The Book of Wilding] is an eloquent yet hard-hitting synthesis of how a little helping hand can allow nature to heal itself, resulting in astounding outcomes for wildlife, while enriching our own lives in every conceivable way. With rare honesty and thoughtful reflections, the authors share their experiences and vision for greening farmscapes and cityscapes at every scale. This book is not merely important, it is epoch-making and world-building”— Dr Gabriel Hemery, author of The New Sylva What happens when you remove that pressure and let the land recover? It takes time (something we are notably not prepared to give much of in our modern world), but it turns out that nature is remarkable. What happens challenges some of our most basic assumptions about the land. There is a thing in ecology, or at least in this book, called “shifting-baseline syndrome” and this refers to the fact that often the baseline for a project, the goal it sets out to achieve, is derived from data that consistently gets more and more recent i.e. the baseline gradually includes more and more of the effect that the project is aiming to counter. We make wrong assumptions: as the book points out, we label nightingales and purple emperor butterflies as “woodland” creatures because that is here we see them, but, if we stop interfering and watch what nature does, we learn that they are not really creatures of that environment. Once you begin to learn things like this, the whole basis of many conservation projects is called into question (should we really be micro-managing woodland environments to encourage the purple emperor butterfly when that butterfly would, left to itself, prefer to be somewhere else?). The first half of the book is a great read for anyone with an interest in British nature, but the second half might be of more limited appeal. I read through most of it, but I skipped some sections; it delves into the real nitty gritty of the practical applications of wilding, even down to stuff like securing funding and getting permissions for projects, which is only really of use to people actively embarking on rewilding projects. For me personally, this was of limited use, but I wouldn't say it all detracts from the value of the book. In fact, it adds to it immeasurably; I'm glad a book like this exists, to provide more than just the vague theory of how to make a positive change.

This is a deep, dazzling and indispensable guide to the most important task of all: the restoration of the living planet”— George Monbiot This is not another book telling you to install nest boxes and to stop mowing in May, filled with pretty garden photos. It is a book about re-wilding our society. It will no doubt have influenced how I view and support government policies and local council/charitable projects. I know nothing about farming and next to nothing about conservation, but I was fascinated by this story of a family that turned their 3,500 acres of unprofitable intensive farmland, owned by ancestors for centuries, into a 'wilderness'. The book recounts the battles against local opposition to 'destruction' of the estate's perceived attractiveness, against blinkered bureaucracy and even against thoughtless dog owners. Along the way, we learn how Charlie and Isabella resisted the psychological pressure to set targets and manage the project, instead adopting a hands-off approach that let natural processes take over. The rapidity with which the land, the diversity of animal and plant life and the composition of the soil recovered is the natural miracle that lies at the story's core.The definitive wildlife survival manual ... Visions of paradise with all the practical advice to make it Isabella Tree is an award-winning journalist and author, and lives with her husband, the conservationist Charlie Burrell, in the middle of a pioneering rewilding project in West Sussex. She is author of five non-fiction books. Her book Wilding, the story of the ambitious journey she and her husband Charlie Burrell undertook to rewild their farm, has sold quarter of a million copies worldwide, been translated into 8 languages and won the Richard Jefferies prize for nature writing, been shortlisted for the Wainwright prize and was one of the Smithsonian's top ten science books for 2018. In 2022, Isabella served on the Mayor of London's Rewilding London Task Force.

We need to be trying different things and the fact that Knepp tried something so different and it has proven so successful is fantastic.” An aristocratic couple struggling to run a large farm may not elicit much sympathy. And the tale of how they turned around a loss-making business may seem a niche interest. What will stay with me most after reading this book is the soil. The solution to many of the major environmental issues of our time might literally be the ground beneath our feet. Soil that is managed by nature rather than by man has a huge capacity for storing carbon. Letting nature manage nature has the potential to solve global warming. This is a staggering thought. As the book puts it

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Probably the best book I have read this year. I have been to Knepp on several occasions and spoken with both Isabella and Charlie and their passion for rewilding is amazing. They are also genuinely nice people.