As ministers sound the alarm over loss of biodiversity and the potential consequences for the global biosphere, events venue Elmore Court - based at one of the UK’s oldest stately family homes - has got its team working on “rewilding” parts of the Elmore Estate to ensure biodiversity can thrive on site.
At the end of June 2021, the Environmental Audit Committee released its report to the government warning of a dire need for transformative change in how the UK addresses biodiversity loss. Within the report, the Committee says that the global response to biodiversity loss has so far been inadequate, and piecemeal conservation efforts and increases in the efficiency of production are unable to hold back the deterioration of the natural environment.
The report goes on to urge the government to make fundamental changes to the production and consumption of natural resources, or risk ecosystems going over their tipping point and damaging the biosphere beyond repair.
While the Committee’s conclusions are alarming, a report issued by the British Ecological Society back in May suggested that all may not be lost. Although major changes will inevitably be required sooner or later in how we consume natural resources, the British Ecological Society says that nature could prove a key ally in tackling the double-pronged crisis of biodiversity loss and climate change.
The British Ecological Society's report concluded that nature-based solutions had the potential to mitigate climate change and boost UK biodiversity, having incorporated insight from more than 100 experts and gathered key evidence.
Professor Jane Memmott, President of the British Ecological Society, commented: “The Nature-based Solutions report offers a real basis for setting effective policies and incentives that will maximise the benefits of nature-based solutions in the UK for the climate and biodiversity.”
The report finds that Nature-based Solutions [NbS] can provide a valuable contribution to climate change mitigation and can simultaneously protect and enhance biodiversity, improve human wellbeing, bring economic benefit, and provide a wide range of ecosystem services.
However, one business in the events industry was very much ahead of the curve when it comes to Nature-based Solutions.
Elmore Court is an events venue based at a Grade II listed mansion on the 1000-acre Elmore Estate in Gloucestershire and is one of the oldest stately family homes in the UK. The house has been the family seat of the Guise Baronets for almost 800 years, with Anselm Guise, the current owner, having inherited the estate from his uncle [the seventh Baronet] in 2007.
For many months now, Anselm has been actively ensuring that the Elmore Estate plays its part in boosting UK biodiversity through a practice called “rewilding”, which he refers to as the “simple process of allowing something to go back to a wild state”.
Writing in his personal journal on the estate’s rewilding practices, Anselm says: “A ‘wild state’, I think, is where nature can just do its thing with all its beauty, savagery, magic and colour without thinking too much. Just being itself. Where us humans aren’t interfering. Rewilding is to allow a process to move away from us and back to wildness.
“There would be no field boundaries so that animals can roam freely. There would be no chemicals; fertilisers, worming tablets, pesticides, etc, allowed into this wild space. The impact from all of this is that the biodiversity across the land will blossom; with plants, fungi, birds, small mammals and all the rest finding a true home. The soil will improve, and carbon will be sequestered. Nature will pour back in; in its phenomenal magical way as if it knows what it is doing, and the thing is…all we need to do is simply step back.”
Anselm’s view on rewilding is largely inspired by naturalist David Attenborough. On Attenborough’s Netflix documentary, A Life On Our Planet, the naturalist explains that as humans “we have grown apart from nature when we are in fact a part of it”.
For Anselm, the Covid-19 pandemic has served as a stark reminder of our vulnerability as humans. It has not only stricken the wedding and events business at Elmore Court in his eyes, but “sucker punched and financially ravaged” everyone.
“I think we have forgotten our connection to nature”, Anselm explains. “Certainly, in western culture where we have an ingrained belief that somehow the world and all its resources are there for us and us alone. That we have some sort of God given right to subdue nature and have dominion over it.
“The big problem with that and where we need to wake up [and wake up urgently] is that we do not. I worry that we are unconsciously lurching towards a point where the distance between us and nature will mean we completely disconnect and are jettisoned into oblivion.
“Look what is happening right now and what nature is doing. Climate change for one thing and here in this country we have had a 41 per cent decrease in abundance of species since 1970, according to the 2019 State of Nature report. Covid is showing us how utterly vulnerable we are. It has had a terrible impact on all of us. So yes, we need to be part of nature. Connected to it and living in harmony with it. We mustn’t be separate from it, and we must treat it with love and respect.”
With rewilding forming Elmore Court’s method of respecting nature and allowing it to thrive, Anselm has set about practicing it on a part of the wider estate to enhance Elmore Court as a venue for weddings and other events. Around 250 acres of land have been taken out of agricultural use spanning Elmore Farm and half of Weir Farm which Anselm’s parents acquired. The previously arable fields have initially been left alone to become repopulated by plants, until local herbivorous animals can be introduced later.
Meanwhile, fields on site that were previously used by a dairy farmer to grow an Italian ryegrass crop have been integrated into the rewilding area. More species are being encouraged to occupy the site to boost biodiversity, and the single species ryegrass which has been dependent on biodiversity unfriendly supplements and depletes the soil’s natural fertility will weaken and make may for new species.
Anselm adds: “We will be experimenting with different processes in this area to see how we can help the field recover and create more interest.”
Meanwhile, the estate’s traditional meadow fields are now teeming with wildflowers and other forms of life such as butterflies and caterpillars, bees and other insects after being left alone to thrive. The long grass is an ideal habitat for small mammals such as hares to breed in, and the wildflowers are ideal for pollinating insects such as bees.
With Anselm planning to introduce herbivorous species onto the site in future, such as wild cattle and roe deer, he is also confident that the long and lush grass of the meadows will help provide a plentiful food supply.
Anselm has also devised a way of making the natural surroundings of the estate an attraction for those who use its service, by planning to build several treehouses that overlook the new wild lands.
The area that the proposed treehouses will be overlooking is comprised of the Elmore Estate’s wettest fields. This form of grassland does not benefit from the dense grass of the wildflower meadows and is instead far shorter in length.
Where there is standing water, Anselm hopes to aid biodiversity here by enticing wading birds to take to the stagnant water. This wetland area is likely to host numerous flying insects to provide food for nearby birds, while thriving amphibian populations will provide food for birds such as herons.
“As time passes by, we expect the field landscape to change, the the hedgerows will start to billow out into the meadows, willow scrub will create pockets of woodlands in the low-lying areas and the old intensive farmland will be planted up with pioneer species.
“We hope this will provide enough food for the first of our wild animals, the Longhorn cattle, coming quite soon. They will gently meander through the different pasturelands feeding on whatever takes their fancy, the dung will start spreading seeds around and providing food for birdlife via the insects that thrive on it. Some of the cereal fields we brought back in from tenancy last September we immediately spread and rolled in green hay. This covered the bare ground with species rich grass and seed from surrounding fields to help kickstart the project, the coverage has been good and importantly there is still plenty of bare soil exposed for other seeds to move into."
While Elmore Court has been playing its part in helping biodiversity thrive in its own corner of Gloucestershire, Anselm echoes the warnings coming from Parliament that we cannot hope for biodiversity to be maintained unless everyone steps up and plays their part.
“This is just how we're addressing the huge loss in biodiversity in the UK, but to truly make a difference we all need to do our bit.”
