• 
• 

• 
• 

Domesticated rewilding?

The role of the large herbivore

Rewilding remains a polarising concept within our sector, primarily because its connotations of removal of human activity, or productive agriculture from the land but on the flip side, very popular in the wider world.

Successful rewilding requires the introduction of large herbivores for the ecological benefits they deliver within ecosystems. A purist view of rewilding would require that these herbivores be wild and perhaps even have apex predators. They would provide ecological benefits, but have no role in agriculture and restrict public access.

We have 20 years of evidence to prove that it’s possible to balance rewilding, public access and farming, which continues to produce a win-win-win outcome for both the people and nature of Hertfordshire.

With our form of domesticated rewilding, nature restoration is combined with food production. We are, restoring ecosystem functions using low-intensity human intervention involving the introduction, management, and harvest of Native English Longhorn cattle, which act on behalf of their wild equivalents.

IE, we are restoring nature with longhorns, that remain safe places for people to visit, and able to eat slow grown high-welfare beef at the end of it! Nature is the focus, beef is the biproduct.

Just look at the results of Maydencroft’s domesticated rewilding on two separate sites, with the first date being just before we took responsibility for them…