How to rewild a golf course | Field Studies

[@mattcrawford713]

I see a huge opportunity in the USA with golf course rewinding, thank you for sharing

[@RussTillling]

Nature will sort things out. It just takes longer if the site has been intensively managed’. Well done! 🤩🥳

[@Matty002]

unfortunately, only in specific conditions will things just 'work out'. nature favors whatever grows fastest, thats why we have invasive plants eg: theres a group of hills east of los angeles im very familiar with that decades ago were full of a variety of species but are now at least 90% invasive mustard, so not only did we lose biodiversity, but the mustard turns into highly flamable material during fire season, and the hills have burned multiple times in my lifetime. only human intervention can fix this. also the plants are still spreading. nature NEEDS help. leaving 'nature' to work itself out isnt a real option in most places involved with human activity

[@suedoxat8297]

Great to see this change of use and giving back to nature. People always enjoy sport. It would be most helpful to change back from plastic sports grass for football and play areas to natural grass.

[@susanne5803]

Golf courses are such an ecological disaster. I wish we could rewild many more. Thank you for doing it so carefully!

[@joshuaday-mitton6019]

Ah yes because a new housing estate or storage facility is much better than a golf course. Your obviously clueless to what golf courses bring to urban areas

[@averyhostiletrout9077]

@@joshuaday-mitton6019they bring nothing but more damage to the ecosystem

[@urmother212]

@@joshuaday-mitton6019so what do they bring to the average person - that probably can’t even afford a membership or equipment?

[@skybluskyblueify]

I bet the soil on the grass part is highly compacted. I'm sure there are native plants that can help with that. What to do about the excess fertilizer and antifungals, insecticides, rodenticides,and "weed killers" in the ground I have no clue. Golf seems like a sport that is losing popularity with newer generations so it seems like there is a good portion of land open to the imagination for them. I hope they choose rewilding and parks.

[@joshuaday-mitton6019]

​@@skybluskyblueifygolf is probably the most popular it has ever been. You keep telling yourself councils will choose an open space for people to enjoy rather than take the highest bidder. Golf courses offer spaces for wildlife to thrive. I haven't seen deers or half the bird species in my local parks due to litter and people using it as a local tip. I really don't understand the hate towards an open green space that anyone can use that is well kept litter free and quiet

[@Mustafahaj1608]

After a hurricane destroyed the 2 golf course near my house in New orleans it turned wild after 5 or so years was beautiful before one was brought back and the other was turned into a giant manicured park. Was sad as they exterminated the coyote boars and nutrea and all the trees. Would've been beautiful 20 years on.

[@rron5641]

If only we could do this with every ball golf course.

[@RussTillling]

Awesome, thank you!

[@stevensibbet5869]

I am Curious, what happened that they wasn't able to keep it going as a golf course?

[@TheRewildlife]

Wow I’d love to see these green deserts rewilded more. There’s one for sale near me actually! Anyone got a cool €20m spare?

[@Debbie-henri]

Best thing to do to a golf course. I worked on one for a short while and soon concluded that it's a complete waste of space just for a silly game played by the silliest of people.

[@jimhockley9730]

i like your ideas and have read the comments, many of which i agree with. but i've been working on this project for decades now and have other ideas and solutions: first of all, some people will still want to play golf so a newer better design would be appropriate and they could still have their game. the tee area on a course is wide open. surrounded by mostly grass and a few decorative trees. why not grow food in the outskirts of those areas. plant maybe citrus, or date palms, walnuts, apples, peaches, almonds, grapes, and maybe a hundred other food producing trees or vines. if we did that we could almost feed the whole city. and still play golf. and under those trees we could plant things like carrots, strawberries, lettuce, and tomatoes, depending on the climate. stuff like that . the putting greens could still be similar or the same. it's the areas where they hit the long drives. the sides of those areas get all that free water. and it's just grass and decorative trees. and it could give life to all kinds of diversity. the same thing pertains to streets and roadways lined with decorative trees that produce nothing in the way of edibles or usables. imaging free grapefruits, lemons, and oranges dropping along the freeways instead of exotic eucalyptus or poisonous oleander. as we phase those out we could phase in things like plumb trees, native oaks which produce acorns, fig trees, date palms, avocados. could even grow potatoes, peanuts, and tubers under those trees. better than wasting all that water and fertilizer on grass.thanks for posting this video. it brings out some questions we need to consider and could open many doors. let our fine gardeners learn to grow food instead of throwing stinky dead fish meal on polluting lawns. we could also use the internet to connect people so they can trade jobs, work near home, and end the everyday worldwide pollute commute getting about a billion cars off the roads. yeah i'm a dreamer, right?

[@jimhockley9730]

if beetles and ants come back they will attract things like toads and lizards. yay

[@derrickhale3125]

@@jimhockley9730 Allestree Park has a large population of Toads.

[@maxwaldburg4286]

This is great to see. I hope it takes off elsewhere. I was just a little disappointed that this doc didn’t mention anything bout carbon sequestration… unless I missed it… also I wonder if a portion of this land was considered for allotments, isn’t there a huge demand for this? Golf courses are such a waste of space.

[@paulmcnamara6325]

Stop chat!! Plant trees??

[@someblokecalleddave1]

Hmmm golf courses with their tree-lined borders, grass areas for thrushes to feed along with others, rough areas of grass for small mammals and insects - kestrel food, wood edges for sparrow-hawks to pounce from on prey on the open grass, lakes and ponds. Yeah I know they're not perfect and re-wilding them always a better option, but compared to farming monocultures - a massive improvement I'd have thought. Seeing a few arable farmers in my area diversifying from purely wheat or rape seed and creating golf courses has been a boon for wildlife, so not so sure the comments below are justified. (PS not a golfer at all). By all means re-wild everyone of em!

[@mbarker1958]

A good article but would prefer less talk and more visual evidence. Golf courses are a curse on our environment.

[@MrDesmondPot]

More more MORE of this. Golf courses are an absolute disaster and waste of space. And, in the UK, the source of endless drunk drivers too. Rewind all of them please.

[@shaneemmerson4658]

To call this a re wilding project is a joke. What this is, is a let’s do nothing and see what happens project. I can guess what the outcome will be, not a lot. A heavily man managed landscape requires man management to repair the damage.

[@SJLamb-te3dt]

It is a worthwhile experiment from the point of finding out how a semi abandoned piece of land can go from something that was once intensely managed and transition into something that can increase biodiversity. What they learn from this project will help future projects decide what must be done, what should be done, and what need not be done. If we can take something as intensely managed as a golf course and return it to something like a parkland with as little input as possible it makes it more likely for more of these projects to occur. Figuring out the most economical way to do this, figuring out what changes are NEEDED vs what will take care of its self in a decade is worth knowing.

[@eldaytripper2]

Rewilding means different things to different people. Many consider rewilding to be allowing nature to recover in its own unpredictable way. I suggest reading Wilding by Isabella Tree.

[@SJLamb-te3dt]

@@eldaytripper2 Thank you for the reccommendation, I appreciate it.

[@Debbie-henri]

​@@williamfarmer4701Rewilding in places like golf courses should be man-managed, so excuse me if I disagree with you. I have worked on a golf course, more than one in fact. The grasses can be restricted in species. Trees, shrubs, bulbs and other plants (including ponds and pond plants/fish) are not necessarily native or they are natives planted in such numbers they create monoculture pockets, dominating an area even when left to go wild. Interaction is preferred because you can bring local natives into the area to get a good foothold and not struggle against dominant grasses/trees. I really don't think that just leaving it to itself is a good idea. Every piece of landscape in Britain has been manipulated by humans, influenced by activity, pollution, earthworks, chemical sprays. Repair is necessary, and that will probably mean cutting down a lot of trees within a grove of - say, for example, Sorbus aria Lutea - and replacing them with a better mixture to suit a wider range of animals/birds/insects. Leaving it to sort itself out is just cheap and lazy.

[@derrickhale3125]

@@SJLamb-te3dt The notice board reads "Historic Parkland". Regarding "the most economical way" a huge amoiunt of money is being spent on this project but to do nothing?

[@derrickhale3125]

I have known Allestree Park for all of my life and in my teenage years would go there because it was wild - there was space, woodlands and nature to learn about. The lakes have always been of interest for bird, amphibian and fish life. What I see in this video is to my way of thinking a special form of madness. I find it disturbing that the historical features of the Park are being ignored, for example ridge and furrow cultivation, the Hall and what that brought and the development of that site over centuries in general. There is the imposition of fashionable, theoretical principles on to this site, whether they are appropriate or not. The ideas stated in te video regarding hydrology show a total ignorance of the site and are alarming - a total ignorance and no wish to investigate properly. Finding and blocking existing land drains could well have distastrous consequences. Is this being driven by theory of what wet areas bring without looking at what is already there? Could there be a future Health and Safety and/or restricted access aspect appearing here. I see a valuable amenity - the Golf Course - being lost but more than that I see the overall amenity of a large open area of parkland being lost. I fear that politics are involved here and a huge amount of money is being spent, apparantly on doing nothing. Personally, I do not believe that surveys or whatever would have supported the changes and I would like to see some real transparancy regarding what had driven the decision to "rewild" the Park.

[@wooof.]

Regarding the blocking of drain pipes, I recommend you watch some of the videos from "mossyearth" and following the beavers by making artificial dams to see the benefit of flooding an area. Flooding is a natural process - think how large logs and fallen trees would suspend waterways.