Giving Back to Nature: How Knepp Estate Rewilded Its Way to Biodiversity

Target 15.5 – Take urgent action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats and halt biodiversity loss

In the early 2000s, the soil at Knepp Estate in West Sussex was tired. After decades of intensive agriculture, the land was dry, compacted and unproductive. Despite new technology and government subsidies, yields were poor and the wildlife once common in the area, nightingales, turtle doves, butterflies, bats, had all but vanished.

Charlie Burrell, who inherited the 3,500-acre estate, knew something had to change. Together with his wife, Isabella Tree, he made a decision that many at the time found shocking: they stopped farming.

But what followed wasn’t abandonment, it was rewilding.

Rather than plough or plant, the couple allowed natural processes to return. They introduced free-roaming animals, longhorn cattle, Exmoor ponies, Tamworth pigs and red and fallow deer, to act as proxies for extinct herbivores. These animals shaped the land by grazing, rooting and trampling. Wetlands were allowed to re-form. Hedges grew thick. Trees reseeded themselves. Streams reconnected to their floodplains.

And slowly, remarkably, the land began to heal.

By 2015, just over a decade into the experiment, Knepp had become a biodiversity hotspot. Turtle doves, once in sharp decline across the UK, began nesting in the estate. The rare purple emperor butterfly reappeared. Bat species increased fivefold. Wildflowers returned in carpets. The once-compacted soil became porous and alive with insects.

But this wasn’t just about ecology, it was about a new economic model.

Knepp shifted to ecotourism, organic meat production and education. Visitors could camp, stay in treehouses, or go on guided safaris. Local schools ran workshops. Scientists monitored species and used the estate as a long-term case study. The estate generated income, but not from extraction. It was now a working example of how letting nature lead could also support livelihoods.

Isabella Tree, a journalist and author, helped bring Knepp’s story to a wider audience with her 2018 book, Wilding. It made a clear case: when land is given space to recover, and humans shift from control to partnership, biodiversity doesn’t just return. It explodes.

And Knepp didn’t keep its model to itself.

The estate now advises other landowners, from farms and estates to councils and community trusts, on how to rewild responsibly. It shares data, training and planning support. Knepp is also the lead site for the UK Government’s Species Recovery Programme, including a major white stork reintroduction effort.

Its work aligns directly with SDG 15.5, showing how natural habitats can be restored at scale, even in heavily human-altered landscapes. More than that, it challenges the idea that nature recovery must come at the cost of rural identity or economic sustainability.

What makes Knepp different is that it wasn’t a national park or conservation reserve. It was a private estate, with a failing business, that chose to do something radical. And because of that, it changed the conversation. Rewilding became a serious option for farmers, policymakers and landowners across the UK.

Today, the Knepp model has inspired dozens of similar projects. Some on large estates. Others on smallholdings, commons, and even school grounds. The logic remains the same: step back, reintroduce the right processes, and let nature rebuild.

Your Voice. Your Target. Your Legacy.

If your community, school or organisation has access to land, even a small patch, consider what might grow if you stepped back. Remove what doesn’t belong. Reconnect water. Let animals shape the space. And give wildness a chance.

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We’ll help you bring nature back and let it lead the way forward.