An acre of land between the shore and the hills

The start of my journey as a philanthropist in nature restoration

A year after I got interested in nature restoration, I realised I wanted to do more than just read about it.

My journey into rewilding had been kicked off by reading about what it was and where it was taking off, here and around the world. Books like Isabella’s and Cal’s had been incredibly inspiring but I had come to the realisation that I wanted to get involved in a deeper way.

I enjoyed watching nature takes its own course on my day trips into the wilderness I could find near London but the enjoyment was purely a passive one. What could I, Mark Gordon, do to move the dial further on nature restoration?

Now in my 60s, I knew time was not on my side. If I were to get involved I probably wouldn’t be around to see major changes. But if I could kick something off now perhaps there would be something for my children or grandchildren after I was no longer here.

The call for me to get a move on felt like it was coming from all sides, not just internally.

I felt like Ben Goldsmith, the financier and conservationist was addressing me personally in one of his recent podcasts:

“If you have savings, why not invest them in something great? You could choose a big cruise or a fast car or the usual kind of things you might do in retirement. Alternatively think about buying a few acres, perhaps more if you can afford it, somewhere not far from where you live and create magic. I urge you to give some thought to doing rewilding yourself, whatever scale you can. Deadwood, scrub and a bit of water are all you need to create some magic. You will sit in it. Who needs meditation or church when you can sit in a little patch of your own wild nature?”.

Stirring stuff but the phrase “somewhere not far from where you live” was a problem. Being based in inner London was going to limit my options. I am fortunate enough to be able to set some money for rewilding but I am not a man of the sort of means that can buy even an acre near me or anywhere within a couple of hours of home.

Dabbling in the balcony garden or tending to the orchard below my flat were yielding a good harvest, literally in terms of fresh herbs, and metaphorically in providing a resting place for locals, both wildlife and human.

But could that really be called ‘rewilding’, hand on heart?

I got to thinking to myself, could I get involved in rewilding at scale, outside the crowded corner of England I lived in?

Could I find a landscape that future generations could enjoy that hadn’t been there before, or at least since decades or centuries?

If I was a landowner, like Ben himself, it would be so much easier. When a paper like the Financial Times runs front page on rewilding then you know things are on the move.

It was clear I couldn’t do this on my own. I had to be part of a collective for the sort of scale I wanted.

I could chip in with a donation to a nature-based charity but I felt strongly that didn’t give me enough skin in the game. Perhaps it was egotistical of me but I wanted my descendants to be able to visit a recovering piece of land and say: “Dad/Grandad helped to make that happen”.

Perhaps I got the idea from my mother who bought herself a bench in Kew Gardens to celebrate herself when she turned 70.

Equally it could have been one of my favourite poets, Edward Thomas:

An acre of land between the shore and the hills,

Upon a ledge that shows my kingdoms three,

The lovely visible earth and sky and sea,

Where what the curlew needs not, the farmer tills…

He completed this poem on the 14th of July 1915, the day he was passed fit for the British army. Two years later he was killed on the Western Front.

I had to get a move on. I didn’t know how I was going to go about it but it was clear that time was of the essence.

To be continued.