Dorset Rewilding

 This visit to Mapperton House near Beaminster in Dorset actually happened a couple of weeks ago however I've been so busy I'd not had a moment to write it up. 

The Knepp estate in Sussex is well known these days for the work they have put in to create a profitable estate while also encouraging a return to wildlife friendly farming,  Interestingly the Knepp revenue topped £1 million from eco-tourism alone in 2023 with sales from their organic free-range animals around £300,000. Seemingly there is money to be made in wildlife friendly farming and tourism, and less mucking out or vet's bills I should imagine.

A couple of years ago the Earl and Countess of Sandwich embarked on a similar venture at their 2,000 acre estate in the most Hardyeske landscape imaginable. I'd wanted to visit here for a long time, mostly as it has featured in a number of films as a homage to a bygone bucolic England, most recently the 2015 adaptation of Far From The Madding Crowd. I wasn't disappointed.

Mrs Wessex Reiver and I were booked onto a Wildlands walk with the ranger Ben Padwick, a brilliant communicator from a farming background in Norfolk. In many ways it was a strange experience for me to be paying to visit such an enterprise having spent years visiting farms and estates for work. Just four people on this walk which was excellent, the other two being a couple on holiday from Berkshire. Coffee and biscuits served while the introductions took place, and a quick resume of the long term plan. Sadly, as we were to discover, we'd not see the two beavers brought onto the estate as they'd escaped in the flooding this winter and no one knew of their whereabouts. But we did get to see beaver poo and a chewed stick, which was as an admirable a start as any.

Ben warned us we'd have a long ascent up to the top of the estate to begin with but after that it would be easy going. He was not joking. Following Ben who took off like a mountain goat we traversed what must have been the steepest hill in Dorset for fifteen minutes. Ben, being young and fit, was chatting away pointing out this and that and talking continuously. I was seeing stars, couldn't breathe, legs buckling, but somewhat comforted when looking about me to see all three of my younger and fitter companions were puffing away. But it was worth it to get up onto the ridge and look back down the valley towards Golden Cap on the horizon with Beaminster in the mid distance. What a landscape.

Not all of the 2,000 acres is being returned to nature friendly farming at the moment, only around 950 acres split into two parcels, in between which the rest of the land is being farmed as sympathetically as possible through tenant farmers who have lifetime tenancies.  Nearly 1,000 acres it is still a huge area as we were finding out. After our visit and as a result of a conversation with Ben, I worked out Mapperton is rewilding the equivalent of 1500 football pitches or 250 Country cricket grounds. I sent an email to Ben. He returned my email a week or so later to say those facts I'd unearthed went down well with a sixth form group he'd taken around the estate. 

So what is their plan and rewilding model? In simple terms it's a softly softly approach for the next five years. A baseline environment and ecological survey has been made and the ecologist who ran that is now creating management plans to be implemented. The estate runs a herd of park cattle who roam on a no-fence system using transmitters around their necks.  Not all of the fences can be removed at the moment but over time as much of the estate as possible will be range-lands for these cattle. Two large arable fields, used until recently to provide winter food for the cattle, have now been left after the harvest last year and the ecological management is aimed to see what successional growth takes place and what mammals, birds and invertebrates arrive to the area just by doing nothing. I'd noticed these fields as we drove in, how they were 'weedy' and as we exited a pair of red-legged partridge crossed our path.

Other areas of moistly former sheep grazed grassland are being managed by five Exmoor ponies and two Tamworth pigs. These have been introduced in a low intensive way to begin with to see what happens on this heavy clay landscape. Already after just over a year changes are happening, with the pigs reducing bracken and by digging up the uniform turf they're are allowing other plants to establish like plantain, violet and celandine.  It was still a little early in the season, but this spring and summer will be a good indicator of what can self-seed into the bare soil left by the pigs. The ponies have a different role, mostly keeping the grass at a low level, though as they only number five, the grass is never grazed for very long.

Everywhere on the former sheep fields there is evidence of the power two Tamworth pigs can bring to the project as ploughing machines. It was fascinating for me to see this as I studied just these ideas at University three decades ago when it was then thought of as a strange somewhat niche theory. At first glance in essence nothing looks as though it has really changed since it was a traditionally farmed landscape. But look more closely and bare patches or pig footmarks are everywhere.  This rooting up of soil and removal of sheep trampling is vital for the establishment of an ecosystem which while in transition doesn't look in balance but with time and effort will re-balance. That was part of a conversation had by the ranger Ben and the couple on holiday, with the latter asking why the land needed managing if it is being rewilded? 

For me that's a real issue with the word rewilding, a word I'm no fan of. At University alongside traditional agriculture I studied Biological Conservation in Agriculture. in other words how we could farm profitably but in sympathy with the natural world. Nature friendly farming may I suggest be a better term, but rewilding is in the media's headlights at the moment so we'll stick with that. 

The many books now published and TV programmes just gloss over the amount of work needed, and the public perception of rewilding is that it is something farmers do by doing absolutely nothing. But a well managed rewilding project needs time and effort to succeed, soft intervention if you like to encourage wildlife to return, but at some point the estate needs to generate income, enough income to bring in a profit. In a crowded landscape such as Britain everything needs managing to a greater or lesser degree. It is a huge debate.

Ben works on his own with some volunteers. They still put up fences, and of course remove some. Hedges are being either being planted or laid. Ecological surveys are continuing, Ben also does deer culls, grey squirrel control, tree work, and presumably now and again wonders where his two escaped beavers are now.  It is a lot of work for one man and his volunteers. 

Plans also include creating a hub in the centre of the rewilding area where currently there are some derelict buildings, a glamping site has already been created (with composting loo), and eventually a butchery, farm shop and retail sales. It will be interesting to return in a few years to see what the changes have brought about, though possibly the highlight for that return may be as during this visit the two Tamworth pigs who were great fun and came to meet us. 

All in all a most interesting two hour visit. I hope they succeed. Ben mentioned that in canvassing the local population, overwhelmingly the people of Beaminster were in favour, not least having beavers which could reduce flooding. It's also hoped the venture will bring in much needed tourism income to what has been a very quiet corner of  Dorset. Some of the adjacent estates are not as keen, either due to shooting loss (Mapperton closed down its shooing business) or damage to woodland (fences needed on the boundary to keep cattle out of neighbouring land), or as happened in Knepp, traditional farmers worried about ' pests and weeds' coming onto their fields. It is not just the wildlife approach that is a balancing act.