The Many Benefits of Rewilding (when done right)

Rewilding is when people buy up land and leave it, so nature comes back to life. This must be done usually by experts, for instance beavers can only be released by experts, to avoid harm to other creatures and vice versa. And you could not release wolves in the hills, as dogs and other wildlife would be harmed.

Planners and builders can hire accredited ecologists at CIEEM, to avoid harming wildlife. Rewilding Britain recommends that if you are concerned over a planning project, to talk to your local Wildlife Trust.

Reform UK if elected, plan to give over all rewilding land to industrial farming, which could send many native species extinct. And increase both floods and wildfires. 

Wilding is a beautifully illustrated guide to rewilding, covering the story of one of England’s most successful project in West Sussex. This previously barren estate is now home to many happy birds – nightingales, peregrine falcons, turtle doves, ravens, red kites, lesser-spotted woodpeckers, skylarks, house sparrows, yellow hammers and sparrowhawks.

Restoring the wetlands of the floodplains by the River Adur has also created habitats for wading birds, amphibians, dragonflies, purple emperor butterflies, native owls and bats, rare beetles, visiting hoopoe birds and black storks (one of Europe’s rarest birds).

And even ‘heathland nightjars’ and ‘woodland nightingales’ that would normally live elsewhere, suggesting they are now ‘clinging to any natural habitats’.

Knepp Estate covers over 3500 acres near Horsham, once used for intensive farming. The owners decided to undertake a unique experiment, simply letting the land be, and leaving nature to itself.

Today, free-roaming herds of English longhorn cattle, Exmoor ponies, Tamworth pigs, and red and fallow deer roam the land. They graze, root and trample, turning up ground which allows wild plants to seed. This mimics natural grazing patterns that once shaped England’s countryside.

Never has there been a more important time to engage in nature and its recovery. And I hope this book will be a source of hope and inspiration for a new generation. Isabella

The book is both educational and funny. Although pigs naturally eat wild roots, the author talks of when they first introduced pigs to the rewilding project; they rooted up pristine lawns, and broke into a marquee where people were having a party, and ate all the ice-cream!

And the pigs on this farm stay with their piglets for months, as they would in nature (not like on a factory farm).

Oak trees need light to grow, so have developed an incredible relationship with jays, the blue-feathered birds of the crow family. A bit like how squirrels bury nuts for later on, jays do the same.

But unlike squirrels, jays suffer from ‘acorn amnesia, so the ones not remembered grow into beautiful trees, for other birds and wildlife!

Certain plants provide pollination for endangered birds and butterflies, and beavers help to prevent floods, and naturally clean the water, which helps local fish and other marine wildlife.

Byline Times reports that Reform UK policy is to ban rewilding on land that could be used for farming. The idea being to ‘help our farmers’. But the party does not know how nature works.

What is needed is to prevent monocultures that degrade land. And to pay farmers for natural flood management solutions, and restoring habitats for endangered species like water voles. This would help food security, farmers and native wildlife.

Isabella Tree is an award-winning writer who manages a rewilding project with her husband. The book is illustrated by Angela Harding, a printmaker who works from her garden studio in Rutland, England’s smallest county.

Rewilding Britain (our national charity)

Rewilding Britain is our national rewilding charity. It’s important that rewilding is done by experts, you can’t just release beavers anywhere, so let’s leave it people who know what they are doing!

This organisation is campaigning for large-scale efforts to rewild at least 1% of Britain (by leaving nature alone and not using it for development) with a development for governments to rewild 30% of land.

The site has tips on how to make your garden wilder. Read more on pet-friendly gardens and humane slug/snail deterrents and never use netting. Also read about wildlife-friendly ponds. 

Top tips include:

• Garden organically (you can recycle empty chemical bottles, but take half-empty ones to hazardous waste for recycling, don’t pour them down drains.
• Leave out logs and fallen leaves, and build hedgehog highways (you can close the holes up during the day to keep pets safe, as hogs are nocturnal).
• Get together with others in your Rewilding Network to share information, and make new friends.
• Create spaces for wildlife if you border a nature reserve. The charity encourages neighbours to form rewilding clusters so wildlife have larger areas of land. If you own land from 10 to 40 hectares (land or water) get in touch for help and advice.

Rewilding (bring wildlife back to where it belongs)

Rewilding is a beautifully illustrated introduction to rewilding, which is basically just leaving nature alone, to get on with it. Natural habitats are better than gardens for most wildlife – hedgehogs used to live in hedgerows (hence their name), and berries and hedges offer food and natural protection for birds and other wildlife.

In this book, you’ll learn about successful rewilding projects both here and abroad including:

• How beavers help to build dams, to stop flooding
• How wolves in Yellowstone National Park improved ecosystems
• How Galápagos giant tortoises survived extinction, by returning home.

Author David A Steen is a wildlife scientist and conservation biologist, who founded The Alongside Wildlife Foundation, which offers seed grants for small projects that help wildlife.

Wilder: How Rewilding is Transforming Conservation

Wilder is a book that looks at how rewilding projects worldwide, is transforming conservation, and how entire ecosystems could be restored, using an active approach to help keystone species.

In this timely contribution to a conversation with our relationship with nature, a wildlife journalist takes readers on a global journey to discovering what is happening today, focusing on the Global South.

• The return of jaguars (the largest felines in the Americas) to an Argentinian national park
• The first pangolin reintroduction in South Africa (to help protect the world’s most trafficked animal)
• How giant tortoises are recovering ecosystems on the Galápagos Islands.

This book focuses on conservation success stories, to show and inspire us, that we can all be part of the solution.

A must-read for those concerned about biodiversity loss. Dr Jane Goodall

Millie is the perfect guide to take us on a tour of the rewilding landscape. Essential reading, for anyone interested in the future of conservation. Lucy Cooke

Millie Kerr is a former lawyer, who now writes on wildlife conservation. She is also an award-winning wildlife photographer. Previously from Texas, she now lives in England.

The Hare’s Corner is a book to celebrate farmers, families, schools and community groups in Ireland, who are restoring habitats, reviving biodiversity and reconnecting people with the land.

Find uplifting stories and poems interwoven with enchanting illustrations and photographs, to bear witness to the good that blossoms, when we make space for nature in our lives.

The book is named after the traditional farming practice of leaving field corners for wildlife.

A Wilding Year: Rewilding a Lincolnshire Farm

A Wilding Year tells the deeply personal journey of artist Hannah Dale and her husband, as they return their Lincolnshire farm to nature, celebrating the return of an astonishing variety of wildlife.

The farm was a sad inheritance, after a brain tumour took her ‘kind and inspirational’ father-in-law too soon. The land was not fertile for growing any food, so they decided instead to restore the original drained (from centuries ago) land to help wildlife.

Jack’s dad was a regenerative farmer. And after he read about the rewilding of a Sussex farm, they decided their land was suit the same, and a be fitting tribute to his father (who had even invented a seed drill that did not disturb his beloved earthworms).

So together they began to plant trees, create wildlife ponds and scatter wildflower seeds, to bring back the wildlife, and create natural homes for them. Now just a few years later, they have blossoming hedgerows that burst with berries in autumn.

Grasses ‘fizz with insects’, and over 1000 meadow brown butterflies fly over creeping thistles. Birds sing and owls hunt, goldfinches to chatter to each other, and badgers snuffle for worms.

The rewilding project saw these marshy wetlands herald the return of skylarks, meadow pipits, hobbies and polecats to their farm. Which also provided new inspiration for her wildlife paintings.

Rewilding is when people buy up land and leave it, so nature comes back to life. This must be done usually by experts, for instance beavers can only be released by experts, to avoid harm to other creatures and vice versa. And you could not release wolves in the hills, as dogs and other wildlife would be harmed.

Planners and builders can hire accredited ecologists at CIEEM, to avoid harming wildlife. Rewilding Britain recommends that if you are concerned over a planning project, to talk to your local Wildlife Trust.

Reform UK if elected, plan to give over all rewilding land to industrial farming, which could send many native species extinct. And increase both floods and wildfires. 

Renaturing (small ways to wild the world)

Renaturing is a lovely and unique book. We’ve all heard of rewilding, a good idea whether you own an estate or fund organisations to buy up land to provide natural habitats for birds and wildlife.

But this book focuses on a smaller scale, basically rewilding on your doorstep, starting in your garden! With a little bit of knowledge and care, you can rewild your outdoor space, to restore important habitats for all creatures, including insects and pollinators.

Use no-dig gardening (and avoid netting) to help wildlife (and ensure ponds have sloping sides). Also read our post on pet-friendly gardens. And learn how to stop birds flying into windows.

This is the story of a man who 20 years ago, moved from London to the countryside. Behind his farm labourer’s cottage with a small field, wit ha ‘for sale’ sign. Previously a place for family picnics and cricket matches, he knew that this 2-acre patch of land help great potential for nature to flourish.

So James decided to ‘rewild the field’. He built a wildlife-friendly pond, planted new meadows and created safe havens for wild birds and insects (and encouraged pollinators and wildlife, by encouraging flowers and plants). And soon what was once a grassy space, was again buzzing with life!

The author’s argument is that ‘rewilding’ can only really be done on a grand scale, if you own a country estate or on a government level. Renaturing is something smaller. It’s not mowing your lawn in May, planting a few pretty flowers for pollinators, not using chemicals to grow food and flowers. All of this is protecting nature, in a country that has now paved 50% of its gardens over.

James Canton is Director of Wild Writing at University of Essex. He also writes on oak trees, sacred spaces and rural landscapes in England.