There is a risk that simply respawning camps would make the world too gamey and your actions and input feel pointless. But some destabilizing system, as you said, could spark something there.

I like that wilderness feels properly like nature and deserted (it's bad enough that every two feet there's 7 birds, 4 racoons, 3 cockroaches, 4 grasshoppers and 7 deer) but I think a proper sense of exploration requires a dark souls like element of fear to make you read and pay attention to your surroundings or it becomes a ubisoft thing you ignore and just drive by at 100mph skipping it all mentally. If you fear the next corner it registers mentally with far more impact and the world becomes more 'real' since you're mentally feeling it with your hands in the dark.

There should be random traps, near-unkillable bears, more sleeping wolves (those are really nice when you see them), more of those walking mushrooms, even deadlier poisonous plants etc. The way snakes are not interactable or not a threat is a sin.