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The former farmland in the “cradle of England” will be replanted for nature through a charity that purchased the land related to Alfred the Great.
The island of Athelney was used by the Saxon king as a safe haven in the wars with the Vikings, burning cakes in the swamps of Somerset Levels before winning victories that laid the foundations for England.
The charity Rewilding Somerset Wildlands has purchased 73 acres of ancient Athelney pastures, aiming to bring some of the herbal life and wilderness to the area.
The site is the newest and largest in a series of ‘stepping stones’ of grass sites in the region that Somerset Wildlands is looking to create, leaving the land alone for nature to return, or with minimal control, such as occasional grazing.
Alasdair Cameron, the charity’s chief executive, said Somerset Levels was once England’s “Okavango Delta,” “a vast wild wetland teeming with life,” and that the aim is to repair some of that savagery.
The land will be largely left alone to give nature an area to return, with only small interventions, such as reshaping trenches or potentially reintroducing small creatures like harvest mice; In the long run, the charity will likely worry about the reintroduction of others. Wildlife.
Animals already returning to the area, such as beavers and sea eagles, will be welcome, M. Cameron.
He told PA news agency: “It’s amazing what happens when you step back and let nature take the lead.
“We have other sites now that we’ve been replanting for five or six years, and they’ve gone from being just fields of some kind of general ryegrass or grazing land to those thriving, bustling spaces for life.
“In winter they are wet, they are swampy, swampy, and in summer they are sure to bustle with life, the life of insects is amazing, the life of spiders, invertebrates.
“So, just by taking a step back and giving for nature to take the lead, we can create those glorious habitats of almost nothing. “
Somerset Wildlands is public-pleasing for the project, with the charity raising £500,000 over the next five years to pay for and manage the land.
Cameron said the allocation of Somerset Wildlands allowed wetter landscapes to return to the area, yet they ran within the existing drainage formula that manages the levels, and that the reaction of local communities and landowners to the allocation had been “overwhelmingly positive”.
He also said that without the marshes and marshes that once covered the area, England as we know it would not exist.
“This concept of rebuilding England’s birthplace is anything that can be a strong symbol of the kind of country we can be in the future,” Cameron said.
The ninth-century king of Western Saxony, Alfred the Great, took refuge in the marshes after a defeat at Chippenham, before regrouping at Athelney and defeating the Viking leader Guthrum and laying the foundation for England’s first unified kingdom.
The historian and Tom Holland said: “The island of Athelney, where Alfred burned the cakes dreaming that Wessex might be free, has noticed that England’s whole long-term destiny hangs in the balance.
“So that the domain around it is restored to its former wild state is the ultimate glorious and romantic news. “
While reconstruction has been criticised in some quarters for undermining food security, Mr Cameron said a large amount of land is already being used for non-food purposes, from golf courses to capercaillie moors to the development of Christmas trees.
Rebuilding regularly takes positions on unproductive land, and eating less meat and dairy would lose more land to nature, while reducing food waste would also save on land use.
Cameron added: “All food security ultimately depends on a functioning environment, blank water, soil and a functioning ecosystem.
“Rewilding, nature conservation, restoration, all of those things are definitely basic: we can’t grow food without an ecosystem. “
To learn more about the project, others can visit https://www. somersetwildlands. org/