This Couple REWILDED an Irish Farm

[@wildacres5748]

Such a pleasure to meet you Jack. We really enjoyed the interview and love the video you produced with all the wildlife featuring throughout.

[@IanPhillipsWildlife]

Such a fantastic project!

[@shaikbabjee4437]

You have created a Heaven for your Some of the indegenous species of Flora and Fauna. May God Bless Both of You.

[@wildacres5748]

Thank you for your kind words

[@oh2887]

I rewilded the backgarden ( through sheer laziness 😁) on the up side there are now loads of wild bees hanging around, a fox den, sparrow family, robins, and a little wren, some field mice, I just cleared a space in the middle to sit. The garden is much more interesting now.

[@TheRewildlife]

Love it!

[@NCWTWENTY3]

Inspirational & incredible work. Well done to all involved.

[@patrickboyle7067]

That was Great thanks. We need a lot more of this in Ireland. I have a half acre in Roscommon and have helped nature to transform it over the past fifteen years. It is incredible what can be achieved if you just give nature a chance. I have built two ponds and it's phenomonal how much biodiversity they have attracted. Earlier this summer I saw a Hummingbird Hawk Moth.As you say here, lawns need to be a thing of the past.

[@wildacres5748]

That’s fantastic what you’ve done. Love to hear you’ve created 2 ponds 🐸

[@kieronmcdonnell3258]

A lovely video, what a beautiful place to live. We definitely need more rewilding like this.

[@abioh]

Really enjoyed this! So informative. I have lots of takeaways! What an incredible couple, their work is so inspiring. ❤

[@TheRewildlife]

Yes they’re very inspirational!

[@Antarctica2025]

Fantastic! Such good news!

[@antoinkiely7972]

Great thought about ecology education ... time in nature is good for people physically and mentally..

[@davebloggs]

Great to see you guys doing this, there is so much life out there thats for sure. I think the most important thing is water. provide the water the rest will follow along. keep up the good work. sub added.

[@GardensforLife]

Great Project! Well done. We are increasing biodiversity in our gardens to balance the eco system. This lowers maintenance and we never spray anything on the plants, yet the gardens are extremely productive. We do no dig and forest gardening.

[@TheRewildlife]

So great to hear these stories. Well done!

[@brianmckenzie3985]

incredible advice from everyone involved - thank you

[@StephieM-u5n]

I really enjoyed this - beautifully shot! Feeling super inspired - thank you!

[@TheRewildlife]

Thanks so much! Glad you got a lot from it

[@IrishKingzz]

That's my kind of living. When I win the lottery, I'll buy a lot of land and plant only native trees.

[@SynomDroni]

You don't need to win the lottery

[@dairekelly4765]

Not only trees!!! But yes I'm with you 😃

[@TomNov77]

Fantastic and very inspiring. On my to-visit places. As landscaper who does wildlife gardens I see the growing interest so although biodiversity is in crisis there are positive signs 💚🌳🦋🐛🐝🪲

[@noranneduffy]

My 1.5 acre is wild for the past 30 yrs with mature trees have geese as a natural fertilizer.

[@intraligi]

Great interview! Keep up the great work.

[@gerrykennedy9085]

Lovely video. But easy enough to sustain ponds in wet land. How do you achieve this on dry land with stopping them drying out.

[@TheRewildlife]

Thank you! It’s all down to the right substrate at the bottom of your pond, and the right plant life in there. I hope to get pond videos created soon, but I get much of my information from this great channel kzbin.info/www/bejne/onzVm4Csa7mAorcsi=SYKqVIW-1DwyuBkd

[@gerrykennedy9085]

I do actually understand a lot of this but I feel it leads people astray not knowing the full story. I grow food and I also rewild but I try to do it in a responsible way. If everyone did what this couple are doing we’d be back to 3000bc and there would be no economy. With most of our population living in cities we need economic food production and wetting good land is not how to do it. There is plenty of poor land where this can be done and I do feel that rewilding if it is ever to catch on will have to be done in a responsible manner. Starting with hedgerows, allowing grass to grow along the sides of roads where it’s safe to do so, edges of woodlands and managed tree planting. Everything works better in our scenario if trees are planted in groups to provide canopy, shelter, nutrition for the ground and the flora and fauna that than exist there. Blanket woodland, especially monoculture is not good and if we are to survive as a nation we have to feed and employ our people. I have studied lots of these channels and the one thing everyone on them has in common is they make their living for the most part teaching courses, doing workshops and KZbin advertising. That as a lifestyle for the vast majority is unsustainable.

[@SusanSharma-WildbytesTV]

Thank you Jack Morley for bringing this video to us. The ripple effect of the videos can be equally motivating!

[@ty8540]

Dude this channel is awesome!

[@TheRewildlife]

Thank you so much! Il try keep it up 😊

[@mywildwelshgarden-es3fr]

Hello from South Wales. I`m pleased to have found your channel. Wales is nature depleted too - far too many sheep and a very strong farming lobby. I am wilding my garden, learning as I go, encouraging others to do the same, so hoping to earn a lot from your channel.

[@TheRewildlife]

Thank you so much and it’s great to hear your doing a similar project. I’ve only been to Wales once but found it beautiful!

[@BlueTowel00]

"Irish mega-fauna" talking about a fox 😂😂😂

[@jayuppercase3398]

Lol randomy planting slips of trees in wicklow 😂😂😂😂🦌🦌🦌

[@Pam501]

Inspirational!

[@patward6567]

Brian and Gilly well done ☘️🙏

[@wildacres5748]

thank you so much for your kind comment

[@kellymaguire7912]

great stuff

[@suzetteperkins1089]

Beautiful, I am doing this on my 5 acres in Australia, surrounded by 5 and 10 acre blocks, most grow grass and introduce plants, almost no insects except ticks when I came , now 7 years later, lots and lots of insects. There are big avocado farms around here, the farmers now get road kill and put them in the orchard so the flys pollute the fruit because there are so few insects.

[@TheRewildlife]

Wow well done that sounds amazing!

[@mpat100]

blessings for you and your farm.

[@jameskelman9856]

Nicely done , Thanks Muchacho Subscribed

[@TheRewildlife]

Thanks so much!

[@Grown-in-Tyrone]

Perhaps you could put the word out to ask people to stop spraying glyphosate/roundup weedkiller everywhere please? Its all over the countryside now as well as all the urban areas. Donegal is shocking. Tyrone where I live the same. Its in the water and food, everythings food. Please pass it on thanks. Nice film btw😊

[@davebloggs]

spot on. let the clover grow in the grass it takes no mowing and the bees love it, it also looks nice, we have to get away from this need for a perfect green lawn that is so out of date now thats for sure.

[@jameskelman9856]

Mowed grass and manicured lawns are the worse things possible . Unfortunately , where I live in Near North Ontario Canada , I have rattlesnakes , and have grandchildren and dogs . I have to cut certain areas of my 2.68 acres but I leave islands and unkempt areas around the stram and trees . I have several species of snake's and frogs , many many birds , and 5 lined skinks many many other animals .

[@TheRewildlife]

Sounds like you’re doing amazing work! Very jealous of the amazing wildlife you have in your backyard!

[@anthonyparker6826]

great content!

[@TheRewildlife]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it 😊

[@ConnemaraShooter]

I have a spot similar to what you have done by my river, one of the cleanest in the country. I'm a farmer in Connemara,in the acres scheme. I had two parcels of land in the scheme, one was bog land, where nothing ever grew much. The other is like yours. Acres scored the bog land 90% and what I'd call an ecological fauna and wildlife oasis only 60%. Most farmers are really trying to help the environment, but find the bureaucracy and science has become a complete mess when implemented.

[@TheRewildlife]

Wow well done! The bureaucracy issue is certainly a common one in Ireland. Hopefully it will improve over time. Thankfully nature can do a lot of the work itself too.

[@jbmurphy4]

Did they let willow grow naturally since it grows well on wet land? I've noticed quite a few wild seeded willow growing in my garden hedge.

[@TheRewildlife]

Yes I’m sure they do. There are several native Irish willows, so if you’re confident they are a native variety and you’re happy to let them grow where they are, then it would be great to let them do so!

[@wildacres5748]

Yes ! we've let lots of willow grow naturallly and its doing really well.

[@michaeljames5936]

Firstly- thanks for your efforts. I have 13 acres, in three plots. Five of pretty barren, destroyed hill/heather type land, 1.5 cares of regular agricultural land, that without regular 'farming' will become nothing but rushes, and a strip about 25 metres by 300, going from normal farmland, into a marshy area. I would love a little cabin type dwelling on my 1.5 acres bit, with fruit and vegetables, but a food-forest type set-up would suffice. I have this land, with the specific idea of re-wilding. It's in County Derry, and I would really love any help (with ideas, or Heaven-forbid, work) available. Someone local who knows anything would be greatly appreciated, if they could get in touch. I am lucky in that all three areas have a stream running as their borders, so water is available, and I am certainly hoping to build ponds. Help? NB If there are any companies who help with such work, I am capable of paying out a little. I won't have the money to pay a landscaping company to come do it all. (I'm not rich.)

[@Legoless]

the audio is only in one ear

[@TheRewildlife]

Thanks for the feedback! Il look into it

[@michaeljames5936]

You say that in your ponds and boggy fields, there's a role for everything. All God's creatures, got a place in the mire?'

[@kiri101]

tl;dr they had a load of money

[@blueraven1156]

I don't get it. Farmers have worked so hard to make poor land productive in Ireland. The year round work involves maintaining drainage, topping of rushes, control of invasive species and rotational grazing. If you just do nothing the land rewilds itself very rapidly in just a few years, its amazing how quickly nature takes over. Taking land out of production like that doesn't strike me as something that should be encouraged especially as we enter a time where food scarcity and break down of food supply chains is a realistic scenario. I know the government is paying farmers lots of money to do the rewilding but there's something a bit antihuman about the movement.

[@rishabhwatts1676]

Many methods used in industrial farming are causing land quality to deteriorate rapidly and rewilding is actually beneficial to farming in that it mitigates these effects. We need to have land that can support agriculture going forward. Rewilding couldn't be more pro human in my view!

[@wildacres5748]

You raised a good question which I hope I can help answer. Wetland that is difficult to farm is best left for wildlife. And land that is naturally good for growing food can be put to great use producing nutrition for humans as well as embracing biodiversity, with for example, perimeter wild native hedgerows and less intensive farming methods. Trees help to shelter livestock from wind and rain and the heat as well as capturing carbon, flood and water pollution mitigation, and provide a larder of fruit, nuts, berries, leaves and prey for all sorts of wildlife including invertebrates - one third of the food we eat in Ireland is pollinated by insects - insects are in serious decline due to habitat loss, pesticide use, pathogens, climate change , so we need to reverse insect decline in order to help protect food supply. The Farmer Ambassadors from the 'Farming for Nature' initiative showcase lots of wonderful examples of how farmers are producing food as well as restoring and protecting biodiversity - their social media pages and website are worth a look. In relation to food abundance/scarcity , one third of food produced globally is wasted so this wastage needs to be tackled - 'Food Cloud' are doing great work in this regard. Producing food in tune with nature is essential for food security.

[@blueraven1156]

@@rishabhwatts1676 I'm not sure if industrial farming is what occurs on small 17 acres of poor land in Wicklow. These farms are not arable land suited to crops. Its more rough grazing only suited to sheep or cattle. Such farming is not comparable to monoculture grains and the like and is totally different in terms of environmental impacts. Such small farms are usually very low input and often organic, replacing them with wilderness doesn't seem to support agriculture.

[@TheRewildlife]

Interesting viewpoint but the main thing for me is that this isn’t about it having been a farm, it could have been an abandoned carpark or it could have a been a public park that has been turned into a nature reserve. And the amenities of a city park could be there for people too. The point is to consider biodiversity more going forward in our green spaces instead of beating nature into a controlled appearance. Certainly not to replace our vital farmland and very much pro-human as we all want our children to live in a world with birds and insects in it. Some active farms do both though. I know this one in the UK has thoughts on this: jordansfarm.co.uk/rewilding-or-farm/

[@suzetteperkins1089]

If you have no insects you have no food, no one is suggesting , rewilding everywhere . Doing this actually helps all the farms growing food in the area

[@spazzymacgee5648]

I am starting to rewild my co tyrone sheep farm.

[@jayuppercase3398]

Sheep and trees and co-exist no problem and with no negative impact on grass growth, but you need to grow the trees in a separate nursery section and then only plant them out in their final location on the farm once they are tall enough, 100mm drainage pipe makes a good cheap tree guard, and you need a good 5 foot split post. Oaks/crab apple/plums/holly/white thorn on the good land and alder on the wet spots

[@anthonydavies6021]

A fantastic example of how people like Gilly and Brian with their vision of increasing biodiversity can both achieve amazing improvements in a relatively short timescale, and inspire others to follow their example, through their workshops and website. Good luck with persuading the anally retentive gardeners everywhere not to mow their lawns - in the USA after all it is a crime in some areas not to do just that! In UK we face the same sort of challenges plus the horrendous legacy of private land ownership and the poisonous influence of the game "industry".