Wilding

Isabella Tree’s bestselling account of a change of land management at her husband Charlie’s family estate at Knepp Castle begins with an analysis of the state of play; the problem or issue with the British agricultural landscape. Even natural parks in Britain are “regarded primarily as ‘cultural’ landscapes for human recreation” (Tree, 2019:4).

As a starting point Tree takes the transformation of the landscape with the Second World War’s dig for victory campaign, and land subsidies – arable land doubled and food rationing continued until 1954, pushing the national psych towards intensive farming. The farm at Knepp Castle was an enthusiastic and patriotic leader of the movement.

Subsidies encouraged specialisation whereas natural fertility comes from mixed farming (i.e. biodynamic?). Ploughing and heavy animals and machinery have a hugely detrimental effect on roots and mycorrhizae (=mycelium?) – the fungal filament network that connects trees and is only just beginning to be understood. Mycorrhizae produce glomalin, only discovered in 1996.  The superglue of the soil produces aggregates that aerate, improve drainage and dramatically increase the carbon capture of the soil – 82% of terrestrial carbon is in the soil.Large machinery costs encourage larger farms with less hedgerows, making it difficult for more natural smallholdings to compete with the subsidy-driven model.   The intensive need for fertiliser and antibiotics (in dung from livestock feed to keep them healthy) further depletes the land.

For Tree the “canary in the mine” (Tree, 2019:5) is the loss of bird life. In the biodiversity intactness index the UK is ranked 29th lowest out of 218. She states (check?) that loss of biodiversity leads to loss of biomass.

The author questions the idea that “man know’s best” (Tree, 2019:200 – I note the potential gender issue here and myself try hard to use terms like humankind going forward, although I acknowledge that in the past traits attributed to the patriarchy are undoubtedly environmental issues). Rewilding is restoration by letting go, although Tree holds back from calling her book this due to the terms many controversial connotations, including a naive ambition to recover the past that Tree acknowledges as impossible in the Anthropocene, accepting that there has been a catastrophic shift due to human interference to a new state of equilibrium – although I might question whether we are in equilibrium at the moment. I note the term eremozoic—not from Wilding but coined by biologist and writer E. O. Wilson to describe the current era of mass extinction triggered by human activity – see the work of photographer Jim Naughton (https://www.jimnaughten.com/eremozoic). She does advocate the principles of non-intervention championed by Frans Vera (author of Grazing Ecology and Forest History) and tested at Oostvaardersplassen in Holland, but in practice Knepp also shies away from the extreme edges of such a project – for example culling deer to prevent overpopulation and starvation: “the thought of watching animals dying from our windows was unconscionable” (Tree, 2019:75). And in other practical areas, such as foregoing larger and potentially more violent grazers such as wild boar and bison (in particular access for dog walkers is incompatible with bison which are generally peaceful but regard a dog as a wolf and panic accordingly and potentially disastrously) in favour of tamworth pigs, longhorn cattle, as well as exmoor ponies and red, fallow and roe deer.

IDEA dead bird parts (found at Rye Harbour, believed to be due to bird flu) scanned and 3D printed and turned into a sculpture – check if this has been done before?

Vera states that “We forget, in a world completely transformed by man, that what we’re looking at is not necessarily the environment wildlife prefer, but the depleted remnant that wildlife is having to cope with” (Tree, 2019:58). The point is that the habitats we believe birds and other wildlife prefer to inhabit may be a result of existential compromise, which leads to a key question for Great Britain. Previously, before the impact of humans, it had been assumed to be a closed-canopy environment, mostly covered in trees as the “climax vegetation” (the dominant plant species at the end of a phase of plant succession that reaches a state of ecological equilibrium appropriate to the climate experienced there). A competing theory suggests that a process of animal disturbance by grazing is a more likely model of the lay of the land in the past, noting that “closed-canopy forest is demonstrably species-poor compared with managed habitats” (Tree, 2019:64). Taking the example at Knepp, species are returning to open habitat that were though to be woodland species, such as the purple emperor butterfly and the nightingale,

Vera looks to the example of Africa and the paper Serengeti:Dynamics of an Ecosystem (interestingly co-authored by my landlord in Kenya Mike Norton-Griffiths). “In Africa you have vast herds of ungulates grazing together in the landscape.  There are predators, of course, but population density itself is not regulated by predation.  The size of grazing herds is driven primarily by the amount of food available” (Tree, 2019:67).

So Vera advocates allowing them to “express themselves freely, without human control” (Tree, 2019:68). This approach seems initially at odds with the issue highlighted so eloquently by Beard in the End of The Game (https://photo515050level3.wordpress.com/2023/01/16/the-end-of-the-game/) but Tree notes that “the annual die-off has proved controversial … now, animals deemed to be on their last legs are humanely shot” (Tree, 2019:69) – bringing the practice of the theory somewhat in line with Knepp.

Another key point here is that since “ungulates browse in different ways” (Tree, 2019:66) complementary grazers are most effective at wilding the landscape. Although the presence of apex predators is often sited as an important indicator of biodiversity (and hence environmental health) it is what they predate further down the food chain that is doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

Narrowing this down to the environment at Knepp, Tree looks at the presence of solitary ancient oaks and the traditional presence of oak in English history. An open-green English oak has six times the leaf cover of woodland trees, and oak cannot regenerate in closed-canopy conditions. Tree says that an English oak can have a lifetime of around 900 years – the first third of which it is maturing, the second it is in it’s prime, the third it decays – but even this last 300 years (far beyond the lifespan or even contemplation of humans) can be very useful. Fungi above ground break down the dead central wood leaving strong hollow oak structures – apparently the inspiration for the lighthouse.

All this points away from the full forest coverage often envisaged for our historical land. There is a disagreement here with the work of Wohlleben (see https://photo515050level3.wordpress.com/2022/09/08/the-hidden-life-of-trees/), who stresses the importance of a network of slow-growing trees (i.e. woodland) as opposed to solitary examples. Wohlleben challenges coppicing, Tree supports it, in particularly pointing out that it is a natural activity for animals such as beavers which have many beneficial impacts on land connected with water control. Tree points out that scrub areas act as nurseries for trees. She also looks at the words we use to describe these places. Our area of Sussex is known as the Weald, from Wald – originally the leaves of a tree that can be fed to animals – meaning an are of wood and pasture in dynamic equilibrium. Forest comes from forestis (latin) and forêt (french) meaning an area of cultivation traditionally belonging to the king – for example a hunting forest like Ashdown Forest where I live (which consists of open heathland with occasional trees and small wooded areas). Clay is the predominant ground – apparently in the Old Sussex dialect there are over 30 words for mud (I checked, see https://everything2.com/title/Sussexians+have+31+words+for+Mud)!

So when you visit a forest, what do you expect. According to Henry David Thoreau “the question is not what you look at, but what you see”. Language is used to describe the view, perhaps to others or even in the way the self processes the image. Hence the importance of these descriptive words.

Despite all the questions around stopping farming and introducing other animals, Tree found that for most the biggest issue they encountered was “a question of aesthetics … destroying the native character of our countryside”. In other words the country did not look as people thought it should. Very interestingly, this was not all people – older people – the few who could remember the landscape before the war – said that this was exactly what the countryside used to look like before farming intensified. Tree will go on to discuss “Cultural landscapes” – “the natural features defended as our inalienable British heritage are almost always Victorian” (Tree, 2019:299) although this does not fit with the identification of the between war generation with the current project at Knepp? Indeed many commentators find issue with the Victorian approach – there is the obvious colonial problem, but also things like drainage and flood defences they initiated (vs natural systems such as beavers). Nevertheless the author gives this as another example of shifting baseline syndrome (a gradual change in the accepted norms for the condition of the natural environment due to a lack of experience, memory and/or knowledge of its past condition). “Changing” the aesthetic of the English countryside is a major cause for contention.  Alongside the patchwork of fields and hedges there are concerns about it looking unkempt – uncared for? – and around some native plants such as ragwort which are poisonous and created heated responses. This baseline confusion extends to native vs non-native species – some are accepted especially if they were introduced in pre-modern times.  Tree explains how some non-native species are beneficial components of complex systems, contributing to emergent properties and contrasting this with the “fallacy of division” (Tree, 2019:183 – an emergent property is a property of a complex system that its individual constituents do not have).

So the question is what is natural, what is countryside – Tree discusses how Norway was like Scotland (Landseer panoramas?) until farmers left – vegetation pulse and succession leading to tree covered landscape. “Scotland and Norway, once identical twins, are now poles apart.  And each country thinks its own landscape is natural.” (Tree, 2019:265)

How we look at nature is also considered -we have discussed Ginzburg before and I mentioned my unease with the description of the focus of the hunter, feeling that a more general awareness (earned by time in the field learning the environment) is far more appropriate and also analogous to the hunter-gather situation. Stephen and Rachel Kaplan have researched this “soft fascination” and “indirect attention” that they agree is vital to implement such a strategy in an environment where you can be both hunter and hunted. Photographers regularly hire fixers or other guides or even security when visiting regions that are difficult to negotiate.

Within the UK (itself an island habitat) we have further isolations (i.e. islands within the island) – “the smaller and more remote the island, the fewer the species and the more vulnerable it’s ecosystem” (Tree, 2019:202) Tree discusses the benefits (necessity?) of Living landscapes (Tree, 2019:205) and the push for connectivity eg Weald to Waves, Sussex Flow Initiative

For Tree it was not just the visual that changed: “the very air, it seemed, was being recolonised with the the sounds of its past” (Tree, 2019:116). She also discusses how

I should probably also study regenerative farming and compare vs wilding – e.g. much discussion at a conference my wife went to on these competing? issues. Mob grazing, other terms to get my head round…

Tree ends with a useful chapter on the Value of Nature (also referenced by me towards the end of my draft literature review). She discusses the moral case against putting a value on nature and claims (reasonably, in my opinion) that it has failed since when nature is not valued it is ignored or destroyed. Nevertheless it is vital to change “business models that evolved at a time when nature’s bounty seemed limitless” ( and free, Tree, 2019:304).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Tree, I. (2019) Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm. UK: Picador