'A thrilling, inspiring and deeply moving story of a wildlife revolution on an ordinary English farm, Wilding shows us what we have lost and what we could regain if we change our relationship with the countryside.' – James Rebanks, author of A Shepherd's Life The Knepp 'wilding' project is a vitally important experiment for working out what we can do to let Nature back into our farmed landscapes This book tells this vital story and deserves to be widely read.' 'Every farmer (and perhaps every conservationist) in Britain needs to go and spend a day at Knepp.

'The remarkable story of an astounding transformation.' – Chris Packham, presenter of The Really Wild Show 'A poignant, practical and moving story of how to fix our broken land, this should be conservation's salvation this should be its future this is a new hope.' ContentsĬhapter - 1: Meeting a Remarkable Man under a Remarkable TreeĬhapter - 4: The Secret of Grazing AnimalsĬhapter - 6: Wild Ponies, Pigs and Longhorn CattleĬhapter - 8: Living with the Yellow PerilĬhapter - 9: Painted Ladies and the Perfect Storm Part gripping memoir, part fascinating account of the ecology of our countryside, Wilding is, above all, an inspiring story of hope. It shows how rewilding works across Europe that it has multiple benefits for the land that it can generate economic activity and employment how it can benefit both nature and us – and that all of this can happen astonishingly quickly. In Wilding, Isabella Tree tells the story of the 'Knepp experiment' and what it reveals of the ways in which we might regain that wilder, richer country.

We are living in a desert, compared with our gloriously wild past.

According to the 2016 'State of Nature' report, the UK is ranked 29th in the world for biodiversity loss: 56% of species in the UK are in decline and 15% are threatened with extinction. This recovery has taken place against a backdrop of catastrophic loss elsewhere. The Burrells' degraded agricultural land has become a functioning ecosystem again, heaving with life – all by itself. Once-common species, including turtle doves, nightingales, peregrine falcons, lesser spotted woodpeckers and purple emperor butterflies, are now breeding at Knepp, and populations of other species are rocketing. Thanks to the introduction of free-roaming cattle, ponies, pigs and deer – proxies of the large animals that once roamed Britain – the 3,500 acre project has seen extraordinary increases in wildlife numbers and diversity in little over a decade. Forced to accept that intensive farming on the heavy clay of their land at Knepp in West Sussex was economically unsustainable, Isabella Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell made a spectacular leap of faith: they decided to step back and let nature take over.

Wilding by Isabella Tree