2027 Dates

2 weeks – 13 June – 26 June
2 weeks – 27 June – 10 July
2 weeks – 11 July – 24 July
2 weeks – 25 July – 07 August

Please note – the terms and conditions for our Knepp bookings state that payment of the balance of the training course is due 3 months before the course start date. Therefore, balance payments are due very soon or immediately after the deposit for bookings made from late March onwards.

This project is based at the Knepp Estate in the Low Weald of Sussex, which is Britain’s most famous rewilding site.  The 3500 acre estate is being returned to a pre-human habitat by almost abandoning human intervention in the management of the landscape and allowing fields to revert to natural vegetation. Fallow and red deer, wild ponies, English long-horn cattle to mimic the effects of the extinct auroch and Tamworth pigs in place of wild boar all control the vegetation on this unique estate to produce a patchwork of different habitats.  Beavers have also been introduced to help restore the wet grassland and wetland habitats.

This approach was started in 2002 and has turned out to be visionary with many other farmers now looking to similarly restore areas using this approach.  The effect on wildlife has been breath-taking including massive increases in floristic diversity, insect abundance (including special species such as Purple Emperor), increased abundance of threatened bird species such as nightingales and turtle doves, and 13 of the 17 bat species returning to the land.

This course is aimed at those positioning themselves to benefit from the anticipated explosive growth in career opportunities in wildlife management and climate change careers in the UK (see Opportunities in the UK jobs market for ecology and climate change careers). The course is designed to give a brilliant overview of conventional conservation methods compared to rewilding, as well as practical field skills for different UK survey types. By combining hands-on field skills with an honest look at the challenges facing UK land management, we aim to prepare participants not just to enter conservation careers, but to think critically within them.

In this 2 week course, activities are aimed at developing applied skills for wildlife careers. In their first week on site, volunteers will get involved with a variety of different surveys including a bird ringing demonstration, as well as a point count and breeding bird transect, large mammal camera trapping and DISTANCE sampling, refugia checking for reptiles and amphibians, and a range of invertebrate survey methods such as pan trapping, sweep netting and Malaise trapping. Bat surveys give a greater understanding of bat ecology and species that can be found in the UK, as well as teaching volunteers how to use bat detectors. Light trapping is a brilliant opportunity to appreciate moth species diversity and get familiar with how identify species. UKHAB mapping and calculation of the biodiversity of a site using the DEFRA biodiversity metric will be taught through habitat surveys, which will open up opportunities for planning authorities and developers. Finally carbon surveys give an insight into the voluntary carbon market, importance of carbon storage and the practical side of the woodland carbon code.

In the second week volunteers will get to experience an even wider range of surveys! This includes surveying small mammals through trapping and tracking with hedgehog print tunnels and learning how to trap and identify newts, which will help volunteers to work towards a Great Crested Newt license if they wish to in the future. Volunteers also get to join a freshwater invertebrate survey to quantify biodiversity of ponds, pollinator surveys and how to identify bee and hoverfly species, and also get to take part in some wildlife photography workshops to improve scientific communication. Volunteers will also get to practice their plant ID skills on another habitat survey on a different area of the estate, and join another bird ringing session with guidance on how to select a ringing site and how to put up mist nets. All of these surveys will give volunteers a brilliant understanding of survey methods, and prepare them for a career in UK conservation.

Volunteers will also get to go on a rewilding safari with one of the Knepp ecologists, which is an amazing chance to put things into perspective and really see how diverse the wildlife is at Knepp. On the weekend in the middle of the course volunteers will get to join some of the other safaris, which could include the Purple Emperor butterfly, White Storks, and Exmoor pony safaris. There will be talks on the theory behind rewilding and in the evenings there will be presentations from professional ecologists in how they developed their careers. All will contribute to our volunteers gaining a well-rounded understanding of UK survey techniques, conservation practices and potential career paths.