Village Voice June July 19

WILDLIFE MATTERS ……... to all of us
‘ REWILDING’
CONTINUED
The Knepp Estate in West Sussex is a 3,500 acre
farm and since WW2 had been intensively
farmed but rarely made a profit.
The landowners, Sir Charles Burrell and his wife
Isabella Tree decided that they could not
continue to work the farm the way they were
doing. Having read about a re-wilding scheme
in the Netherlands, they decided to allow
natural processes to take place over much of
their land.
referred to as ‘apex predators’ such as lynx or
keystone species like beaver and wild boar,
which may be reintroduced later.
They introduced free-roaming grazing animals,
including Longhorn cattle, ponies, Tamworth
pigs and deer to drive the regeneration of the
farm. The introduction helped create a mosaic
of habitats, ranging between grassland, scrub
and trees.
Their untried management of the farm has
provided some astonishing results in
biodiversity gain and the farm is now
profitable, though not without a little help from
providing commercial camping in yurts,
shepherd’s huts and tree houses!
The farm now has breeding Purple Emperor
butterflies, Turtle Doves and 2 per-cent of the
UKs population of Nightingales.
Rewilding can best be described as an
approach to ecological restoration, which
focuses on natural processes.
Regeneration is managed by free-roaming
herbivores as we no longer have what are
The following books are well worth a read. The
first is ‘Wilding’ by Isabella Tree and the second
is ‘Re-birding’ by Benedict Macdonald. Both
raise challenging questions about the way
Britain’s historical landscape forest has been
perceived and the way wild habitats have been
managed in the recent past. They also offer
some tantalising ideas about what animals and
birds might be reintroduced in the future to
help recover our diminishing wildlife.
However, re-wilding does have its own set of
unique problems, one of which saw many
animals having to be culled in the Netherlands
on the Oostvaardersplassen nature reserve
following extreme cold and unpredictable
winter weather. The Dutch government has
now set a cap on the number of animals, rather
than leaving things entirely to natural
processes. They also want new woodlands
created so that the animals have somewhere to
shelter during the worst of future winter
conditions.
Despite early successes, there is still a lot we
need to learn about re-wilding!
Further information from:
Keith Metcalf – MCV Conservation Officer
(01590) 645825 or (07771) 918449 or email
keithmetcalf@btinternet.com
www.milfordcv.org
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