This is an important book. I think anyone reading it will be permanently changed for the better. It creates shifts in perception and offers a way out for a host of environmental predicaments.
It is part-memoir, part-manifesto of a wilding project on the Knepp Estate in West Sussex which began twenty-plus years ago. The notion of rewilding was familiar to me in a very sketchy way but certainly not how it was to be achieved or its significance. Author Isabella Tree (I'm sure everyone says "apt name" but I just can't resist it) and her husband Charlie Burrell began the project when their long-established farm business fell into terminal decline. It's described by her as "largely a leap of faith. It involves surrendering all preconceptions, and simply sitting back and observing what happens." This is what they did with their land, which seems remarkably passive. It was, however, backed by much research, grant applications which initially did not produce much support and so much optimism required by them and their team in a sea of negativity from official organisations and government departments to some neighbours who saw it as the couple unforgivably abandoning the work of the generations of farmers who preceded them.
This is the account of what they did, they challenges they faced and their extraordinary results.
The book published in 2018 has become a bit of a slow burn phenomenon. Like the fields left to do what they will it has taken time for the ideas within this book to percolate to the point where it is now considered one of the most important natural history book of our times. In 2023 a Practical Guide to rewilding "The Book Of Wilding" was published and this year has seen a new illustrated guide in conjunction with artist Angela Harding which makes this book and its concepts accessible to a younger audience as well as being a stunning gift book. Also this year a documentary film should also spread the word but in case you are still unsure here are eight extracts amongst the many I highlighted to illustrate the need for this book to have as large a readership as possible to change attitudes towards our land before it is too late.
"We lost more ancient woods- tens of thousands of them- in the forty years after the second world war than in the previous four hundred."
"97% of our wildflower meadows have been lost since the war."
"In 1966, according to the RSPB, there were 10 million more birds in the UK than there are today."
"Ranked twenty-ninth lowest out of 218 countries, we are among the most nature-depleted countries in the world."
"Dung beetles are estimated to save the British cattle industry £367 million a year simply by encouraging the growth of healthy grass."
"The largely unpublicized reality is that the world already produces enough to feed 10 billion people. The shocking subtext is that a third of this food- 1.3 billion tonnes every year- is wasted."
"Waste, however, is a problem that the food and farming industry is reluctant to solve, for fear of driving itself out of business."
"The evidence both in the UK and abroad is incontrovertible, naturalizing rivers and rewilding river catchment areas prevents flooding."
If you want to know more about any of these areas please read this book.
"Wilding: The Return Of Nature To A British Farm" was published by Picador in 2018.
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