede: where ecological processes, not human management, appear to guide the landscape. These landscapes operate doubly—as sites of ecological repair and as stages for imagining posthuman futures, inviting visitors to sense the agency of nonhuman actors and the capacities of ecosystems to thrive without human intervention.

Yet their cultural legitimacy still relies on human desire: for recreation, for moral narratives of repair, and for marketable visions of “wild nature” within a capitalist conservation economy. By tracing these tensions, the paper shows how rewilded borderlands bind deep pasts and speculative futures, revealing how more-than-human relations unsettle, exceed, and occasionally reaffirm the political ecologies of borders.