Perspectives on grassland conservation efforts: should we rewild to the past or conserve for the future?

Grasslands are among the most imperilled biomes of the world. Identifying the most appropriate framework for restoring grasslands is dependent on the objectives of restoration, which is inherently determined by human priorities. Debates over the appropriate conservation model for grasslands have often focused on which species of herbivores should be the focus of restoration efforts. Here we discuss three perspectives of herbivore-based conservation in North American grasslands. First, the Pleistocene rewilding perspective is based upon the idea that early humans contributed to the demise of megafauna that were important to the evolution and development of many of North America's grasslands; therefore, their aim of restoration is rewilding of landscapes to pre-human times. Second, the bison rewilding perspective considers American bison a keystone herbivore that is culturally and ecologically important to North American grasslands. A third perspective focuses on restoring the pattern and processes of herbivory on grasslands and is less concerned about which herbivore is introduced to the landscape. We evaluate each of these three conservation perspectives in terms of a framework that includes a human domain, an herbivore domain and a biophysical domain. While all conservation perspectives partly address the three domains, they all fall short in key areas. Specifically, they fail to recognize that past, current and future humans are intimately linked to grassland patterns and processes and will continue to play a role in structuring grasslands. Furthermore, these perspectives seem to only superficially consider the role of fragmentation and climate change in influencing grassland patterns and processes. As such, we argue that future grassland conservation efforts must depend on the development of a model that better integrates societal, economic and policy objectives and recognizes climate change, fragmentation and humans as an integral part of these ecosystems. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Trophic rewilding: consequences for ecosystems under global change’.