Jake Fiennes brings wild animals back to the farmed landscape, showing how nature is at the core of post-Brexit reforms

Last modified on Wednesday, December 8, 2021 04.31 EST

From the driver's seat of his pickup truck, Jack Fiennes pointed to the dark green grass strip, which exposed the location of the dry saltwater creek system of Norfolk Holkham Manor. If the rain in early autumn permits, the rotary tiller dragged by the tractor will soon draw shallow trenches in the sand and dig out many ancient waterways. Fiennes, the manor’s conservation supervisor, and his guards Andy and Paul will then fill them with standing water from the chalk aquifer at the site. This is a plan to transform dozens of fields into 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) of grazing wetlands. Part of the farm and nature reserve.

Fiennes is confident that next spring will see more frogs, flycatchers, and other rare wetland birds thrive in the mud at the edge of the river - known as field drains - in the habitat they share with about 800 cattle. land.

"It's all about wet mud," Fiennes said in his office, then headed to the field, using his fingers to trace the maze of ancient creeks he hoped the machine would find on Google Earth. "I'm famous for edges and hedges, but it's as long as the water near the mud. All those little black flies: that's the chicken's food."

Fiennes’ five siblings, including actors Ralph and Joseph, are mavericks who are very suitable for environmental reforms after Brexit. The smooth white hair was interrupted by hair loss. In his monologue he talked about the potential for agricultural transformation, carefully observing the impact of his words with clear blue eyes.

About three years ago, he was in charge of Holkham. After operating the Raveningham estate in southern Norfolk for more than 20 years, he used a large area of ​​land for nature while maintaining the yield of the 2,200 hectare farm. Early in his career, he worked at Knepp Manor, famous for Isabella Tree's book "Wild."

In Holkham, Fiennes hopes to show his approach to everyone, because farmers are waiting for measures to follow the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, which may cost them their biodiversity management efforts. He is a bridge between agriculture and conservation: Regional National Farmers' Union Environmental Representative and member of RSPB's England Advisory Board. Last year, he became a character report in The New Yorker. Commenting on the uniqueness of the 51-year-old, Julian Glover, the former journalist who led the review of the England’s national park system, said: “There is a Jack’s Element, it looks like he could have worked in agriculture or heroin."

Contrary to the warnings of many people, Fiennes insists that the British natural world is "not as bad as everyone says." Without apology, he breeds wild animals in the corners and crevices of the barren land, and uses existing methods. In just three years, Holkham's frog population has returned to the number at the beginning of the millennium. In 2020, the Western Cattle Egret successfully bred in Norfolk Manor for the first time.

This year, Fiennes imposed new regulations on hundreds of thousands of dog walkers on Holkham Beach (one of the most beautiful beaches in the UK), and nearly 1 million people visit the beach every year ("500,000 cars and 800,000 out of 300,000 dogs”) to offset the decline in the number of breeding shorebirds.

"We have just ushered in the record breeding season for spoonbills. This is the largest colony in Britain," he said with a smile as we visited the fields. "We are going to smash it out of the park."

Fiennes invited me to see the rotary excavator in northern Norfolk. This is the only rotary excavator in the country. It works at eight locations along the 50 km long coastline, from Clay by the sea to the 1,600 hectares. Kenhill Wilderness Project. When it is towed away by a tractor, it sprays mud high in the sky, opening a passage on the earth.

Although the cost of hiring professional machinery for 100 hours of work is £25,000 (paid by a grant provided by the Ministry of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for farming in protected landscapes), it is digging channels at an impressive rate . According to RSPB research, the new drainage ditch was once a feature of farm wetland management and is now a perfect breeding habitat for wheat field chickens, red-footed chickens and their chicks that feed on invertebrates in the mud. Fiennes hopes that the expanded wetland habitats at these locations will help more wetland birds successfully reproduce on the northern coast of Norfolk.

“Low-lying land is not very suitable for farming. Before receiving Fiennes’ instructions on where to go next, Martin Fox, the operator of the rotary excavator, said that you’d better try to put it into these types of plans, and it’s natural And wild animals to get more. "We always take things out of [nature], but we have to put something back. "

The machine has been used in high-profile projects such as Wallasea Island in Essex, the largest coastal habitat restoration project in Europe. The project used more than 3 million tons of London clay excavated from the Crossrail tunnel to build a vast salt marsh and lagoon And mudflats.

The typical method that Fiennes chose to leave the farmland to nature was that he used signs in the landscape to show him the location of the passage. "Look at that deeper green zone," he said as we drove back to his office, pointing to the adjacent field. "This tells me this is where the water is going. That's where you want your feet to go."

Later that day, Fiennes arranged a meeting to discuss the reintroduction of beavers, the restoration of the chalk flow, and the mixed work of improving ecology and agriculture. He told me that although as many as 60,000 pink-footed geese arrived from Greenland recently, I chose a bad time of the year to visit.

He said, "Come back in May" to see the results of the wheeled trencher, and once again insisted that this will be another harvest year for the wheat field chickens, spoonbills and Holkham wetland birds.

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