Holkham Estate, Norfolk

Situated atop the Norfolk coast covering much of the North Norfolk ANOB, Ramsar sites, Natura 2000 (SSSI) sites and more, Holkham estate first achieved Wildlife Estates (WE) accreditation in 2012. It was the first English estate to achieve the label and because there was no English WE organisation, was adjudicated from WE headquarters at the European Landowners (ELO) headquarters in Brussels.

The estate encompasses 25,000 acres. In-hand farming covers 6,500 acres of arable land (all run under a regenerative agriculture regime and under either HLS, CSS or an SFI pilot) 2,000 acres of grazing for a suckler beef herd of South Devon cattle and 600 ewes, much of it on the 4,000 acre Holkham National Nature reserve. This has been run in-hand for a decade, having been previously managed by Natural England. Fifteen farm tenants farm c.10,000 acres and forestry covers 2,000 acres. There is also a 900 acre deer park in which sits the Palladian hall built 1734-64. The estate manages its woodland under a Continuous Cover Forestry regime. It manages a mixed wild and reared shoot as well as a herd of Fallow deer. It manages multiple tourism operations including a 20 bedroom hotel (The Victoria), a large 70 acre holiday park (Pinewoods), 3 cafés, 5 car parks (2 on the beaches) and multiple events in the deer park and hall, including Christmas at Holkham, organised by Lady Leicester. It has 280 residential houses, nearly all rented to local people and key workers (North Norfolk has the third highest incidence of second homes in the UK) and some commercial lets.

CLA member, The Earl of Leicester, discovered Wildlife Estates whilst visiting Scotland and attending an early WES (Wildlife Estates Scotland) Plenary Session in 2010. He initially believed that a European accreditation would hold the estate in good stead within a British context, but now sees it as a means of demonstrating best practice. He also views the relatively rigorous Level 2 accreditation as a means of encouraging landowners and managers to learn more about the biodiversity and habitat they have on their holding, thereby enabling them to make more informed management decisions, leading to improvement of the natural capital in their care. Estate employees and local enthusiasts increasingly take part in conservation work and local experts are only too pleased to become involved. 

www.holkham.co.uk

On the edge of the Tweed Valley, just south of the Scotland/England border, Ford & Etal Estates comprises 5500 hectares of land on either side of the River Till shortly before it joins the Tweed. Being north of the Cheviot Hills, the topography and land use are effectively in the Borders tradition.

The Estate is structured in a traditional landlord/tenant style. It comprises mixed farming of all types, forestry and woodland of approx. 700 ha, some 190 let residential properties, 35 commercial lets in redundant farm buildings, opportunities for traditional country sports and a range of countryside attractions for visitors and locals such as a working water-driven corn mill, walking and cycling trails, historic buildings, annual community events and crafts enterprises. The website www.ford-and-etal.co.uk gives more detail.

The former in-hand estate farms, amounting to some 900 ha, were placed into Contract Farming arrangements in the mid 1990s.

The estate has responsibilities for two Special Areas of Conservation and one Ramsar site.

The estate’s policy has always been that of looking at all aspects of land management, and its effect on the community, when weighing up strategy and taking decisions. A healthy and attractive countryside means healthy and attractive wildlife, which in turn provides a healthy and attractive space to live and work. There is a strong socio-economic driver within this healthy and attractive setting. An estate is not healthy unless its tenants are healthy.

In November 2021 Storm Arwen destroyed approx. 12% of the estate’s timber stocks, leaving some 18,000 tonnes of timber on the ground. A large element of this was mature Scots Pine whose life had been extended to provide habitat for the Red Squirrel, still found on the estate. It will be a miracle if Red Squirrels survive the loss of this valuable habitat.

Accreditation at Level Two of the ELO’s Wildlife Estates label provides valuable information about the health of wildlife on multifunctional estates across Europe, helping to reinforce the message that landowners and land managers are the best placed to manage the land. This is not only useful to the ELO at European level but also to agencies at national level. It is also of immense value as a cross-cutting management tool in the running of a multifunctional estate.

Nestled in the Shropshire Hills AONB, Plowden Estate achieved Wildlife Estates accreditation in 2021. The 3,500-acre agricultural estate comprises dairy, arable and livestock farming through in-hand, tenancy and contract arrangements. It also has residential cottages, sporting and commercial lets and a heritage management plan.

CLA member Roger Plowden discovered Wildlife Estates while on the CLA’s Policy Committee. Impressed by the advantages for promoting natural capital and biodiversity, he prepared an application.

“It provides an incentive to assess existing natural capital,” says Roger. “This can help plan our 25-year improvement journey. We want to be an exemplar and showcase excellence in biodiversity – we are not there yet, but we have plenty to build on. When applying, we saw the label as a fast track into the new environmental schemes and going above and beyond what is required. We are building a team of local experts conducting different baseline surveys into our natural capital, such as ecology, fungi, birds, butterflies and beetles. It is inspiring, and has made us think about the habitats and food sources these species need."

“The label also encourages collaboration, and we are looking to improve wildlife corridors based on our water courses, hedgerows, and small woodlands. We are involving our fishing club on the river, our woodland management team, and, of course, our farmers. I found it enlightening to find out about what

we have on the estate – the label brings it all together. A key factor is farming and how it needs to change due to climate change and energy costs – we are moving towards more regenerative systems, with less artificial inputs.”

With thanks to CLA/Jasmin McDermott having first been published in CLA Land & Business, October 2022 - further details here. 

Charles Hobhouse first heard about Wildlife Estates whilst visiting the ELO Headquarters in Belgium and really liked the idea of sharing wildlife and habitat knowledge with Land Owners from other Countries. He was keen to be a Pilot for WEE when the opportunity arose.

Monkton Farleigh Estate is 612 hectares in the west country, 6 miles from Bath, with a good balance of arable land (60%), permanent pasture (25%) and woodland (15%) which provides a diversity of habitats. The arable has recently changed to a “no till” system. Fields not sown with autumn crops are planted with cover crops which grow throughout the winter, benefitting both soil organic matter and wildlife. This part of the country is of national importance for bats so the permanent pasture is managed for the benefit of both bats and a beef suckler herd on a low stocking rate. Attempts have been made to follow the principles of continuous forestry, although ash dieback has had a severe effect on this. Woodland thinnings are sold to local people for firewood as well as fuelling the Estate’s woodchip boiler. There are thirty let Residential Properties.

The Estate’s goal is to run a viable sustainable farming operation in tandem with nature which also provides an attractive environment for the village community and those of us involved in working on the Estate.

The process of completing Level Two to become a full member of Wildlife Estates has taught us three useful lessons.

Firstly the most important lesson learnt was that we had no baseline data to gauge how we would score for our wildlife. A bit of effort was required to find local nature experts in their field who then quickly bought into the project and helped create a proper scientific data base of what we actually have in terms of habitat and wildlife. We compiled records of surveys of flora and fauna, woodland, birds, bats, butterflies, moths, hares and roe deer and there is still more work to do. This is on going and regular visits take place every year. Meeting these nature enthusiasts has hopefully improved our own knowledge as well and we have discovered that, with better communication and discussion, we have a great deal in common with Wildlife Trusts and other well-known nature organisations which can only have a positive effect. The second lesson was that restored or increased habitat is the key to improving our nature base, which we find both interesting and rewarding, and the third lesson was that striving to become a fully accredited member of Wildlife Estates has helped us to revalue what we have and re access our long term aims for the land. 

In the light of COP15, I would suggest that a national label of a gold standard aiming at integrating the management of wildlife, flora and fauna and nature in a credible and measurable way makes Wildlife Estates very relevant in today’s world and I hope it is clear from what I have written that our Estate’s goals have been enhanced by my involvement with this aim.

Charles Hobhouse  

The Knepp Estate is in the Low Weald of West Sussex and is home to the pioneering Knepp rewilding experiment - 1,400 hectares of what was once an unprofitable arable and dairy farm on heavy clay.  

The estate is now a profitable enterprise thanks to a number of new income streams made possible by rewilding and is reshaping attitudes toward the future of land management. At a time when questions on biodiversity loss, climate change, and the need for resilient food systems have never been so important, Knepp’s pioneering projects provide a hopeful solution for a more sustainable future.

Knepp’s business model includes nature-based tourism, a mob grazed regenerative farm (180 hectares) and organic market garden, an online wild range meat shop, a solar farm, and commercial and residential property. A new on-site café/restaurant and shop will open in summer 2023. The estate is within several Environmental Stewardship schemes and is now looking to leverage emerging nature-based markets and opportunities. 

The rewilding project, the largest of its kind in lowland Britain, is at the cutting edge of landscape-scale restoration, allowing natural processes to occur on a significant and influential scale. Herds of free-roaming cattle, ponies, pigs and deer now drive the processes of nature restoration and habitat creation, and 1.5kms of the River Adur and other dynamic natural water courses have been re-naturalised.  

Over the course of a little over a decade, since the project began, the estate has seen a remarkable come-back of species, many of them red data species or nationally scarce. Knepp is now a breeding hotspot for critically endangered nightingales and turtle doves. The estate has the largest population of purple emperor butterflies in the country and 13 out of the UK's 17 species of bats. Occasional visitors, like Montagu’s harrier, black tern, white-tailed eagles, and even black storks, are on the rise.

Knepp is also introducing lost keystone species such as the beaver (established in the project in 2022) and charismatic species such as white storks, which bred on the estate in 2020 - the first of this lost species to breed in Britain for 600 years. 

The team at Knepp continues to think ambitiously and would like, one day, to have wild boar and possibly bison, water buffalo and elk roaming the estate. Knepp’s latest collaborative project is Weald to Waves, connecting the rewilding project via wildlife corridors with the sea, and northwards to the Ashdown Forest. The estate’s vision continues to grow with the creation of its charity the Knepp Wildland Foundation and its sister company Nattergal.

Sir Charles Burrell, the owner of Knepp Estate, is delighted that Knepp is part of Wildlife Estates – ‘understanding, protecting and uplifting biodiversity is critical to creating a sustainable future for us all. It is fantastic to bring together businesses with similar visions and ambitions under the Wildlife Estates accreditation, I look forward to learning and sharing best practices together.’

‘Knepp Estate is one of the most exciting wildlife conservation projects in the UK, and indeed in Europe. If we can bring back nature at this scale and pace just 16 miles from Gatwick airport we can do it anywhere. I’ve seen it. It’s truly wonderful, and it fills me with hope.’

John Lawton, author of the Making Space for Nature report

Based in Cheshire on the North Wales border is Barnston Estate covering 1,800 acres predominantly in and around the villages of Farndon and Churton on heavy clay soils along the river Dee.  The estate is based on a traditional landlord/tenant style with predominantly dairy and some arable farming.  Other interests extend to let cottages, a commercial business park, forestry, renewable energy, and a natural burial ground.  The estate provides housing and employment for over 250 people.

CLA member, Ed Barnston whilst undertaking Nuffield Farming Scholarship travelled extensively across the UK and Europe as part of his research into benchmarking successful rural estates.  One highlight was being introduced into Wildlife Farms & Estates, a mechanism to encourage and enable the development of sustainable and holistic management practices that address the opportunities and challenges of land management.

The many lessons learnt overseas instigated a dramatic shift in direction at home from a traditional estate into a business model based on the ’Triple Bottom Line’ of People, Planet and Profit - social, environmental and economic needs - to account for the total contribution of sustainable land stewardship.  The first step was to undertake a natural capital baseline assessment and then implement a 10-year environmental strategy.  This incorporated fresh management approaches to hedges, pond restoration, riparian planting, woodland creation as well as undertaking a carbon sequestration project by restoring an ancient peat bog.  This peat bog is unique for being only one of a handful in the country designated as a National Nature Reserve, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Special Area of Conservation and for attracting Ramsar status.  

Securing the Level 2 accreditation was a challenge but entirely worthwhile for what it delivers.  This ranges from identifying some areas of weakness requiring more focus and confirmed other aspects were on track; balancing food production alongside enhancing biodiversity; unlocking BNG; raising the standards of land management expected by society; building a positive legacy.

www.barnstonestate.com