Eco-project will see Adur return to natural meander West Sussex County Times August 21 2009

SHADOW Environment Secretary Nick Herbert went on 'safari' during a visit to the wildland project managed by the Knepp Castle Estate near West Grinstead. 

The ground-breaking rewilding project is being run by estate owner Charlie Burrell who gave the South Downs Conservative MP an extensive tour of the 3,500 acre site. 

Landfill site "could destroy unique project"  West Sussex County Times and the West Sussex Gazette July 31 and 29 2009

Alex Jenkins reports A LANDOWNER has warned that if landfill proposals at Thakeham go ahead it will destroy a unique rewilding project. 

Knepp Castle: gone to the dogs, and horses, and pigs... The Daily Telegraph - 2 July 2009

Angela Wintle reports. Knepp Castle has embarked on an experiment where nature rules. The well-manicured countryside of West Sussex, with its carefully enclosed parcels of pasture, arable crops and conventional farming stock, is pretty typical of the English Home Counties rural scene.

Country Side Monthly, European Landowners Organization - June 2009

Charlie Burrell reports. I inherited my family’s landed estate from my grandfather in 1985 when I was just 21.  My father had chosen a life in Australia and was not interested in the complexities and costs of running a 200 year-old mansion in the overpopulated southeast of England.....

Jessie Cooke reports from a CLA estate that has become one of Britain's most exciting centers for countryside education

WHEN YOU think of a safari you would normally imagine tracking the big five across the wild plains of Africa. However, as I found out when I visited Knepp Castle, it is possible to experience a safari which is just as exciting and much closer to home.

A walk on the wild side   The Argus on Saturday 

January 10th 2009

A PIONEERING farming project in Sussex plans to put mother nature back into agriculture.

Reporter SAMUEL UNDERWOOD talks to the man behind the project to discover what inspired him to reject modern farming methods and to hear his views on the future of the countryside.

Support is growing for ‘rewilding’, which could see bears, wolves and elk roaming Britain.

You are on safari amid lynx, bears and elk. The wetlands around you are dominated by small lakes created by beaver dams. In the distance a wolf howls.

Nothing unusual perhaps – except that this is not northern Canada but Scotland sometime in the near future.

Jonathan Leake,  Environment Editor

Prominent estate pushes boundaries aspects of land - 

Winter 08/09

Countryside Stewardship was the catalyst back in 2002, which lead to the restoration of parkland around Knepp Castle, near Horsham. Then several years of successively poor arable commodity prices helped to encourage the owner, Sir Charles Burrell, to consider a conservation project, the likes of which have not been seen before in the south east.  

Jason Emrich reflects on the bold ideas being implemented at Knepp Castle in West Sussex

'I've inherited my ancestors' legacy of 500 years here.  I want my grandchildren to be able to say when they're my age, "How wonderful to still hear the crickets"', says Charlie Burrell.  'Here' is Knepp Castle Estate near Horsham, Sussex where Charlie is currently in the process of 're-wilding' what was a traditional, 3,500-acre dairy and arable farm.    

Helen Harrison reports

Bid to save trees from extinction West Sussex County Times - Friday February 8, 2008

THE FIGHT to save the black poplar tree from extinction has seen a mass planting in Shipley.

More than 1,300 of the rare riverside trees were set in the ground on Friday February 1 on a one hectare site at Tenchford Bridge, previously used as a horse paddock.  

In a revolutionary approach to estate management, Charlie Burrell has abandoned modern farming methods and taken down nearly all the fences on his 3,500-acre West Sussex estate, where the deer, cows and even pigs now roam free.  Indulgent fantasist or enlightened nature lover.

Sandy Mitchell goes to find out

On Your Farm BBC Radio 4 recording - Sunday the 28th of  October 2007

Elinor Goodman presents on your farm on the Knepp Castle Estate with gests Dr Tony Whitbread (Chief Executive of the Sussex Wildlife Trust), Jonathan Spencer (Senior Ecologist Forestry Commission), Ted Green MBE (Founder Member of the Ancient Tree Forum and Eco Worrier) and Charlie Burrell (Farmer). 

Produced by: Andrew Smith

Ted Green takes a look at our treatment of the countryside, beginning with the free-ranging pigs at Knepp and taking in conservation grazing, vets, medicines, our food agencies, ecologists no-one get’s off lightly!

Ted Green a personal rant 

Conservation groups say they are in favour of restoring Britain's countryside to its former and wilder glory but have done little to back this up. Is it now up to private landowners to take action? 

Peter Marren reports

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. 

Peter Taylor reports

I have at last, after 7 years planning, got my Fallow Deer in the Knepp Park but what an adventure it was getting them there.

Charlie Burrell reports

Large herbivores in the wildwood and in modern naturalistic grazing systems

This report stems from work commissioned by English Nature into the role of large herbivores in the post-glacial landscape of Britain and the potential for using free-ranging grazing animals to create and maintain diverse landscape mosaics in modern conditions.

Some aspects may be disputed or considered controversial; it is an active field of research. Therefore we stress that the views expressed are those of the authors at the current time. 

Subsequent research may confirm our views or lead us to modify them. We hope they will be useful in future discussions, both within English Nature and in conservation land-management circles more generally.

Keith Kirby

English Nature, Northminster House, Peterborough, PE1 1UA

May 2005. Report Number 648

English Nature Research Reports

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By R. J. FULLER,  S. A. HINSLEY & R. D. SWETNAM

British Trust for Ornithology, The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk IP24 2PU, UK

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Monks Wood, Abbots Ripton, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire PE28 2LS, UK

BTO report

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Grazing by domesticated stock is essential or highly desirable for the conservation of the vast majority of grassland and heathland habitats in the UK. However, modern livestock production systems, and the breeds associated with them, are seldom suitable for the low quality keep which occurs on many nature conservation sites.

by the Grazing Animal Project team

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A Living Landscape for the South East

The Ecological network approach to rebuilding for the 21st century

This is what the ecological network approach to rebuilding biodiversity is all about, and this document presents a vision of how it could be achieved in the South East. It has been put together to:

1300 MB PDF

Conservation Considerations Regarding the use of Avermectin animal health products

This Project Information Note provides an overview of the findings from recently completed PhD research funded by RSPB Scotland and SAC and conducted jointly between SAC, University of Glasgow and RSPB.

by LISA WEBB, South and West Scotland Advisory Officer, RSPB Scotland. DAVY McCRACKEN, Senior Agricultural Ecologist. SAC DAVE BEAUMONT, Senior Reserves Ecologist, RSPB Scotland. RUEDI NAGER, Senior Lecturer, University of Glasgow

129 KB PDF

The restoration and re-creation of species-rich lowland grassland on land formerly managed for intensive agriculture in the UK

Intensive agriculture has resulted in the loss of biodiversity and the specialist flora and fauna associated with the semi-natural grasslands of low-intensity pastoral systems throughout northwest Europe.

by Kevin J. Walker a, Paul A. Stevens b, David P. Stevens c, J. Owen Mountford a, Sarah J. Manchester a, Richard F. Pywell

337 KB PDF

Code of Practice on How to Prevent the Spread of Ragwort

Ragwort is a native species of the British Isles. It is a specified weed under the Weeds Act 1959. It contains toxins which can have debilitating or fatal consequences, if eaten by horses and other grazing animals. Ragwort is less likely to be rejected by stock if dried and contamination of forage (hay, haylage and silage) is a particular problem. Humans may be at risk from ragwort poisoning through direct contact (e.g. hand pulling) or the consumption of contaminated food. Research undertaken for the Government in the 1990s suggested that the risk to human health in the UK through the contamination of staple foods i.e. grain, milk, eggs and honey is likely to be insignificant.

by DEFRA

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Large herbivores in the wildwood and modern naturalistic grazing systems

Frans Vera's book Grazing Ecology and Forest History challenges our views on the nature of the former natural landscape of Britain during the Atlantic period. Rather than closed woodland, he proposes that it was a half-open park-like landscape, in which large herbivores, such as wild cattle, were the main factors driving a cyclical turnover of vegetation. Grassland would become scrub and woodland, before turning back into grassland again. Is he right, and if so, what might be the implications for modern conservation?

Report Authors: K H Hodder, J M Bullock, P C Buckland , & K J Kirby, June 2005

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English Nature is starting an exciting project to see how free-ranging cattle and other large herbivores could be used to create and maintain wildlife-rich mixed landscapes of woodland, scrub and open grassland or heath.

by Keith Kirby

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Tamworth pigs as ecological analogs of wild boar in a re-wilding scheme (Knepp)

The success of re-wilding schemes as a conservation tool is assumed to depend on the extent to which feral domestic herbivores can mimic the ecological effects of their wild ancestors. The Tamworth pig (Sus scrofa scrofa) has a semi-feral nature and rare breed status that makes it appealing for use in rewilding schemes. However, its ecological impacts, and the extent to which they are similar to those of wild boar, are unknown.

by Bournemouth University

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Ants are insects belonging to the family Formicidae, within the order Hymenoptera which also contains bees, wasps and sawflies. Ants are one of the dominant land organisms on earth, making up 10-15% of the entire animal biomass in most terrestrial habitats. One hectare of soil in the Amazonian rainforest contains more than 8 million ants. There are well over 11,000 species of ants worldwide, but only around 42 species are native to Britain.

By Nigel Reeve

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