Actor Dan Ryan to chair a Horsham talk on nature recovery

The free talk. being held at Horsham’s Drill Hall, will feature leading ecologists including Henri Brocklebank, director of conservation at Sussex Wildlife Trust and author Isabella Tree, co-founder of the world-renowned rewilding project on the Knepp Estate at West Grinstead.

Sussex Wildlife Trust will present its recently published Wilder Horsham District - a five-year partnership in conjunction with Horsham District Council for nature recovery and connectivity for the whole of the Horsham area.

The project aims to reverse the decline in species and habitats working with landowners, land managers and communities across the district.

The plan will also contribute to the Government’s ambition for a UK-wide Nature Recovery Network.

Isabella Tree will be speaking on how she and her husband Sir Charles Burrell have transformed an economically unviable and once intensively farmed arable and dairy farm into a wildlife haven.

Their approach is radically different from conventional nature conservation in that it is driven not by specific goals or target species but by allowing natural processes to evolve on their own – putting nature in the driving seat and seeing what happens.

The project has been cited numerous times in the parliamentary debates around the forthcoming Environment Bill and is recognised as a leading example of nature restoration in the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan.

Knepp is now one of the UK’s most important biodiversity hotspots, home to some of our most endangered species, including purple emperor butterflies, turtle doves and nightingales.

Everyone is welcome to attend the talk at the Drill Hall in Denne Road, Horsham, on Monday (September 27) at 7.30pm. Entrance is free.