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The 3500 acre Knepp
Estate is a mix of ancient parkland,
woodland, arable and pasture. Five years ago
its owner, Charlie Burrell, decided on a
wildland project for the estate ‘where
natural processes predominate and long term
financial stability is achieved outside of a
conventional agricultural framework’. The
project is providing a baseline ecological
and economic study for potential rewilding
in the English lowlands.
By PETER TAYLOR
Exmoor
ponies and Longhorn cattle roam the parkland
at Knepp Estate.
I knew it was possible, even sensible, but I had
never actually seen it happening – fields
upon fields of once arable land becoming
wild again. Each field was different –
some had been intensive rye grass for dairy
production, others for winter wheat, and the
pasture was wilding up slowly, with
bird-sown sloe and dogrose, and sprouting
jay-stashed acorns. The hedges were rank and
brimming with berries. Where arable fields
had simply been left, there was a mass of
thistle heads, willowherb and fleabane, but
some fields had been tilled and resown with
wildflower mixes, then cut and the hay
removed to drain the over-nutrients. It was
October so I had to imagine what the spring
would be like.
Nature in
abundance
For Charlie Burrell the most significant thing about
spring at Knepp is the sound. In all
his years as a farmer he had not known what
was missing. In spring the once silent
fields are now buzzing and humming with a
myriad insects and the cascade of bird
songs. For me, in this balmy autumn, it was
the feel of the place that was
extra-ordinary.
We approached a part of the estate known as the lags
– an old channelled stream system where
the rewilding had blocked up drains and
instigated little tree-dams to bring back
the meanders. What were formerly neatly
grazed bare meadows were now a mass of
sallow and wet pools, home for snipe and
very soon, it is hoped, some beaver. The
sallows had already invaded half the
adjacent field.
Suddenly,
Charlie’s acute hearing picked up a grunt
and out of the scrub trundled seven massive
red-brown pigs – right up to our legs,
nuzzling recognition and prodding for nothing
more than affection. These were a
free-living group of Tamworths – adapted
to forage and requiring zero maintenance.
They can turn over half-an-acre of pasture
in one night snuffling for roots and grubs.
They will even eat carrion. The disturbed
ground gets colonised very quickly – one
patch was now a mass of dock.
Charlie’s
one sadness is that local farmers look with
horror at what they perceive as a ‘mess’
of invaded fields and rank hedges. But it is
early days. This is a rewilding, for sure,
but it also contains compromises that may be
of more relevance to some farmers than they
might at first realise. The Tamworths will
provide high-quality organic pork for
market. There are now some 60 head of old
English Longhorn cattle, also requiring
minimal maintenance and no supplementary
feed, and the organic free-range beef will
be sold at a premium to local markets. Thus
far, about 1400 acres of former farmland are
rewilding around a core of ancient parkland,
currently being restored under a Countryside
Stewardship scheme. The restoration is
focussed upon its former role as a deer
park, and fallow deer have been
re-introduced with the intention to extend
wild grazing to the whole estate, which will
be ring-fenced, and diversify the mix of
herbivores.
A
small group of Exmoor ponies has been
introduced and we visited Knepp’s first
foal – its mother keeping it a good
distance from our intrusion, and the herd
with one stallion will soon build up. Roe
deer are plentiful on the estate.
The gameplan for
going wild
Most internal fences in the park have
now been removed – but the currently
impassable A272 cuts across the northern
half, which is grazed by a second group of
longhorns. Having moved on from the
deer-park ideal, the objective is now to
allow this land to scrub up before the
grazing is increased. Ultimately, if the
A272 can be crossed by an eco-bridge or
tunnel, and minor roads crossed with cattle
grids, the whole 3500 acres, including a few
hundred from a collaborating neighbour,
could become southern England’s first
functional ‘wildland’ site. There is the
potential to link to the Sussex Wildwoods
project to the west and to create wild river
corridors with other collaborating
landowners.
At
present the project is open-ended. Charlie
would like to see a full-spectrum of
wildland emerge – the Longhorns would be
replaced with truly wild “Aurochoxon”
(Heck cattle), beaver would be introduced,
perhaps the European wood bison, and red
deer. Wild boar are likely to colonise –
they are now only a few miles distant. Lynx
would be the only effective predator – but
this animal would require a much larger
range – in the richest habitat about 20
km2 . Even if Knepp were extended to twice
its size it would provide only one such
territory and thus would have to be part of
an ecological network. However, there are
rumours of lynx being released by activists
– of what kind of activist, or lynx, no
one seems to know, and there are regular
sightings further west in the Mendips and
the Dorset heaths.
Charlie
is well-advised on the techniques and
dynamics of rewilding – his oversight
group includes Hans Kampf and Joep Van Da
Vlasakker, with advice from Franz Vera, the
pioneers of the Oostvaardersplassen in
Holland and the Large Herbivore Foundation
that now supplies a steady stream of
projects throughout Europe with wild cattle,
horses and bison. Knepp’s advisers also
includes experts from English Nature and the
National Trust who are studying the project
with great interest, and consultants are
examining the economic implications of the
venture and the various markets it is
creating.
The
crucial question is… how relevant is this
to other wildland projects? Is it a model
that interested farmers could follow? To my
mind, there are two key issues: what are the
economic implications, and is there
potential for a network of such sites? There
are other issues regarding long-term
sustainability and ecological objectives,
but these are perhaps less pressing and can
be answered only by observation as the
project unfolds.
The
viability of a wild estate The
economic aspects are the subject of detailed
study by Natural England. At present the CSS
deer-park restoration is central and there
is an annual grant for the land it covers,
with some relaxation of the original
criteria to cover the new objectives of
rewilding. The rest of the project is
covered by the Single Farm Payment scheme
which can be applied because the project is
still ‘farming’ in the sense of
production of pork and beef. These two
sources of finance will be supplemented by
expansion of the Longhorn herd and the
Tamworth pigs, with some small income from
wild venison. Overheads are very low – but
all the animals with the exception of the
deer, are subject to daily inspections and
normal veterinary regulations. Animal
welfare and regulatory issues concern
whether or not to intervene at difficult
calvings, supplementary feed in hard
winters, castration of bull calves (to
mitigate fighting), weaning and removing
calves before the next year’s calving
(lowering the risk of the calves being
abandoned) and the introduction of Heck
cattle’s wilder and more feisty genes with
consequent risks to stockmen, visitors and
the quality of meat for market.
I
could have pored over the economics –
there is a mass of data and a thoroughly
worked business plan available for scrutiny, but this kind of study is of limited
relevance. The crucial questions relate not
to current incomes or projected incomes
under current schemes, but what will happen
to agri-environmental grants in the
not-so-long term of 10 or 20 years. Most
landowners have long-term security in mind
for their families and heirs, and rewilding
is reversible but at a cost. There is, of
course, no clear indication that the EU
schemes will continue at current levels of
support – and a clear indication that they
will not, given the twin pressures of GATT
(global agreements on trade) to liberalise
markets and the expense of new EU membership
in eastern Europe. What is required to
secure wildland projects and ecological
networks is a new long-term assured grant
structure specifically designed for two
levels of wilding – the non-productive
core which would operate as a sanctuary, and
productive buffer zones that could use
semi-domestic stock, shooting and other
appropriate enterprises to support its
economy. My own preference is for core areas
not to be shot over for sport, but culling
would almost certainly be necessary.
The changing farm infrastructure
Charlie
Burrell and his family are cushioned to some
degree from these uncertainties – the
estate’s core business is now property
management and the 20 staff are secured by
employment in this business. However, there
are some useful lessons for other estates:
the dairy and arable farms were closed down
meaning reduced employment overheads and a
net loss of jobs, and farm buildings were
suddenly redundant. It came as a shock to be
shown a farm building now let as three
separate light industrial storage spaces
with an income of £18,000 per annum
equivalent to the average net profit of the
300 acre farm unit! This story is apparently
repeatable all over southern Britain – and
indeed, my own Somerset
Gazette carries a farming piece this
week on that theme – farms can earn more
by letting their outbuildings than they can
from farming the land. The Knepp estate has
a flourishing business in light storage,
craft workshops and other small operations
running from its old farm buildings. There
are important planning implications here of
course, although national guidance is for
local planning authorities to show as much
flexibility as possible in the new use of
farm buildings.
Most
farmers would be reluctant to give up
‘farming’ and become property managers
– there is a social and psychological
component here that is not to be
under-estimated. They have been schooled by
a production ethic. They are ‘progress’
minded and do not like to ‘step back in
time’. As many ecologists advising farmers
will testify, money does not necessarily buy
cooperation in biodiversity objectives.
True
wildland will entail no domestic stock, so
grants schemes need to be evolved that do
not require conventional ‘production’.
The dilemma is that farmers may not come on
board unless they can still ‘farm’. In
this respect, Knepp offers a useful test-bed
in this early part of the rewilding journey.
There is a market for organic beef and pork,
as well as wild-shot boar and deer. In the
Forest of Dean, as we learned on a recent
Wildland-Network outing with the Forestry
Commission, surrounding farmers have been
making a surreptitious
£300 per night letting to shoot the
frequent wanderers of a small forest herd of
wild boar that has been there since 1989.
Strategic thinking on wildland
Whether
such a mixed enterprise would be viable
without some kind of public-funded support
scheme will emerged from the detailed study
on Knepp commissioned by Natural England.
This mix of woodland and pastoral production
does not, however, have to be an effective
economic model for larger-scale agricultural
change in order to be of great relevance.
The future for nature lies with corridors
and buffer zones linking core areas – the ecological
networks pioneered by the Dutch. On a
longer timescale of a few thousand years
everything we do for biodiversity in England
will be trammelled by a wall of ice. In
terms of European temperate zone species
survival what happens between Latvia and
Romania is crucial – without an effective
corridor for migration, northwest Europe’s
mammal fauna (at least) is doomed. If
Western Europe can influence what happens in
southeastern Europe, we will have done far
more than anything our own national species
targets can achieve. Scarce public funds
could be targeted to special areas –
rather than dispersed, perhaps ultimately
ineffectively, over a generalised
agricultural support scheme.
The
future for agriculture is now bound up not
only with EU subsidy schemes, but also a
developing markets for biofuels. Reduction
of subsidy at one time was thought to mean
more marginal land for rewilding, as
happened in New Zealand – but the opposite
can happen where production is intensified
for biofuels, as well as generally to
compete with global low-cost production of
basic foodstuff.
The future for the natural world
would be grim – isolated natures reserves
amidst ever-intensified farming, unless
there was a programme of enlarged core-areas
and corridors.
In
such a programme there would be a spectrum
of wildland – buffer zones and
wildlife-friendly corridors can be a mix of
organic farming, productive forestry, and
appropriate small business enterprises.
Knepp also runs a Polo Club, clay pigeon and
pheasant shoot. Pony trekking and
wildlife-watching, mini-conference centres
and school visits can all play a role in
such conversions.
Animal welfare and public perceptions
Charlie
Burrell is not motivated toward the
‘safari-park’ end of the business model.
If it were economic, he would be happier to
see the full spectrum of wildland with no
domestic or semi-domestic stock and a low
level of visitor disturbance – in other
words, to act as a core-area where natural
processes held sway. He is not averse to
wild-shot game meat – whether pheasant,
boar, cattle or deer (horses, even wild
ones, are never included, of course!). And
in any case, populations would require
culling not just for the sake of the
woodland flora and regeneration, but also
for animal health reasons.
The
latter is a major issue for wildland
practitioners. If domestic stock are used as
analogues for natural grazers – as with
the Longhorn and Tamworths (and also with
regard to Exmoor ponies, which though truly
wild animals, are not perceived by the
public as such) then farming and animal
welfare regulations apply. This means daily
veterinary oversight and intervention during
poor winters. Carcasses have to be removed,
disease controlled, and injuries
ameliorated. Starving animals would engage
public interest as well as regulatory
concern. Animals would have to be removed to
an abattoir for killing.
These
rules do not apply to ‘wild’ animals
such as deer – even though these species
are just as sensitive to pain and
starvation. Deer and wild boar can be shot
on the land and the meat marketed locally.
Such regulations would not likely be
extendable to wild horses, and maybe with
some difficulty to wild cattle or bison –
at least not in relatively small areas in
southern England. The Dutch projects have
had trouble with public reaction to
carcasses lying around as the populations
adjust via natural death to winters or
competitions for mates.
At
a few sites we visited points where the
wildland of the estate abutted private
dwellings. Charlie had the rough edges
removed in a buffer strip of mown grass
sufficient not to disturb sensitivities –
mostly with regard to blown thistle down!
Clearly, public education on wildness may be
a long process – but one that could bring
dividends. The estate welcomes school
parties and is currently engaged in efforts
to assuage local parish council concerns –
which are mostly about tidiness of the
countryside.
An
ecological network in lowland Britain? What
then is the potential, whether by core areas
at Knepp or corridors and buffer zones, for
an ecological network in southern England
– and elsewhere in the lowlands? The land
at Knepp is part of the Sussex Low Weald
natural area – heavy bolder clay, with
much woodland and ancient iron workings.
There is some interest from neighbouring
estates and a 10,000 acre connected block is
not out of the question in the long term.
Linkage to the nearby Sussex Wildwood
Project is four miles distance, but Tony
Whitbread, chief executive of Sussex
Wildlife Trust, and a long-term advocate of
wild grazing, is on the advisory group and
may be up for the challenge. There are
potential river restoration schemes within
the Knepp estate and also extending outward.
Pulborough Brooks, the RSPB reserve is a few
miles to the west on the river Rother. Links
could perhaps be made to the extensive
woodland of the Weald and the South Downs.
The
lessons of Knepp could be applied to other
potential large land-holdings as core areas,
and also to buffer zones along rewilding
river corridors. Truly wild woodland zones
with natural grazers would likely be a
mosaic of canopy trees, glades, scrub and
riparian pasture – home perhaps for a lynx
or two (and doubtless of benefit to our
naturalised puma and melanistic leopard).
Buffer zones on marginal former agricultural
land that were partly productive with
organic beef and pork would be resilient to
predators such as lynx, as well as providing
undoubted additional biodiversity benefits.
A mosaic of surprises
As
I was leaving Knepp, I spied a pair of
stonechat. They were not on the
baseline-survey list of 2005, and not a
species I would expect of pasture and
parkland – they like it a bit rougher!
This land would doubtless bring back many
bird species and prosper others on the
Estate that are struggling such as turtle
dove, skylark, marsh tit, yellowhammer and
reed bunting (it is thought the decline in
woodland and farmland birds is a combination
of intensive practices such as winter sowing
and a general decline in insect numbers).
Four pairs of buzzard have colonised – and
we saw one fly up from a rabbit kill. Red
kite are recorded and there are lapwing,
stock dove, barn owl, green woodpecker and
nightingale all likely to increase as the
meadows and woods develop. Currently water
shrew is the most notable wild mammal –
but otter may come, and European wildcat
could be introduced. Knepp offers current
refuge for several nationally scarce
Lepidoptera – including silver-washed
fritillary, some scarce beetles and bees,
great crested newt, and the great yellow
cress as the only unusual plant.
But
biodiversity targets are not the only
benefit, or even the main relevant criteria
for success. Knepp offers a glimpse not only
of the potential for cores and corridors,
and to act as a test-bed for wildland and
buffer-zone economics – it offers an experience
of what nature can be like and of what it
may feel like to lessen control and slow
down enough to listen – not just to the
sound of birds and insects, but also to the
human heart that somehow got lost along the
ways of a busy world. In all these respects,
Charlie Burrell is a pioneer and I came away
vastly encouraged not just by the sights and
sounds of a rewilding land, but also by the
professionalism of the project, the focus of
expertise and open minds, and, to their
great credit, government agencies willing to
support an open-ended project such as this,
and learn alongside it.
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