Britain’s national parks are not protecting nature
Why is Dartmoor in such a bad way?
Until 2019 Derek Gow farmed 121 hectares of Dartmoor, in Devon, with 1,500 breeding sheep and 120 cows. But he abandoned traditional agriculture after the last of the curlews, a type of bird, vanished. “In the end, you just begin to realise that everything you’re doing is wrong,” says the farmer-turned-conservationist. He has since “rewilded”, emptying his fields and restocking them with much smaller numbers of cattle, pigs, water buffalo and wild horses—as well as reintroducing species ranging from Eurasian beavers to wildcats.
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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Why is Dartmoor in such a bad way?”
Britain October 21st 2023
- The world’s largest health-research study is under way in Britain
- England’s NHS is trying once again to collate patients’ data
- Scottish independence has become a long game
- Despite Brexit and the government, British manufacturing is doing well
- The rise of English viticulture
- Britain’s national parks are not protecting nature
- How rationing became the fashion under the Tories
From the October 21st 2023 edition
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