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To
whom it may concern
Re-wilding
the Knepp estate
The
Woodland Trust fully supports the Knepp
Estate re-wilding project which is a ground
breaking, nationally important initiative to
assess the benefits of naturalistic grazing
over a large tract of mixed countryside.
The
Trust is the UK's leading woodland
conservation charity. We have four main
aims: no further loss of ancient woodland,
restoring and improving woodland
biodiversity, increasing new native woodland
and increasing people's understanding and
enjoyment of woodland. We own over 1,000
sites across the UK, covering around 20,000
hectares (50,000 acres) and we have 300,000
members and supporters.
The
Woodland Trust supports this project because
it is a new and innovative approach in the
large scale management of land that was once
in intensive agriculture to one where there
is the minimum of human management. It will
show us how advantageous this approach is
for biodiversity and landscape and how
quickly free range grazing systems help to
drive the process.
The
project will help deliver biodiversity
targets principally for wood pasture and
parkland and woodland. It will however also
benefit other habitats such as fen, marshy
grassland and rivers and species rich
hedgerows. It will also contribute to
biodiversity targets for species such as
water vole, otter and black poplar.
The
Woodland Trust also supports the project
because it is likely to help biodiversity in
the surrounding countryside at a much larger
landscape scale. Knepp will increasingly
provide a core area of biodiversity that
will reduce the fragmentation of surrounding
habitats. It will be extremely interesting
to assess the significance of the effect of
re-wildling the Knepp Estate on the wider
countryside in the future.
Re-wilding
will enhance the landscape character of the
area in the long term.
The current character of this part of
the Low Weald is one of a small-scale
patchwork of fields and woods connected by
hedgerows rich in mature trees especially
oaks. In the longer term there are likely to be more trees,
especially open crowned trees, and shrubs in
some areas but open grazed areas will still
predominate in others. This will enhance the
overall appearance of open parkland merging
with woodlands – a landscape that has long
been recognised as being of national
importance.
Yours
sincerely
[click
for original letter]
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