Knepp Rewilding
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 พ.ย. 2024
- What lessons does the Knepp Rewilding project have for other farms in the UK? Knepp is a terrific project. But it is NOT a model for every farm. Everything depends on the local context: location, landform, ecology, hydrology, agricultural land value, potential and much else. The argument of this video is that every farm needs an Integrated Landscape and Agroforestry Management Plans (iLaMP). Such plans are necessary for (1) national landscape character areas (2) local landscape character areas (3) individual arms.
With regard to financial support from the exchequer the key principle is 'public money for public goods'. Since every farm will yield a different mix of public goods in different quantities, the appropriate level of public support for individual farms will vary.
Tom Turner believes that the landscape profession has a key role in preparing these plans. There is a great need for the Landscape Institute to publish a second policy paper on the landscape of agriculture. The first paper was written by Merrick Denton-Thompson and published over 40 years ago. Since then he has been President of the Landscape Institute.
Wonderful analysis and excellent proposal.
Concise and salient. Thank you. A TED talk is certainly an additional avenue for this most valuable message.
Nice video, thank you! Interested to see the followup regarding iLaAMP,
I would suggest a short version of this to make it a lot more popular.
Good idea: I'll put it on the to-do list.
I enjoyed the video but wondered if the audio commentary in just one channel was intentional. I also wholeheartedly endorse all your sentiments and recommendations. Farming can be productive, profitable and beneficial to the environmental and public good.
Do you mean that you only heard the audio in one ear? t was recorded in mono, like most single-person audio, but I thought TH-cam would play this in both ears.
@@LandscapeArchitecture - that's correct. It was only playing in the left channel
Interesting. Some concepts here that are worth exploring. BUT :
The 'Knepp' model of wilding concentrates on a grazed landscape with some by-products like firewood. What place does the management of woodlands (timber, coppice and other products) have in your vision of 'rewilding'?
For a grazed landscape model of wilding to work, livestock need to be safeguarded from straying and especially from 'straying' into large vehicles - theft of livestock is a serious problem. Road casualties will be an issue wherever vehicular carriageways cross 'wilded' land. (New Forest is a case in point). Fences and gates are and will continue to be needed.
As you point out, Knepp realises high profit margins per carcass by selling into high-revenue niche markets. These markets are only available to a high-income few and the capacity of those markets is low because such products are out of reach for the majority of the UK population, certainly for 'usual' consumption. Therefore 'traditional' farming outputs are going to continue to be a necessity for feeding the population unless you propose 'offshoring' even more food supply than at present and 'offshoring' all the bad practice with it?
You criticise green belt as not producing public goods and saying that Metropolitan Green Belt would benefit from 'Knepp-type Wilding principles. Perhaps I could suggest that you visit some Metropolitan Green Belt, maybe the Surrey section to see some of the long-standing 'wilding' that has been going on (although not known by that name) on public land and see first hand some of the issues that work against a Knepp-type model being adopted? Things a re a lot more complicated than I think you realise.....
Does this look like Knepp? th-cam.com/video/7tVjiK3EkSg/w-d-xo.html It's Metropolitan Green Belt, Public Open Space, a Metropolitan Common, a SSSI, a Local Nature reserve, has a network of bridleways and footpath (statutory), is next door to an NNR with similar designations. Runs 20 minutes, so you'll need a cuppa. Bear in mind that all the designations are advantages and disadvantages....
Thank you for the thoughtful comment and for the link to the Epsom Common. I have visited a fair amount of Green Belt land and know that it is varied. Re Knepp, I certainly do not see it as a model. Some estates could be managed in the same way but but there is much more need, and opportunity, for doing things in different ways according to local social, geographical, economic etc circumstances. This is a problem and a challenge for Defra. Each farm needs a plan and each can be expected to generate a different pattern of public goods. With regard to fencing, Knepp has some of the highest and most secure fencing I have ever seen round a large block of farmland. I have not read it recently, but I published a chapter on the landscape of agriculture (in a book on Landscape Planning and Environmental Impact Design, published in 1998) which made some of these points. Tom.
@@LandscapeArchitecture Hi Tom, Thanks for your reply. Epsom Common really needs a visit if you've not been there. If you want to visit let me know as the grazed area is a small part of the holding so if you're on a time budget, you would need directions. Epsom Common adjoins the Corporation's Ashtead Common with a privately owned derelict hazel coppice with coppiced oak and oak standards in between - the public areas together are 1000 acres. Then there is neighbouring farmed land owned by Merton College which borders Crown land and, the other way, not quite contiguous, is a Country Park and in another direction, the Epsom Downs. The Country Park has some excellent good conservation practice, especially with woodlands, as has the Downs. There is a large Woodland Trust holding beyond the Downs, but I'm afraid the WT aren't my favourites where it comes to management for ecology but it would make a stunning 'wilding' project all rolled in together with some resources and a forward thinking leadership with enough autonomy that all those different bodies and local authorities did not stall any positive action.
Which gets us on to one of the big issues with 'wilding' on a landscape scale, especially in Metropolitan Green Belt. Land ownership is fragmented. Knepp scores because it is private land and the owners can make (and have made) decisions - they can be brave. Epsom and Ashtead Commons are owned by two local authorities. Management involves committees of constantly-changing elected representatives, some of whom have personal and party agendas that pull in different directions from 'rewilding'. The Downs has a committee of Conservators within the Local Authority structure. Merton College is Merton College and their land agents are not exactly forward looking or innovative. Their holding is mostly in the Royal Borough of Kingston (yes another LA) but extends south into Mole Valley DC (another one). Not far off to the north west are the Elmbridge Commons, a huge area of heathland and scrub and woodland owned by another LA with Conservators on Oxshott Heath which nearly meets the Crown land. For each local authority holding, there have been intense negotiations to get any 'nature conservation' improvements done at all over several decades.
On the Elmbridge Commons there have been huge rows over Natural England/English Nature - impelled works required to bring SSSI designated for heathland up from 'unfavourable declining' condition up to 'unfavourable improving'. The public holdings have intense pressure for public access and recreation along with public perceptions that they have always been as they are now, change is a bad thing and will adversely affect property values. Some of the sites are bordered by houses worth millions (literally). This is in stark contrast to the budgets assigned to managing the public land. Some years for some holdings this is £0 of Council funds with any/all money spent coming from grant aid with practical input by volunteers making up a substantial part of actual work done. Unusually those volunteers may be trained to use power tools. Some groups are backed by long-standing small-scale voluntary bodies.
Then there are the economic activities that take place unlicenced that adversely affect the mature conservation value of the sites directly: dog walking, and foraging for the London restaurant trade. In some areas there are livery yards and horse stables for whom access to large areas of public land with bridleways and horserides (different) are a part of their offer to horse owners and riders. 'It's public land and common land so it's my right' comes too the fore with these site users and also with ordinary members of the public 'just ' emptying or swimming dogs or walking or cycling with the kids or pulling up and loading firewood or wood chips.
Com-plic-ated. Huuuge vested interests and perceptions of what 'should be' and how much it costs.
Wanna look at some stuff?
This vid is yet another almost-contiguous holding. Owned by a charity. Another two holdings are contiguous (owned by other charities). There is an infamous motorway to be considered, too. th-cam.com/video/mjDJ6S16KBg/w-d-xo.html This is another aspect of the same site. Just one 'plus' point th-cam.com/video/UVR4w9ixYmo/w-d-xo.html
This is the border between Epsom Common SSSI and the Merton College land. Which is tenanted farmland. The difficulties and costs associated with trying to farm for a living in the urban fringe should not be underestimated. Merton College also own pony paddocks and a strip of common land plus the de-registered Leatherhead Common. th-cam.com/video/q1yqcqSQ1kU/w-d-xo.html There is yet another contiguous holding owned by a private Trust and a big holding owned by Madame Tussauds (or whatever they're called now) which includes a stunning woodland which isn't on the woodland as ancient, but is ancient. Really.
This is the Country Park th-cam.com/video/8i79XBUKBl8/w-d-xo.html And so is this: th-cam.com/video/PKyCY9N0hJA/w-d-xo.html
And this: th-cam.com/video/4L8qGGIWEj4/w-d-xo.html Which is an aspect of a huge and genuine issue. Dog ownership is one aspect, whether it be a 'dump' like this, a wide stripe of bright green lush grass either side of a path from a car park across a SSSI chalk grassland or the strange fruit hanging everywhere in path-side trees and brambles after leaf-fall. Or even the several years'-worth of bags left hanging on a fence on NT land, ranging from faded orange plastic fragments to bright orange freshness 'cos somebody thinks that a bin should be provided. Then there are dogs worrying sheep on conservation grazing sites. And we move on to people sunbathing in summer-grazed cattle paddocks on commons with the cattle there, ripping out electric fencing or burning through it with lighters for something to do or stealing energiser units. What about families visiting a Common, having a barbie and a good time for almost free (good for them) and leaving the still-smouldering 'instant' barbie and bags of rubbish for the foxes to scatter? Or people damaging deer exclusion fences on new-cut coppice, vandalising water troughs, dumping garden waste on a common with all the issues of garden escapes, ATVs (maybe piloted by famous footballers from their newly-bought houses backing onto a common) motorcycles or even people going up to a club in London, boosting a car to get back home and then burning it on a local public open space..... There are costs and consequences to public access which are often forgotten when planning for the future or swept under the rug. Britain is crowded, and nowhere more so than Metropolitan Green Belt.
Gone on long enough! Cheers, Nem
@@anemone104 Well! Thank you. I'm working on a different subject at present but when time permits would like to visit Epsom Common with your guidance. Re greenbelt planning and management, you might be interested in these three videos th-cam.com/video/fOc2ytV7zO4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=JJAVtC5eLMFUuvka
th-cam.com/video/AfNE6zrnBw4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ojLHBwtjQFXz30B3
th-cam.com/video/-UzHYTy_wQ8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=i1xV-p9LKA-7CVxI
Would be great if everyone was wealthy enough to pay the true value of healthy food but the majority of people cannot afford 'luxury foods'. Shame that nutritious food is now labeled a luxury.