The biodiversity crisis in this country is at an all time high. We’ve lost millions of birds since the 60s, 97 per cent of wildflower meadows since the 1930s and many of our native mammals are at risk from extinction. From the perspective of the nature, we’re one of the most depleted countries in the world. This is a mantra that Isabella Tree, one of the pioneers of a remarkable rewilding project in this country, repeats again and again in her new film.
You may also like
- What is the new Wilding film and how can you watch it?
- Discover the remarkable Walled Garden at Knepp
- Meet the job-sharing duo caring for Knepp's rewilded garden
- Listen to Knepp head gardener Charlie Harpur on Talking Gardens
- What is rewilding?
It not the first time she has said any of this, however. Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell have been reminding, repeating and relating these figures since the late 90s when they embarked on a project to transform Knepp Castle, the West Sussex farmland estate that Burrell inherited in the 80s. Tree wrote her best-selling book, also called Wilding, in 2018: an urgent call to action, packed with facts, figures and her real-life discovery of what might happen if we allow nature to take the reins a bit more in these lands, and the dire consequences if we don’t.
And while this film of her book is very light-weight on statistics and processes (there's a big unanswered, underlying question: how do we marry the Knepp approach with actual growing and producing food?), it is filled to the brim of joy, wonder and hope.
The duo’s enthusiasm for the pigs and the bugs scrabbling around in cow pats is entirely infectious
The journey of Tree and Burrell is one that takes them away from the intensive farming of their 3,500 acre estate. As they begin to realise their marginal land is impossible to farm in a conventional way, the couple meet two pivotal people who change their way of thinking: ancient oak expert Ted Green and Frans Vera who worked on the groundbreaking Oostvaardersplassen Nature Reserve in Holland. Tree and Burrell began to realise that their soil was devoid of life, the trees were suffering, the animals had left. By introducing free roaming grazing animals, breeds that were as close to their wild counterparts as they could get (Exmoor ponies, wild cattle), the land would repair; life, would return.
The film itself is a documentary, with a few fictional shots, using actors Matthew Collyer and Rhiannon Neads, depicting Tree and Burrell at the beginning of the process. Director David Allen uses current shots of Knepp as well a little bit of CGI to help tell the story of the early days: the mycorrhizal fungi network under an oak tree; the day they sold all the farming equipment; the day the local farmers objected to their plans after a hopeful power point talk.
What the film lacks in detail it makes up for in inspiration
The duo’s enthusiasm for the pigs, cows, beavers, storks and the bugs scrabbling around in cow pats is entirely infectious. Much of that is down to Tree’s gentle but forthright narrative, and David Allen’s clever direction, which depicts these animals as wild, yet intelligent and important: along with Tree and Burrell the animals are centre stage. Expect idyllic shots of piglets.
What the film lacks in detail (ragwort is mentioned, but the fear of the spread of this onto neighbouring farms is not resolved), it makes up for in inspiration. The main message to take away from this film is the interconnectedness of life: how every being they introduce or support makes a significant difference to the land, and the surrounding area. The introduction of beavers is the answer to flooding, the arrival of a swarm of butterflies is the answer to creeping thistle, the pigs demonstrate when the soil had begun to repair (they refused to rootle in any of the previously ploughed fields).
As Tree says: ‘this has to reach out beyond the fortress of Knepp’ and the point of this film is exactly that. To adjust viewpoints beyond Knepp, to remind and to inspire. With its subtle natural soundscape from from Jon Hopkins, Biggi Hilmars and the joyous, bewitching cinematography from Tim Cragg and Simon de Glanville it is a poignant, galvanising call to arms: act now or lose what's precious forever.
