Area A done - for now

Five years ago Isabella Tree published Wilding, describing how she and her husband Charlie Burrell transformed their exhausted farm and estate into a wildlife paradise, and returned their business to profitability at the same time. The Knepp Estate in Sussex has become the benchmark for large-scale rewilding in this country, and therefore attracts many calls for help and advice. The Book of Wilding is their response, and it has to be said, it’s a whole lotta book: it’s the sort to bend shelves, and you’re well advised to bend at the knees when picking it up. I have been waiting my turn to borrow it from the library for a while, but now I have it I am taking what I can from its 500-odd pages in my allotted three weeks.

The early chapters discuss what rewilding is; how it is being done in the UK; how it can be done for rivers, lakes and ponds; using plants to do it, and using animals where appropriate. Further on it gives advice on how to rewild your own land, regardless of whether you have a huge estate, a small garden, or even a window box, so it’s not essential to read the whole thing.

One of the misconceptions about rewilding is that it’s just about letting everything do what it wants, but this book makes it clear that it’s needed when natural systems have broken down, and they need a kick in the right direction. In many cases areas and the species in them require special protection, so rewilding is then not necessarily the right approach; it’s most successful for places with severely compromised biodiversity. The bigger the site, the less work is required, as large herbivores can be drafted in to do it, replicating the way often now-extinct animals interacted with the environment. In smaller sites, when it’s just not practical to put a herd of cattle in, or ponies, or water buffalo, it’s up to people and machines to do what all those big beasts do, in terms of opening up areas, creating wallows, etc, etc. It’s a big book in every sense, but well worth the effort.

 

NWT’s warden looking after Southrepps Commons is George Baldock, and he also has the small matter of Cley and Salthouse Marshes to look after. He kindly invited us to visit the bigger reserve for a tour yesterday; here’s what one of the attendees (Sue) said about it.

“I think everyone enjoyed the Cley visit today even though the cool weather was a bit of a shock to the system! Really good to see the work being done to keep the reed beds under control (bit larger scale than Southrepps) and also the changes to drainage to allow the salt water to escape the next time the sea comes to visit.”

Here are some images from the visit, the muddy ones showing the ongoing work to mitigate against further sea water incursions.

Huge thanks to George for hosting us and sharing his knowledge of the site.  He also wanted to pass on to all the volunteers his thanks for all of our work at the Southrepps site - he really appreciates all our efforts.

And those efforts continued today, when 17 volunteers turned up to finish clearing the cut vegetation on Area A alongside Warren Road. Due to an epidemic of mower failures, a small patch remains uncut for the time being. From a distance, it didn’t look like there was much left to do…

… but closer inspection revealed a different story, and it was a pretty nasty mix of wet grass and long, dead and still very prickly thistles.

The intention had been to repat the process of the previous working party, with lightly loaded sheets dragged relatively short distances by hand, with other, heavily laden ones winched down to the dump site hidden in the trees. That was quickly thwarted at the winch site, when Noel came to realise that, despite the newly cold weather, there was a still-active wasps’ next there. This realisation came to him when he was stung on the cheek: his ever-sympathetic colleagues quickly nicknamed him Sting, but luckily Sting did not sing.

With our piled up dump site out of bounds, the decision was made to create an extended one along the perimeter of the area, each little heap representing a single drag sheet’s worth.

In a blast from the past, every sheet was dragged by hand, and tipped over manually too.

Tea break came in the sunshine, which made a nice contrast to the shower we had enjoyed earlier.

And as is mandatory, here’s a picture of Noel taking his ease, this time under supervision.

Refreshed in body and spirit, work resumed. Here we see Linda driving a team of three sheet draggers: if you listened carefully you could hear her calling “Giddy Up!”

Too late to join in, a party of walkers processed along the boardwalk Here’s what good old Area A looked like by the time we had finished with it.

Here is Team Leader Kevin’s message of thanks:

On a day that started quite chilly and eventually turned into warm sunshine (although there was a slight shower) seventeen volunteers turned out to finish clearing the arisings from area A. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the last of the vegetation was unable to be cut due to a series of mechanical failures with NWT’s Grillo machines. This was probably just as well as we were unable to use our winch due to wasp activity in that area. This meant that the volunteers had to use their muscles dragging and hauling sheets in order to clear the area.

Once again thank you and we look forward to seeing you again in a fortnight when we will be on Pit Common.

Kevin on behalf of the team leaders.