Wild Fell: Fighting for nature on a Lake District hill farm

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Rewilding a Lake District hill farm with Lee Schofield. Interviewed for the Rewilding The World Podcast with Ben Goldsmith. Podcast/November 2023 Wild Fell invites us to recognise that through the simple expedient of working with rather than against nature, we also reawaken a greater sense of ourselves and our place in the locale; it is absolutely the book that needed to be written about the Lake District. Under his nuanced exposition, Schofield cuts through the white noise and leads us towards a landscape that is alive with possibilities and where those plants and pollinators, birds, fish and animals are all ready and waiting; all we need to do is to decide that’s how we want it to be. Like this, he foresees, that icon of the wild, the golden eagle, may yet return to our skies.

As the competing needs of agriculture and conservation jostle for ascendency, land management in Britain has reached a tipping point. Candid, raw and searingly honest, Lee Schofield offers a naturalist's perspective of the challenges unfolding in the ancient yet ever-changing landscape of Haweswater and shares with us his gloriously vibrant vision for the future. Katharine Norbury If these book share something in common it’s not surprising Lee Schofield and James Rebanks are practically neighbours, and they’ve both been inspired by the work of Isabella Tree at Knepp. A passionate, haunting yet optimistic account of the battle to heal a damaged landscape and restore nature to a corner of the Lake District."Lee also learnt not to blame the custodians of the past for the sins of the present. The State of Nature report, first published by the Government in 2013 (and updated twice), makes depressing reading - 44 million fewer birds in the UK than 50 years ago, 97 percent of wildflower meadows lost since the Second World War, half the hedgehog population gone since 2000. There's plenty of enjoyable reads out there. And I enjoyed this. But far more than that, I learnt a great deal about why our national parks are a natural disaster in the making, and what can be done to not only restore hope but to also take real action for nature's recovery. This very good book will certainly be in my shortlist of books of 2022 even though we are only in February – it’s that good. Whilst there have been devastating clearances of trees and diversion of water courses which have affected fish, wildlife and plant numbers, the Lake District still boasts some of the rarest, pristine habitats in its inaccessible peaks.

As a symbol of how fragmented and vulnerable so many of our wildlife habitats have become, this flower is important," says Lee. "But we've collected some seed and are regrowing it in our tree nursery and planting it out where it stands a better chance." Where eagles dared. Second article in Shadow Species series focuses on golden and white talked eagles. Cumbria Life/July 2020. Version also available as a WildHaweswater post I have to admit, at the start of the book, I thought "Flowers? Oh, I thought this was going to focus on other things..." Fortunately, Schofield swiftly corrected my assumptions that I might be a little bored. I found myself carried away with his passion for wildflowers, and their role as a springboard for entire ecosystems. Also, I seemed to spend as much time Googling the images of the flowers as I did reading about them! One the joyful parts of this book are the names of the various plant species that I so easily overlook. I can’t even remember most of the names but Schofield reels them off in a way that is glorious – Alpine Catchfly, Sessile Oak, Devil’s Bit Scabious, Goldenrod, Wood Crane’s-Bill, Lesser Meadow-Rue, Yellow Mountain Saxifrage, Globeflower, Melancholy Thistle, Common Polypody, Bog Myrtle, Bedstraw, Tormentil. The sad part is that this diversity is all too sparse in an environment where it should be abundant.There’s a conflict between the desire for the National Park to be a place of natural beauty and the needs of farmers to make a living. I’m no expert on the challenges on either side, they are deep seated and long in the forming, but I would like to understand more, hence the reading pattern.

Authentic, honest and clear-sighted – Lee Schofield offers a practical and hopeful example of how to return nature to all our landscapes using imagination, compromise, humility and sheer hard work. This is an important book and fully deserves its place alongside James Rebanks and other contemporary Lakeland classics.” A thrilling nature-led recovery in the Lakes. Interviewed by John Craven for an article about Haweswater. Countryfile Magazine/August 2022 A visionary, practical and lyrical book on restoring land, from one of the best in the game, on the front line of nature restoration. Benedict Macdonald Wild Fell documents a powerful journey through a bruised, beloved English landscape, expertly told from Lee's unique perspective. Sensitive, full of empathy and charged with a fierce, solution-based vision for a restorative, productive future alongside the natural world. I felt utterly compelled by his wise, deft prose, and am so grateful this book has been written. A remarkable debut. -- Sophie Pavelle This book is everything we need to hear right now in what are quite frankly worrying times for nature in Great Britain. This book really is hope, it's hope because it tells a story not just of what could be, but of what is actually coming to be at the wonderful place that is Wild Haweswater.Saving nature is a tough job. In Wild Fell we get to understand why people do it: real soul-deep passion.” Beaver fever. First article in Shadow Species series focuses on beavers, and their return to Cumbria. Cumbria Life/June 2020. Version also available as a WildHaweswater post Author and photographer Amy takes us behind the scenes of her award-winning Lakeland Book of the Year Forty Farmsthat takes readers behind the scenes of 40 Cumbrian farms. With anecdotes from the project, insights into how farmers are managing in an increasingly d ifficult economic climate and the highs and lows of Lakeland farm life, Amy will also talk about how she captured some of her iconic farming shots. It has been a while since I have been to the Lake District but I remember walking the fells and enjoying the fresh air and views. Whilst it feels wild and bleak, it is a landscape that has been managed by man for hundreds of years. I have very little recognition of seeing much in the way of wildlife, thinking about it now, it just seemed to be a partially sterile landscape, with not much opportunity for life to thrive. Saving nature is a tough job. In Wild Fell we get to understand why people do it: real soul-deep passion. -- Simon Barnes

If he could chart his success by one thing it would be the widespread return of the globeflower. "I love it," he says. "It's part of the buttercup family and its lemon-yellow orbs appear sealed. Only one group of flies has worked out how to reach the nectar within. As well as I hope this book does, and it has made the Wainwright Longlist, purely selfishly, I hope it doesn't result in a huge influx of visitors to the area. It is an extremely beautiful area, and most readers will want to visit having read this, let's hope they just don't all come at once.. Schofield talks about a desire to see wildlife, flora and fauna, return to a corner of the National Park that gets a moderate number of tourists, but is off the standard tourist routes. Situated on the eastern edges Haweswater is a man-made reservoir that supplies water to Manchester via a 96 mile long gravity-fed aqueduct. About 25% of the water for the North West of England comes from here, which makes it nationally important. In many ways Haweswater is industrial, yet it is also remote and peaceful. When I’ve walked there, I’ve always enjoyed a sense that I am somewhere where others aren’t, but I’ve not been looking with the eyes of Lee Schofield. Ratty’s return. Fourth article in Shadow Species series focuses on water voles. Cumbria Life/Sept 2020. Version also available as a WildHaweswater post One aspect of the book that particularly moved me was Schofield's account of how personally distressing his job can be sometimes, as farmers and others in the Lake District resist what he and the RSPB are trying to achieve. This kind of admission is something I rarely seem to read in books by male nature writers.

Across the Lake District there are groups of people trying to change things, experimenting with different paths. People trying to see if there are different healthier ways, ones that provide a long-term future for people and wildlife, together. One such group is the RSPB in Haweswater, Lee Schofield is one of the rangers there and this is the story of their journey.