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

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Beavers, Farming & Beyond! with Lee Schofield. Interviewed by Sophie Pavelle and Eva Bishop for the Beaver Trust’s Lodge Cast. Podcast/March 2023 This was a really interesting book. As someone who's involved in restoration in the States, I was particularly thrilled to listen to Lee describe the challenges and successes of restoration in England. The conflicts with the farming community, the joys of seeing salmon return, were all familiar territory, but some of the solutions were different and innovative. It was a great reminder that my region of the world is not in a vacuum and there are people everywhere dealing with the same or similar challenges. Wild Fell leaves you in no doubt that if we don't protect our wild blooms, there won't be any bugs and there won't be any birds and, ultimately, any people. * BBC Countryfile Magazine *

But in the contested landscape of the Lake District, change is not always welcomed, and success relies on finding a balance between rewilding and respecting cherished farming traditions. This is not only a story of nature in recovery, it is also the story of Lee's personal connection to place, and the highs and lows of working for nature amid fierce opposition. Schofield, L. (2005). Public Attitude Toward Mammal Reintroductions: A Highland Case Study. MSc. Imperial College, University of London. Accessible online This book is subtitled “Fighting for nature in a Lake District hill farm” – while I find the word “fight” to be a bit over-combative, having read the book, it’s certainly a struggle. The farming community is a loyal group and having outsiders come in was never going to be an easy journey. The book outlines those challenges, but also the inspirational successes that can be achieved when you work with people. Much of the appeal of Wild Fell stems from the fluency with which Lee Schofield conveys the intimate knowledge and deep feeling he has developed for the Haweswater landscape, his own personal commitment to enriching and developing it, and the unabashed delight he takes from each sign of progressive change. It is a highly personal story as well as a thoroughly documented account of a complex and ongoing conservation project, a combination which should earn it the wide readership it deserves.” Professor Barry Sloan, Chair of the panel of judges for the Richard Jefferies Award Pine martens to the rescue? Sixth article in Shadow Species series focuses on pine martens. Cumbria Life/Nov 2020. Version also available as a WildHaweswater postWild Fell is a call to recognise that the solutions for a richer world lie at our feet; by focusing on flowers, we can rebuild landscapes fit to welcome the majestic golden eagle again. This is a book about rewilding and joins a growing list of good books on the subject which are essential reading for all those engaged in present-day UK nature conservation ( Feral, Wilding (my book of the year for 2018), Rebirding (one of my books of the year for 2019), Regeneration(one of my books of the year for 2021) and The Implausible Rewilding of the Pyrenees (my book of the year for 2021)). The Lake District countryside has been shaped over thousands of years by two things farming and mining. Mining may no longer be economic; the farms, however, are still there. It may look like an idyllic way of life, but all is not well.

A poetic journey of restoring nature in an iconic landscape. Wild Fell informs and inspires. Jake FiennesAs 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 Wild Fell is quite similar to Regeneration in that it is set in the uplands, in this case the Lake District, and is written by an employee of a large conservation organisation, in this case the RSPB, which is working its way through the issues of rewilding in a practical way. It’s a very good book dealing with important issues on the ground, with real wildlife and embedded in a real community of other landowners.

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.”Hexham Book Group's meets on the second Tuesday of the month at 7.30pm in Scott's Café at the Forum Cinema, Hexham. 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. 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. Farmers have always done what society has asked of them," he says. "For the past 70 years, the demand has been to produce as much food as possible, particularly post-war. Their success has been extraordinary - a rise in productivity of 150 percent." Like the rivers it has rebent, the Haweswater project is re-wiggling farming into a more sustainable alignment with nature. And by similarly refusing to operate in siloed straight lines, Schofield's own journey towards greater collaboration may have lessons to teach both of the UK's rural tribes. * New Statesman *

Endangered plant species thefts on the rise, conservationists warn. Interviewed to talk about the theft of pyramidal bugle from its only location in the wild in England. The Telegraph/Feb 2020 Wild Fell leaves you in no doubt that if we don't protect our wild blooms, there won't be any bugs and there won't be any birds and, ultimately, any people. BBC Countryfile Magazine The pyramidal bugle, England's rarest mountain flower, is found in just one location in the whole of the country, on a cliff ledge in Haweswater. 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 On a visit, we talked him through our nature-friendly farming system, our plans for tree planting, hay-meadow and bog restoration, and how we believed it could all be done in sympathy with farming traditions. I thought we'd done a decent job."The symbol of all this was the golden eagles. Once relatively common in England, the last pair lived at Haweswater before going locally extinct due to the absence of a thriving landscape of prey. In a country defined as the seventh most nature depleted on Earth, in a region plagued by flooding and climate-chaos, here comes Lee Schofield's brilliant book full of positive action and hope for the future. Wild Fell is a record of environmental achievement, of the RSPB's mission to restore the places and wild nature of Haweswater. But it's also a political tract, and throws down a gauntlet to us all to make the Lake District a national park that is genuinely worthy of the title."