It absolutely delights my heart, that people are beginning to restore our natural landscapes, and recreate their wildness! The recovery of Knepp is beautiful, the sights and sounds deeply healing. This is what we are supposed to do, and what we are supposed to be about - thank you!
I went in May 22 and loved it. Just hearing the storks beak clattering in greeting mates, and seeing them wheel high overhead was super in itself. It is a lot of walking though, as there are about 4 walks of about 4-10 miles each, so consider the bus tour.
We need a thousand more projects based on what they've done at Knepp. This is proved to work incredibly well and it hugely cheaper to implement than other conservation initiatives.
What I still find shocking is the impact of removing exotic plants and replacing them with native ones in our yard. We also installed bee hotels and other ways for insects to hibernate. For reference, we have a tiny yard 33 square meter that's fully tiled (though does not have anti rooting fabric under the tiles, which allows for movement of all manner of soil animals from pot to pot and for plants to root where we don't walk. In our case, Campanula has taken over every nook and cranny) in a rowhouse in the Netherlands. Granted, there are hanging pots everywhere and every spot that can be covered with plants is, but it's still tiny. In 2 years time, we now have 5 times the bees we had and at least 12 species as well as up to 8 species of bumblebees. We have had more butterflies than we've had in years, at least 7 or 8 spider hatchings (read hundreds of baby spiders) and dozens of ladybugs. Even small changes can have massive effects. Please consider investing in a native flower yard.
Wonderful idea! These large-scale projects help immensely, but so do the little changes we make to our own backyards; even a tiny backyard can be home to dozens of plants and animals.
@@iwanabana We've done nothing that special, to be honest. We just have loads of planted pots everywhere and water it with a drip system so nothing every dries out or drowns. We just added some piled wood for things to winter in and some bee and insect hotels so carpenter bees, butterflies and ladybugs have a place to stay (during winter). The change came in when we planted the natives and installed those hotels. Nature did the rest.
articificial culling and then selling the meat locally as high value meat is what is happening right now. The reintroduction of the lynx and then other predators has been discussed, with it more likely to be in the Highlands or perhaps Northern England.
I'm so happy that beavers are included. I remember a few years ago they were highly controversial. I signed an online petition to allow them for the UK and joined an online group to encourage it. I know online stuff can be pretty weak compared to IRL or financial contributions, but it was something for people like me a disabled low income person to "join in" on. With all of the large herbivores I wonder when there will be too many and land will once again become degraded or disease will spread. So how will that be handled? I know that large carnivores are a no-no if you want public enthusiasm [for the moment]. What about wild-cats like is seen in Scottish highlands? Could they come to this area too or are local domestic cats too much of a risk fir interbreeding?
Very important project. Whilst it is good to hear the ecological and scientific benefits it would be great to hear the effects on neighbouring land and downstream. Has this helped mitigate flood risk? Does the rewilding benefit crop yields to neighbouring farms? etc. The ecological activists and scientists are already for projects like this, but we need to convince Joe Public and the business community to its wider benefits.
Just asked a similar question. "Playing devils advocate. What of the loss of the farmland in terms food production? How is that factored into the bigger picture. Someone below mentions the meat from the animals, but is the output of food production equivalent to the previous farm? Or is it a case, that we gradually re-wild and improve UK biodiversity and force somewhere else to adopt a far more efficient food production process to enable us to continue eating at the expense of someone else's biodiversity"?
Live two miles away - we walk there often and it’s pretty cool , especially the storks ! Got to mention that they are concerned about “ corridors “ as there are plans to build houses at Buck Barn and to develop around our village which is to the south . It’s a constant battle with the planners but then everyone wants to live here - could it be because of places like this . Maybe this is a model for other places - quality of life etc .
Great story at Knepp. Their book Wilding is really inspiring. Surprised you called this series re-wilding, considering Knepp say themselves that they don't conform to traditional rewilding
I Wish this was happening more in Australia. In 200 years this beautiful country is so degraded in most parts and the big mining companies, huge farming corporations and the timber industries are happily ignoring government environmental policies to keep their shareholders quiet. Frankly criminal.
That's cool. But I have mixed feelings firstly because for the UK and the whole world to get to a point of so many species' extictions a lot happened, secondly how do these rewildlings cope with the people and lobby who want to burn it all down and make room for farming and mining? Like... what if a random guy start a fire? There are fires happening all over the world: California, Portugal, Australia, the Amazon and Pantanal in Brazil. And there is hunting and the killing of big cats where cattle farms are spreading. The wildest of animals is the human being.
wonderful ! I am so glad to see another piece of wildernis growing in Europe - finally the responsible people get anything real done! They have sure wasted enough time and money and blown enough Co2 into the air traveling and flying to the ends of the world to look at Nature. And there is nothting pioneering about this! Rewilding projects have successfully been done for a very long time in many countries and versions. Please be more humble and honest. And the success is purely due to Nature. The basis was the failing of agricultural practices and the giving up of fighting against Nature with agricultural practices.
I found myself immediately thinking that, after a few more years, they'll need some top predators too. As without predation, I assume there's increased pressure on the plants from the herbivores. Is the size of the reserve sufficiently large to support that?
Natural forests? In the UK there are not really any natural forests left. Although I am a fan of this type of project, one has to ask how much room is there for this to be replicated nation wide?
Loads of room. It’s about better utilising the space we have. Create hedgerows, adopt agroforestry, farm differently. There has to be a balance between agricultural production and biodiversity and at the moment there isn’t.
This is actually a common misconception Steph, the UK has tonnes of room to build on. Less than 10% of the UK has been built on. One study thought it was close to 2%. The rest is farmland and natural habitats.
I'd say some farmers would turn a better profit if they rewilded areas like this and charged admission to whatever extent is feasible. Like you say, properly managed bio-diverse forests are, to put it mildly, pretty thin on the ground in the UK. The quality of habitat here in N.Ireland is embarrassing. I feel we've definitely turned a corner though and projects like this are so inspiring!
Rewilding projects needn't all be massive endeavors like Knepp. I've been rewilding my small suburban backyard and have already seen an explosion of life like in Knepp!
Just about every environment on the planet has been touched and changed by ancient humans hunting and transplanting plants they liked for tens of thousands of years. If natural means absolutely no effect by humans then since our atmosphere has artificially higher CO2 than it should, the only truly natural places on the planet are underground or in caves. We think, remember, and then use thoughts and memories to change our environment more than other species and that s all that really sets us apart from at least other mammals. The rest of nature does most of not all of what we do in some form, only in a natural balance there's a limiting factor for everything and the extinction rate is steady. What the industrialized world most often thinks of when we say "nature" or "natural" is an environment that is left to its own devices and maintains itself, which ironically is not happening in many places that we use to build the mental image of nature. Often times in the US the industry that cleared the land near people gets left and the invasives fill the spaces where diversity used to be, and without predators to control anything. Humans can be a part of nature if our actions help or emulate other species more than harming them. It's understandable why people separate us from nature in "civilized" society, but in a time like this where we have so much of this planet is mismanaged, as many people as possible need to understand that we are an extension of nature, and that our presence can make the environment more natural, and sooner than it would take for species to evolve for invasives and spread back to their previous range. To fix things we basically only need to maintain or restore the balance and diversity that natural ecosystems need to thrive, mitigate our effects on it, and keep as many native species as possible. Otherwise things will get worse until our environment limits us by collapsing as it carries us. The "hunter-gatherers" often maintained the land they lived in before monoculture farming, and modern industry became widespread. The way they did it was just messier than the newer intensive farming techniques of Eurasia, which allowed humanity to grow faster than it's understanding. The most similar thing to us overall is ants, they have similar strengths and weaknesses, they can farm, communicate and plan as a group, defoliate large areas, and the biggest thing that keeps them from destroying everything as our civilization has is their size and the fact they they've been warring with other ants since the cretaceous. We want to make our own choice for how we are limited, before we let nature or our own tendency for conflict do it anyways, understanding that we're a part of nature allows us to make the best compromise for us and the planet.
Playing devils advocate. What of the loss of the farmland in terms food production? How is that factored into the bigger picture. Someone below mentions the meat from the animals, but is the output of food production equivalent to the previous farm? Or is it a case, that we gradually re-wild and improve UK biodiversity and force somewhere else to adopt a far more efficient food production process to enable us to continue eating at the expense of someone else's biodiversity?
Well they are there. Knepp has had visits from Eagles before and I know some of the Stork pick off young Rabbits and other small animals. Mammalian well, got Foxes and Badgers, few others too, sadly nothing to big but Humans fill that niche.
What's the plan for when someone randomly decide it's cool to start a fire and burn it all down? I am not saying it's going to happen but all things on this earth are vunerable to any one person taking one crazy action...
I've got a question. How is this system sustainable without any large predators? won't this lead to exploding populations of large herbivores that will eat all shrubs and young trees?
Also im vegan flexi vegatarian I prayise what I advocate its a ist choice if u care about the environment if yr. circumstance choice allows it I choose It its a lifestyle to me daily modus operandi ❤
I know you found out about the culling but I figured it’d be a bit cool to say that natural predators there do fill in the niche sometimes. Foxes and Badgers have been reported to have hunted/eaten young Deer calf’s and Piglets, so while yes culling is more used for the adults natural predation still plays a small role in the early days of the young’s lives.
Isn't anyone worried about feeding our population ? The uk already only manages to produce half of its food, and many food exporting countries are also reeling back on their agricultural production, food takes time to grow, it cannot be switched on in an instant !!
A great video but why do we need to listen to this unbearable background 'music while people are speaking? So destructive! Natural sounds from the wildlife would have been understandable but this?
Can't remember the details, but in the book "Wilding", about the estate, the finances improved dramatically due to huge reductions in artificial fertilizer, weedkiller, and medication, and in improved yields. Before the experiment, the estate was running at a big loss and dependent, one would assume, on governmental subsidies.
How could this be started on the USA? I just moved to Missouri and I am dismayed by so much building as well as no replanting of trees or conservation expectations when developing. It's depressing me.
Yes there are in fact quite a few current large ecosystem scale rewilding projects underway within the states you've got the American Prairie Reserve in Montana, the Southern Plains land trust in southern Colorado, the Yellowstone to Yukon corridor, the Florida wildlife corridor, the Adirondacks to Algonquin corridor, the Heartland rewilding campaign, borderlands restoration and I could go on and on but you have a large selection to look in to.
City & State forestry depts. Contact & see what replacement schemes/laws are in place. Wetlands are protected at the federal level & are mandated to be replaced I believe.
Good luck, seeing as Missouri is controlled by the aggressively anti-conservation Republican Party. Just a few days ago, they flipped out about the XBox having a power saving mode. They will stop at nothing until the last bit of wild land is destroyed.
And not just Europe! Rewilding projects are happening all over the world, from the large-scale to the individual. Here in the U.S. I frequently see wildlife or rain gardens which are already having a big difference for local wildlife.
@@MaxWeinhold We are talking about Europe because we live in Europe! Keep your American centric views to yourself! U.S.Americans can't have a conversation about another country without injecting themselves into that conversation.
The footage of the vehicle starting at 7:01 was filmed just over 6 years ago. My, then girlfriend, and I were there, we're sitting on the right at the back of the vehicle. She'd won tickets to see the project and it was one of the first trips we did together. I'm happy to say that we got married 2 years ago. She's the photographer with the blonde-ish hair that appears a few seconds later and is possibly the only British naturalist who has never been to the natural history museum... yet. I didn't expect us to pop up on the museums social media but a nice surprise nonetheless. Knepp is beautiful and the venison sausages are very nice.
Just started reading Isabella's book, 'Wilding', it's all about the Knepp project. I'm finding the details she reveals about the history of land use over hundreds of years absolutely fascinating. Recommended read.
Ayy, I’ve actually been to Knepp. It’s absolutely incredible to see in real life and so comforting to see that we Han achieve rewiliding on a fairly short order of time. Camping there is so lovely and their open air shower stalls among the trees are magical. Oh, and those venison burgers were the best burgers I’ve ever had. I wish Knepp all the best in their truly inspirational project.
Love Knepp. Has been my favourite nature escape for about 5 years now, although it’s a bit too wet without a dry suit in December. ;D Keep it up lovely people! Looking forward to seeing the NHM wildlife garden’s evolution.
In the UK in particular, the government literally pays land owners to keep their land in what they call, an agriculturally-ready state. Meaning, they are paying them to burn their land to the ground every year. And the more land someone has in that state, the more they get paid by the government. Just in case another war comes and they need to grow a bunch of food quickly. And they wonder why their biodiversity is so poor. We're not much better in the US. Hubris is our problem. We believe we can outsmart nature. And politicians have made damn sure that any talk of rewilding, or regreening, are political and thus not prone to arguments being fact-based. But even on the left (which is how I lean... strongly), they don't make climate change about nature. Or about rewilding the land. They just talk about others having to give up their gas powered cars because burning fossil fuels is evil. Well, sorry to say, but that's not helpful. You want less CO2 in the air? More plants and trees is how we get there. Fighting back on desertification. Not by telling others their cars are evil.
You could gain more food from agroforestry and animals in that land than typical agriculture... so it's simply an outdated and bad system on its way out. Not even going to mention the US... US has no brain when it comes to common sense. One could say people in the US are the just vehicles for transferring money to the lobbying party xD...sad but true. From how your cities/towns are built, culture of megacities full of parking lots and urban deserts...i didn't understand until recently that if you live in the typical suburb in the USA that without a car you can't even buy stuff since the closest shop is few km away....no wonder it's a divided culture on so many fronts. People don't live together.
Congratulations! "Rewilding" is a highly noble cause! We need to reduce the population of humans around the world and re-establish natural eco systems. Little by little - the more land and water, the better. It's incredibly important! And probably the best way to address our manifold crises!
That is the question a lot of people in conservation don't want to approach, Britain's growing population and the politicians promises to build millions of new properties.
Next step would be to add some small predators to this system. Lynx would be great! It would never happen but a small population of wolves would be incredible here.
Too small for wolves and lynxes. Start with Scotland or drastically increase the size of the project. But maybe scottish wild cat, pine marten, otter, osprey eagle, common crane, dalmatian pelican, red squirrel, some smalls birds, pheasans and ground bird like great bustard. Some Toad, newt, salamandes, small river fishes, frogs, glow worm, esclupian snake, other snake and lizards species and even pond turtle and locally extinct insect species. Are plausible. Or even bison, golden eagle, white tailed eagle, water buffalo and boars who know. Or maybe even Europan Bighorn sheep
@@jollyjokress3852 Yes. But let's start with wolves and lynxes first. You can't just throw the only really dangerous predator like that You first need to prepare for cohabitation. Like reintroducing lynx The least problematic specie. Then wolves, wich is not dangerous but do dammage to sheeps. Then once farmers and the population are ok with living with them we can reintroduce bears. Or even leopard (they were in Europe and UK too).
A Wolf can run 100 km on one night. On a week he can run from Knepp to the Scottish border. Lynx are more stationary and less known due to its great shyness. The problem with Wolf and Lynx is that modern livestock have lost the ability to defend themselves. If a Wolf enters a sheepfold it can kill hundreds of sheep in a couple of hours. Older breeds of livestocks have better ability to defend themselves, but they are therefore more dangerous to humans.
Such a good feel good story. I’m hopeful that more of this type of work gain momentum across governments, towns, cities and nations. Thanks for sharing…
Rural Yorkshire , Scotland and Wales has been devastated and stripped bare with all the sheep. Unproductive farms on very marginal lands heavily subsidised . we need to re forest marginal farmlands and re wild these unproductive farmlands
What Knepp is doing is wonderful. Its such a pity though that they are instrumental in attacking one of our true native species, a mammal to boot no less, by promoting and being very supportive in allowing and actively encouraging the local hunt to come on to their land to murder our foxes. In numbers , how many true native mammals are on that wildlife park ? I dont count domesticated cows and pigs.
good effort. I am doing a rewilding project on a smaller scale (112 acres) on a hillside in New Zealand. I note in your footage there are lots of deer. From my experience on my project, the deer are the biggest threat to forest diversity. Every young seedling they will eat the tips and constantly mow them OR the stags will come and rub between their antlers and thus stripping the side branches and ring barking the tree for a quick death. At first I was very disappointed to realize that I needed to kill the deer because it seemed at odds with my conservation views but there is no way around it if I want to reforest this hillside and try return something back to a native New Zealand forest state. I'd be alarmed if the deer were not a problem for your forest goals.
It's a very nice project, but the question of the regulation of large herbivores will soon arise. Do you plan to reintroduce large natural predators like the wolf? (what Yellowstone Park has done with great success to restore the ecological balance) Otherwise how are you going to do? Greetings from France.
Yes there ya a huge problem in Killarney National Park in Ireland.Deer are eating all the native tree sapling and undergrowth and rhododendrons and laurel trees have taken over most of it.
Knepp is a true vision and how it should be done hopefully others will follow suit ❤ respect to all that work so hard to do what’s right for our countryside ❤
Food can be grown in urban, high rise areas. Large, monoculture farming is an economic dinosaur and a disaster for the environment. Kudos to projects like these!
Knepp has been an amazing alternative (extensive ecosystem) rewilding project. Most landowners could not afford to do it in the current system of farm support. Perhaps this will change / is changing. I found myself wondering what the long-term impact of all those herbivores will be - their numbers havent increased significantly yet, but there are no apex predators (lynx, wildcat, wolf), so how will numbers be controlled, and what impact will it have on regeneration of herbs and trees as grazing animal numbers increase unchecked?
The reason kepp is so successful is because it told goverments ideals of conservation to "go do one". They also told anyone who came to give them target's to "go do one" at the expence of thousands in grants. Go read the book. They have litraly turned conservation and the way yo do it on its head.
This should be replicated across the UK. Rewilding and restoring our nature will have so many benefits - better air quality, more biodiversity, better mental and physical health for us, and it helps confront climate breakdown. I can't see why we don't do it?
For more hope look up the Loess Plateau and permaculture. All over the world rewilding and huge permaculture projects are making stunning achievements.
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I applaud this effort. This and many like this is inspiring. Yet in my area, Florida, I see empty scrub Pine and Palmetto acreage being bulldozed for many new $400K townhouse complexes. In the past two years, maybe 5 complexes in just the towns of Stuart and Jensen Beach. Sorry, but I really have to wonder if we start to measure the pluses and minuses are things still One Foot Forward and Two Feet Back? I hope not. But I can't see the forest for the trees metaphorically speaking. We are naturally myopic by nature. It takes this invention the Internet to bring us the truth. I will not want to travel to all these new and revived places. I understand the need for Ecotourism, but travel is a bit of a strain too on things. Maybe just the people working the projects can keep up the work and give us posts from time to time. But I am trying not to drive that much. And buying an Electric Vehicle, well is that just trading one problem for another? Where did that car's battery come from. Did the Lithium miner use hundreds of thousands of rare ground water to purify and extract the Lithium? And what about those batteries in ten years? Where do they all go? Will we be dumping them in landfills by the hundred's of thousands soon enough? I hate to sound negative, but we've got to change the whole lot of it really. Maybe it's a good thing that folks seem to be having fewer kids. Not that I hate people. But does the Earth really need 8 or 9 billion of us? Would things be just fine, maybe even better if we had just 8-9 hundred million of us globally? I am not saying lets all jump off a cliff. But we could take the next 40-50 years and slow down, and make a few less people and buy a few less cars and trips to Hawaii. It could even put a chill in the air. Wouldn't that be grand?
Shocked by the level of ignorance by the biologists & documentrists: Fallow Deer are not natural. They are not indigenous to the UK nor Europe, but are feral domesticated deer escaped from Roman Colonists. The Etruscans imported them from Persia.
Lovely video but full of factual inaccuracies. For instance, narrator states that we are quickly cutting down forest to be replaced by agriculture; in the UK the exact opposite is true, as this documentary demonstrates.
I applaud the efforts to bring back beavers,storks and cranes, but we need to also address the issue of non native species here, such as deer and grey squirrel, they look nice but are doing so much damage.
After hearing the recent news of Labour’s land reform, is this a new concern of land being sold off cheaply for new housing and these rewilding opportunities being exhausted?
Given the opportunity (and perhaps some help), Nature knows how to bring back into equilibrium that which we have thrown off kilter. We're in the process of transforming our front and back yards back into the desert-scape they once were long ago. It's going to take a bit of investment, but I look forward to seeing the outcome and how indigenous creatures fill the space.
You need some wolves to keep the herbivores in check, you have no predators so you will end up with a lot of sick animals with genetic disease among the herbivores weakening the viability of the herbivore population.
It absolutely delights my heart, that people are beginning to restore our natural landscapes, and recreate their wildness! The recovery of Knepp is beautiful, the sights and sounds deeply healing. This is what we are supposed to do, and what we are supposed to be about - thank you!
I went in May 22 and loved it. Just hearing the storks beak clattering in greeting mates, and seeing them wheel high overhead was super in itself. It is a lot of walking though, as there are about 4 walks of about 4-10 miles each, so consider the bus tour.
We need a thousand more projects based on what they've done at Knepp. This is proved to work incredibly well and it hugely cheaper to implement than other conservation initiatives.
What I still find shocking is the impact of removing exotic plants and replacing them with native ones in our yard. We also installed bee hotels and other ways for insects to hibernate. For reference, we have a tiny yard 33 square meter that's fully tiled (though does not have anti rooting fabric under the tiles, which allows for movement of all manner of soil animals from pot to pot and for plants to root where we don't walk. In our case, Campanula has taken over every nook and cranny) in a rowhouse in the Netherlands. Granted, there are hanging pots everywhere and every spot that can be covered with plants is, but it's still tiny.
In 2 years time, we now have 5 times the bees we had and at least 12 species as well as up to 8 species of bumblebees. We have had more butterflies than we've had in years, at least 7 or 8 spider hatchings (read hundreds of baby spiders) and dozens of ladybugs.
Even small changes can have massive effects. Please consider investing in a native flower yard.
Wonderful idea! These large-scale projects help immensely, but so do the little changes we make to our own backyards; even a tiny backyard can be home to dozens of plants and animals.
Do you think you can make a video to show us what you've done?
@@iwanabana We've done nothing that special, to be honest. We just have loads of planted pots everywhere and water it with a drip system so nothing every dries out or drowns. We just added some piled wood for things to winter in and some bee and insect hotels so carpenter bees, butterflies and ladybugs have a place to stay (during winter). The change came in when we planted the natives and installed those hotels. Nature did the rest.
The Fallow Deer are Invasive Extotics too
@@mysoneffa2417 I'm not sure what that has to do with my garden?
What a wonderful Project. We need so many more. It’s very difficult in Germany.
The incredible way wolves affected Yellowstone makes me wonder how this can continue to work with no natural predator.
articificial culling and then selling the meat locally as high value meat is what is happening right now. The reintroduction of the lynx and then other predators has been discussed, with it more likely to be in the Highlands or perhaps Northern England.
@@stonedape2406 Thanks for the information.
I'm so happy that beavers are included. I remember a few years ago they were highly controversial. I signed an online petition to allow them for the UK and joined an online group to encourage it. I know online stuff can be pretty weak compared to IRL or financial contributions, but it was something for people like me a disabled low income person to "join in" on. With all of the large herbivores I wonder when there will be too many and land will once again become degraded or disease will spread. So how will that be handled? I know that large carnivores are a no-no if you want public enthusiasm [for the moment]. What about wild-cats like is seen in Scottish highlands? Could they come to this area too or are local domestic cats too much of a risk fir interbreeding?
They will certainly mix with domestic cats. There are barely any pure Scottish wildcats left at all - they're nearly all mixed with domestic cats
Look up how feral cats have rapidly evolved in Australia.
Perfect killing machines.
We differently need this across America.
How lovely !!! This really look like a very successful rewilding project !!!
Great video! Thanks
Very important project. Whilst it is good to hear the ecological and scientific benefits it would be great to hear the effects on neighbouring land and downstream. Has this helped mitigate flood risk? Does the rewilding benefit crop yields to neighbouring farms? etc. The ecological activists and scientists are already for projects like this, but we need to convince Joe Public and the business community to its wider benefits.
Just asked a similar question. "Playing devils advocate. What of the loss of the farmland in terms food production? How is that factored into the bigger picture. Someone below mentions the meat from the animals, but is the output of food production equivalent to the previous farm? Or is it a case, that we gradually re-wild and improve UK biodiversity and force somewhere else to adopt a far more efficient food production process to enable us to continue eating at the expense of someone else's biodiversity"?
@@someblokecalleddave1yea that’s the problem! We all need to eat!!
Live two miles away - we walk there often and it’s pretty cool , especially the storks ! Got to mention that they are concerned about “ corridors “ as there are plans to build houses at Buck Barn and to develop around our village which is to the south . It’s a constant battle with the planners but then everyone wants to live here - could it be because of places like this . Maybe this is a model for other places - quality of life etc .
Great story at Knepp. Their book Wilding is really inspiring. Surprised you called this series re-wilding, considering Knepp say themselves that they don't conform to traditional rewilding
What an amazing project fills my heart with joy ❤️
I Wish this was happening more in Australia. In 200 years this beautiful country is so degraded in most parts and the big mining companies, huge farming corporations and the timber industries are happily ignoring government environmental policies to keep their shareholders quiet. Frankly criminal.
Really hope this type of project takes off in Australia.
Since 1788 we have lost 95% of our Drop Bears.
Keep up the great works
really inspiring sharing this thank you !
You're so welcome!
Wow, well done!
Just amazing!! Thank you
That's cool. But I have mixed feelings firstly because for the UK and the whole world to get to a point of so many species' extictions a lot happened, secondly how do these rewildlings cope with the people and lobby who want to burn it all down and make room for farming and mining?
Like... what if a random guy start a fire?
There are fires happening all over the world: California, Portugal, Australia, the Amazon and Pantanal in Brazil.
And there is hunting and the killing of big cats where cattle farms are spreading.
The wildest of animals is the human being.
wonderful ! I am so glad to see another piece of wildernis growing in Europe - finally the responsible people get anything real done! They have sure wasted enough time and money and blown enough Co2 into the air traveling and flying to the ends of the world to look at Nature. And there is nothting pioneering about this! Rewilding projects have successfully been done for a very long time in many countries and versions. Please be more humble and honest. And the success is purely due to Nature. The basis was the failing of agricultural practices and the giving up of fighting against Nature with agricultural practices.
Beautiful!
I found myself immediately thinking that, after a few more years, they'll need some top predators too. As without predation, I assume there's increased pressure on the plants from the herbivores. Is the size of the reserve sufficiently large to support that?
You forgot about people. They can destroy everything. Angriest and hungriest predators on the planet.
Fantastic!
Natural forests? In the UK there are not really any natural forests left. Although I am a fan of this type of project, one has to ask how much room is there for this to be replicated nation wide?
Loads of room. It’s about better utilising the space we have. Create hedgerows, adopt agroforestry, farm differently. There has to be a balance between agricultural production and biodiversity and at the moment there isn’t.
This is actually a common misconception Steph, the UK has tonnes of room to build on. Less than 10% of the UK has been built on. One study thought it was close to 2%. The rest is farmland and natural habitats.
I'd say some farmers would turn a better profit if they rewilded areas like this and charged admission to whatever extent is feasible. Like you say, properly managed bio-diverse forests are, to put it mildly, pretty thin on the ground in the UK. The quality of habitat here in N.Ireland is embarrassing. I feel we've definitely turned a corner though and projects like this are so inspiring!
Rewilding projects needn't all be massive endeavors like Knepp. I've been rewilding my small suburban backyard and have already seen an explosion of life like in Knepp!
Just about every environment on the planet has been touched and changed by ancient humans hunting and transplanting plants they liked for tens of thousands of years. If natural means absolutely no effect by humans then since our atmosphere has artificially higher CO2 than it should, the only truly natural places on the planet are underground or in caves. We think, remember, and then use thoughts and memories to change our environment more than other species and that s all that really sets us apart from at least other mammals. The rest of nature does most of not all of what we do in some form, only in a natural balance there's a limiting factor for everything and the extinction rate is steady.
What the industrialized world most often thinks of when we say "nature" or "natural" is an environment that is left to its own devices and maintains itself, which ironically is not happening in many places that we use to build the mental image of nature. Often times in the US the industry that cleared the land near people gets left and the invasives fill the spaces where diversity used to be, and without predators to control anything. Humans can be a part of nature if our actions help or emulate other species more than harming them.
It's understandable why people separate us from nature in "civilized" society, but in a time like this where we have so much of this planet is mismanaged, as many people as possible need to understand that we are an extension of nature, and that our presence can make the environment more natural, and sooner than it would take for species to evolve for invasives and spread back to their previous range. To fix things we basically only need to maintain or restore the balance and diversity that natural ecosystems need to thrive, mitigate our effects on it, and keep as many native species as possible. Otherwise things will get worse until our environment limits us by collapsing as it carries us.
The "hunter-gatherers" often maintained the land they lived in before monoculture farming, and modern industry became widespread. The way they did it was just messier than the newer intensive farming techniques of Eurasia, which allowed humanity to grow faster than it's understanding.
The most similar thing to us overall is ants, they have similar strengths and weaknesses, they can farm, communicate and plan as a group, defoliate large areas, and the biggest thing that keeps them from destroying everything as our civilization has is their size and the fact they they've been warring with other ants since the cretaceous. We want to make our own choice for how we are limited, before we let nature or our own tendency for conflict do it anyways, understanding that we're a part of nature allows us to make the best compromise for us and the planet.
Amazing.
Great stuff!
Glad you enjoyed it
Playing devils advocate. What of the loss of the farmland in terms food production? How is that factored into the bigger picture. Someone below mentions the meat from the animals, but is the output of food production equivalent to the previous farm? Or is it a case, that we gradually re-wild and improve UK biodiversity and force somewhere else to adopt a far more efficient food production process to enable us to continue eating at the expense of someone else's biodiversity?
Where are the mammalian and avian predators? A complete ecosystem always has them.
Well they are there.
Knepp has had visits from Eagles before and I know some of the Stork pick off young Rabbits and other small animals.
Mammalian well, got Foxes and Badgers, few others too, sadly nothing to big but Humans fill that niche.
Hopefully the UK can reintroduce natural predators like the Lynx and wolves maybe even bears though I doubt it
monocultures are the bane of the planet!
What's the plan for when someone randomly decide it's cool to start a fire and burn it all down?
I am not saying it's going to happen but all things on this earth are vunerable to any one person taking one crazy action...
I've got a question. How is this system sustainable without any large predators? won't this lead to exploding populations of large herbivores that will eat all shrubs and young trees?
Also im vegan flexi vegatarian I prayise what I advocate its a ist choice if u care about the environment if yr. circumstance choice allows it I choose It its a lifestyle to me daily modus operandi ❤
what prevents over grazing? there's no wolves, jackals, bears, or Lynx to discourage over grazing.
Edit* I didn't know they cull and sell the meat.
I know you found out about the culling but I figured it’d be a bit cool to say that natural predators there do fill in the niche sometimes.
Foxes and Badgers have been reported to have hunted/eaten young Deer calf’s and Piglets, so while yes culling is more used for the adults natural predation still plays a small role in the early days of the young’s lives.
Please reduce or remove the background music. It’s very distracting. I love what Knepp are doing but music is very off putting.
Isn't anyone worried about feeding our population ? The uk already only manages to produce half of its food, and many food exporting countries are also reeling back on their agricultural production, food takes time to grow, it cannot be switched on in an instant !!
Ignore my mispells in print .dyslexia artrithis smart tech phone do not enable ese in typing enjoy the beautiful photography.but wise up.please
A great video but why do we need to listen to this unbearable background 'music while people are speaking? So destructive! Natural sounds from the wildlife would have been understandable but this?
Show me the money trail!
If this is all held up by government subsidy it is a non starter.
Show how they cover taxes, operating costs etc.
Can't remember the details, but in the book "Wilding", about the estate, the finances improved dramatically due to huge reductions in artificial fertilizer, weedkiller, and medication, and in improved yields.
Before the experiment, the estate was running at a big loss and dependent, one would assume, on governmental subsidies.
Turn of the super annoying music!!!
The horrible music makes me shot this video off. Goodbye
buh bye! you'll be missed, not.
How could this be started on the USA? I just moved to Missouri and I am dismayed by so much building as well as no replanting of trees or conservation expectations when developing. It's depressing me.
Good question! I'd recommend looking at American Prairie. That's as far as I know, the largest North American restoration program.
@@tomgray3259 thanks for the information!
Yes there are in fact quite a few current large ecosystem scale rewilding projects underway within the states you've got the American Prairie Reserve in Montana, the Southern Plains land trust in southern Colorado, the Yellowstone to Yukon corridor, the Florida wildlife corridor, the Adirondacks to Algonquin corridor, the Heartland rewilding campaign, borderlands restoration and I could go on and on but you have a large selection to look in to.
City & State forestry depts. Contact & see what replacement schemes/laws are in place. Wetlands are protected at the federal level & are mandated to be replaced I believe.
Good luck, seeing as Missouri is controlled by the aggressively anti-conservation Republican Party. Just a few days ago, they flipped out about the XBox having a power saving mode. They will stop at nothing until the last bit of wild land is destroyed.
This IS how it should be indeed. All projects of rewilding in Europe are amazing! Good luck to Knepp
And not just Europe! Rewilding projects are happening all over the world, from the large-scale to the individual. Here in the U.S. I frequently see wildlife or rain gardens which are already having a big difference for local wildlife.
@@MaxWeinhold We are talking about Europe because we live in Europe!
Keep your American centric views to yourself!
U.S.Americans can't have a conversation about another country without injecting themselves into that conversation.
@@drrd4127😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 gom
@drrd4127 have some water. Take breaks. Rest.
The footage of the vehicle starting at 7:01 was filmed just over 6 years ago. My, then girlfriend, and I were there, we're sitting on the right at the back of the vehicle. She'd won tickets to see the project and it was one of the first trips we did together. I'm happy to say that we got married 2 years ago. She's the photographer with the blonde-ish hair that appears a few seconds later and is possibly the only British naturalist who has never been to the natural history museum... yet. I didn't expect us to pop up on the museums social media but a nice surprise nonetheless. Knepp is beautiful and the venison sausages are very nice.
well done bro
Love it!
I just love when little stories like this turn up in the comments! That´s what the www is for beaver-dam-it!
Just started reading Isabella's book, 'Wilding', it's all about the Knepp project. I'm finding the details she reveals about the history of land use over hundreds of years absolutely fascinating. Recommended read.
Ayy, I’ve actually been to Knepp. It’s absolutely incredible to see in real life and so comforting to see that we Han achieve rewiliding on a fairly short order of time. Camping there is so lovely and their open air shower stalls among the trees are magical. Oh, and those venison burgers were the best burgers I’ve ever had.
I wish Knepp all the best in their truly inspirational project.
Reintroduction of Ursus would be great. In Poland, they are cutting down old growth trees threatening one of the last bear habitats in Europe.
Will need to visit Knepp one day. I’ve read Wilding, very inspirational story and one more that British farmers should learn lessons from.
Yea, less grains more meat...
Love Knepp. Has been my favourite nature escape for about 5 years now, although it’s a bit too wet without a dry suit in December. ;D Keep it up lovely people! Looking forward to seeing the NHM wildlife garden’s evolution.
In the UK in particular, the government literally pays land owners to keep their land in what they call, an agriculturally-ready state. Meaning, they are paying them to burn their land to the ground every year. And the more land someone has in that state, the more they get paid by the government. Just in case another war comes and they need to grow a bunch of food quickly. And they wonder why their biodiversity is so poor.
We're not much better in the US. Hubris is our problem. We believe we can outsmart nature. And politicians have made damn sure that any talk of rewilding, or regreening, are political and thus not prone to arguments being fact-based.
But even on the left (which is how I lean... strongly), they don't make climate change about nature. Or about rewilding the land. They just talk about others having to give up their gas powered cars because burning fossil fuels is evil. Well, sorry to say, but that's not helpful. You want less CO2 in the air? More plants and trees is how we get there. Fighting back on desertification. Not by telling others their cars are evil.
You could gain more food from agroforestry and animals in that land than typical agriculture... so it's simply an outdated and bad system on its way out. Not even going to mention the US... US has no brain when it comes to common sense. One could say people in the US are the just vehicles for transferring money to the lobbying party xD...sad but true. From how your cities/towns are built, culture of megacities full of parking lots and urban deserts...i didn't understand until recently that if you live in the typical suburb in the USA that without a car you can't even buy stuff since the closest shop is few km away....no wonder it's a divided culture on so many fronts. People don't live together.
Nobody gets paid to burn their land. Please, be factual and not emotive.
Congratulations!
"Rewilding" is a highly noble cause!
We need to reduce the population of humans around the world and re-establish natural eco systems.
Little by little - the more land and water, the better.
It's incredibly important!
And probably the best way to address our manifold crises!
That is the question a lot of people in conservation don't want to approach, Britain's growing population and the politicians promises to build millions of new properties.
Next step would be to add some small predators to this system. Lynx would be great!
It would never happen but a small population of wolves would be incredible here.
Too small for wolves and lynxes.
Start with Scotland or drastically increase the size of the project.
But maybe
scottish wild cat, pine marten, otter, osprey eagle, common crane, dalmatian pelican, red squirrel, some smalls birds, pheasans and ground bird like great bustard.
Some Toad, newt, salamandes, small river fishes, frogs, glow worm, esclupian snake, other snake and lizards species and even pond turtle and locally extinct insect species.
Are plausible.
Or even bison, golden eagle, white tailed eagle, water buffalo and boars who know.
Or maybe even Europan Bighorn sheep
I want bear. They deserve to live.
@@jollyjokress3852
Yes.
But let's start with wolves and lynxes first.
You can't just throw the only really dangerous predator like that
You first need to prepare for cohabitation.
Like reintroducing lynx
The least problematic specie.
Then wolves, wich is not dangerous but do dammage to sheeps.
Then once farmers and the population are ok with living with them we can reintroduce bears.
Or even leopard (they were in Europe and UK too).
A Wolf can run 100 km on one night. On a week he can run from Knepp to the Scottish border.
Lynx are more stationary and less known due to its great shyness.
The problem with Wolf and Lynx is that modern livestock have lost the ability to defend themselves. If a Wolf enters a sheepfold it can kill hundreds of sheep in a couple of hours.
Older breeds of livestocks have better ability to defend themselves, but they are therefore more dangerous to humans.
@@tangosmurfen2376
Well that why we should start with lynx wich don't prey to much on cattle and sheep
Such a good feel good story. I’m hopeful that more of this type of work gain momentum across governments, towns, cities and nations. Thanks for sharing…
Glad you enjoyed it!
Rural Yorkshire , Scotland and Wales has been devastated and stripped bare with all the sheep. Unproductive farms on very marginal lands heavily subsidised .
we need to re forest marginal farmlands and re wild these unproductive farmlands
What Knepp is doing is wonderful. Its such a pity though that they are instrumental in attacking one of our true native species, a mammal to boot no less, by promoting and being very supportive in allowing and actively encouraging the local hunt to come on to their land to murder our foxes. In numbers , how many true native mammals are on that wildlife park ? I dont count domesticated cows and pigs.
Birds are such amazing therapists
good effort. I am doing a rewilding project on a smaller scale (112 acres) on a hillside in New Zealand. I note in your footage there are lots of deer. From my experience on my project, the deer are the biggest threat to forest diversity. Every young seedling they will eat the tips and constantly mow them OR the stags will come and rub between their antlers and thus stripping the side branches and ring barking the tree for a quick death. At first I was very disappointed to realize that I needed to kill the deer because it seemed at odds with my conservation views but there is no way around it if I want to reforest this hillside and try return something back to a native New Zealand forest state. I'd be alarmed if the deer were not a problem for your forest goals.
It's a very nice project, but the question of the regulation of large herbivores will soon arise. Do you plan to reintroduce large natural predators like the wolf? (what Yellowstone Park has done with great success to restore the ecological balance) Otherwise how are you going to do? Greetings from France.
Yes there ya a huge problem in Killarney National Park in Ireland.Deer are eating all the native tree sapling and undergrowth and rhododendrons and laurel trees have taken over most of it.
@@Gos1234567to be fair, rhododendrons don't need deer in order to take over, they don't need anything, they're thugs.
Knepp is a true vision and how it should be done hopefully others will follow suit ❤ respect to all that work so hard to do what’s right for our countryside ❤
Developers in England just see pounds when they look at a piece of land like that….that’s the problem.
This is all great but our watercourses are dire with major pollution pressures from various sources.
Just wanted to say the the book wilding was the final thing that made me study biology.
Very interesting
I love rewilding! Its the only thing that gives me hope for the future. Nature will return if we help it
Try Google translate Knepp from Danish/Norwegian to English
Food can be grown in urban, high rise areas. Large, monoculture farming is an economic dinosaur and a disaster for the environment. Kudos to projects like these!
Ahh I love hearing about Knepp, really wanting to visit sometime soon
How do you prevent overgrazing without apex predators. Is hunting allowed?
Build it they will come.
Knepp has been an amazing alternative (extensive ecosystem) rewilding project. Most landowners could not afford to do it in the current system of farm support. Perhaps this will change / is changing.
I found myself wondering what the long-term impact of all those herbivores will be - their numbers havent increased significantly yet, but there are no apex predators (lynx, wildcat, wolf), so how will numbers be controlled, and what impact will it have on regeneration of herbs and trees as grazing animal numbers increase unchecked?
They are currently culled and sold as meat to prevent their populations getting too high
The reason kepp is so successful is because it told goverments ideals of conservation to "go do one". They also told anyone who came to give them target's to "go do one" at the expence of thousands in grants. Go read the book. They have litraly turned conservation and the way yo do it on its head.
This should be replicated across the UK.
Rewilding and restoring our nature will have so many benefits - better air quality, more biodiversity, better mental and physical health for us, and it helps confront climate breakdown.
I can't see why we don't do it?
Great work and excellent coverage, rewilding is the future.
Thanks for watching :)
Nature is incredibly reslient. If we just stop doing harm, get out of her way, she will do the rest as she sees fit.
For more hope look up the Loess Plateau and permaculture. All over the world rewilding and huge permaculture projects are making stunning achievements.
United kingdom: Naturally Depleted.
Western North America: Zoologically impoverished
Hey u just edited my txt.the cheek of u ! I'm vegan flexi-vegetarian I live what i advocate go veggie if yr .circumstance enables u to its a choice Its mine .its ego friendly & The Greenpeace kitchen choice hello my personal. 🎋🌏modus ope😂randi 🌿🌻🌈🦊🌏🌿eco awareness choice >❤way of life >❤😊🌏🌻🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🐳🏘🌝
I applaud this effort. This and many like this is inspiring. Yet in my area, Florida, I see empty scrub Pine and Palmetto acreage being bulldozed for many new $400K townhouse complexes. In the past two years, maybe 5 complexes in just the towns of Stuart and Jensen Beach.
Sorry, but I really have to wonder if we start to measure the pluses and minuses are things still One Foot Forward and Two Feet Back?
I hope not. But I can't see the forest for the trees metaphorically speaking. We are naturally myopic by nature. It takes this invention the Internet to bring us the truth. I will not want to travel to all these new and revived places. I understand the need for Ecotourism, but travel is a bit of a strain too on things. Maybe just the people working the projects can keep up the work and give us posts from time to time. But I am trying not to drive that much. And buying an Electric Vehicle, well is that just trading one problem for another?
Where did that car's battery come from. Did the Lithium miner use hundreds of thousands of rare ground water to purify and extract the Lithium? And what about those batteries in ten years? Where do they all go? Will we be dumping them in landfills by the hundred's of thousands soon enough?
I hate to sound negative, but we've got to change the whole lot of it really. Maybe it's a good thing that folks seem to be having fewer kids. Not that I hate people. But does the Earth really need 8 or 9 billion of us? Would things be just fine, maybe even better if we had just 8-9 hundred million of us globally? I am not saying lets all jump off a cliff. But we could take the next 40-50 years and slow down, and make a few less people and buy a few less cars and trips to Hawaii. It could even put a chill in the air. Wouldn't that be grand?
Shocked by the level of ignorance by the biologists & documentrists: Fallow Deer are not natural. They are not indigenous to the UK nor Europe, but are feral domesticated deer escaped from Roman Colonists. The Etruscans imported them from Persia.
Lovely video but full of factual inaccuracies. For instance, narrator states that we are quickly cutting down forest to be replaced by agriculture; in the UK the exact opposite is true, as this documentary demonstrates.
I applaud the efforts to bring back beavers,storks and cranes, but we need to also address the issue of non native species here, such as deer and grey squirrel, they look nice but are doing so much damage.
I can't wait to finaly see wolfs🐺, european bisons🦬 and bears🐻 back to uk to live like in past thousad of years
After hearing the recent news of Labour’s land reform, is this a new concern of land being sold off cheaply for new housing and these rewilding opportunities being exhausted?
What about foxes, badgers, martins, and some keystone predators? Are they moving back in too?
Really amazing. You can see how healthy the habitats are with all those game trails!
Eventually it will be important to introduce predator species to the ecosystem to complete it tho.
All those herbivores and no predators. What's the bet that there's overgrazing?
Knepp in English: 😁
Knep(p) in Danish:😳
This is in England, so let's use the English spelling, hey.
@@MikeAG333they are pointing out that 'knepp' means something very different in danish 😂
What about the reintroduction of wolves and lynxes?
How do they simulate apex predators? These are keystone species.
Wonderful work. Thank you for inspiring us🙏
Just beautiful. We need a special bbc program to show more people about knepp.
BBC lies.
Knepp has featured a lot in Springwatch etc. But I agree it could be one of a number of case examples for a rewilding programme.
😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
Where to we grow our food please ?
Oh to be part of the Landed Gentry.
Given the opportunity (and perhaps some help), Nature knows how to bring back into equilibrium that which we have thrown off kilter. We're in the process of transforming our front and back yards back into the desert-scape they once were long ago. It's going to take a bit of investment, but I look forward to seeing the outcome and how indigenous creatures fill the space.
Amazing!
You need some wolves to keep the herbivores in check, you have no predators so you will end up with a lot of sick animals with genetic disease among the herbivores weakening the viability of the herbivore population.