Rewilding; a word that has been floating around for a while but lately seems to have become firmly fixed in the zeitgeist. Look it up and definitions seems fairly obvious:
" restore (an area of land) to its natural uncultivated state (used especially with reference to the reintroduction of species of wild animal that have been driven out or exterminated)."
What`s more, there are hundreds if not thousands of “rewilding” projects, big and small, up and running all over the world. All seems pretty straightfoward.
Until, that is, you read Wilding by the appropriately named Isabella Tree and suddenly it doesn`t seem quite so straightforward after all.
The sub-title is "The return of nature to a British farm", in this case a large, conventionally farmed estate in West Sussex which, despite the family following all the best advice and their best efforts, was haemorrhaging money. It became clear that continuing in the same way was to keep digging a bigger and bigger hole.
What happened next was essentially a "spectacular leap of faith". Isabella Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell decided to stand back and let nature take its course.
Well, sort of. What they actually began to do was learn: from Ted Green, a distinguished tree expert; from Frans Vera and his project in the Netherlands; from dozens and dozens of research papers and conservation reports. But perhaps most compelling they learnt from their own observations and what they learnt turned much conventional conservation wisdom on its head.
The book challenges understood notions of appropriate habitats which turn out to be more about how birds and animals have adapted to the available environment rather than how they might behave given truly "wild" territory.
It also challenges the idea of establishing and trying to preserve an apparently suitable terrain for one species which seems to ignore the way, the often extraordinary way, that, given the chance, flora and fauna are interdependent.
In this beautifully written and meticulously researched book we are encouraged to share the author`s delight and in some cases astonishment at what happens on the Knepp Estate as she and her family dare to let go and give nature "the space and opportunity to express itself".
It hasn`t been easy: some conservation experts have been wary, not to mention neighbouring farmers and the local dog-walkers, but in the end the book is about possibilities, about
"thinking holistically,....rebuilding systems with natural processes rather than setting endpoints, measuring function as much as outcome" (and thereby changing) "our whole relationship with the land".
At the very least, it may make you look differently at your local park or nature reserve, or even your garden.
