WildEdges Send Ministers Wild!

WildEast's Founders Hugh, Argus and Olly have been thrilled to learn this month that one of their cornerstone initiatives – WildEdges – are being talked about seriously at the very top of DEFRA, as a potential strategy to roll out nationwide under the new ELMS scheme. As Hugh explains:



20% is the magic number here or 250,000 hectares over the next 50 years. It's what nature needs to recover and be abundant in our hard-working human landscape, and it's backed by a consortium of scientists from around the world, including our very own Cambridge University.

'Nature needs to recover and be abundant in our hard-working human landscape.'

Hedges are the ancient pre-existing network that connect us all. Farm by farm, village by village, town by town. We have spent 50 years ripping them out and farming right up to the very edge of those that are left. They are for the most part skeletal fragments of their former glory.

WildEast worked out that if we all allowed our hedges to be an average of 10 metres wild we would return around 5% or 62,500 HECTARES to NATURE. At the same time, these great cathedrals of bio-diversity will draw down millions of tonnes of carbon, whilst also restoring the soil and bio-diversity.

'If we all allowed our hedges to be an average of 10 metres wild we would return around 5% or 62,500 HECTARES to NATURE.'

If that isn’t enough we have finally re-learned that the restored diversity can help protect our crops from disease, also known as inter/insect/cropping. It would be hard to find a more virtuous circle with our life systems, not just farming systems. We need to see these are whole life systems now if we broadly accept that we are in a serious global climate emergency – WildEast does!