This July, an educational camp on the Romanian side of the Danube Delta rewilding landscape saw 30 high school students reconnect with nature. A range of engaging activities and exciting field trips gave the children an appreciation for rewilding and inspiration for the future.
Shaping future rewilders
Inspiring and enabling children and young adults to join the burgeoning rewilding movement can have a positive impact on the future health of our planet. Connecting younger people with nature not only benefits their well-being and development, but can help to create a generation who value and understand the importance of preserving and restoring landscapes and wildlife populations, and who want to become involved in nature recovery. Building engagement with people of all ages is a key component of all the work carried out by Rewilding Europe.
To reconnect secondary school students from Romania and Ukraine with nature — and teach them more about rewilding — a five-day Junior Rewilders Camp was held in the middle of July, on the Romanian side of the Danube Delta rewilding landscape. Organised by Rewilding Ukraine and Rewilding Romania, the camp welcomed 30 enthusiastic secondary school children from local communities from both sides of the delta to the picturesque village of Jurilovca, on the shore of Lake Golovița. Teachers from the Romanian and Ukrainian schools accompanied the children to gain knowledge and inspiration for future educational activities.
“Helping children reconnect with nature is one of the most meaningful gifts we can offer the Danube Delta,” says Ioana-Cătălina Petrencu, who heads up the Danube Delta rewilding team on the Romanian side. “Our hope is simple but powerful: that experiences such as this camp will help to shape a generation ready to stand up for the wild places they call home.”
“Our hope is simple but powerful: that experiences such as this camp will help to shape a generation ready to stand up for the wild places they call home.”
Ioana-Cătălina Petrencu
Team Leader, Danube Delta (Romania)
A wide-ranging programme
The camp’s diverse programme of events and activities saw the students learn more about the important wildlife species of the Danube Delta, the critical importance of healthy wetlands and steppes, and how rewilding is helping the nature and people of the delta thrive together.
Exciting field trips into the local landscape saw children and teachers explore the nearby delta and its abundant biodiversity, accompanied by members of the Rewilding Ukraine and Rewilding Romania teams. They enjoyed a unique opportunity to learn about rewilding efforts first-hand, visiting wetlands around Jurilovca, the Black Sea coast, and the amazing Doloșman steppe area. A birdwatching competition saw the kids rack up a number of amazing sightings, including pelicans, other waterbirds, and a colourful colony of bee-eaters.
Interactive and empowering
Following on from similar camps in the past, the Junior Rewilders Camp was designed to be as interactive and empowering as possible. In addition to acquiring theoretical knowledge, the participating students — who were all aged between 12 and 15 — enhanced their presentation, teamwork, and critical thinking skills, and gained expertise in birdwatching and nature photography. They also learned how to make traditional clay bricks and spent an evening exchanging traditions from Ukraine and Romania, with a focus on those from the delta.
On the last few days of the camp — using their new-found knowledge about about rewilding — the children were brought together in small teams to develop rewilding initiatives for their own communities and surrounding landscapes, which they could then put into practice on their return home. These team sessions saw them present measures for combatting wildfires on the steppe, supporting the comeback of Dalmatian pelicans and other species, reducing wildlife mortality linked to plastic pollution, and other innovative ideas. Some of the children presented plays about their initiatives.
Positive feedback
Feedback from students who took part in the camp was very positive.
“All of the children told us how much they enjoyed being here,” says Rewilding Europe communications officer Kateryna Kurakina, who helped to coordinate the camp. “They told us how interesting and exciting it was to see and identify so many birds and plants, meet new friends, and come up with ways to protect and enhance the nature and wildlife on their doorstep.”
Invaluable support
Educational activities in the Danube Delta are carried out as part of ongoing efforts to accelerate nature recovery across at least 40,000 hectares of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve in Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. Coordinated by Rewilding Europe, this work is being carried out by Rewilding Ukraine, Rewilding Romania, and local partners, with financial support from the Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme.
The Junior Rewilders Camp was the second camp organised with the support of the programme, following on from a similar camp held in 2024. A Danube Delta-based “Pelican Education Camp” camp held in 2023 saw over 50 students from four countries come together to learn more about Dalmatian pelicans and pelican-related rewilding efforts, as part of the Pelican Way of Life initiative. In total, these camps have immersed over 100 children in the recovering nature of the delta. All three of these camps have been assisted by the Aventura Piteşti scouts from the Romanian side of the delta, who have helped out with entertainment.
Rewilding Europe’s work in our rewilding landscapes is supported by a wide range of highly valued partners. We would particularly like to acknowledge those providing core funding – notably the Ecological Restoration Fund, the Dutch Postcode Lottery, WWF-Netherlands, and Arcadia. Their longstanding support plays a critical role in enabling us to deliver and scale up rewilding impact.
