K.J. Charles's Reviews > Wilding

Fascinating, wonderful and hopeful. The author and her baronet husband, unable to survive as Sussex farmers, give up and turn the land back to the wild. The resulting explosion of wildlife is enough to raise the hairs on your arms. Britain's biodiversity is awful, our bird and insect populations are crashing, but it could be saved if people cared to do it. The stubborn human resistance and selfishness shown here is enraging.

To note: fallow land can be a massive carbon sink and flood plains and other wetlands, er, absorb water. We don't need to build hugs concrete walls, we need the land to do its thing. And it is also a massive mistake to try to create habitats we think will suit rare species because as Knepp has shown we often misinterpret what those are given so many of these species are hanging on at the margins. We need to make space.

This is inspiring in the extreme, except also incredibly depressing because this stupid insular country and its obsession with keeping nature neat. My neighbour puts out bird seed but takes a petrol chainsaw to the ivy on his back fence. The ivy on my back fence has birds nesting in it every year.

A wonderful book, extremely detailed and highly informative. In the event I become supreme leader the first step is clear.