In December 2022, the conservation organization Heal Rewilding purchased an intensively managed dairy farm in Somerset, England. Instead of planning a new use, it did nothing: no plowing, no fertilizer, no mowing. Three years later, the organization's first state-of-nature report documents what happened. 94 bird species have been registered on the site since then, including 21 species on the Red List. 24 butterfly species. 15 bat species. 404 invertebrates. And small mammal density is 188 percent higher than on an adjacent organic farm comparison plot. What the data show is not necessarily surprising to biologists. But the timeframe is.
From intensive dairy to wilderness
The Heal Somerset site was not neglected land, but the opposite: a highly intensively managed dairy farm where productivity dominated every other consideration. Such farms are common in Britain. Decades of intensive agriculture have compressed species-rich meadows into a few grass species that provide maximum biomass for livestock.
Heal Rewilding took over the site in December 2022 and relied on a principle of minimal intervention. No management measures, no grazing by livestock, no fertilization. Instead, waiting. The report was prepared for the organization by independent field ecologists and includes five formal baseline surveys. The formal breeding bird survey documented 60 breeding bird species. Informally, 94 species have been recorded since 2023, ranging from Red List species like the cuckoo and grey partridge to 28 species on the watch list, birds not yet classified as threatened but with declining populations.
What the three-year numbers mean
The biologically most revealing comparison in the report is not the bird or butterfly list, but the small mammal comparison. The Heal Somerset site hosted five small mammal species, the adjacent organic farm comparison site three. Population density is 188 percent higher than the comparison site. This is relevant because small mammals like field mice, shrews, and dormice function as the base of the local food chain, feeding owls, weasels, and other predators. The return of this base signals that the ecosystem as a system is recovering, not just individual charismatic species.
The plant world has also changed. Formal surveys documented 113 vascular plant species on the site, a diversity impossible on intensively managed grassland. Wildflower meadows create structures essential for insect survival: staggered flowering times, overwintering opportunities in plant stems, nesting sites in leaf litter. The 404 documented invertebrates are not there by chance. They follow plant diversity.
By comparison: what Knepp shows over 25 years
Heal Somerset is young. Knepp Wildland in West Sussex is the model showing what such an approach can become over decades. The 1,400-hectare former mixed and dairy farm was converted to rewilding around 2000. Since then, the site has become one of Britain's most remarkable conservation success stories.
The purple emperor butterfly was not native to Knepp. It was observed, the colony grew, and by 2015 Knepp was regarded as the largest known breeding colony of this species in England. In summer 2025, 283 purple emperors were counted in a single day. Even more dramatic is the white stork story. In 2020, white storks bred for the first time in 600 years in England, at Knepp. In summer 2024, six young storks born at Knepp returned from their first winter in Morocco to breed themselves. Additionally, 13 of Britain's 18 bat species have been documented at Knepp, including the rare barbastelle bat.
Knepp shows what Heal Somerset could be in 20 years. The decisive mechanism is the same: withdrawal of human intervention enables succession, the natural progression of plant communities, from pioneer species to tall herbs to shrubland to open woodland, with each stage creating habitat for different species.
What would be needed for Germany to catch up
Britain has introduced the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS), which explicitly pays farmers to provide ecological services instead of maximizing production volumes. Those who extensify or manage their land for nature conservation receive direct payments. This system makes rewilding economically more attractive.
In Germany, the bulk of EU agricultural subsidies still follow the classical model: hectare premiums that are equally high for intensive and extensive farms. Ecological focus areas are mandated but comprise only a small portion of total land. There is no targeted funding for multi-year idled land in the sense of rewilding.
Land ownership also matters. Agricultural land in Germany is among the most expensive in Europe. An organization like Heal Rewilding, which buys land to leave it fallow, operates at a different price level than in Somerset. Rewilding on rented land is possible but dependent on cooperation with farmers willing to make land available for this use.
The infrastructure for such projects is growing. Rewilding Europe coordinates sites in several European countries, including Germany, with initial initiatives through NGOs like NABU. What is lacking is the financial backbone of state support that treats rewilding as a legitimate and funded land use form. Whether the ongoing EU agricultural reform takes this step will emerge in coming negotiations.