The fight to save a historic English landscape

Summary

Science Weekly – The Wildlife Trusts’ Fight to Save a Historic English Landscape

Date: August 4, 2026
Host: Madeline Findlay (The Guardian)
Guests: Katie Bark (Northumberland Wildlife Trust), Dr. Sam Turner (Newcastle University), Rosie Pearce (Farm Liaison Officer, Northumberland Wildlife Trust)

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Overview of Episode

This episode explores the Wildlife Trusts’ urgent campaign to purchase and revive a vast, historic stretch of English countryside – the Rothbury Estate in Northumberland, near the Scottish border. With the Duke of Northumberland’s youngest son putting 3,800 hectares up for sale, the Wildlife Trusts are scrambling to raise £30 million by September’s end to prevent the land from being sold to private interests and to secure it for nature recovery, sustainable farming, and public enjoyment. Host Madeline Findlay visits the estate to hear from key players on ecology, agricultural transitions, local concerns, and the greater ambition for a northern nature corridor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Makes Rothbury Special?

[03:13] Katie Bark:

• The Rothbury purchase is one of the largest English land acquisitions in decades, providing a rare opportunity to implement large-scale nature recovery.
• The estate borders nature-friendly neighbors and Forestry England, allowing the possibility of a “northern nature corridor” – a 40-mile linkage from the Scottish border to the coast.
• Quote:

  “You've got this opportunity for this intact parcel of land to really look at how that can work better for nature... I think it's probably the most exciting nature recovery project in England.” (Katie Bark, 03:13)

2. Understanding the Land’s History

[05:27] Dr. Sam Turner:

• An active research project is reconstructing the ecological and agricultural past of the estate using both archaeology and environmental DNA analysis.
• The aim is not to return to a single historical “baseline” but rather to provide a nuanced guide to managing future ecological restoration.
• Quote:

  “Landscapes are defined by one key characteristic that unites all landscapes all around the world, and that is that they're always changing all the time.” (Dr. Sam Turner, 07:57)

3. Nature Recovery and Shifting Baselines

[06:06] Dr. Sam Turner:

• The study acknowledges the “shifting baseline” problem: What era should be the reference for “natural”?
• Their work underscores that restoration is a cultural decision—one shaped by both ecological knowledge and community values.
• Quote:

  “When we're making changes which are designed to help nature recover to the way that we think it used to be, that's also a cultural choice.” (Dr. Sam Turner, 07:57)

4. Sustainable Farming and Change

[09:10] Rosie Pearce:

• The estate currently maintains a large flock of sheep and a herd of cattle, but plans involve reducing sheep and increasing cattle, which are better for biodiversity.
• [09:57] Rosie Pearce: Explains the ecological benefits: cattle grazing creates more varied and diverse habitats, promoting wildflowers and invertebrates.
• The transformation will also include more trees, hedgerows, and potential wetlands to adapt to climate change and support both cattle and sheep.
• Quote:

  “Cattle can generally bring a lot more biodiversity benefits. They graze quite differently to sheep. Sheep create tight lawns... Cattle are not as selective, so they create a sort of diverse structure and allow for a lot more wildflowers.” (Rosie Pearce, 09:57)

Livestock Health and Diversity

• Trees and diverse plantings provide shade, nutrients, and self-medicating opportunities for livestock, improving animal and human health.

5. Farmers’ Reactions & Regional Impact

[12:36] Rosie Pearce:

• Changing land management is increasingly accepted as necessary for resilience and sustainable food production.
• Rosie and the Trusts work directly with farmers, providing flexibility and support rather than imposing top-down mandates.
• The estate is seen as a “showcase” for sustainable, nature-friendly farming that could influence broader practices.
• Quote:

  “We need to not think that this level of loss and lack of diversity is normal, because it's not. And ultimately, it will cause us to be unable to feed ourselves in the future unless we do something to change it.” (Rosie Pearce, 13:19)

6. Urgency and What’s at Stake

[15:12] Madeline Findlay:

• If the Trusts can’t raise £30 million by September, the land may be fragmented and sold to private buyers, risking loss of public access and existing ecological initiatives.
• Local rumors and concerns swirl over proposed rewilding, with talk of bison, wolves, and dramatic changes.

Rewilding Realities

[16:08] Katie Bark:

• While some reintroductions (like beavers, pine martens, and golden eagles) are discussed, the focus is presently on achievable, locally suited conservation.
• Quote:

  “There's certain species that are making their way back here themselves, things like pine martin... And the other really exciting species... is golden eagle.” (Katie Bark, 16:36)

7. The Fundraising Plea

[17:30] Katie Bark:

• Katie highlights the personal impact and collective potential of the fundraiser, describing it as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to transform land for nature and people—inviting everyone to participate, no matter the size of the gift.
• Quote:

  “This is a kind of a once in a generation opportunity... to take ownership of a piece of land on this scale and put nature first.” (Katie Bark, 17:30)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On history shaping recovery:

  “What our work is trying to do is to create a picture of what the landscape might have been like at different periods... and how they might relate to the ecologies that have existed here over the last, let's say, 5,000 years.” (Dr. Sam Turner, 06:06)

• On sustainable farming’s potential:

  “Having this here to sort of be a showcase for what can be done in order to produce food in a sustainable and nature friendly way, I think is going to be absolutely massive if we can get it right.” (Rosie Pearce, 13:04)

• On hope and resolve:

  “Do you think you're going to do it?”
  “Of course, yeah, of course. I mean, we will do this. Yeah. It's too important to not. Yeah, we're all committed.” (Katie Bark, 18:07)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• [01:03] – Introduction to the land sale, Wildlife Trusts involvement, fundraising need
• [03:13] – Katie Bark explains the ecological and landscape significance
• [05:27] – Dr. Sam Turner discusses the archaeological and historical context
• [06:06] – Challenges of identifying a baseline for restoration
• [07:21] – Environmental DNA and landscape history research methods
• [09:10] – Rosie Pearce on current farming practices and planned changes
• [09:57] – The benefits of cattle over sheep for biodiversity
• [12:36] – Rosie on farmers’ views and the shift towards regenerative agriculture
• [15:12] – What could happen if the purchase fails; risks for public access
• [16:08] – Addressing (and dispelling) rumors about large-scale rewilding
• [17:30] – Katie’s direct fundraising appeal and sense of shared mission
• [18:07] – Expressing optimism and collective determination

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Conclusion

This episode offers an insightful, on-the-ground account of the complex, urgent, but hopeful fight to secure and restore a unique English landscape. The perspectives from conservationists, researchers, and farm liaisons illuminate both the history and future of Rothbury, the realities and misconceptions around rewilding, and the practical steps needed to balance farming with nature recovery. The Wildlife Trusts’ campaign is more than a land sale—it’s a bid to redefine how people, nature, and agriculture can thrive together.

For more information or to support the Wildlife Trusts’ campaign, visit theguardian.com.

Transcript

[Madeline Findlay]

This is the Guardian.

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[Madeline Findlay]

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[Madeline Findlay]

In the northeast of England, near the border of Scotland, there's a vast stretch of land that's belonged to one family, an old English Noble family, for 700 years. But now the Duke of Northumberland's youngest son, Max Percy, has put it up for sale. 3,800 hectares. That's 38 square kilometers of sweeping vistas over moorlands. Woodlands and craggy hills dotted with sheep are available for purchase. All that doesn't come cheap. The Wildlife Trusts, a charitable organization made up of 46 local independent trusts, have already bought a chunk of it. But for the rest, the they need to raise 30 million pounds. And luckily for them, they've got the support of the world's most famous nature lover.

[Rosie Pearce]

People know and love the Simonside hills that rise here. They walk the ridges and listen for the calls of the curlew.

[Madeline Findlay]

They watch for red squirrels and admire the views as they scramble among the crags. But there's not long left. They've got until the end of September to secure the deal. If they manage it, what do they plan to do with this historic land? What will happen to the farmers that still work it? And how could it shape the future of nature in the uk? I went to the Rothbury Estate to find out from the Guardian. I'm Madeline Findlay and this is Science Weekly. At the estate, I met Katie Bark, head of nature recovery for Northumberland Wildlife Trust. We stood overlooked by nearby hills in a golden brown field, dry from weeks of relentless sunshine. A few butterflies flitted around and house martins swooped overhead. Katie explained why this piece of land is so special.

[Katie Bark]

The really exciting thing about Rothbury is its scale. It's the biggest land purchase of this size to come up in a generation or more. And that's really why the Wildlife Trust is so interested, because you've got this opportunity for this intact parcel of land to really look at how that can work better for nature. But the even more exciting thing about that is that our neighbours are also working in really nature friendly ways. So you're looking at a much bigger area where we can work together and with Forestry England as well, to look at big scale nature recovery and restoring of natural processes. And then when we're talking about our neighbours, we also have this much bigger ambition of this 40 mile, what we call the northern nature corridor that connects Keelda. So Keelda, if you don't know where it is, that's right up on the Scottish border and all the way down to the coast. And when you look in that 40 mile corridor, there's so many people and organisations doing brilliant things that we want to just join them up and create this highway for nature and for wildlife to make its way and just make more space. So it's just that exciting, you know, I think it's probably the most exciting nature recovery project in England.

[Madeline Findlay]

If the fundraising is successful, Katie and the team are going to have to work out what nature recovery looks like across the estate and how to make it happen. The ultimate goal is to restore natural habitats and return wildlife to the land to. But when in the site's history should they look at when's a good benchmark for what's natural and beneficial to a place? To figure that out, a research project is being undertaken to reveal how the land has been used across the centuries and what's grown there in the past few hundred years. For the visit, I'd been advised to wear long trousers tucked into boots to avoid tick bites. And I was glad I listened because my first meeting with Dr. Sam Turner, professor of Archaeology at Newcastle University, was among the long grass, ferns and creeping thistles on Garley Moor. A small mound topped with mossy grey stones ran alongside us, and down below, a line of trees was rustling in the breeze. So, Sam, the first thing that I really wanted to find out about was a bit of the history of this estate. What do we know about what's happened on this land over the years?

[Dr. Sam Turner]

We know that on the hill behind us we've got a large Iron Age settlement and running down the hill towards us, we've got the remains of fields from different periods. Now, of course, that's all Moreland and the estate has in the recent period has been largely used for sheep farming. But we can see from the remains all around us on the surface of the land that before it was cultivated for cereals, for mixed agriculture probably, but we don't have much in the way of written Documentary records telling us about what happened in times before the recent centuries.

[Madeline Findlay]

And this is where your project comes in. So what are you doing here?

[Dr. Sam Turner]

We're doing a pilot study, really, with the Northumberland Wildlife Trust and with our colleagues from Durham University and the University of St Andrews. And our project is designed to try to understand the natural history of the land, the long term historical ecology of the land. One of the issues that we face is the so called problem of the shifting baseline. So if we're thinking about how we should make things in the future, we say, well, maybe we should make it like it was in the past, but when was the past? It's very hard to quantify what their ecological networks were like beyond a certain time back in the past. So what our work is trying to do is to create a picture of what the landscape might have been like at different periods. Going much further back into the past. What we hope to do is not provide a simple answer, but provide a richer understanding that gives us a knowledge of the kinds of changes that we might want to make in future and how they might relate to the types of ecology, the types of land uses that have existed here over the last, let's say, 5,000 years.

[Madeline Findlay]

Unlike most archaeologists, Sam's digging holes not to search for artifacts, but to look at the sediment itself. The team are using a technique called environmental DNA analysis to search for genetic material left long ago by plants. They can then pin that to a date in time, revealing what nature was around when. Combine it with lidar surveys uncovering man made structures and you begin to build a picture of the ecology and history of the estate across hundreds, if not thousands of years.

[Dr. Sam Turner]

Landscapes are defined by one key characteristic that unites all landscapes all around the world, and that is that they're always changing all the time. People have been here shaping the way this landscape has changed for 10,000 years. And so we need to remember that when we're making changes which are designed to help nature recover to the way that we think it used to be, that's also a cultural choice. That's something that we as human beings are deliberately deciding to do. And so, yeah, our work is designed to try and help us kind of situate that in the longer term, going forwards into the future.

[Madeline Findlay]

The wildlife Trusts will not be managing the land alone. As it stands, there are 12 tenant farmers. If the purchase goes ahead, it can mark a time of change. The Northumberland Wildlife Trust are hoping to help us shift to more wildlife friendly agriculture. One of the people beginning to bring that change to the estate is Rosie I met her with her very sweet and well behaved Border colleague, Jock in a field on one of the farms she was working with. We were also joined by a crowd of very curious young bulls.

[Rosie Pearce]

So, I'm Rosie Pearce and I am the farm liaison officer for Northumberland Wildlife Trust. I work with landowners and farmers who are wanting to do nature recovery on their land and improve their farming practices for nature.

[Madeline Findlay]

So tell me about the kind of farming that happens right now on the Rothbury estate.

[Rosie Pearce]

We have a flock of about 1900 sheep plus lambs. We also have a herd of 50 ling cattle, some of which are behind us. We've got some.

[Madeline Findlay]

We've got some onlookers.

[Rosie Pearce]

Yes. We've got. I think they're two year old steers. Yeah. So these ones would be the ones entering the food chain. But over time, I think the plan is to reduce the number of sheep that we have and increase cattle numbers to sort of balance those numbers out a bit.

[Madeline Findlay]

And tell me, why would you want to exchange sheep for cattle?

[Rosie Pearce]

Cattle can generally bring a lot more biodiversity benefits. They graze quite differently to sheep. Sheep create quite tight lawns and generally go for the tastier flowers. Cattle are not as selective, so they create a sort of diverse structure and allow for a lot more wildflowers. And obviously our wildflowers are really important for invertebrates and then those invertebrates are feeding all sorts of other animals further up the food chain. There's also benefits in terms of using cattle for, say, wintering outdoors and their dung being really important for invertebrate life as well. Those invertebrates being important for wading birds and bats and reptiles and things.

[Madeline Findlay]

And so what would your ideally farmed landscape look like?

[Rosie Pearce]

For starters, we're hoping to see a lot more trees and that will no doubt be important for, for biodiversity, but also it'll be really important for cattle and some of the sheep that we will have. In terms of the changing climate that we've got, hotter, drier, summer trees are going to be really important in keeping areas of grass in the summer and also for shade for livestock and shelter. If we have sort of storms and things in the winter that could be in forms of hedgerows or wood, pasture would be a brilliant way. So that's having your mature trees plus scrub and a lot more flowers as well, and all those combined are going to be great for livestock health as well as for biodiversity.

[Madeline Findlay]

Why do those make a difference to livestock health?

[Rosie Pearce]

Well, there's been studies to show that livestock can benefit from getting all sorts of different nutrients from certain trees. When they need minerals and nutrients, they will go to a certain plant or a certain tree to sort of self medicate. That can be really quite important for their health and also it can create really nutrient dense food as well, which is important for our health.

[Madeline Findlay]

The field we were standing in was filled with long grasses and thistles. There was a messy hedgerow behind us and amazingly, a small puddle of water. And I could hear crickets singing. It seemed like a rich, diverse place, but Rosie explained to me that it was still too much of a monoculture, still too quiet. After a few years of regenerative farming, however, it might begin to look more colourful, get louder, maybe wetter too, with more waterfalls, wetlands and peat bogs across the estate. To an onlooker, it all sounded idyllic. But I wondered what the tenant farmers were making of the changes coming to Rothbury. So I asked Rosie what the reactions have been so far.

[Rosie Pearce]

I think it's becoming a lot more accepted as a way that we maybe need to go in order to be more resilient. We have neighbours that are already doing things like your regenerative agriculture type, deferred grazing, rotational grazing, wintering livestock outdoors, all of which, you know, that's beneficial for the farm business at the end of the day and quite often for the farmer. It's not like we're going to say this is how it has to be done. There are obviously times when you need to be responsive as to what the land's telling you, but I think having this here to sort of be a showcase for what can be done in order to produce food in a sustainable and nature friendly way, I think is going to be absolutely massive if we can get it right. Because I think currently, when you look across certain landscapes and you see what should be there, it's quite heartbreaking. We need to not think that this level of loss and lack of diversity is normal, because it's not. And ultimately it will cause us to be unable to feed ourselves in the future unless we do something to change it.

[Madeline Findlay]

Coming up, two months and £30 million. Can they do it?

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[Madeline Findlay]

If the wildlife trusts don't raise the funds in time, there's a chance the land could be broken up and sold off to private, private landowners. This could put public access to the estate at risk, which is home to popular walking routes where visitors can hear the calls of curlews and spot red squirrels in the woodlands. Despite the unknown ramifications if the land goes to individual buyers, there has been concern from farmers and locals as to exactly what the wildlife trusts will do if they own the land. Whispers of bison roaming the uplands unchecked, rewilding and even a return of wolves and lynxes have been circling the potential purchase. Head of Nature recovery, Katie Bark, was very keen to get on record that this wasn't currently forming part of their plans. So I asked Katie what we could expect to see.

[Katie Bark]

So I have a personal interest in beavers, but at the moment it's not right for them. There isn't a habitat for them. That doesn't mean we can't work towards that and creating those conditions and all the wonderful benefits they bring. There's certain species that are making their way back here themselves, things like pine martin, you know, they're not far away, they may already be here. And actually if we can work together with our neighbors, then you provide safe havens for pine marten to re establish themselves. And the other really exciting species that people talk about a lot at the moment because they're being seen overhead, is golden eagle. So. So there's been a reintroduction project in the south of Scotland which, as the eagle flies, is, you know, no distance at all. And they're regularly being seen here. Now, they might not be on the Rothbury estate itself, but it's so evocative to think that you're here and you can look up and see golden eagle soaring and that's only going to increase. And I mean, that's just amazing.

[Madeline Findlay]

And as we're standing here, most of the UK is in a drought, although unbelievably, we got rained on earlier. What a feeling. But, you know, the climate crisis, we are seeing the effects more and more and more strongly. This feels like a really critical time. So, Katie, we're heading towards the deadline for the Wildlife Trusts to raise their 30 million to put you on the spot here. What would be your plea to anyone listening?

[Katie Bark]

Yeah, I think, you know, it's just such an exciting opportunity and, you know, when you watch the Totalizer on the, on the website, it's amazing because you get anything from, you know, somebody putting in their five pound pocket money or all these incredible tributes for, you know, friends lost or people's birthdays or. There's so many personal reasons why people are feel that this is something we should really do. So I really feel that this is a kind of a once in a generation opportunity to take ownership of a piece of land on this scale and put nature first. So, yes, we'd love you to visit and come and see what we're up to and yes, please, if you're able to support purchase of the Rothbury estate, we'd be delighted if you could.

[Madeline Findlay]

Do you think you're going to do it?

[Katie Bark]

Of course, yeah, of course. I mean, we will do this. Yeah. It's too important to not. Yeah, we're all committed.

[Madeline Findlay]

My thanks to Sam Turner, Rosie Pierce and Katie Burke. If you'd like to find out more about the Wildlife Trust's efforts to purchase the Rothbury estate, head to theguardian.com

[Rosie Pearce]

and

[Madeline Findlay]

that's all for today. This episode was produced by me, Madeline Finley. It was sound, designed by Joel Cox and the executive producer is Ellie Bury. We'll be back on Thursday. See you then.

[Thomson Reuters Announcer]

This is the Guardian. This podcast is brought to you by Thomson Reuters. The best don't just do their work, they change what's possible. Cases won, audits completed, jobs saved. Behind every one of those moments is a professional who needed to get it right and did. Thomson Reuters builds the technology that sharpens insights, speeds up decision making and powers the outcomes that matter. So when professionals act, the impact is felt by everyone. Be a changemaker. Visit tr.com changemakers.