Wild•Ling: Rewilding land in the Peak District

Help us rewild a piece of land in the Peak District!

Our Project

Wild•Ling is a conservation group led by conservation professionals.  We will buy land in the Peak District and restore it for nature, using rewilding principles like process-led conservation.  By restoring natural processes, we will transform a piece of degraded uplands into a resilient, dynamic, and thriving ecosystem brimming with biodiversity.

We are fundraising for this project by walking the famous Coast-to-Coast route in May 2025, across the width of Britain.  At nearly 200 miles, this is quite a challenge, and it will be by far the longest distance we have ever walked.

If you feel anxious about nature's decline, or excited to see our landscapes come back to life, please sponsor us and help make this project a reality.

Find out more about our project, the walk, and who we are on our website.

The Coast to Coast walk

The Coast to Coast is a challenging 192-mile long route that runs from the West Coast in Cumbria to the East Coast in North Yorkshire.  Starting at the Heritage coast of St Bees Head, this famous trail winds across the North, through the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, the Vale of Mowbray, and the North York Moors, ending at the beautiful Robin Hood’s Bay.  Formally set out by Alfred Wainwright in 1973, the trail represents a rugged challenge, and attracts walkers from all over the world.   Find out more about the trail.

The Coast to Coast runs the width of the country, over 192 miles, through three National Parks, and some of England's most beautiful scenery.

Two of us, Vashti and Joe, will be walking the route in May 2025.  We expect it to take us 13 days: 11 days walking, with two rest days.  We will post regular updates, and you can also follow our progress live on our website.

Vashti and Joe preparing to set out on a previous multi-day hike.

Though we are both keen walkers, this will be by far the greatest challenge we have ever attempted. 

Why are we doing this?

Humanity is facing an existential threat.  The twin crises of climate breakdown and biodiversity collapse endanger our health, wealth, happiness, and even survival.  Extinction rates are approximately 1,000 times higher than background rates, and we are arguably in the midst of a sixth mass extinction.

Against this backdrop, Britain is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world:

• 56% of our species in decline between 1970-2013;
• 19% decline in abundance across all our species, on average;
• 54% of flowering plant species have declining distributions;
• 16% of our species threatened with extinction;
• Reducing climate change through the way we manage our land is still insufficient.

Climate breakdown and biodiversity collapse are not only disastrous for wildlife.  The Das Gupta Review in 2021 showed that biodiversity underpins our entire global economy: our health, wealth, and wellbeing depend on it.  It also found that halting and reversing these trends requires action now, and this will be vastly less costly than delay.  Likewise, the Stern Review found that climate change represents a serious global threat to humanity, which could cause suffering to hundreds of millions of people.  It also showed that the economic costs of not acting are far greater than those of acting.  The 2023 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) synthesis report showed that climate breakdown was already adversely affecting millions, while a recent paper found that ultimately a billion people may be killed.

What will we buy?

Wild•Ling will purchase and restore a piece of land for nature, with an emphasis on ecosystem function and biodiversity.  The land we will purchase will most likely be between 10 - 20 acres, in the uplands of the spectacular Peak District, which lies in the North of England, between Manchester and Sheffield.  We prefer to purchase in the uplands because these areas are of less value to farming, due to harsher weather and thinner soils.  This means two things: the land is cheaper, so we have greater buying power, but also we are not taking valuable land out of food production.

The Peak District is austere and striking, but it's uplands are badly degraded. Image credit: Vashti Gwynn.

Though conditions can be tough, the ecology of uplands is special.   The Peak District holds a range of habitats, from acidic peatlands, to gritstone edges, to river valleys, to limestone dales.  The habitats and species are influenced by many factors, such as the geology and soils, elevation, slope, aspect, and management.  You can find blanket bog, upland calcareous grassland, woodland, and even montane habitats, each with their own characteristic and special species.

How will we manage the site?

As far as is possible on a small site, we will use a process-led approach.   Associated with rewilding theory, process-led means focusing on restoring natural processes rather than on particular species or habitats, which drives a more natural, dynamic, and resilient ecosystem.  These natural processes can be things like pollination, grazing, soil formation, and hydrology.  Process-led restoration can be seen as allowing nature to take the reins, and self-determine what is appropriate for that site.  This is in contrast to high-intervention or species-led conservation, which is target-focused and often aims to keep a site in stasis.  Find out more about rewilding.

Once we have purchased our piece of land, we will do the following:

• Safeguard the land for nature into the future.  Depending on what is most appropriate, this will take the form of a conservation covenant, or "asset locking" the land into a charity or Community Interest Company (CIC). Whichever we choose, we will aim to ensure the land is dedicated to nature in perpetuity.
• Carry out site surveys and baseline monitoring.  This will tell us about our site: its soils, habitats, species, and processes.  It will help us understand what “ought” to be there, and what habitats and species are likely to establish once processes are restored.  But monitoring doesn’t stop there!  Our initial surveys will form our baseline, and regular resurveys will allow us to see what changes are taking place, and what impact our management is having.
• Create a site management plan.  Process-led conservation does not mean land abandonment, and even low intervention sites need well-planned management.  It’s generally understood that the smaller the site, the more natural processes will need to be mimicked by human management, and sometimes processes need a helping hand to get started.  And there are always other considerations with being a responsible land manager: fencing and access, human and wildlife safety, biosecurity, etc.
• Keep raising funds.  Managing a site isn’t free.  We will consider funding for nature schemes, such as Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) to keep funding our project.  Any money raised from schemes will go into nature recovery - either managing this site, or even towards buying more land.  None of us will make a personal profit.
• Think about people.  Connecting people with nature is important.   Those who spend time in nature also take care of it more, and there is endless research showing how important nature is to our health and wellbeing.  We will consider what the options are for site access, outreach, or education, depending on what is appropriate to the site.

What benefits can we expect to see?

At its heart rewilding is about restoring the processes that create, drive, and protect healthy ecosystems.  Once habitats are functioning properly, they support more and varied wildlife, offer more ecosystem services (such as carbon sequestration and flood prevention), and are more resilient to shocks and change, like climate breakdown.  Because that is hard to envisage, here are some of the things we may expect to see on our site:

Image credits: Andy Chilton (barn owl), Vashti Gwynn (all others).

Who are we?

Wild•Ling is a group led by conservation professionals, committed to buying and restoring land for nature. Our name, Wild•Ling, refers to the alternative name for common heather, a reference to the Peak District's high moorlands. We are all passionate about the natural world - and frightened about the environmental crises we face.  We count two ecologists in our ranks, who work in the conservation sector.  Between us, we have the following experience and skill-sets:

• Site management for nature, including creating site management plans, species recovery plans (including for woodlark, harvest mice, snipe, purple emperor butterflies, hedgehogs, silver-studded blue butterflies, and scarce blue-tailed damselflies), visitor management.
• Practical land management skills such as woodland and tree management, meadow and lowland heathland management, hedgerow creation and management, scrub management, as well as managing Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace (SANGs), Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), Special Protection Areas (SPAs), Local Nature Reserves and Local Wildlife Sites.  We've also worked to create new climate change-resilient native woodlands, increased lowland heath coverage, and created/converted lowland hay meadows.
• Field survey and monitoring, including SSSI condition assessments, botanical surveys, tree surveys, bird surveys, herptile surveys, small mammal trapping and other mammal surveys, butterfly surveys.
• Funding application experience, including Section 106 funding and assistance with BNG process, as well as working alongside several stakeholders including The Crown Estate, The Wildlife Trust, Thames Water and The Land Trust.
• Outreach and teaching experience in the conservation and climate change sector.
• Degrees in Ecology and Conservation, and in UK Ecology, as well as practical land management certifications.

Find out more about us on our website.

How will we use the funds we raise?

It's important you know your money is going to be a force for good.  Here are our commitments:

• All money raised will be used for the project.  We haven't yet put an offer in on a piece of land, so these funds will probably go towards that purchase.  However, they might also be used for managing that land, depending on the amount raised and the purchase cost.  
• Your money will not be used to financially benefit us.  No one in Wild•Lings, will be paying ourselves wages, or buying items or services that aren’t directly to do with the aims of the project.  
• We will not reimburse any personal expenses from these funds.  That includes the expenses associated with the Coast-to-Coast walk.
• We will put any subsequent income back into the project.  We will try and get funding from schemes such as BNG and Landscape Recovery.  If we are successful, we will put all income into managing the land for nature, or even into buying further land for further rewilding.

What if we don't make our target?

If we don’t make our target on our fundraiser, we still expect to buy land - however, it will be smaller, and that means reduced benefits for people and nature.  This is a project we have been pursuing for a very long time.  Our situation currently is “how much land can we afford?” rather than “can we do this at all?”

If something completely unforeseen occurs which forces us to abandon the project, we will do the following:

• If the donation is still on the Crowdfunder platform, and we are able to, we will refund the money to the donors;
• If we cannot do that, then we will donate the funds to an equivalent charity. 

Once again, this situation is extremely unlikely to happen.  

The more support we get, the more land we can restore for nature.  Please share our fundraiser! 

Image credit: John Elliott, 2024