ABSTRACT
In Wilding, Isabella Tree acknowledges the detrimental effects of intense dairy farming on the Knepp Estate and critiques the pressure on farmers to over-produce so that the public can over-consume, and how this is killing our natural heritage and decimating wildlife therein. She describes the decline in turtledoves, once the sound of British summer and now facing possible extinction, the effect of World War II on our woodlands and lowlands, and the impact of this almost unimaginable loss on the ecosystem at Knepp, but more broadly on our planet. Tree provides an insight into her own part in this massacre of hedgerows and biodiversity, and how the dominant narratives of produce and grow at all costs blinded her and her husband to what was happening at Knepp and what was being lost, in some cases, forever.
