"Wilding" by Isabella Tree (2018): Please read this book
Do please read this book, if you haven't already. It is well written and easy to read and describes the development of the Knepp estate rewilding project. It also has some critically important messages that need to be spread far and wide. Some 20 years ago, I visited the controversial Oostvaardersplassen grazing project in the Netherlands and I must now get to Knepp, as soon as the Covid-19 virus allows. I've known about Knepp for some years and have been meaning to visit, but it hasn't happened yet. Having read the book, I have a much clearer idea of how it came about and the struggles to achieve what is a critical initiative amongst the UK rewilding projects. As a scientist that spent much of my career looking at farmland ecology and ways of maintaining biodiversity, particularly with field margins and hedgerows, this book challenges a host of underlying assumptions. That is the key importance of the book for me. However, the startling conservation successes within the project alone, with nightingales, turtle doves, a host of invertebrates, plants and birds and mammals and most recently the hatching of the first white storks in the UK for centuries, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-52675922, are all enough to make the book worth reading. Other aspects, such as flood prevention, carbon sequestration and food quality, also feature. It is fascinating.
The fact that the project came about from a commercial farm background roots the book in practicality and reality. The author makes no bones about the fact that had the estate been profitable under intensive agriculture, that is probably what would be happening now. It wasn't and having to sell all their farm kit and clear their debts (what a tumultuous day!) started a process that has resulted in huge changes. The journey described in the book is one that needs to be widely known. There are lots of lessons for all of us. While not from backgrounds of scientific expertise, Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell, have engaged a scientific approach, along with many of our eminent ecologists. The book is accurately referenced, giving one confidence in all that is described.
For me, there are two particular assumptions that were and still are widely believed to hold sway and which this book shows are wholly inaccurate. They warp so much of our current approaches to conservation in a farmed landscape. First, is the view of what is the traditional farmed landscape in the UK. What actually is the target of environmentally sound and sustainable land management? What should the landscape look like? The book teases this out to actually be a generational and movable feast. For individuals, it is what the landscape looked like when we were children; for me, that would be prior to the boom in intensive production in the 1970s, but for my children that would be how it is now (and may explain why one is in the Highlands!). So, much of conservation is aimed at what the land looked like in the 1960s. At Knepp, the landscape is nothing like any of these, because it harks back to a much earlier reality of hundreds of years ago. Thus, the shock to local people around the Knepp estate and more widely amongst visiting farmers was profound. Talk about a bad press!
The second assumption, is that the ecology of a host of species is that from research over recent time. There are several fascinating examples of the presumed habitat preferences of rare species being proved inaccurate at Knepp, presumably reflecting the impacts of habitat change pushing species into remaining sub-optimal habitat, which is then assumed to be optimal. The development of transitional habitat , essentially "untidy" scrub and patchy grazing between scrub and trees resulting from "wild" pigs, ponies, deer and cattle seems to be key to some species doing well. Of course, scrub is largely absent on modern farms and in our landscapes. So, we need to be critical of accepted wisdom and remember to question underlying assumptions in research.
I think a visit to Knepp is definitely called for, perhaps a wild safari or camping! See: https://www.kneppsafaris.co.uk/
Thanks to Ian and Linda for the book!
The fact that the project came about from a commercial farm background roots the book in practicality and reality. The author makes no bones about the fact that had the estate been profitable under intensive agriculture, that is probably what would be happening now. It wasn't and having to sell all their farm kit and clear their debts (what a tumultuous day!) started a process that has resulted in huge changes. The journey described in the book is one that needs to be widely known. There are lots of lessons for all of us. While not from backgrounds of scientific expertise, Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell, have engaged a scientific approach, along with many of our eminent ecologists. The book is accurately referenced, giving one confidence in all that is described.
For me, there are two particular assumptions that were and still are widely believed to hold sway and which this book shows are wholly inaccurate. They warp so much of our current approaches to conservation in a farmed landscape. First, is the view of what is the traditional farmed landscape in the UK. What actually is the target of environmentally sound and sustainable land management? What should the landscape look like? The book teases this out to actually be a generational and movable feast. For individuals, it is what the landscape looked like when we were children; for me, that would be prior to the boom in intensive production in the 1970s, but for my children that would be how it is now (and may explain why one is in the Highlands!). So, much of conservation is aimed at what the land looked like in the 1960s. At Knepp, the landscape is nothing like any of these, because it harks back to a much earlier reality of hundreds of years ago. Thus, the shock to local people around the Knepp estate and more widely amongst visiting farmers was profound. Talk about a bad press!
The second assumption, is that the ecology of a host of species is that from research over recent time. There are several fascinating examples of the presumed habitat preferences of rare species being proved inaccurate at Knepp, presumably reflecting the impacts of habitat change pushing species into remaining sub-optimal habitat, which is then assumed to be optimal. The development of transitional habitat , essentially "untidy" scrub and patchy grazing between scrub and trees resulting from "wild" pigs, ponies, deer and cattle seems to be key to some species doing well. Of course, scrub is largely absent on modern farms and in our landscapes. So, we need to be critical of accepted wisdom and remember to question underlying assumptions in research.
I think a visit to Knepp is definitely called for, perhaps a wild safari or camping! See: https://www.kneppsafaris.co.uk/
Thanks to Ian and Linda for the book!
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