There are also hoops to jump through with the authorities – fencing off this land to keep animals in, etc., doesn’t come cheap and support should be available …

It’s not an easy process – some of the things they so are met with scorn and complaints by their neighbours, and some (allowing “weeds” to grow right to their boundaries and letting large animals die off and be left there to be used) are unconscionable and simply not possible. But the detail is broken up by very direct descriptions of their experiences (sometimes a little red in tooth and claw, but you can’t gloss over the icky bits of course) and lovely sections about the animals and plants that recolonise their little corner of Sussex.Īfter a timeline and an introduction that sets a positive tone for the book, we’re straight into measuring oak trees and not tidying them up, meeting one in a long succession of experts who help them to understand their land and what they’re doing. There is quite a lot of detail in this book and a lot of biology, so you learn about the way trees’ roots join them up underground and protect trees from danger, and about the way different plants colonise empty spaces, about giant herbivores and how they’re the most useful thing to reintroduce and the economics of farming and setaside subsidies. I read all about the theory of rewilding in a book fairly recently (review here) and now we have the detail of the practice. This is the story of how Tree and her husband Charlie finally give up trying to farm his family property, Knepp, profitably, and decide to “Rewild” it instead. Somehow, nature had found us, homing in on our tiny patch of land from unseen distances, the momnet these few acres had become hospitable again. Isabella Tree – “Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm” I bought this book at the Edge of the World Bookshop in Penzance the last time we went down to Cornwall – I always buy a few books there when I’m down, usually local or nature-y ones. We read “ Rewild Yourself” first and followed it with “ Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” and for the last few months we’ve been working our way through this one, a chapter at a time, and very much enjoying it. And we will be continuing this even after lockdown finishes, as we really enjoy it. This is the third book my best friend Emma and I have read together – we tend to do our Reading on a Thursday night, but it sometimes slips to the next Saturday if we have something we need to do.

Rewilding sussex book