Large-scale Arable Rewilding Project

We propose to partner with Industry to buy, lease or manage a large area of agricultural land in order to reverse ecological degradation and recover biodiversity. This process will also, sequester huge amounts of carbon by restoring soil function/heath and will bring about a myriad of functioning natural processes. This ‘rewilding’ of depleted farmland will help with water purification, air purificaiton and potentially, reduced flooding. 

It will also benefit local communities via ecotourism, sustainable land management and will help to reverse the biodiversity crisis in Ireland.

Using Knepp Estate as a model, this project aims to recreate some of the incredibly beneficial effects that their rewilding work have had, at a smaller scale within County Cork (or other arable rich part of Ireland). 

Once a suitable plot of land has been obtained, the first step will be to carry out thorough, ecological surveys to establish a baseline for the site from which to monitor changes. Detailed habitat survey will allow current habitat types to be categorised and mapped accurately through the use of QGIS, helping to highlight the most beneficial way to proceed with habitat management.

These habitat surveys will be repeated on an annual basis, in addition to fixed point photography to provide an accurate picture of how the habitat is improving over time. While precise improvement measures will be site specific, these can include; 

• planting out gappy/species poor hedgerow with diverse native species and allowing the hedgerows to thicken/remain largely unmanaged.
• sourcing native tree seed of local provenance to sow within areas of scrub, providing a basis for woodland pasture habitat.
• allowing any streams/rivers present to revert to their natural shape and ensuring space for natural floodplains.
• creation of a series of scrapes/ponds of varying depths, with some to be left as ephemeral ponds.
• sourcing native wildflower seed of local provenance to sow within suitable areas for wildflower meadow, with appropriate cutting/removal practices to be implemented.
• introducing light grazing regimes with native cattle species (e.g Irish Moiled Cattle) to naturally open up grass sward and areas of vegetation that are too dense.
• leaving brush/log piles to provide cover for small birds and mammals.

These measures will be undertaken concurrently with a range of fauna surveys, to determine if the rewilding project is improving biodiversity and potentially encouraging new species into the area. Baseline Vantage Point and Breeding Bird Surveys will be undertaken and followed up throughout the year to establish whether bird populations are improving and diversifying.

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Initial bat activity surveys in Spring, Summer and Autumn combined with Bat Roost Potential surveys of any mature trees currently present on site, will establish a baseline for bat populations and yearly monitoring will show if more suitable foraging/roosting habitat has successfully been created.

Walkover and camera trap surveys will establish if there are any current populations of terrestrial mammals such as badger, otter, pine marten, red squirrel and hedgehog and annual follow up surveys will further demonstrate if the rewilding project has benefitted these species.

Similarly, common lizard and smooth newt baseline surveys will allow populations to be monitored and improvements to be recorded annually.

If the rewilding project is successful, it’s continued monitoring provides further incentive for the expansion of other rewilding sites, ideally leading to landscape scale conservation which would provide safe “stepping stones” or pockets of habitat for species to move between. Natural systems tend to function best at a wider scale, providing the most opportunity to deliver real and lasting benefits environmentally, socially and economically.

While protecting/enhancing smaller, individual sites can be limited, as they are often too small and isolated to effectively slow biodiversity declines and result in significant change, the more of these small sites we have, the better our ability to connect them and ultimately the more resilient and dynamic our native species will become.