Sangha of Auspicious Companions

How a ‘Dysfunctional’ English Farm Became a Biodiversity Hotspot

What was once “depleted, polluted, dysfunctional” farmland has become a crucible of possibility-a 3,500-acre English estate where turtle doves and nightingales now thrive in numbers that defy the nation’s broader ecological collapse. Isabella Tree and her husband didn’t impose order on Knepp; they surrendered to wildness, tearing down fences and trusting free-roaming cattle to fill the ghostly roles of extinct species. The results speak in percentages that feel almost defiant: a 900% surge in breeding birds, butterflies doubled, dragonflies multiplied nearly ninefold-all within two decades. “The uplift in biodiversity shows how much life the land can hold,” Tree observes, her words carrying both celebration and quiet reproach for a nation that has pledged to rewild but hesitates at the threshold. Here is proof that restoration isn’t about reclaiming the past but about stepping aside-about trusting that nature, given space, remembers how to flourish.

Be The Change

Allow something or someone to simply be itself today. See what value you can find when you give the space for something to shine in its own nature rather than trying to fix or manage it.