Achieving nature recovery whilst balancing food security: an interview with Ben Goldsmith
Peter Harker
Ben Goldsmith
Having grown up on the edge of Richmond Park in West London, surrounded by more nature than you’d expect, environmentalist and author, Ben Goldsmith, had always wanted to own a piece of land with one goal in mind: “to bring back wildlife.”
10 years after purchasing the 300-acre Cannwood Farm in Somerset, in 2019 Ben kickstarted the farm’s nature recovery journey to realise his rewilding ambitions. Peter Harker, head of our firm’s Natural Capital Group, caught up with Ben to discuss the importance of reconnecting with nature and recognising its economic value as infrastructure.
What elements of nature recovery have you implemented at Cannwood so far?
Cannwood was a well-managed, conventional farm but I wanted there to be more nature. After discussions with neighbours and advisors, we decided to plant woodland on one part of the land and farm the rest.
However, after about six years I realised it was never going to run a profit; it's a very low grade farm, built on heavy clay in the middle of Selwood Forest. In 2019 I decided to end the intensive commercial farming activities and embark on a rewilding process. That involved ripping out fences and field drains, filling in ditches and opening up holes in the hedges to allow wood pasture to emerge from the landscape. The idea was to graze it very lightly, with one cow every 10 acres (following the Knepp Estate playbook).
Four years into that process, it’s become a vibrant landscape. From an enormous abundance of birds and wildflowers to little pockets of dogwood and crab apples in the fields, it’s a deeply rewarding sight to witness.
How do you think reconnecting people with nature can be effectively achieved in today’s society?
Individually and collectively, we need to reinsert ourselves back into the miracle of nature. We’ve spent a large amount of time viewing it as a larder to be raided, rather than a whole that we’re one part of.
However, I think there’s a tailwind of a cultural shift underway which you can’t fail to notice. There’s growing fascination with nature and its visceral importance to our lives, which is being reflected in public discourse and our politics.
For example, there’s a nature-prescribing trial taking place with the NHS Frome in Somerset, which is already showing extraordinary results in helping people overcome physical and mental difficulties.
I think what’s lacking is a proactive effort from society to bring children into regular contact with nature. It should be part of the school curriculum for children to spend time out of the classroom to experience and connect with it. Semi-supervised exploration in nature is part of the story that we’re currently missing.
With a lot of new funding coming from the private sector rather than through philanthropy, what are your thoughts on the opportunities and risks associated with that?
We must start recognising the economic value of nature as infrastructure, which in turn will make it economically viable to restore nature at scale. What is the value of a healthy ecosystem in quantifiable terms, in the form of mitigating flooding and drought, storing and purifying water, sequestering carbon, or the provision of pollinating insects? It all has a value, and until now we’ve been valuing nature at zero.
There’s a wave of both publicly and privately funded revenue streams that are available to landowners for the provision of environmental services.
We’ve got the new Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS), which links all public money to the provision of environmental goods. Also, biodiversity net gain requires all developers to have a positive impact on biodiversity as part of the planning process. This can be done partially on site but also through the purchase of biodiversity credits from the rewilding of land elsewhere. I’ve also received money at Cannwood for our natural flood management initiative by establishing new wetlands as they help protect surrounding counties from flooding along the River Frome and the Somerset Avon.
In terms of food security, it makes better economic sense to have vibrant nature as infrastructure on lower quality farmland than it does to try and farm it intensively for food. Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy Report shows that approximately 85% of food produced in England comes from 20% of the land. The least productive land, such as our National Parks and landscapes like mine in Selwood, are said to produce between 1-2% of the food. In these places we can reduce the volume of food produced that delivers massive improvements in nature, without impacting our food security at all.
85% of food produced in England
comes from 20% of the land
Tell us more about your involvement with Nattergal and what its aims are?
Sir Charles Burrell from the Knepp Estate, Pete Davies from Landsdowne Capital and I wanted to create a new venture with the aim to rewild land at scale that produces a financial return for investors.
Our idea is to ensure that nature takes its place among the ranks of infrastructure asset classes, in such a way that is inclusive for those that live and work in the areas we’re operating in. We work with local communities to establish these projects and they’re involved in all aspects of the management and development.
Nattergal recently had its first sale of carbon units that achieved a really good premium price due to the wide range of the project. We may be witnessing the coming together of carbon, biodiversity and social credits into one, where businesses can achieve three goals through a single unit.
When restoring wetlands for example, we’re led by biodiversity but in the process of restoring it, we’re bringing huge amounts of quantifiable carbon out of the atmosphere. These kinds of ‘carbon plus’ projects could be the future.
How will private landowners and local communities play a role in promoting and sustaining environmental conservation efforts?
I think there’s a certain amount of justified fear among remote communities in Britain’s rural areas because of this incoming cultural shift. Perhaps many have this idea that rewilding will lead to clearance of communities, which is a dark part of British history. The irony is that nearly all of the clearances that took place across the British Isles were on account of sheep, and a desire by large landowners to bring in large numbers of them. There’s a cultural phenomenon where the sheep, which are the reason many communities were pushed out, are now somehow a symbol of rural tradition. That strikes me as anomalous.
It’s important to note that farming doesn’t cease when you restore nature. You still need these keystone natural processes, like the heavy grazing native cattle, the rootling of pigs. It’s on everyone in the rewilding movement to demonstrate the inclusivity of rewilding and show that it offers the best pathway to economic and social renewal in some of our less agriculturally productive landscapes.
The rewilding process at Cannwood has been one of the most rewarding and profound things I’ve ever done in my life, and I think it’s brought a lot of joy to people.
Ben’s book, ‘God is an Octopus’, published in 2023, chronicles the start of his nature recovery project at Cannwood as a result of the tragic death of his daughter.
For more information, visit: www.bengoldsmith.eco
Saffery LLP is a member of Nexia a leading, global network of independent accounting and consulting firms. Please see https://nexia.com/member-firm-disclaimer/ for further details.
Copyright | Legal | Modern Slavery Act Statement | Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy