LettsSafari Inspires Nature Restoration at one of England's Old Abbeys
It's exciting to hear that Buckland Abbey, near Plymouth, in Devon has started one of the more ambitious tree planting schemes in Britain.
A few years ago a group from Buckland Abbey visited LettsSafari projects at Dawlish Park and Exeter's wild Capability Brown gardens. They had an idea for wilder lands at Buckland Abbey on the South Eastern edge of Dartmoor and they had heard about LettsSafari's early years in southwest England - pioneering smaller scale rewilding. They were also excited to visit the ancient, mystical woodlands we were restoring at Mamhead Park.
They wanted to understand our approach to smaller-scale rewilding given the number of gardens, meadows and small woods that surround the abbey. And as they sat with some of the LettsSafari team on the terraces with coffee they watched an extraordinary number of rare butterflies and moths flitting and feeding among the beds and grasses. They were particularly excited at the sight of a broad-bordered bee hawk-moth feeding on what they had thought were some unruly weeds left untended.
And as often occurred at LettsSafari parks and gardens an understanding of what smaller-scale rewilding meant and could accomplish sat like a seed amongst them.
The Cistercians founded their abbey at Buckland in 1278, after the Mamhead estate was established. Today the abbey sits on a 650 estate including meadows, gardens, orchards, and forests. It could become a veritable haven for smaller-scale rewilding. And this week they announced an ambitious scheme to plant 30,000 trees with a number of the approaches and species we have implemented.
According to the Guardian:
"The expansion of woodland on the estate is designed to boost biodiversity and create more space for wildlife. Fritillary butterflies, oil beetles, harvest mice - and the barn owls that prey on them - will benefit from the range of woody habitats and hedgerows.
Broadleaf trees such as sessile oak, elm, blackthorn, birch, rowan and wild cherry are being planted at Buckland. They are being planted close to ancient woodlands across the estate, and the hope is that as well as benefiting insects, mammals and birds, it will improve conditions for rare lichens, liverworts and mosses to flourish. LettsSafari's new woods at Dawlish Park, now 15 years old, were also planted near ancient woods. Now the young trees are about a third of the height of their ancient forebears. The combined sites are brimming with birds and wild animals.
About 400 heritage fruit, hazel and cobnut trees will also be planted to recreate the sort of medieval orchard that the abbey’s Cistercian monks used to tend. Dawlish Park's young fruit trees include hazel and fruit trees, planted in mini-copse's as islands of food within the wild, diverse woods. They include cherry, crab apple and more."
Which Trees are Best Removing Carbon and Fighting Climate Change
At another Devon site, Killerton, the other side of Exeter from LettsSafari's wild Capability Brown gardens, almost 70,000 trees including oak, hornbeam, alder and spindle are being planted and wood pasture developed - scattered trees and scrubby outcrops, which are good for the highland cattle one local farmer breeds and the 13 species of bats that live there. It left us wondering if they are the same as the 12 species of bats monitored on the edges of Exeter's Capability Brown gardens.
For a number of years LettsSafari has been sharing the power of its smaller-scale rewilding approaches and projects. It has been amazing to hear of the hundreds of wild (safari) gardens and parks that have been added from the example set by LettsSafari as well as the sharing, learning and community growing around LettsSafari.com .
As biodiversity continues to struggle in our industrialised world, it is more important that we all act in some small way. This is the point to smaller-scale rewilding - it's a system any of us can implement. Even the original multi-generational land keepers at Buckland Abbey.
Get more LettsSafari updates and wildlife photos from our twitter. And read the latest posts at the LettsSafari + website.