#cirenrewilding

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Photograph courtesy of Charlie Burrell, Knepp Estate

The Royal Agricultural University and Cirencester Sixth Form College have been jointly delivering environment courses since 2008. Both organisations are excited to host our own environment conference to provide a new platform for sharing knowledge in this sector.

The organising team comprise:

Cirencester College is an Ofsted ‘outstanding’ college in a rural setting on the outskirts of Cirencester, Gloucestershire. One of only three designated specialist Sixth Form Colleges in the South West, Cirencester College is one of the top ranking Sixth Form Colleges in the country.

The Royal Agricultural University (RAU) has been at the forefront of agricultural education and a key contributor to the land-based sector for more than 170 years. Today, the RAU has more than 1,200 students studying agriculture, animal science, business, environment, equine science, farm management, food, real estate and rural land management.

Dr Ian GrangeSenior Lecturer in Environment

and Countryside Management, Royal

Agricultural University

Dr Kelly SwallowLecturer in Ecology

and Agro-ecosystems, Royal Agricultural

University

Dr Jane Fern Manager of

Higher Education and Strategic

Development, Cirencester Sixth

Form College

Stephanie Masefield Lecturer, School of Earth and Animal

Sciences, Cirencester Sixth Form College

Front cover photograph courtesy of Charlie Burrell, Knepp Estate

8:30 Registration and coffee (Tithe Barn)

9:25 Introduction to the event Dr Lucy Meredith Deputy Vice-Chancellor, RAU

9:35 Rewilding in Britain – why, how and where?

Prof Alastair Driver Specialist Advisor, Rewilding Britain

9:50 Rewilding – a vision for the future Charlie Burrell Owner, Knepp Castle Estate

10:20 Biodiversity successes at Knepp; fitting it into the bigger picture

Dr Tony Whitbread Sussex Wildlife Trust

10:40 Questions Stephanie Masefield Cirencester College (chair)

10:55 Coffee (Tithe Barn)

11:40 The 25 year environment plan’s approach to enhancing nature

Nick Barter DEFRA

12:00 The song of life Derek Gow Derek Gow Consultancy Ltd

12:20 Rewilding: the landowner’s perspective Christopher Price Country Land & Business Association

12:40 Questions Dr Ian Grange Royal Agricultural University (chair)

12:55 Buffet lunch (Tithe Barn)

14:00 The Lynx and Us Dr David Hetherington Author, The Lynx and Us

14:20 The potential pine marten reintroduction to the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley

Dr Andrew Stringer Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust

14:40 Lessons from the Devon Wildlife Trust Beaver projects

Mark Elliott Devon Wildlife Trust

15:00 Questions Jim Grant Principal, Cirencester College (chair)

15:15 Coffee (Tithe Barn)

16:00 Measuring Rewilding Sara King and Cain Blythe Ecosulis

16:20 Harnessing opportunities of rewilding in the UK

Prof Alastair Driver Specialist Advisor, Rewilding Britain

16:30 Questions to panel on future opportunities Sacha Dench Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (chair)

17:20 Closing comments Jim Grant Principal, Cirencester College

17:30 End of conference (bar is available in the Tithe Barn for those staying for the dinner)

18:30 Dinner (Kenneth Russell Room)

Programme

Username: Rewilding Password: RAU2018

Speakers

Dr Lucy Meredith

Lucy was appointed as Deputy Vice-Chancellor in March 2018. Her portfolio includes assisting the Vice-Chancellor and taking a strategic lead for teaching, learning and research. She has worked in a number of Higher Education Institutions including Bath Spa University, University of Bristol, University of the West of England, Bristol and University of South Wales. She has extensive experience of academic leadership at a variety of levels and is passionate at about working with staff and students to co-create an excellent working and learning environment.

Prof Alastair DriverAlastair Driver is an Honorary Professor in Applied Environmental Management at Exeter University and is well-known in UK conservation circles. He started his career as a river corridor surveyor for the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust in 1978 and became the first conservationist responsible for conservation of the waterways and wetlands in the Thames catchment in 1984, before going on to become the Head of Conservation for the Environment Agency from 2002-2016. Working as an independent, he now has many roles including Specialist Advisor for Rewilding Britain and Arup, and pro bono for many organisations including the National Trust. He also co-ordinates wildlife studies on expeditions to some of the wildest corners of the earth with the Scientific Exploration Society.

Talk: Rewilding in Britain – why, how and where?

Traditional nature reserve/protected site conservation on its own is not enough to reverse the decline in biodiversity in the UK and therefore something significantly new and different is required in addition. Alastair’s view after 40 years in nature conservation is that that something is “rewilding”. With that premise in mind, this presentation will aim to bust a few myths relating to rewilding in Britain and very importantly explain how it can work economically as well as environmentally. Alastair will also briefly explain the key priorities and principles underpinning Rewilding Britain’s approach. He will finish by sharing latest updates on major rewilding projects which the organisation is seeking to catalyse in England and Wales, in order to turn the rewilding dream into reality.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Royal Agricultural University

Specialist Advisor, Rewilding Britain

Charlie Burrell

Sir Charles Raymond Burrell, 10th Baronet, is an English landowner and conservationist. Charlie spent his early years on his parents’ farm in Rhodesia and then in Australia. He was educated at Millfield and the Royal Agricultural University . He inherited Knepp Estate from his grandparents in 1985. After 17 years of unprofitable arable and dairy farming on the Home Farm, he decided to turn the entire 3,500 acre estate over to rewilding. Knepp Estate has become a flagship experiment in land restoration, informing ideas about the future of nature conservation and the provision of ecosystem services. The RSPB, National Trust, British Trust for Ornithology and The Wildlife Trusts are amongst the many conservation organisations regularly visiting and taking inspiration from Knepp’s success. ‘Sir Charles Burrell’s Knepp Estate’ was cited as an outstanding example of landscape-scale restoration in the Government’s recent 25 Year Environment Plan and in 2017 won the Anders Wall Award for special contribution to the rural environment in the European Union.http://www.knepp.co.uk http://www.kneppsafaris.co.uk

Talk: Rewilding – a vision for the future

Knepp Estate, just south of Horsham, West Sussex – once intensively farmed for arable and dairy – was given over to a pioneering rewilding project in 2000. Using free-roaming grazing animals as the drivers, and with the restoration of natural water courses, the 3,500-acre project has seen extraordinary increases in wildlife, some species incredibly rare. Unlike conventional nature conservation, the Knepp Wildland Project is not driven by specific goals or target species. Instead, management is kept to a minimum and nature is allowed as much freedom as possible. This ‘process-led’ approach is proving to be a highly effective, low-cost method of ecological restoration and is providing vital ecosystem services like soil restoration, water purification and carbon sequestration. The Estate is still farming, albeit far more extensively, producing 75 tonnes of low-input, organic, pasture-fed meat per annum from its free-roaming herds. Wildlife tourism provides another significant income stream.

Isabella Tree’s book ‘Wilding’, the story of the Knepp wilding project, will be for sale and she will be signing copies during the morning coffee break in the foyer of the Boutflour Hall.

Owner, Knepp Castle Estate

Thank you for attending our conference. We’re keen to collect feedback and ideas for possible future events, so if you can spare five minutes to complete

our feedback survey, we would be very grateful. The survey is available online at https://goo.gl/numTZG. Alternatively if you prefer, please complete a paper

feedback form (which will be available in the conference venues).

Dr Tony WhitbreadAfter gaining a BSc in Applied Biology and a PhD in Grassland Ecology at Hatfield Polytechnic (now University of Hertfordshire), Tony started a series of contracts for the then Nature Conservancy Council. He joined the Sussex Wildlife Trust in 1991 as Head of Conservation and became Chief Executive in 2006. He has represented the Wildlife Trusts nationally on a variety of forums, including the Forestry Commission’s South East Regional Advisory Committee, Wildlife Link Forestry Group, England Woodland Biodiversity Group, a stakeholder group for the National Ecosystem Assessment and has been involved in many internal forums within the Wildlife Trusts. Throughout, Tony has been particularly interested in the role of natural processes in the structure and function of ecosystems, and as a result has a strong interest in rewilding. Tony’s association with the Knepp estate goes back over 15 years.

Talk: Biodiversity successes at Knepp; fitting it into the bigger picture

Knepp has become vibrant with wildlife. Biodiversity has increased across the range of species and the estate has become a ‘hot spot’ for turtle dove, nightingale and purple emperor butterflies. Monitoring a rewilding project to pick up successes (or failures), however, presents its own issues. For traditional nature conservation there is generally a clear objective – to conserve and enhance features of particular interest. A clear objective means there is a clear approach for monitoring – is management leading to progress towards the objective? Rewilding, however, is about putting natural processes in place and encourage nature more of a free hand in the direction that it takes. There is no detailed objective so no clear end point. If there is no end point how do you know where you’re going and how can you tell when you get there? What is needed is an approach that can pick up ‘emergent properties’ as they appear. Furthermore biodiversity monitoring of this sort could be a proxy measure for other environmental outputs, particularly ecosystem services. These can be difficult to follow directly, but there is evidence to suggest that sites rich in biodiversity are also best at ecosystem service delivery. So broad spectrum biodiversity monitoring could also be a proxy for measuring ecosystem service delivery.

Nick Barter

Nick Barter was responsible for developing and now implementing the Government’s main environmental policy, its 25 year plan for the environment, that aims to improve the environment within a generation. It was published in January 2018. He also manages the secretariat to the independent committee that advises the Government on natural capital, the Natural Capital Committee. Prior to joining DEFRA in 2012, he worked for 15 years in the Department for Transport and the Treasury on a variety of economist and policy roles, mainly in the area of environmental modelling and European financial legislation.

Talk: The 25 year environment plan’s approach to enhancing nature

Background to the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan, its main contents and policies for enhancing nature. The UK government’s environment plan sets out goals for improving the environment, within a generation, and leaving it in a better state than we found it. It details how we in government will work with communities and businesses to do this. It sets out what we will be doing over the next 25 years.

Sussex Wildlife Trust

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Derek Gow Derek Gow Consultancy Ltd

Derek farms in Devon and is the principal ecologist and founder of the Derek Gow Consultancy. The consultancy specialises in ethical wildlife mitigation, breeding, reintroduction and translocation of protected British mammals and reptiles, focusing specifically on the water vole. With over 10 years’ experience of mitigating, translocating and captive breeding water voles, he is dedicated to reversing the decline in water vole populations through positive action, such as running a breeding program that has successfully reintroduced over 10,000 water voles across the UK. Derek is a key enthusiast and working group member for the reintroduction of the European beaver; he co-authored the book ‘The Eurasian Beaver’. Recently he has been involved with the reintroduction of white storks to Britain and is a passionate advocate for nature.

Talk: The Song of Life

The dangers arising from the disengagement of people and cultures from the realities of life are massive. As individuals switch off from reality to exist instead in computer-based worlds of their own, communicating with them can become all but impossible. In urban-based communities, the degree of desensitisation to nature is also widely becoming complete. Modern children don’t wander off into halcyon woods to collect birds’ eggs or butterflies, climb trees or swim in secret streams. The challenge of persuading the bulk of human society, both in a national and planetary sense, that nature is vitally important is critical.In the foreword to a white stork reintroduction project, Roy Dennis of the Highland Foundation for Wildlife writes how the once wondrous migrations of the great birds, which was as regular as the beating heart of the earth, would have amazed our ancestors looking skyward. The spectacle they would have provided as they soared in their countless millions in the skies and returned clattering and trilling, screeching and singing to reoccupy and reclaim their seasonal haunts would have over-awed anyone on the ground.We have lost this feeling. We cannot hear the beating heart any more.

Christopher Price Country Land and Business Association

Christopher Price is the Director of Policy and Advice at the CLA. He has overall responsibility for managing all the CLA’s national policy and advisory work. He makes sure that the organisation’s policy work is focused on what matters most, and that members’ queries are dealt with accurately and efficiently. A planning and environmental lawyer by background, he joined the CLA as public law adviser in 2002. He became Chief Legal Advisor in 2007 and took up his current post a year later. Before coming to the CLA Christopher worked in local government for a number of different authorities.

Talk: Rewilding: the landowner’s perspective

What factors will motivate a private landowner to participate in a rewilding project and what will be the obstacles and disincentives?

Dr David Hetherington Author, The Lynx and Us

Dr David Hetherington completed his doctorate in 2005 at the University of Aberdeen. It explored the feasibility of reintroducing the Eurasian lynx to Scotland; in the process this allowed him to build up a network of contacts across Europe. He then moved to the Cairngorms National Park, where he still works on strategic woodland expansion and manages the Cairngorms Wildcat Project. He sits on the board of Trees for Life, an award-winning charity that works to enhance the native woodland ecology of the Scottish Highlands. Earlier this year he published a book with French wildlife photographer, Laurent Geslin, called ‘The Lynx and Us’, which examines the relationship between lynx and people across Europe, and discussing the implications of this for the UK.

Talk: The Lynx and Us

A mixture of both bone and cultural evidence tells us that lynx once roamed the length and breadth of Britain, but died out several centuries ago. There is now a growing national discussion about reintroducing the Eurasian lynx to the UK, yet levels of understanding of the species are poor, resulting in an increasingly polarised and poorly informed debate. Lynx are solitary, mainly forest-dwelling predators of small- to medium-sized ungulates, especially roe deer, requiring huge areas for their home ranges. In recent decades, the species has made something of a comeback across Europe, helped partly by a series of reintroduction projects. This turnaround has meant that lynx now inhabit busy, human-modified landscapes, used for farming, forestry, tourism and hunting. What challenges and conflicts arise and how are these resolved? What opportunities does their return bring? And what does this all mean for Scotland and the rest of the UK?

David’s book “The Lynx and Us” will be for sale and he will be signing copies during the afternoon coffee break in the foyer of the Boutflour Hall.

Dr Andrew Stringer Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust

Andrew has worked on a variety of conservation projects worldwide, from Sierra Leone to Borneo, and developed an interest in species translocations during his PhD on black rhino in South Africa. Following this he worked for Scottish Natural Heritage on reintroductions, helping to write the ‘Beavers in Scotland’ synthesis report to Scottish Government and working with the National Species Reintroduction Forum on developing The Scottish Code for Conservation Translocations. In 2016 he started working for Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. In conjunction with the Forestry Commission, Vincent Wildlife Trust and Woodland Trust, he has recently completed a feasibility study investigating whether pine martens should be reintroduced to the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley.

Talk: The potential pine marten reintroduction to the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley

Should a species be reintroduced? This talk will go through the feasibility stage of a potential pine marten reintroduction to the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley. I’ll discuss how we assessed whether reintroduction was a suitable option, the suitability of the region for reintroduction and how we estimated whether a stable population could exist there. I’ll also discuss how we assessed the potential costs and benefits to local wildlife. As community support is essential for a reintroduction to go ahead, I’ll talk about what it’s like to live alongside pine martens and how local communities responded to the idea of a reintroduction. Finally, I’ll briefly discuss how the results of the feasibility stage directly feed into a potential reintroduction project.

Mark Elliott Devon Wildlife Trust

Mark is a wetland ecologist with 25 years’ experience working in the British nature conservation sector. A fascination with wildlife as a child led to a job with the NRA and Environment Agency in Sussex, and eventually roles as a Project Manager and Technical Specialist. His particular interests in using wetland habitats and natural processes to manage water and flood risk developed; he was involved with projects to restore rivers and intertidal areas, while demonstrating the benefits for people. Mark has been at Devon Wildlife Trust since 2010 to manage the Working Wetlands Project. One of his first roles was to install a beaver enclosure in the Tamar headwaters and his fascination with beavers began. When the wild beavers were discovered on the River Otter in 2014 and DWT was granted a licence to run the River Otter Beaver Trial, Mark was well placed to lead this project alongside the Enclosed Beaver Project.

Talk: Lessons from the Devon Wildlife Trust Beaver projects

This talk will outline the two beaver projects that Devon Wildlife Trust is running. In West Devon, beavers have been kept in a semi-natural enclosure since 2011 and their impacts on the watercourse and associated habitats have been studied in detail. Research with the University of Exeter, has shown the significant reductions in peak flows and improvements in water quality as a result of the sequence of 13 beaver dams that have been constructed along 180m of watercourse. Meanwhile, in East Devon, DWT has carried out the first licensed release of beavers into the wild in England and is conducting a five year trial to investigate their impacts and interactions in a lowland English river catchment. At the end of the trial in 2020, the government will make a decision about the future of beavers in England.The implications of this Devon research for other parts of the country, where reintroduction of beavers is being considered, will be presented.

Sara King & Cain Blythe Ecosulis

Sara and Cain form part of the rapidly expanding biodiversity assessment team in Ecosulis. They aim to demonstrate that it is possible to live in a world that places a far higher value on biodiversity and one where businesses and people benefit from that biodiversity in a sustainable way. As a pioneering business, Ecosulis has applied its 30 years’ experience protecting and enhancing biodiversity across the United Kingdom. Significant investment has meant that Sara and Cain are able to utilise cutting edge technology, innovation and research; ensuring the effective restoration and monitoring of landscapes, supporting wild nature and enriching people’s lives.

Talk: Measuring Rewilding

Rewilding is believed to benefit nature by restoring natural processes and ecosystem function, so is by its nature open ended. However, it is important to understand the impact rewilding projects have on biodiversity, so that this can be used to demonstrate what ‘success’ looks like, as well as guiding policy. Robust measurement of changes in biodiversity are therefore needed and, in times of limited resources, using the most efficient indicators to record this is crucial. This presentation will provide an overview of innovative biodiversity assessment tools utilised for a range of rewilding and restoration projects, including species reintroduction projects. We will be launching our new Biodiversity Monitoring Framework for trophic species in Europe; linking this back to decision making at the site, plan and policy levels, including consideration of the upcoming Environment Bill. The talk will also have a future focus outlining the latest innovations and tools that can achieve this, such as drones, remote recording and cutting edge DNA analysis.

Sacha Dench Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (panel chair)

Sacha is a conservationist and creative consultant to WWT based in Slimbridge. With roles ranging from wildlife biologist to running a film and photography unit, a pollution detective, to Director of Public Relations for different organisations worldwide, her speciality is communicating complex conservation issues, in inspiring ways.Recently, Sacha has become known for the award winning ‘Flight of the Swans’ expedition, in which she overcame a fear of flight to fly a paramotor (hanging from a piece of cloth by strings with a big fan on her back) 7,000 km from arctic Russia to the UK – following the migration of wild swans. Her mission was to speak to people – from nomads to farmers and politicians - and find out why we were losing so many swans. The project generated huge amounts of media attention, debate and a wide range of practical wins for conservation. She is the

first woman in over 50 years to be awarded the Britannia Trophy for the feat of aviation.Sacha also has the unusual ability to hold her breath for a very long time and once broke the world record in training, with a breath hold of 6 minutes 22 seconds. With this talent she has had TV roles as dead bodies, underwater bad guys, a human fish for a well-known brand of whisky and was once asked to help start the public debate around shark conservation by getting tangled in a shark net 30 feet underwater, without air tanks, and naked.As Panel Chair, Sacha’s job is to ensure the only things that will be exposed at this event are the truths and passions of our panel and their visions for a future wilder British countryside.

Jim Grant Principal, Cirencester College

Jim Grant is Principal of Cirencester College which works in close partnership with the RAU in developing and delivering programmes. Jim helped design and write the Environmental Conservation and Heritage Management foundation degree programme. Following the successful launch of that course he has helped design a series of collaborative programmes with the RAU including British Wildlife and Archaeology. He has a keen interest in this area and is delighted to be involved in this landmark conference.

Thomas Binns NFU Hill and Upland Forum Chair (panel discussion)

Thomas farms in partnership with his wife on a tenanted upland farm of 750ha across the Less Favoured Area (LFA). The farm is situated in the Bowland AONB in Lancashire. The farm has 2500 breeding ewes consisting of Swaledales and Mules. Lambs are both sold finished and for breeding. Grazing cattle are also summered. The farm currently participates in Environmental Stewardship. Thomas currently chairs the NFU Uplands Forum and is co-opted onto the National Livestock Board. Thomas will be joining us for the panel discussion.

We would like to thank our sponsors for their generous support

Ecosulis specialises in Habitat Creation and Biodiversity Assessment. We have over 25 years’ experience within the industry and utilise this to deliver high quality biodiversity projects. We have links through both Bristol University and Oxford University; developing innovative biodiversity assessment methods through these relationships. This includes the use of block chain technology, drones, ‘Internet of Things’ and our Biodiversity Quality Calculator. The Biodiversity Quality Calculator was created by Dr Alan Feest and is an innovative tool to quantify ecological functionality. The programme is unique in its measurement of the functional characteristics of biodiversity, enabling change in biodiversity quality to be assessed for statistical significance. This method has been utilised in a variety of different ways, including measuring the impact management techniques have on biodiversity, the effect of species re-introductions including beavers and pine martens, plus biodiversity and health assessments for open space. Biodiversity Assessment methods are also utilised on our habitat creation projects to measure the effect these projects have on biodiversity and to assess whether targets have been met. We work with a range of clients, including the Environment Agency.

Stratton House is a stylish base to explore Cirencester and the surrounding villages of the Cotswolds. Lovingly refurbished into a beautiful country house hotel. Our 42 bedrooms are elegantly styled to make you want to stay longer. From afternoon teas & Sunday lunches to family celebrations, you will find a variety of mouth-watering dishes to tempt you. www.strattonhousehotel.com

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Photograph by Helen King, British Wildlife Conservation foundation degree student, at the Knepp Estate.