"Wilding" by Isabella Tree

Published by Picador Price £9.99

This fascinating book really opens up huge possibilities for improving biodiversity and countering climate change.

Tree tells how together with husband Charlie Burrell they rewild the Knepp estate in West Sussex.

Prior to 2000, they had traditionally farmed the 3,500 acres of the estate. It wasn't working so they looked for something new. 

The work of Dr Frans Vera with rewilding in the Netherlands drew their attention.

The idea was in a way to turn back time to before humans brought their pesticides and fertilisers to the land. Effectively returning  to before the destruction and poisoning of the world began.

If some of the original breeds of animals were restored and allowed to run wild, other habitats also changed for the better.

So long horned cattle, Tamworth pigs, Dartmoor ponies, red and fallow deer were all introduced.

The effects were dramatic, bringing back purple emperor butterflies, nightingales and turtle doves. The land became resilient. 

Really understanding rewilding probably requires the human being to take a step back from its arrogant dominant role in the world.

The human needs to realise that many creatures live the way they do as an adaption to the behaviour of humans, it was not always so.  If the humans can now let go, then nature can restore.

There are so many interesting parts to this book, such as how the introduction of beavers in some areas of the country has helped counter flooding. Also, how allowing the land to go to wetlands also releases pressure and so flood risk.

An interesting aside is how this is happening in the Netherlands, where the renown canals are full to bursting. Climate change means greater volumes of water are falling on the land. So the Dutch are looking to release pressure by turning areas to wetlands, rather than building dykes.

Another fascinating view concerns how more carbon can be stored in the land.

Tree reveals that there are 1500 billion tonnes of carbon in the form of organic material in world soils. Increasing this by 0.4% a year -through restoring and improving degraded agricultural lands - would halt the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere. 

Tree suggests agricultural land could be taken in and out of rewilding over decades to restore it.

Wilding is a real eye opener as to what could happen with a little imagination - a sort of resetting of the natural paramaters, that wiil then revive and restore the ecological framework around us.