Rewilding Nature, a Unique UK Conservation Project

What happens when you let nature takes its own course? In England, you get a vast 3,500-acre estate that was once intensely farmed but has now been allowed to rewild and is the home to grazing animals, red deer, rare species of birds, bats, purple emperor butterflies, and wildlife.

The Knepp Wildlife Project is a unique type of conservation that has no specific goals and does not target one type of species according to the estate's website. The project is designed to let nature take the driving seat for ecological restoration for former agricultural land.

The Knepp estate had been farmed for generations but the land was not good enough (heavy clay over limestone) to use modern farming techniques according to the estate. Charlie Burrel took over the running of the vast estate from his grandparents in 1983 but he couldn't compete with larger, industrialized farms.

In 2000, he sold the dairy herds and farm machinery, contracted out the farmable lands, and this allowed him to pay off the huge debts the estate owed.The decision to turn Knepp into a nature preserve came after Burrel received Countryside Stewardship funding from the government to restore a section in the middle of the estate; an area that had been farmed since World War II. He was able to see the land in a new way and he started the process to convert the rest of the estate into a rewilding conservation project.

It took years for him to get support from the government but in 2010, the Knepp Wildlife Project received the Higher Tier Stewardship funding. With the help of the government advisers Natural England, Burrel and his wife Isabella Tree let the land go and did only a few interventions like digging out scrapes according to Positive News. Now the estate has become a showcase for the rewilding movement.

“We knew we were on the right track, because we could see signs of improvement," Tree told Positive News. In the first-year insects came and, “it was like surround sound. Then the birds followed.” The land was reverting back faster than they thought possible.

There were complaints from other West Sussex landowners about the land going wild. “They saw fields of ragwort [something that can be toxic to livestock], and they went bananas; MPs were getting letters, it could have derailed the whole thing,” said Tree.

But it died down and with the steadfast support of Natural England, the project continued and the benefits to the land continued too. The soil began to recover, the water became cleaner, floods were far less frequent because the soil could now soak up the water, and the landscape became a carbon sink that helps reduce the effects of global warming. All great improvements.

The land could have reverted back to forest but that is where the Burrel and Tree made a major intervention, they introduced grazing animals, longhorn cattle, Tamworth pigs, and Exmoor ponies. These animals mimic the actions of the wild herbivores that once roamed freely across Europe according to Positive News.

But the couple still has to earn a living and a nature reserve doesn't pay the bills even if they do receive some funding from the government. They have some rent from cottages on the estate and they turned former farm buildings into offices. They have also started a safari tourism business and a small Eco camping business on the estate.

Rewilding has worked for the Knepp Estate, but it is not a model that will work everywhere. Land still has to be used for food production and more food will be needed as the population grows. Tree's answer is to create mini wild areas or to let land go for a period of time and then to farm the much-improved soil.

The government has already declared its intention post-Brexit to replace the EU farm subsidy system to one that supports farmers who provide ecosystem support. Only time will tell if this is a workable model. In the meantime, the bugs are buzzing, the birds are singing, and land of the estate is thriving.

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