Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm Audiobook (Free)

Longlisted for the 2019 Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize for Nature Writing

‘A passionately personal, robustly argued and uplifting publication . Among the landmark ecological books of the 10 years.’ Sunday Moments ‘Books of the Year’

In Wilding, Isabella Tree tells the story from the ‘Knepp experiment’, a pioneering rewilding project in Western Sussex, using free-roaming grazing animals to make brand-new habitats for wildlife. Component gripping memoir, part fascinating account of the ecology of our countryside, about Wilding: The Come back of Character to a English Farm Wilding is, above all, an inspiring story of hope.

Forced to simply accept that intense farming in the weighty clay of their land at Knepp was economically unsustainable, Isabella Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell produced a spectacular leap of faith: they made a decision to stage back and allow nature dominate. Thanks to the introduction of free-roaming cattle, ponies, pigs and deer – proxies of the large pets that once roamed Britain – the 3,500 acre project has seen remarkable increases in animals numbers and diversity in small over ten years.

Extremely rare species, including turtle doves, nightingales, peregrine falcons, lesser spotted woodpeckers and purple emperor butterflies, are actually breeding at Knepp, and populations of other species are rocketing. The Burrells’ degraded agricultural property has become a functioning ecosystem once again, heaving with lifestyle – simply by itself.

Personal and inspirational, Wilding is an amazing account of the beauty and strength of nature, when it’s given as much freedom as you possibly can.