Why Protect Rookwood?

Rewilding of Rookwood has been widely promoted as beneficial, but let’s look closer at the idea.

What is rewilding?

In its truest sense rewilding is a concept that uses natural processes to create a self-sustaining and natural environment. The principle is that the system of natural processes itself develops the ecosystem and so promotes biodiversity, and in turn meets conservation goals, all in tune with what the land is able to sustain.

Rewilding relies on the use of introduced animals to undertake the job of re-instating a landscape that has been degraded over long periods of time probably since the last Ice Age. However, much of this land re-instatement through rewilding relies on a range of factors and it is primarily aimed at large-scale projects. One suggestion is that a target area should be greater than 100 square kilometres[1] (10,000 ha) and in the UK apart from upland areas this may not be possible.

Rewilding is a concept developed in the US and involved (re)introducing large, mostly herbivorous mammals to vast land areas to restore biodiversity and to create self-sustainable environments and has been used the world over[2]. This method of allowing animals to create natural core areas, nature corridors and a matrix of habitats is being investigated by English Nature but, even they are looking at the concept as an environmental “tool” involving minimal intervention by humans[3].

In fact, therefore, rewilding is a process involving the introduction of large animals into vast areas and involves careful and controlled management of those introductions without the intervention of, or interference by humans in order to have any true meaning of rewilding.

We are lucky to have a nationally renowned rewilding project on our doorstep at Knepp. However, even this has only been undertaken since 2003[4] within a land area in excess of three and a half thousand acres (1,416 ha) and is therefore, in the scheme of things, still in its infancy. Therefore, the entire extent of its effect of true rewilding is yet to be fully appreciated and according to Fuller and Gilroy (2021) although exciting is currently “promising”.

Much of the effort to undertake the “Wilding Project” at Knepp has been the use of large, mostly herbivorous mammals such as deer, cattle, horses and pigs and it is hoped that in the future Beavers will be also introduced to the wild to manage and develop Knepp’s riparian habitats. Many of these animals have been compartmentalised and are (often) separated from the public paths to undertake a natural “management task”.

Although ideally these mammalian introductions on the larger scale will “manage” themselves and thus the habitat, but without other natural interventions such as natural starvation, disease or large predators this cannot happen. And this is also particularly important where humane treatment of essentially captive animals is concerned. Therefore, human interventions manage the mammals by, for example, selective “culling” and through rotation of grazing pastures. In practice, this dynamic management creates a diverse habitat through the use of real-time but carefully planned processes and thus creates the mosaics of habitat that is essential for a natural increase in biodiversity. Knepp is seemingly returning the landscape into what might be termed woodland pasture.

What relevance is this to Rookwood?

The term “rewilding” seems to be frequently used to justify the change of use for so many areas in an attempt to validate and promote a proposed development as a good thing[5] and this includes Rookwood. In my view it is used too indiscriminately and inappropriately to have any real value and in so doing has become meaningless. Indeed, an alternative word coined for this misuse of the term is “rewildwashing”!

If we were to re-wild Rookwood, we should put it back to farmland as it once was for a very long time, probably many centuries. However, Horsham District Council (HDC) on purchasing the land in the 1990s had the forethought to provide a facility that could bring in some money and provide an area for public recreation. By building a small open development (Rookwood Park) it secured funds to develop a golf course and, in so doing, provided an improvement to the once low biodiverse habitat - agriculture - through the creation of ponds, small areas of copse, marginal grassland and shrub areas as key areas of a “standard golfing environment”.

Additionally, in leaving some key features of the previous farmland such as specimen trees and wooded corridors as well as static and flowing riparian habitats and centuries old hedgelines, it provided a perfect matrix of habitats so beneficial to increasing the biodiversity of the area and at the same time mitigation against the, now high-profile, climate change.

All this sympathetic change has led to a much-improved habitat that almost certainly has a greater biological diversity than heavily managed farmland[6]. For example, the matrices of short grassland (the fairways and greens) and patches of long sward (the rough) open to the sky along with isolated mature trees provides open, rich feeding areas for bats, while the ancient oaks with their aged and hollow timbers provide roosting and maternity units for them. The long, grassed areas provide security for the Grass Snake and the water features, a feeding ground. The unmown marginal areas where light penetrates gives rise to flower-rich areas for our essential insect pollinators while the dense scrub behind will prove ideal for Foxes and Hedgehogs to lay-up during the day. Birds too much prefer the scrub pockets with their grassy margins.

It is also the case that, in the last thirty or so years, because there has been little major additional planting around the course this has encouraged the natural regeneration of the matrix of ideal habitat. Habitat that is so valuable to birds, mammals, reptiles, fish and insects that would simply not have been available on agricultural land.

Land left to its own devices inevitably returns to climax woodland. This may take hundreds of years and go through many habitat changes but, importantly those stages reflect the flora and fauna most suitable for that particular land type at that time in its aging. The habitat and therefore its biodiversity thrives.

If it is “planted” and planned and man-managed to a human “ideal” formula much of the natural wildlife may not appear and the overall effort will not meet its potential in terms of biodiversity. Alternatively, leaving nature to do what it does best without hinderance or interference it will thrive. Examples are many and include areas that have developed quite naturally and have gained their own conservation status[7]!

Much of nature’s own success in terms of biodiversity increase requires little intervention and this means some restriction to public access. Most of the public access in almost every nature reserve and conservation area is carefully restricted to set paths and roadways. It is a well-established fact that increasing human footfall will disturb natural wildlife establishment and recovery, significantly reducing nature’s ability to re-wild itself.

So, arguably we could quite legitimately say that Rookwood has already been “re-wilded” thanks to intervention by a former enlightened HDC and that further intervention by development, be it buildings and infrastructure for road traffic or by creating a public open space, will almost inevitably lead to further significant losses over the, now well-established and welcome gains.

In the 2018 Government statement[8] promoting a Nature Recovery Network, Professor Lawton states[9] amongst his conclusions that; isolated nature reserves were not enough to maintain ecological connectivity because species are unable to move through landscapes fragmented by development and intensive agriculture.

But now with the current positive compromise between recreation and low intensity conservation effort, we have a perfectly balanced and increasingly biodiverse habitat for all wildlife. Lets’ keep it that way.

1. Fuller R. & Gilroy J. 2021.Rewilding and intervention: complementary philosophies for nature conservation in Britain. British Wildlife. Vol. 32, No. 4. Feb 2021.

2. Bakker E. S. & Svenning J-C. 2018. Trophic rewilding: impact on ecosystems under global change. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society B. Biological Sciences. Vol. 373, Issue 1761. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0432

3. Hodder K.H., Bullock J.M., Buckland P.C. & Kirby K.J. 2005. Large herbivores in the wildwood and modern naturalistic grazing systems. English Nature Research Reports No 648. http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/50016

4. Knepp Castle Estate website, home page https://knepp.co.uk/home (accessed 04.03.2021)

5. Barkham P. HS2 to rewild 127 hectares around its 10-mile Chilterns tunnel. The Guardian. 03/03/20216

6. Thomas T. 2020. Pers com. https://www.keeprookwoodgreen.org/news/fairwaysandhabitats

7. Fuller R. & Gilroy J. 2021. Rewilding and intervention: complementary philosophies for nature conservation in Britain. British Wildlife. Vol 32 No 4 Feb 2021.

8. DEFRA. 2018. A green future: our 25-year plan to improve the environment. https://www/gov.uk/government/publications/25-year-environment-plan.

9. Lawton J.H. et al. 2010. Making Space for Nature: a review of England’s wildlife sites and ecological network. A report to DEFRA.