REWILDING
coombeshead
Letting nature take it’s course…
About the project
We are changing….
Changing from a traditional, highly managed human environment of livestock and vivid green pastures to a new landscape, one where habitats develop through natural processes. Where nature sets its course.
Farming has now ceased on 150 acres at Coombeshead. We are at the beginning of a new journey, one which will give the land an opportunity to relax, recover and re adjust.
Our vision and hope are that gradually, slowly, life will return. New life, not hemmed in by hedgerows or restricted to narrow verges but full and complete.
Would you like to join us?
Stay with us!
Stay in our beautiful shepherds’ huts or camp in our meadows. Take part in our guided wildlife walks and see some of our rewilding helpers such as the beaver, wild pigs, ponies, mouflon and heck cattle. New for this our small herd of gigantic water buffalos, wallowing through the wetland, creating new ponds for amphibians and other wildlife. We will introduce you to species being bred for reintroduction such as white storks, wild cats, lynx, beavers, water voles and harvest mice, and you can learn about their vital roles in our natural environment.
In the evening relax round the fire, watch our free roaming wild animals from dedicated viewing platforms or take part in organised beaver or bat watching activities.
If you’re lucky you may see one of the barn owls which have returned to feed at Coombeshead hovering over grassland in the early evening.
Workshops & Guest Naturalists
We will be running many hands-on workshops for interested people offering education and training based on our expertise and experience at Coombeshead
Bringing back the Beaver
– New book by Derek Gow,
founder of The Coombeshead Rewilding Project
Bringing back the beaver: The story of one mans quest to rewild Britain’s Waterways.
This book is about farmer turned ecologist Derek Gows inspirational and funny first-hand account of how the movement to rewild beavers into the British landscape has become the single most dramatic and subversive nature conservation act of the modern era. Stories of ups and downs of this project, as well as a passionate case to why the return of the beaver will be critical to ensure the creation of essential landscapes that enable a broad spectrum of Britain’s wildlife to thrive is provided.
This authentic, impassioned manifesto-cum-memoir will hopefully have a major impact on what is likely to be a long-running controversy. The spectator
Gow reinvents what it means to be a guardian of the countryside. The Guardian
Gow has a fire in his belly. We need more like him. BBC wildlife Magazine
Address
Upcott Grange
Broadwoodwidger
Lifton Devon
PL16 0JS.
Call Us
+44 (0)7714 767 522
+44 (0)7833 411 692