Belted Galloways, ponies and pigs - reshaping a landscape
February 6, 2024
A year ago I wouldn’t have believed how happy I’d be seeing two pigs!
2023 was the first full year of my start-up Wild Mosaic. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster.
The biggest positive so far has being able to work with Radnorshire Wildlife Trust.
My business is about rewilding. I saw how much joy and satisfaction rewilding projects gave to their landowners. But felt this shouldn’t just be limited to those that owned a few hundred acres. So we directly fund restoration work that brings life back to land. And then I connect people to this process so that they are part of this journey into wildness. Adopting a tile rather than buying an estate.
I know the theory, and strongly feel the need to tackle biodiversity loss. But putting it into practice has been tough. Often in mundane ways. Trying to start a business, being a solo founder, juggling childcare and other commitments. Time feels too slippery.
It is also tough in a more fundamental way. I am trying to engage people in the joy and wonder of life around us. That we are part of. But this meant that I had to address this in myself. Why did I feel so separated, what could bring me back? How can you make positive moments of your own experience balance out the scale of destruction happening?
This became a very personal introspection. And often felt overwhelmingly bleak. I would visit the rewilding site and be struck by how lifeless the land is. For many years it was sheep pasture. The reality of commercial pressures means that this mostly benefits two species, grass and sheep. There is little biodiversity.
Restoration and recovery take time. But sometimes we just get scale wrong.
When you look by the acre you just see a bland monoculture of grass. When you look by the metre you start to see life tentatively emerging. A ditch full of optimistic frogspawn. The grass, now longer, provides shelter to voles, grasshoppers and crickets. The thistles, one of the first plants to reclaim ground, attract butterflies and bumblebees and other invertebrates to their bright purple flowers.
I’m learning to focus, step by step. The idea of ‘small is beautiful’. Lean into the concept of a mosaic, each small unique tile coming together to form a bigger picture. Getting curious about the dirt under our feet.
This time last year, we were able to fund some fencing. This helped stop sheep in the neighbouring fields sneaking in. It also meant that livestock could be brought in. I initially struggled with this idea. Bringing in livestock to remedy the damage of other livestock. Human intervention to counter past human intervention. But the research and examples persuaded me. Especially in a UK context.
It has been lovely to see the Belted Galloways on the hillside, more recently joined by Welsh hill ponies. I still was a little dubious of how much difference they would make.
Then came two Tamworth pigs…
