Book Review: Wilding
Author: Isabella Tree
Publisher: Pan Macmillan 2018
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 308 + Appendix, Sources and Index
Date Read: September - October ‘25
Blurb:
Forced to accept that intensive farming of the heavy clay soils of their farm at Knepp in West Sussex was driving it close to bankruptcy, in 2000 Isabella Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell took a spectacular leap of faith and handed their 3,500 acres back to nature. With minimal human intervention, and with herds of free-roaming animals stimulating new habitats, their land is now heaving with life. Rare species such as turtle doves, peregrine falcons and purple emperor butterflies are now breeding at Knepp and biodiversity has rocketed.
The Knepp project has become a leading light for conservation in the UK, demonstrating how letting nature take the driving seat can restore both the land and its wildlife in a dramatically short space of time, reversing the cataclysmic declines that have affected most species elsewhere in Britain over the past five decades. Part gripping memoir, part fascinating account of Britain’s rural ecology, Wilding is, above all, an inspiring story of hope.
My review:
I happened to come across this book in my local library and couldn’t help but stop and read the blurb after seeing its gorgeous front cover featuring a turtle dove sitting amongst brambles. The blurb very much sums up what the book is about and the current outcome of their project which is to this day still ongoing. As a pagan, I am already completely behind the idea of returning things back to nature where possible and I wholeheartedly agree with using as fewer chemicals on the land as possible. This is very different to the opinions of some of the older generations of my family who have worked on farms. They have often looked on in horror at my unruly garden full of ‘weeds’ and told me that I ought to get the weed killer out. Of course I have politely ignored their ‘advice’! It is perhaps due to this, that I can completely sympathise with how Isabella and her family must have felt and the immense opposition that they faced when starting their rewilding project.
Thankfully, as the blurb reveals, the project is a huge success and many people who were against rewilding have since come round to the idea. I mean, how can you not? The successes that they have had at Knepp in terms of biodiversity are monumental to say the least. One of the best messages to come out of the book was that a lot of the things we think we know about nature and how other species live are actually incorrect. They are based off of observations made in conditions that have been heavily influenced and/or ‘enhanced’ by man. The book also makes a convincing argument that much of Europe was not once a closed-canopy forest like we have been led to think. Likewise, rare species of birds have settled down and even bred at Knepp in unusual places to those specified in most old and even some more modern textbooks. The last two chapters ‘Rewilding the Soil’ and ‘The Value of Nature’, were for me the most important and enjoyable to read. They really hammered down the value of the earth beneath our feet and how by living in harmony with nature we can all lead much healthier and essentially happier lives. I truly believe that this is a message that needs to be repeated as much as possible until it becomes ingrained into our society and our psyche.
Why then, have I only given it a rating of 4.5? Honestly, whilst I could sympathise with the author and whilst I wholeheartedly agree with the overarching message, there were times when this book was rather heavy going. Understandably the project came up against a lot of criticism particularly in the early days, so in a combined effort to reassure themselves and appease their advisory board, Isabella and her husband had to do copious amounts of research. This research was clearly invaluable to them, and in most cases, it does make for an interesting read. However, there were times when I felt like they had included research and statistics for the sake of it to help pad out the book. I loved reading about their struggles, their failures and their successes, but when some chapters were mainly taken up with research, my mind just ended up switching off and this is coming from someone who would consider themselves to be fairly academic. If I hadn’t already had a bias towards this book and the message being put forward, I do wonder if I would have been able to read it in its entirety.
Never-the-less, this is a vitally important book about nature, our place in it, and how we need to trust in the process rather than constantly trying to control. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who loves spending time outdoors or who simply has a fondness for nature and the wild.
Star rating: 4.5 out of 5.
