Finding Wild Spaces in the UK

–

You never quite know what you’ve lost until you have it again. The feeling hits harder when you gain something that you never even knew was possible to have. This was the feeling that I came away with after camping in a field and spending every day trekking into and studying a ‘wilderness’ nestled in one of the most nature-deprived countries in the world. Here in the UK, shifting baseline syndrome is a particularly pertinent issue, as our quaint farmland and sparse woods represent a Briton’s idea of ‘nature’. In actual fact, our fields of cattle and wheat are chemical-soaked ecological deserts, devoid of birdsong that most people have never heard and insect numbers that can’t even be imagined.

–

–

Even as someone who knew what shifting baseline syndrome was and who knew what state the British landscape was in, it took being surrounded by true British wildness (or as close as we can get) at Knepp to truly realise the potential held in every single patch of tamed land in Britain.

–

So what did I actually experience at Knepp? The field ecology course with Operation Wallacea involves a comprehensive introduction into survey techniques and careers advice centred around different fields of UK conservation. Everything from tree carbon to bird song to aquatic invertebrates and so much more. We spent our days doing surveys and transects while surrounded by farmland left to go wild nearly 25 years ago, so that now it is teeming with diversity. Arable fields have become scrubland knotted with blackthorn and sallow – a type of willow that is the favourite food of the famous Purple Emperor butterfly. Ancient oaks watch on while ponds have formed or been dug, bringing damselflies and dragonflies to their shores, while the rootling of Tamworth pigs – a substitute for wild boar – plough up the ground and allow scarlet pimpernel flowers to take root. These pretty but unassuming red stars brought with them a total surprise: the turtle dove. This species is on the brink of extinction, once heard widely in the UK but now treasured in a few miniscule pockets. Knepp is one of the few places where numbers of these iconic birds are actually rising, and I got to hear their turr-ing call for the first time shortly after arriving.

–

–

So how does all of this work? How can leaving cattle and pigs and ponies and deer to run wild with no predators create an environment that was more diverse than before, when it sounds mysteriously like just leaving farm animals to graze as they always have done?

–

Firstly, it is important to recognise that the herbivores that graze at Knepp are there for a purpose. By grazing and also browsing woody vegetation, they prevent the land from undergoing succession into closed-canopy forest, an important but less diverse and appropriate habitat for this area. Secondly, the pigs, deer and cattle are not entirely without predators. Without an area large enough to support carnivores, humans are employed to cull some of the animals to maintain a population size appropriate to the carrying capacity of the land. The meat that results from the culling and processing of the carcasses is sold at the local Knepp shop, while the Exmoor ponies – which most Britons wouldn’t have the stomach for – are moved around different rewilding projects to support new emerging populations. It is this new balance between ourselves and livestock animals that has allowed a diverse shrubland to form, where browsed blackthorn shrinks back into tight topiary and locks away huge amounts of carbon in the soil, while ‘weeds’ are allowed to flourish, nourishing invertebrates in fields once soaked with chemicals. And that’s just the tip the proverbial oak tree. If you’d like to find out more about the Knepp Wildland project from someone far more knowledgable than me, check out Isabella Tree’s book, ‘Wildling’.

–

–

The Operation Wallacea team were my guides during my two weeks at Knepp. A group of compassionate, knowledgeable, awesome humans and fellow nature nerds led by Fran, our camp manager who put so much care into checking in on each of us every day (all hail Fran). I can’t thank them enough. Each specialist that I had the opportunity to work with introduced a new way of identifying and quantifying the expanse of nature in front of me, from SMam (Small Mammal) handling with Fiona to bird call ID with Georgie and Heather, to telling my sedges with edges from my sorrel with sagitates with Bella. But they also made me realise that I wasn’t alone when I looked at my garden and saw what wasn’t there. Each and every bird-ringing morning, large mammal transect and sweep-netting session introduced me to a whole new world (cue music) of what could be, and as someone who has always been tempted to go overseas to find actually interesting wildlife, this was a total gamechanger. To put it bluntly, going on a research holiday with your fellow nature nerds makes the prospect of returning to ‘normal’ human society a distinctly undesirable one. How does one cope without a daily bird log or a hot shower with a view?

–

–

Title photo by Charlie Burrell