Based on the bestselling book by Isabella Tree, Wilding tells the story of a remarkable rewilding experiment on the Knepp Estate
Twenty years ago, having inherited the grand Knepp Estate, landowner Charlie Burrell and his partner Isabella Tree embarked on a remarkable experiment. Instead of continuing down the path set out for them by farming the estate, as it had been for the previous 200 years, they decided instead to step back and let nature take its course.
It wasn’t an easy decision. In this new film, based on Isabella’s bestselling book of the same name, she details their story from its very beginnings, recounting how the decision to end farming was a tough and emotional one. But, having come to a realisation about the damage being done to their land, it seemed the only course to take.
What follows is a story of many challenges and many triumphs. The couple followed the approach taken at the pioneering Oostvaardersplassen site in the Netherlands, and filled the land with ancient breeds of large animals including horses, cattle and pigs – the idea being to return the land to the way it might have been before human interference.
There were teething problems. Some of the animals seemed confused as to their wild status, while the reception from local farmers was stony-faced, giving way to outright condemnation. And yet, the evidence for rejuvenation was undeniable. Birds were returning to the estate. The sighting of a turtledove, never before recorded on the estate and one of the country’s most endangered birds provided enormous hope. Most important of all, the very soil itself, so vital for all life on Earth, was regenerating and welcoming back a profusion of insect and plant life.
Again and again the couple had to hold their nerve in the face of negative public perception. The growth of creeping thistle, a crop detested by farmers for its ability to spread so fast was a huge challenge. But once again nature found a way. The arrival of a vast cloud of 11 million painted lady butterflies decimated the thistle, which did not return the next year. Gradually, a totally different landscape was emerging, at once brand new and deeply ancient. The experiment was working.
With contemporary interviews and clever recreations of the past, Wilding tells the story of the Knepp Estate with beautiful golden-hued footage, to a backdrop of soothing melodies. It is a hugely hopeful story, one in which even the depression left by a cow’s hoofprint can give way to a profusion of life.
The film is limited in its scope. A veiled reference to ‘managing the herds’ glosses over the necessity of culling at Knepp and the film doesn’t address the concerns of farms and farm workers or the finances behind such an experiment. As Isabella herself notes, Knepp cannot do it all, it is only a tiny drop in the ocean. But even if the project is not replicable in its entirety, it has proved that life can return to degraded landscapes. Wilding provides a vision of a world filled with much, much more life.
