that is a form of land management that aims to reverse the degradation of ecosystems and reverse the extinction of species. my guest is isabella tree, the co—owner of this knepp estate. now, does her passion for rewilding represent an indulgence or a pathway to a healthier planet? isabella tree, welcome to hardtalk and thank you so much for inviting us to your estate here in sussex. pleasure. absolute pleasure to have you. i'm sorry it's not better weather.

ah, well, it's actually still, for me, very exciting to be here. but i'm trying to understand what has happened to this land of yours, because when you arrived here, this was an intensively farmed land, wasn't it? it was. my husband, charlie, inherited it from his grandparents when he was in his early 20s, and this was back in the 1980s. and every inch of the land was ploughed, it was producing arable crops and dairy. and we fully expected to be farmers for the rest of our lives. mm. 17 years on, we were £1.5 million in debt, tearing our hair out, and realised that, you know, this is very marginal land. we're walking on 320 metres of clay, over a bedrock of limestone, and it's an absolute pig to farm. so you were literally close to going out of business? yeah, the farm was a failing business. and we did everything we could.

we diversified, we tried different crops, we tried different cows. we sold ice cream. we did everything we could. but always it was this clay that was against us. so let's just stop for a second and look around, because what we are surrounded by now is a form of wildness. yes. it's extraordinary, isn't it? i mean, in about 2004, 2005, this would have been a field of wheat. so what we did, piecemeal, over about six years, was leave the fields after their last harvest — just left them open as stubble — and allowed the seed rain to come in, allowed the hawthorn, blackthorn, dog rose, brambles to take off, allowed, you know, the saplings, the oaks to start naturally regenerating. and let that vegetation pulse kind of take off. mm. this is the kind of habitat, you know, that people look at normally and consider absolute wasteland.

it's considered good for nothing. but it's one of the most biodiverse habitats we have. thorny scrub is just amazing for wildlife. i know you had cattle as part of your intensive farming. you've kept some cattle. not the dairy cows we had, because they probably wouldn't be able to survive out here now. they're such a modern breed. so what we've chosen is old english longhorns — we might see some of them — but they're amazing. and they look very much like their extinct ancestor, the aurochs, with these great sweeping horns. we needed to have an old breed that could sort of remember, as it were — you know, genetically remember — how to browse as well as graze. they eat vegetation as well. so all these sort of browse lines that you can see, you know, the cattle will be eating this kind of thing in the winter. and it's notjust cattle, is it? you've got wild ponies here. you've got deer. you've got wild pigs. and there are no fences any more. so these animals are just free to roam.

yeah, we have a boundary fence, so a deer fence around the entire estate so that the deer don't go onto the roads and cause problems. but essentially they are free—roaming. they're ostensibly living pretty much as animals would in the wild. and we want to see what species spontaneously find us. so we have nightingales, you know? we've got the densest population of nightingales probably in britain right here. and that's one of our most critically endangered species. we're probably the only place where turtle dove numbers are actually rising. and that's entirely natural? and that's entirely natural. last year, we found a large tortoiseshell butterfly that was breeding here, that was thought to be extinct in britain for 50 years. some of the local farmers might say, "the problem "with isabella tree and her husband, charlie, "is that they are allowing weeds to run riot, "which spread into ourfarmland. "they're allowing pests and predators to thrive "and they come to our land, too." are you a problem

in your neighbourhood? we cut a buffer of between 50 and 100 metres around our perimeter so that we're not allowing the sort of seed rain, the weed species, so—called, to go into farmland. that's not really a problem. what we're actually providing here is pollinating insects and natural pest controls. we're also restoring, replenishing the water table. we're also cleaning the water. we're preventing flooding. so we're preventing destruction of arable land from flooding. we're doing all these other public goods, these ecosystem services that are really important to protect our farmland. well, i want to talk much more about some of the strategic challenges you face, and perhaps how you fit into an international perspective. let's do that in your office, which is down the track, down there. sure. let's go. yeah. isabella tree, having walked the estate with you,

having seen your passion, and the scale of your ambition, it strikes me there is a basic question of priorities here. you have put the priority of healing the land and species regeneration above maximising food production. well, it's absolutely true. what we have to remember here is that this was very marginal land. it was very, very difficult to be producing food intensively in the modern system on this... but you were doing it. wheat, barley. we were doing it, yeah. and about 70% of that went to feed animal livestock. so i think the first thing we need to talk about, if we're talking about food security, is the amount of food waste. that's never brought into these conversations. what's never brought into this equation is the 30% to 40% of food that we waste, that's fit for human consumption and we simply waste it. so we've got to address that issue first before we start talking about the kind of areas that we need for nature.

but, in our minds, marginal land that can be productive for nature is as important as food, because the two are completely intertwined. but how can you convince people who are paying ever higher prices in their supermarket for basic foodstuffs, even bread? how can you convince them that that is true? we cannot continue intensively farming as we are. we know that if we continue ploughing our lands, we're wasting topsoil. we're losing topsoil at a massive rate. there's 60 harvests left in the planet, according to some statistics — the un statistics. so we've got to shift to a regenerative form of agriculture, and that's going to be working with nature rather than against it. but if i may say so, this isn't about regenerative agriculture. this is about giving the land to — this word again — rewilding. exactly. so rewilding is working

with regenerative agriculture. it's working hand in glove with food production. we're always going to need prime productive land for agriculture, absolutely — forfood production. but we're also going to need land for nature. we need to clean our air. we need to clean our water. we need to bring back biodiversity and we need to sequester carbon. we are producing enough food. we don't need more area forfood production. but we need to think much more cleverly about how we produce food and how we're going to sustain those systems. we've got to remember that the planet is on fire. water is going to be a hugely important resource in the future. we've got to think of how we can get water systems back that are actually going to sustain agriculture. so we're thinking about wetlands as being a source of water for the future, cleaner water helping to purify our rivers. we know that's a terrific problem, in terms of pollution. but it's also going to be a way that we can store carbon. wetlands are some of the most impressive carbon sinks we have on the planet.

you talk a lot about the future of the planet, but are you and your husband in this business partly to make money? because clearly you've found a way, given the way the government has transitioned its grants for land management towards environmental care and management, you are now in a position where you can make serious money here. yeah. your message seems to be rewilding is a way to make good money. mm. it was a real surprise to us. remember, we were trying to get out of farming because it was a loss—making business. it's been a complete surprise to us, the income streams that become available. so we now have an eco—tourism business. it's not huge, in terms of infrastructure or the numbers of people that are involved, but we make £1 million a year from this small business. isn't there a danger that, ultimately, good, productive agricultural land will be taken out of production because it's actually so profitable now to consider rewilding? no. i think good agricultural land will always be profitable,

so that's not at risk. this was marginal land that was losing money. so we're seeing, in europe, across europe, we're seeing 30 million acres of land — hectares of land, sorry — an area the size of belgium every three years falling out of agricultural production on marginal land because it's just not profitable and there's no lifestyle in it. there's no hope in it forfarmers. so they're leaving the land. so what do we do with this land? do we just abandon it? or do we do something much more interesting and put free—roaming animals in? do we restore natural water systems and let something much more dynamic happen, which will benefit biodiversity and carbon storage? you know, these are really important, vital ecosystem services that humanity needs. it's notjust "let's bring back some birds and butterflies". it is fundamental to the life support system on earth. i have one big question about one element of it, and that is your use

of livestock, and therefore your continued use of meat. george monbiot, the activist environmentalist who we've had on hardtalk, he would say that, fundamentally, to quote him, "livestock is a phenomenally profligate means of producing "food." you still, in essence, are producing meat. farmed meat, in a way. is this not a flaw in your approach? george is absolutely right about meat being... intensive livestock management being kind of a very profligate way of... it's unethical. it's unsustainable on every level. but what we're seeing here in this rewilding project is animals acting as drivers of a system. they are integral to the restoration of this land. the way they browse and trample

and rootle and disturb the soil creates niches for other life. the way their dung and their urine actually infiltrates the ground, thanks to dung beetles and all the other microbes that are helping — the microbiotic species that are helping to bring those nutrients back into the soil is restoring the soil, which also helps the soil store carbon. so they're part of the whole nutrient carbon cycle. you can't divorce large herbivores from the nutrient system. do you eat meat? i do, but i'm very careful about the meat that i eat. i eat much less meat than i ever used to. i think we've all got to eat far less meat, but we've got to be very careful of where that meat comes from. and would you eat all the meat that is available on this particular estate? because it's notjust the longhorn cattle that we've seen. there are wild pigs here. there are even wild ponies here. yeah. would you eat them all? absolutely. we've got to tell a story

here about how integral these animals are to the ecosystem. and if, as we are having to manage them, because there is no apex predator here, and we need to keep the numbers to certain levels that are going to maximise biodiversity, then we need to be absolutely upfront about eating them. you're going to eat pony? one day, yes. we will. yeah, yeah. your critics would say that you and your rewilding project care least for one particular species, and that is the human being, because people and communities are not your focus. you, i believe, in recent years, have been a very active campaigner against significant new housing developments that were slated for neighbouring pieces of land close to yours. you don't want to see expanded housing development in an area of the south—east of england where new housing is desperately needed for communities, for young people who cannot afford a home to live anywhere near you.

why are you, in that sense, so selfish? absolutely not against housing in the south—east of england. it's got to be in the right place. so where this 3,500—house development is proposed is seven miles from the nearest train station. it's got no infrastructure. it's on a road that is already congested and highly polluted. it's absolutely in the wrong place. so we desperately need housing, but we've got to have it in the right place. right, but when you said against this particular housing development, and i don't know all the detail, but you claimed it would "destroy our ability to connect with nature forever." yeah. it comes back to priorities. you know, you sound like somebody who doesn't

really care about the needs of so many ordinary people who do desperately need housing. as i say, it is exactly... housing in the right place. we've absolutely got to target where we're going to have housing, and that has to be where we've got infrastructure, where we've got transport. we can't have people getting into cars to get to work, to get to school. and we have to restore our ecosystems in the face of climate change and pollution and disease. we have to get populations of wildlife being able to connect together again... well, that's very interesting. ..or we're going to see a complete collapse in what remains of our wildlife in the uk. so, in this heavily, densely populated part of england, you're saying that — what is it? — 1,400 hectares that you currently are rewilding, you want that to massively expand? you want much more land... yes. ..devoted to the ecosystem... yes. ..that you're trying to produce here? absolutely. and we are committed... is that realistic? we are committed to that. you know, we have the montreal agreement, the copis agreement that 30% of terrestrial landmass has to be devoted to nature by 2030. that's seven years away. so we have to really look at this really seriously.

the great american biologist, e0 wilson, said that if we are going to support biodiversity, and this is what our own species depends on, then we have to devote 50% of terrestrial landmass to nature. so we've got to take this really seriously. right. without wishing to be personal in any way, you come at this as somebody with the privilege of owning a very substantial chunk of land, coming from a particular background, which, let us be honest, is one of comfort and privilege. do you think there is anything indulgent about what you and your husband, charlie, are doing? we can't do this altruistically. we can't do itjust out of a whim because it makes us feel good. it has to work as a business. we couldn't survive without it. so, as an estate that employs over 50 people now, it has to make sense, financial sense. but it's applicable to... it's notjust people who have thousands of hectares that rewilding can affect.

rewilding really is on a spectrum. so you have the wildest lands, the yellowstone national parks at one end, where you don't need so much intervention. you have the knepp in the middle. but you can also rewild your garden, your window box, your roadside verges. all of us have a part to play in restoring nature across the landscape, and we have to connect, too. you've just written a new book, a sort of practical guide to rewilding. it's upset some people because your message is that everybody sort of has a responsibility to engage in this notion of rewilding, of sort of rebuilding ecosystems. and some who garden, who love gardening, who think that the human intervention in their little green space is what makes it beautiful, have said that your notion of letting it all go wild runs contrary to everything that the spirit of gardening represents. what's your message to them?

well, i would say that we need to really understand how ecosystems work. we really need to put nature at the forefront of our minds, even when we're gardening. so, if you understand how a system works, if you look at the wider countryside and you see how dysfunctional and unstable and at risk it is from collapse, you can't consider it beautiful any more. really? we have to understand that. some of the most famous gardeners in the united kingdom would disagree with you. alan titchmarsh says, "i hate..." he's listened to you. and then he says, "i would hate to see 100 years of british gardening "thrown out of the window "because people think the only way forward "is to leave our gardens to go wild." he says, "people are being brainwashed "that gardens really should only exist for birds, "bees and other

forms of life. "they should belong to us." mm. well, you know, that's very short—term thinking, isn't it? because here we are with a global crisis that is going to affect our very survival. and alan titchmarsh is thinking about his patios and his decking. you know, we have to look at... well, to be fair to alan titchmarsh, he's not about decking and patios, but he's about managing what he regards to be a beautiful environment created by man with intervention, the sorts of intervention that you are arguing against. we have to think, you know, the planet is on fire. we've got to think of gardens for the future that are not going to require huge amounts of fertiliser, peat, compost and watering. we've got to think of how we can have beautiful gardens — absolutely, for sure — but with low inputs, low water, and that are productive for wildlife and for insects and for everything else on which this planet depends, including carbon sequestration. do you want us all to feel guilty?

because monty don, another famous gardener, says, "i sense a degree of guilt about all of this "at the moment." and ijust wonder whether you actually think we should feel guilty. i wonder if that's monty don feeling guilty himself. i mean, ithink, no, i don't want people to feel guilty, cos i don't think that serves any purpose, really, because i think, you know, you... i think what rewilding does, though — it's a story of hope and it turns people on. so we have tens of thousands of people now visiting knepp and our mailbag is absolutely astonishing, from the amount of people who come here and say, "i was so overwhelmed by the planetary crisis "until i came here, "and i've seen how nature can rebound so quickly "in just less than 20 years, if you just let it. "i now want to be able to do my own thing. "can i contribute to this movement?" and it's people who want to rewild their churchyards, their gardens, their window box. and that is hugely

galvanising and inspiring. we're all... we can all be part of this movement. it's not just for farmers and for large landowners. it's for everybody. you keep calling it a movement, isabella. is it a movement that you are seeing growing internationally? because i'm just wondering whether you really feel that knepp is part of something much, much bigger. it really is. and we need a revolution. we have got a crisis on our hands and we have to change. and that's going to come from a groundswell of mindset change. we're looking at europe, where there's incredible rewilding projects now. we've got the yellowstone of europe in the carpathians that is just kicking off, that charlie is chair of. we've got the coa valley in portugal, which is being rewilded. everything from tiny pockets of land in the netherlands, like the kraansvlak being rewilded. it's really showing the way.

there's twice as many wolves now in europe as there are in north america and almost ten times as many brown bears, which are a cousin of the grizzly, than in north america. europe is showing the way as to how we can live with wilder landscapes again and apex predators. so the whole sort of shebang, the whole hierarchy of life is now kicking off in europe. and we're showing how densely populated countries can now live with that wilder landscape. a final thought. in this interview, you've said to me several times, "we have to understand our planet is burning." and you describe this in a way as some sort of reaction to the urgency of the climate change challenge. but i would put it to you that, in a way, the existential, urgent climate emergency surely overwhelms what you are doing, because however hard you try to reintroduce lost species to this particular chunk of land, if warming

is happening at the speed and at the scale that we believe it is, no amount of efforts like yours are going to undo the damage to ecosystems that we face. don't you feel overwhelmed by this? i think what knepp has shown is that nature has the answers. if it can rebound as quickly as it has here in less than 20 years, if we can show that our soils are storing carbon at a rate faster than a newly planted woodland, then we know that the answers to biodiversity loss and climate change are right here. and if we can expand this idea of rewilding to every spare inch of land that is not under agricultural production or under development, then we've got the answer to climate change and biodiversity loss. isabella tree, it has been a pleasure to visit your knepp estate. thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you.

hello there. the last few days have been unsettled and stormy with storm garritt bringing damaging gusts of winds. heavy rain and snow to high ground in scotland. more unsettled weather to come as we approach the weekend. if you are off to see family, it is worth bearing in mind there will be further rain and snow to the north and damaging gusts of wind as well. storm garritt off to scandinavia but we are still under the influence of high pressure. sunny spells and scattered showers.

some show was in scotland could have a westerly wind feeding model showers across wales and central england. gust of wind 35—45mph, widely across the country. not as strong as they have been but nevertheless noticeable. as we move into the start of the weekend, the next area of low pressure bringing further wet weather and damaging gusts of winds. gails on exposed coasts. and cold air set in place across the far north of england and scotland, we could see even at lower levels a spell of snow for a time. whether you have snow or rain, pretty miserable travel conditions. keep abreast of the weather forecast and tune into your bbc local radio station

for traffic and travel updates. as we move into sunday, the main front sweeping east but the low still centred in the circulating around a rash of showers, particularly around channel coasts where here it will stay blustery on new year's eve. hopefully an improving picture for scotland. it should be quieter. lighter winds but pretty strong gusts on the exposed south coast. on new year's eve, we're looking at around 5—6 in the north and may 8—10 in the south. temperatures starting to come down. as we head out of new year's eve and new year's day, no significant change to the weather story. still under the influence of blood pressure. a case of sunny spells and scattered showers but the showers will be few and far between. keep an eye on what is happening on the channel coasts. single figures for all on new year's day.

5-9 . the slightly cooler theme translating further head for the first week of january. the jetstream set into the south of the uk and so that means we will be on the cooler side of the jade. under the influence of low pressure so nothing particularly settled but you notice we see the yellow tone squeezing back to the near continent and the blue takes over as the wind direction swings to north—easterly and that means temperatures will be either on orjust below the average for the time of year but we still likely to see some show is from time to time. if we get clearer spells overnight, we can have some issues with frost and ice as well. whatever you are doing, have a new year.

live from london, this is bbc news. maine becomes the second us state to bar donald trump from contesting the republican presidential primary. israel expands its ground offensive into palestinian refugee camps in central gaza, forcing thousands to flee. after weeks of delays, spacex launches a secretive us military robot spaceplane into orbit from florida.

however welcome to the programme. hello, i'm frankie mccamley. we start this hour in maine, which has become the second us state to block donald trump from contesting the republican presidential primary. it comes days after colorado also banned mr trump from the ballot. maine's secretary of state shenna bellows said mr trump was not eligible because of his actions leading up to the us capitol riot injanuary 2021. the trump campaign has accused mrs bellows of being a "virulent leftist" and "hyper—partisan". she told the bbc how she came to that decision. it is really important for your viewers to understand maine law, maine process. every state is different. under the united states constitution, elections are held and it different voting rights are different ballot access laws.

under maine law, if a candidate qualifies for the ballot,