The Peace of Wild Things
courtesy of The Knepp Estate
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
by Wendell Berry
In a popular 2013 lecture, which has now been watched online by over a million people, the writer and activist George Monbiot explained that although the new word ‘rewilding’ can mean many things, from his perspective it is about the process of re-establishing missing plants and animals, taking down the fences, blocking drainage ditches, but otherwise not prescribing what a good ecosystem might look like. Rewilding, he said, doesn’t set out to produce a heath, a meadow, a rain forest, or a coral reef; nature is left to decide what to do. In return, this withdrawal of control give us access to a richer and more adventurous life.
The concept of rewilding, originated about 1990 by members of the ‘Earth First!’ group, has since gathered remarkable momentum and become widespread. This has been reflected in Britain by Isabella Tree’s best-selling Wilding, an account of how her family’s 3500 acre Knepp estate in Sussex, which until recently comprised old parkland and contemporary intensive farming, was transformed into a more ‘natural’ environment because it was losing vast amounts of money. The book, much loved by many of its readers, some of whom describe it as inspirational and life-changing, is well-meaning; Tree and her husband, Sir Charles Burrell, are deeply committed to the project, their enthusiasm is compelling, and many of the changes they have instigated are both heartening and remarkable. Nevertheless, it is not easy to forget that the land they are conserving is an immense private estate. Much of the Burrells’ energy has been spent convincing public bodies to cover a substantial proportion of their expenses on the basis of their intention to encourage greater biodiversity, and a significant amount of the text is a justification of the project, reliant on statistics and figures that are beyond the ken of most readers, and there are repetitive explanations of discussions held with officials and government representatives. That they succeeded in being awarded considerable public funding is both something of an achievement and surprising in the light of their agreement to run the project for only twenty-five years, in case the world has changed by then and younger members of the family have developed different intentions regarding the future of the estate.
Tree describes some of the antagonistic local responses to the project as it developed and suggests that popular opinion has gradually become sympathetic and encouraging. This may well be so, but there is reason to be sceptical about some of its aims and intentions. Knepp, unlike the vast area of reclaimed and rewilded land in the Netherlands, Oostvaardersplassen, that was the Burrells’ main model, was once primarily farmland and is now a kind of cultivated wilderness or ‘safari park’ attached to a stately home. In that spirit, Tree explains that she and her husband would like to introduce even more wild animals to the estate, an aspiration based on their particular understanding of ecological principles and on Charles Burrell’s childhood memories of being brought up in Africa. While there may be little harm in this transformation, and doubtless many benefits, it is nonetheless a pity that their plans don’t also incorporate other, perhaps less dramatic, ways of solving the economic and natural problems caused by earlier intensive farming.
The American environmental activist and farmer Wendell Berry has been writing about such issues for decades, and fifty years ago E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful - A Study of Economics As If People Mattered, which in its day became very influential and popular, provided a general context in which alternative approaches could be explored. Maintaining that modern economies are unsustainable and that natural resources should be treated as capital, not as expendable income, Schumacher also proposed that small and appropriate forms of technology, allied to modest standards of living, might provide new directions for a world in crisis. Berry, from a different angle, continues to make similar points, asserting that responsible small-scale agriculture is essential to the preservation of land and local culture. His humane views, always pragmatic and usually inspiring, may be traditional and old-fashioned, but in America, and to some extent elsewhere, they are cherished on both sides of the political spectrum. The same, sadly, can no longer be said about Schumacher’s thinking. Once considered engaging and radical, his ideas are now often dismissed, and at best are considered unrealistic and outmoded. One journalist, the author of a book about ‘economic progress’ called Ferraris for All, has argued in ‘The Guardian’ that ‘viewed in its proper context, Small is Beautiful is both profoundly anti-human and deeply conservative’ because Schumacher suggests that it may be better for people to be poorer in economic terms if they can be spiritually richer.
There are no easy solutions to these questions, and probably none that would suit everybody. It is important, however, to bear in mind that for many people nature has as much to do with a sense of beauty as with science and ecology, and that sensitive husbandry is closely connected to ordinary care and affection for mankind, animals, and the environment. This unassuming attitude to the natural world is often overlooked by current discussions about the ecological crises that we face, but it is possibly more important than any other. Deep changes would be brought about by lives of voluntary simplicity, in which excess and consumerism, both outer and inner, are reduced and replaced by quietness and attention.
For further exploration
George Monbiot’s lecture: https://www.ted.com/talks/george_monbiot_for_more_wonder_rewild_the_world
Oostvardersplassen: https://rewilding.org/european-experiments-in-rewilding-oostvaardersplassen/
The spread of ‘rewilding’: https://rewildingeurope.com/news/european-rewilding-network-welcomes-belgian-rewilding-initiative/
A review of Isabella Tree’s ‘Wilding’: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/28/wilding-isabella-tree-review-farm-return-nature
The Knepp Estate’s website: https://knepp.co.uk/home
The Berry Center: https://berrycenter.org/
A fairly recent response to E.F. Schumacher’s ideas: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/16/schumacher-radical-growth-living-standards
And another: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/10/small-is-beautiful-economic-idea
A perceptive review of Duane Elgin’s Voluntary Simplicity: https://www.hermitary.com/bookreviews/elgin.html
The site of Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond