20th January
Speaker: Alwyn Craven, Forest of Flowers
Topic: The Forest of Flowers project in Huby, York has created 100 acres of new woodland, wildflower meadows and wetland, providing a sanctuary for wildlife.
Description: Alwyn Craven, founder of the project, will explain how the habitat was created from farmland in 2015, and then showcase the incredible variety of wildlife which has moved in since, using photography and footage taken on-site. He will also discuss how the area is managed now (from pig grazing to coppicing), plus how anyone can support wildlife in their own green space, no matter the scale.
17th February - Howardian Hills National Landscape priorities
Ellie Hook, Howardian Hills
17th March - Rewilding in Yorkshire and the work of the Yorkshire Rewilding Network
Jeff Davitt, Yorkshire Rewilding Network
The Yorkshire Rewilding Network is a charity founded in 2020 to bring together anyone in the region with an interest in rewilding. In this talk, Jeff Davitt, Co-Founder and Trustee of YRN, will describe some the rewilding projects happening in Yorkshire, what YRN does, and how everyone can be involved.
21st April - Exploring the woodlands for Castle Howard
Castle Howard
16th June - Practical experience of "No-fence" collars for conservation grazing, challenges and opportunities
Ben Fargher
21st July - Why and how is rewilding being implented across Britain?
Lauren Barnes, University of York
This presentation will outline how and why rewilding is being interpreted and operationalised across Britain by different landowners and practitioners. Interest in rewilding across Britain has grown in recent years. Within academia, research has mainly focused on attempts to define rewilding and document its origins. In practice, rewilding is interpreted and implemented depending on the desires and needs of the practitioner within the spatial and ecological bounds of the project. To better understand the reality of rewilding implementation on the ground, I spoke to various different landowners and practitioners across Britain who have self identified their project as rewilding. I will present an overview of outcomes of these conversations to provide an insight into the motivations which initiated the decision to adopt a rewilding approach and the management implementations being utilised to achieve a rewilding vision.