Wilding

Wilding

It’s a movie; we saw it the other night at our local cinema. And it’s a form of land management, not farming organically but not farming at all.

There’s evidently more to it than doing nothing and letting nature take its course. It involves introducing large herbivores – pigs, horses, cattle, of specific breeds – and other creatures, such as beavers, whose natural activity will reshape the land and revive the soil over time. In the UK, top predators such as tigers are absent, so people take their place and cull where necessary. And, in these crowded and regulated islands, there’s work to do to manage relationships with neighbours and authorities, and to raise money to keep the whole enterprise afloat.

Ups and downs

The film is easy viewing, with slow sunlit scenes of beautiful creatures running free in an English landscape of wood, lake and scrub, and of a cheerful couple making it all happen from a magazine-cover castle. We never saw it rain.

The film shapes the story into a series of ups and downs. Down! The land is exhausted and the farm unprofitable. Up! Inspiration from a Dutch scientist and a man who loves trees. The pigs get to work. Down! Local farmers react badly. Up! The horses arrive and then the cattle. Down! A plague of creeping thistle and a civil servant brandishing a throwback briefcase. Up! A miraculous invasion of Painted Lady butterflies (we remember it) who eat the thistle and chase the official back down the drive. At last, permission to launch the beavers, and the first flight of a baby stork.

Start where you are

These two people evidently started with resources, agency and choice. “Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can” is the inscription on a memorial bench in our area. It’s sometimes attributed to Arthur Ashe, the great African-American tennis player of the 1960s. He may not have said it but he certainly lived it. I’m in a good place, I have plenty. What can I do?