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This file was generated by Descript 

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Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.

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Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.

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I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New
York Times bestselling author of

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The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.

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Before I jump in with today's guest, I
want to say a huge thank you to you, our

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audience, for helping to make this happen.

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If you like what we do here,
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To find out about our certification
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please go to rupertisakson.

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com.

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So now let's jump in.

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Welcome back to Live Free, ride Free.

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Today I've got Nick Viney
from the southwest of England.

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Who, what is she?

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Is she a regenerative agriculture person?

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Is she an artist?

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Is she a re wilder and
introducer of endangered species?

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Is she a glamping host?

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Is she a wildlife ranger?

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Is she, well, I, it appears that
she might be all of these things.

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And in terms of living a self-actualized
life down there on Dartmore, I'd say

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she's having a pretty good crack at it.

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So, Nick, thanks for coming on.

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Who, who are you, which of
those things are you and, and,

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and how and why and stuff?

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Nick Viney: Well, thanks for
the introduction, Rupert.

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Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm definitely trying
to be all those things and in my,

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certainly in my bio and, and I've had a
fairly intense last few years helping an

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organization that I work for and, and I'd
lost my, lost my artistic thing a little

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bit, my own thing because I was putting it
all, all that creativity into their place.

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And so I decided I would definitely put my
artist side first and foremost, because.

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If you ask me the question, what do you
want to what do you want to do today?

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You can do absolutely anything.

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I would say I would like to
paint the world a better place.

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So I, I have this show that I'm
working on, which is a large

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scale live painting event.

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Where we show the transition from
where we are now in land use through

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to a regenerative abundance state.

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And so there's lots of there's
lots of questions and answers,

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lots of audience participation.

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And, and you layer up the you
layer up a painting in the same

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way as you have to restore land.

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You can't just immediately
bung in a golden eagle.

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'cause you know, three days
later it's just gonna die.

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You have to do the groundwork,
you have to build it up.

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So, so primarily an artist.

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And, and in terms of.

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What, what I then bring to the nature
recovery space is is imagination.

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And for me it's, it's really one
of the massive missing tools in

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our toolbox in landscape recovery.

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And in, in, in agriculture then
we have been conditioned to, to

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see to see agriculture, to see
the landscape a as it is now.

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So the uk, what is it,
75% minimum agriculture.

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And we have been con conditioned to see
it in that way at, you know, if we're

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lucky, we get a crisscross of hedges.

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This is all a construct and
this has, and we have, you know,

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farmed nature outta this picture.

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And so for me, I like to, I really
like to, when I look at a landscape,

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I like to imagine it, how it wants
to be, how it was before we started

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putting up our boundaries and,
you know, saying, get off my land.

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And, and understand really
how does water move?

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How does it wanna move on that landscape?

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How should it move on that landscape
to to allow for regeneration?

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Where would trees like to be what animals
should be passing through this landscape?

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Yeah, so imagination.

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So I'm,

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Rupert Isaacson: I'm looking at the those,
those people who are listening on, on

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apple as opposed to those of you who are
watching on YouTube will not see that.

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Nick is sitting in her studio
and I'm looking behind your back.

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I see a, a raven or a crow.

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Yeah.

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Talking to somebody
perhaps Odin, I don't know.

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And then on the other side, I see
what looks like a, a rough of a lady

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riding side saddle to the hunt, but the
hounds of foxes perhaps or something.

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Nick Viney: I like that.

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I like that interpretation.

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Rupert Isaacson: That's
what it looks like.

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And I, I certainly like that idea.

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Nick Viney: Yeah.

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Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

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But you come, you're a farmer.

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Yeah.

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And one of the things I like about
your bio is that, 'cause I I also

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come from a park farming background
and there's this absolute division

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that people make in their minds often
about, well, if you're a farmer,

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you couldn't possibly be an artist.

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Which of course isn't true.

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But also a lot of farmers might make that.

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I know a lot of pharmacy would
also, you know, and the sort of

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anti-intellectualism or the anti artism
among the farming community is as bad

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as it is in other parts of society.

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And one of the things which I did
grow up with, because my family

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farmed in Africa, but they also
farmed a little bit in the uk and.

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In the work that we do with
you know, autism in the brain.

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Actually a lot of the people we work
with are farmers many of whom are

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special needs parents themselves and
have learned how to bring their land

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into play in this way for sort of human
wellbeing as well as well for the,

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the, the mental and emotional wellbeing
as well as the nutritional wellbeing.

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'cause farmers, of course, are
involved in human wellbeing.

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It's easy to forget that 'cause they
feed us at the same time they're

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grumpy, bunch of grumpy grumps.

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And I know this because I grew up among
them and they're their own worst enemies.

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So that this idea that, well you've got
to respect the farmers and, but often

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they're just so horrible to deal with.

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That unfortunately it creates this
alienation between town and co.

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Or it promotes the alienation within
TA between town and country, which

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I always sort of think, yeah, but
dudes, there's more people in the

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cities than there are of you or us.

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So how about a charm offensive?

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Because they resent the fact that you
own this land, even if, even though

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you're producing food for them, and no
amount of telling them they shouldn't,

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doesn't, and certainly being grumpy to
them is not gonna help that you sit.

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It seems it's all really interesting
to me squarely in the liminal space

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between those two populations.

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And so you to some degree have an
ambassadorial role there for the land.

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And it, it seems to me that maybe
you're pissing off both sides that,

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you know, you're, you're, you're
going into the traditional farmers

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and saying, well, maybe we should
do regenerative agriculture and some

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rewilding and that sort of thing.

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And then perhaps the urban
environmentalists are saying,

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ah, but it's not enough.

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You know, this has got to be completely
rewild and therefore are you, are

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you in that position where you are
annoying everybody and you therefore

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kind of can't get, can't get it right.

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Nick Viney: Quite possibly.

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You might, you might have just
described the last 20 years of my life.

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But

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' Rupert Isaacson: cause the people who
do that are the people I trust the most.

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Nick Viney: But I, I,
I believe other people

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Rupert Isaacson: trying
to do the right thing.

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Right.

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Nick Viney: I fully intend to stay
in that position because I, so, so

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we had a small farm here growing up,
and I'm lucky, lucky to, to be here,

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back here where, where I grew up.

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And our family business was
the vets, the local vets.

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So we were You were vets.

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We were vets.

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Okay.

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So, so we were, so my, my stepfather.

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Was a vet.

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And eventually as a little, I had a little
detour into business studies, couldn't

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hack that and became a veterinary nurse.

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And, and we were a small mixed
practice, so think James Harriet.

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Yeah.

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And so we did everything from, you know,
pets to you know, an hour later doing a

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cesarean on a cow to going and shooting a
pony that's been hit on the mos, or, you

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know, so this incredibly varied existence
and a very trusted part of the community.

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And so I was able to to be in that, in,
in that space, in the, in the farming

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space, grew up going to young farmers.

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All yeah, so, so a very a very
enjoyable and, and, you know,

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hugely rewarding time of my life.

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And then.

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But, but, but I was, you know, it's
interesting you, as you talk about

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that, that painting I can remember a
day that on the Thursday I was called

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or we were called to a fox in a snare.

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Okay.

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So I drove across the mall.

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I was, I was 17 years old.

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I've not, not long past my driving
test, I drove across the mall.

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I found where the, where
the fox was in a snare.

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Okay.

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So I climb up the hedge and I
can, and I see the fox in a snare.

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You know, I have to approach this
fox, you know, it's, it's struggling.

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It's it, and I had to make a decision
to, to get it to asphyxiate itself,

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to the point where I can get close
enough to get the new soft around

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its neck and, and see what happens.

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I didn't have any choices there.

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So, so I do that and it, and I
take the, I take the snare from

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around its neck and, you know,
eventually it gets up and it's gone.

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On the Saturday I go hunting on my
horse and we go out and kill foxes.

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So,

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Rupert Isaacson: which hunt, by
the way, which dartmore hunt,

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Nick Viney: am I allowed to say that?

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Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

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Nick Viney: Yeah.

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Spoons.

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Spoons and westmores.

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I've hunted with the spoons.

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Have you?

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Ah yeah.

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So they're, you know,
right on my doorstep here.

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Mm-hmm.

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And never thought a thing about it.

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Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,

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Nick Viney: never
thought a think about it.

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It really, and we never did.

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We, we never, we never
questioned those things.

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We did, we did all the
work for the hunt for free.

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Yet we would be patching up wildlife
and, and, and animals all week.

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So, so completely unbeknown to me
there are these, these odd cognitive

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dissonance then maybe setting,
setting themselves up in, in myself.

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And it really wasn't until
I had, I had my own kids.

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I actually had three
kids under a year old.

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And that was pretty incapacitating in
terms of what, what else you can do

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with your life at that time and, and
our land here, we destocked everything

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and our land here was able to have a
rest for the first time in my lifetime.

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And for the first probably, you
know, it'd been conventionally

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found for however long.

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And we saw orchids for the first time
and then I started to think about how.

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You know, how what I was doing was
impacting and how is that possible that

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spending my entire life on this place,
how, how I never seen that plant before.

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And I just, you know, and
then I got into permaculture

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design and holistic management.

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So really looking at energy systems
and the flow of energy through,

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you know, through your land and
holistic management obviously.

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And, and that really, that
got me into planned grazing.

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So, and planned grazing was
the key for me to understand.

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I didn't have to be, I didn't
have to have no animals.

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And.

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Rewilding wasn't a thing then.

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I could actually understand how
these animals worked in nature and

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then play those animals to their
strengths and then actually restore

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the land using those animals.

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And so that's what I've
been doing ever since.

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And they're absolutely fanatic grazer.

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I, I mean, I, I just love, how

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Rupert Isaacson: do you digest the grass?

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Sorry, I'm just kidding.

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Nick Viney: Exactly.

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And I just, yeah, I just, there
is an absolute joy, not just

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for me, but for those animals.

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When you move animals daily you know,
when you see those pictures of those

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films of those dairy cows when they've
been let out for, you know, for the

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first time since last autumn, and,
you know, they're bucking and kicking

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and everyone's really happy, that's
every single day for these animals

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because it's completely clean grass.

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No one has shot over it.

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It's all, you know,
it's, it's just pristine.

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And it's pristine every single day.

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Rupert Isaacson: Well, if, if they're
living on it every single day,

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how are they not shitting on it?

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Nick Viney: Because you
move them every day.

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They move to fresh pasture every day.

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So, so what you, what you do is
you replicate natural systems.

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So in our case, we don't have,
you know, we've killed everything.

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We don't have wolves left in this country,
which would keep all these herba wars

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bunched up and moving in this slight fear
state, which is, you know, why horses

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are so good at bolting because, you
know, they have that flight instinct.

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We don't have the, the, the carnivals now.

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So, so we have to replicate that, and
we do that with a bit of electricity

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either side, and so we keep 'em bunched.

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So, which, which affects not, it's
not just about it's not just about

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the fear state and there, and there is
no fear state, particularly they, you

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know, they learn within three days.

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I don't go near that fence.

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I don't go near that fence.

00:13:21.765 --> 00:13:26.165
And, and I'm, I've lost my thread here.

00:13:26.215 --> 00:13:26.905
Rupert Isaacson: I talked about shit.

00:13:26.905 --> 00:13:27.145
Sorry.

00:13:27.630 --> 00:13:30.415
It's, it's because Yeah, no, you're,
you're, you're, you're saying you're

00:13:30.415 --> 00:13:33.865
replicating the way that the animals
would move through the land naturally

00:13:34.365 --> 00:13:36.715
as opposed to in an unnatural way.

00:13:36.715 --> 00:13:40.385
And this of course regenerates the
land and this I completely get and

00:13:40.385 --> 00:13:43.985
so, you know, when I flippantly
said, well, how are they not, why

00:13:43.985 --> 00:13:45.185
are they on pristine grass every day?

00:13:45.185 --> 00:13:48.095
That's not being shot on, that wasn't
quite as flippant as it sounded.

00:13:48.125 --> 00:13:48.155
Okay.

00:13:48.155 --> 00:13:50.105
Because I think you, you
need to understand that most

00:13:50.105 --> 00:13:52.805
listeners wouldn't know that.

00:13:53.300 --> 00:13:58.280
From what you described, you were
necessarily moving the stock every

00:13:58.280 --> 00:14:04.130
day to make sure that the land gets
grazed as evenly as it would if the

00:14:04.130 --> 00:14:09.290
livestock were ranging across it
in a natural way with the pressure

00:14:09.290 --> 00:14:12.290
of predators and or just moving.

00:14:13.070 --> 00:14:16.370
Because when you eat down one
area, you move to the next and you

00:14:16.395 --> 00:14:19.130
eat down other, you know, and we
are used to seeing animals either

00:14:19.340 --> 00:14:23.570
static in fields or in sheds.

00:14:23.690 --> 00:14:25.430
And if, if they're in sheds,
actually we don't see them.

00:14:25.430 --> 00:14:26.180
We're unaware of it.

00:14:26.180 --> 00:14:28.550
You drive past those sheds, you
never know that those pigs are there.

00:14:28.730 --> 00:14:30.080
You never know that
those chickens are there.

00:14:30.080 --> 00:14:32.690
You see the, you see the corn fields
on either side, but you wouldn't

00:14:32.690 --> 00:14:35.930
know the factory farm that was
going in because there's a big sign

00:14:35.930 --> 00:14:39.050
saying 10,000 cows in cow fits here.

00:14:39.140 --> 00:14:39.710
That exactly.

00:14:39.860 --> 00:14:42.650
Obviously people don't wanna,
don't wanna advertise that fact.

00:14:42.890 --> 00:14:48.020
So the reason I asked that was because
it's, it's not necessarily known.

00:14:48.050 --> 00:14:53.840
And what's interesting with grazing
is that people assume, I think quite

00:14:53.840 --> 00:14:57.290
rationally that that is how farmers
would graze their fields, right?

00:14:57.290 --> 00:14:59.930
You would graze down a field,
you'd move your animals to another

00:14:59.930 --> 00:15:02.480
one, they'd graze that field,
you'd move them to another one.

00:15:02.990 --> 00:15:04.880
So why isn't that the norm?

00:15:04.880 --> 00:15:04.940
I.

00:15:06.435 --> 00:15:09.675
Nick Viney: I, as far as I'm
concerned, it's, it's shepherding.

00:15:09.690 --> 00:15:12.225
We, we are no longer good shepherds.

00:15:12.345 --> 00:15:12.375
Mm.

00:15:12.595 --> 00:15:16.705
And I, and I mean that in the, in
the biblical sense is it because it's

00:15:16.705 --> 00:15:20.005
Rupert Isaacson: too labor intensive
now, you know that people don't actually

00:15:20.005 --> 00:15:23.815
have the money and they don't have the
extended families living on the land.

00:15:24.145 --> 00:15:27.835
So you've either gotta employ people or
you've gotta have them in your own family.

00:15:27.835 --> 00:15:29.125
People have neither anymore.

00:15:29.425 --> 00:15:32.305
So the animals are more like to sort
of sit where they are because you

00:15:32.305 --> 00:15:33.775
haven't got the time to move them, or

00:15:34.045 --> 00:15:34.525
Nick Viney: possibly.

00:15:34.525 --> 00:15:36.055
But I think, you know, what have we done?

00:15:36.055 --> 00:15:42.235
We've, we, we've, we've, we've removed
shepherds, you know, because all our

00:15:42.595 --> 00:15:44.455
huts now go for glamping, don't they?

00:15:44.455 --> 00:15:45.565
I mean, you know, shepherd,

00:15:45.570 --> 00:15:47.005
Rupert Isaacson: but also who
can afford to pay a shepherd,

00:15:47.395 --> 00:15:48.385
Nick Viney: who can
afford to pay a shepherd.

00:15:48.385 --> 00:15:54.055
But, but if, I mean, can you think
of a better job than being a shepherd

00:15:55.105 --> 00:15:57.385
than, than than herding all day?

00:15:58.075 --> 00:16:01.855
I just, for me, and I guess this is why
I'm, you know, managed 20 years on the

00:16:01.855 --> 00:16:09.905
range, was, was because, well, I, I'm
very I'm very calmed by the sound of

00:16:09.905 --> 00:16:16.175
grazing animals for me, when I, you know,
if I go anywhere, if I, if I leave home

00:16:16.175 --> 00:16:24.425
for a long time, I will seek out, you
know, the sound of animals cutting or, or

00:16:24.935 --> 00:16:26.825
it's, it is a very restful thing for me.

00:16:27.035 --> 00:16:29.045
But, but, but actually I, I think.

00:16:30.830 --> 00:16:31.730
As a shepherd.

00:16:32.420 --> 00:16:34.880
And I feel there's a,

00:16:37.490 --> 00:16:42.680
if you imagine the land as the garden,
I mean land with a capital LI don't, I

00:16:42.680 --> 00:16:48.380
don't like to call it the land because
I feel like land is, is a thing.

00:16:48.410 --> 00:16:49.670
It's an, it's an alive thing.

00:16:49.670 --> 00:16:52.940
It's a bio, it's a, it's
like a bigger version of us.

00:16:53.230 --> 00:16:56.050
You know, that goes all around
the outside of the, the world.

00:16:56.410 --> 00:17:01.569
For us, in order for us to have a place
in that, I, I feel like shepherding

00:17:01.569 --> 00:17:04.429
is a, is a very important role.

00:17:04.429 --> 00:17:05.900
A very important role.

00:17:06.589 --> 00:17:06.920
When you say shepherding, you don't

00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:07.730
Rupert Isaacson: just mean sheep, right?

00:17:07.730 --> 00:17:08.210
You mean

00:17:08.355 --> 00:17:08.574
Nick Viney: No.

00:17:08.574 --> 00:17:08.775
Okay.

00:17:08.775 --> 00:17:08.777
In general.

00:17:09.525 --> 00:17:09.815
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

00:17:09.819 --> 00:17:09.980
I

00:17:09.980 --> 00:17:15.120
Nick Viney: mean, I mean, herding, herding
and that could be, you know, that could be

00:17:15.120 --> 00:17:20.630
pigs, that could be, you know, my perfect
little, my dream scenario is going around

00:17:20.630 --> 00:17:25.300
helping people restore their land with my
little you know, precision grazing ponies.

00:17:25.550 --> 00:17:29.000
A couple of, couple of
mini cows, a co and a pig.

00:17:29.310 --> 00:17:32.220
And the odd chicken coming up
behind, or Turkey just scraping the,

00:17:32.400 --> 00:17:34.500
you know, the shit around because
we don't have any birds left.

00:17:34.860 --> 00:17:39.510
So, but, but coming back to
the, to the human place in it.

00:17:39.510 --> 00:17:45.240
But we, especially in the UK where we
don't have predators, we have to keep the

00:17:45.240 --> 00:17:47.880
stock off the trees or else, guess what?

00:17:47.910 --> 00:17:49.080
We won't have any trees.

00:17:50.060 --> 00:17:51.675
And, and this is where we're at.

00:17:52.245 --> 00:17:55.755
We have coming back to that aesthetic.

00:17:56.145 --> 00:18:00.465
We think that you have trees in
woods, up to this fence here,

00:18:00.525 --> 00:18:01.995
and then you have pasture.

00:18:03.435 --> 00:18:04.665
This is a dead end.

00:18:05.295 --> 00:18:08.685
If this is the way you,
you think land behaves.

00:18:08.685 --> 00:18:11.805
This is a dead end because
how do trees reproduce?

00:18:13.605 --> 00:18:16.245
They have to roll out into the landscape.

00:18:16.245 --> 00:18:21.495
They have to move in this dynamic
way because they, there's a tree here

00:18:21.555 --> 00:18:26.385
and, and, and it drops its babies
here just into the, just into off the

00:18:26.385 --> 00:18:32.025
skirts, off of the canopy where there
should be brambles to receive these

00:18:32.025 --> 00:18:34.305
baby trees to then let them grow up.

00:18:34.545 --> 00:18:37.125
Then this tree dies down
here, falls down, whatever.

00:18:37.125 --> 00:18:40.185
And this tree tree comes up
here without the predators.

00:18:40.395 --> 00:18:44.415
And because we have an aversion to
scrub, scrub is not a dirty word,

00:18:44.805 --> 00:18:49.095
but we cannot tolerate anything
that stings us or prickles us.

00:18:49.965 --> 00:18:52.845
Then there is no way
these trees can get away.

00:18:53.295 --> 00:19:02.805
So, you know, in, in, in a landscape where
most of a land completely shaped by sheep

00:19:03.165 --> 00:19:08.265
and sheep farming, 85% of which we export

00:19:11.145 --> 00:19:14.175
85% of timber, we import.

00:19:16.680 --> 00:19:21.000
We can't grow our own trees, you
know, when the floods come, what

00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:22.560
are we building our life raft with?

00:19:25.500 --> 00:19:28.020
Rupert Isaacson: I'm gonna ask you a
couple of devil's advocate questions

00:19:28.320 --> 00:19:35.910
because I think they bear explanation,
but they need to be posed in a way that

00:19:37.230 --> 00:19:38.700
allows for context, if that makes sense.

00:19:39.660 --> 00:19:46.300
So the part of England that I partly
grew up in Leicestershire, big

00:19:46.300 --> 00:19:51.250
horse area, big hunting area very
much livestock, large livestock,

00:19:51.250 --> 00:19:54.490
so beef, cattle, sheep, big hedges.

00:19:55.360 --> 00:19:56.260
So I love hedges.

00:19:57.550 --> 00:20:03.700
I would argue that England is a forested
landscape that the miles and miles and

00:20:03.700 --> 00:20:05.290
miles of hedge rows, which now die.

00:20:05.290 --> 00:20:09.070
For example, I live in Germany where
you don't see them, but we have big

00:20:09.070 --> 00:20:10.420
blocks of forest here in Germany.

00:20:11.240 --> 00:20:13.100
Different type of land management.

00:20:13.830 --> 00:20:19.170
But those snaking hedge systems
through the uk, assuming they haven't

00:20:19.170 --> 00:20:21.810
been rubbed up, are in fact forests.

00:20:21.810 --> 00:20:29.250
It's just that instead of covering
a blanket canopy or a Savannah,

00:20:30.390 --> 00:20:35.030
which as you might find in say
a park they are yes, contained.

00:20:35.850 --> 00:20:40.660
But there's so many thousands of miles
of them that as you know, along the

00:20:40.660 --> 00:20:45.310
side of each one, you get what's called
woodland edge, where the thorn and

00:20:45.310 --> 00:20:51.280
the larger trees that are in the edge
meet the grassland or the cropland.

00:20:51.460 --> 00:20:56.290
And in there, of course you get
a big insect wildflower, narrow

00:20:56.290 --> 00:20:58.390
corridor, but nonetheless, an
intense corridor which supports a

00:20:58.390 --> 00:21:00.070
lot of wildlife and so on and so on.

00:21:00.190 --> 00:21:06.520
So are we not actually still a forest
landscape in the uk, but just now one

00:21:06.520 --> 00:21:11.410
that has been shaped by humans in a
slightly loving sort of a way that

00:21:11.410 --> 00:21:13.780
still is biodiverse, or am I wrong?

00:21:15.490 --> 00:21:17.290
Nick Viney: Well, you're
wrong about the biodiverse.

00:21:17.590 --> 00:21:20.830
I mean, the UK is, is the most
nature depleted country in

00:21:20.830 --> 00:21:22.810
Europe, not in Europe anymore.

00:21:24.370 --> 00:21:29.860
So, so as much as I absolutely love
our hedgerows, and I completely

00:21:29.860 --> 00:21:36.190
agree that they are they are the
last remaining corridors, but we

00:21:36.190 --> 00:21:38.440
stock fence right up to those walls.

00:21:39.080 --> 00:21:43.070
If we're lucky enough to have hedges, you
know, we, we stock fence right up to them.

00:21:43.130 --> 00:21:47.450
And, and so nothing, I mean that's,
I was on a site yesterday and yeah,

00:21:47.450 --> 00:21:53.110
you could see, you could see beautiful
emergence of meadow suite and dog violets

00:21:53.410 --> 00:21:58.240
yesterday and, you know, and inch this
side of the wire and it's just nothing.

00:21:58.570 --> 00:22:00.280
It's just, just rye grass, you know.

00:22:00.690 --> 00:22:05.850
So yeah, they are, they are fantastic,
but the, the bar is very, very low.

00:22:06.360 --> 00:22:13.380
And so, and of course one of the things,
and one, one area where farmers are

00:22:13.380 --> 00:22:19.030
judged harshly, and this is amongst
their peers, is is through tidiness.

00:22:19.090 --> 00:22:19.180
Mm-hmm.

00:22:19.630 --> 00:22:24.250
And, you know, you are considered to be
a poor farmer and that would be poor in

00:22:24.250 --> 00:22:29.800
both senses of the word, poor as in your
crap, and poor as in you don't have enough

00:22:29.980 --> 00:22:35.530
fuel to be cutting those, you know, to,
to be trimming those hedges, you know,

00:22:35.530 --> 00:22:37.270
within an inch of the top of that bank.

00:22:37.780 --> 00:22:37.960
Yeah.

00:22:37.960 --> 00:22:42.570
Now you, you know, these
hedges are offering.

00:22:42.975 --> 00:22:44.085
A massive amount.

00:22:44.145 --> 00:22:47.995
They are desperately trying
to deliver fruit nuts.

00:22:48.415 --> 00:22:48.475
Yeah.

00:22:48.515 --> 00:22:53.645
Shelter, you know, they year on year, they
push back and they'll grow another meter.

00:22:53.985 --> 00:22:58.575
And, you know, and, and every November
will come along and we'll smack 'em down.

00:22:59.115 --> 00:23:05.265
And, and this for me is just,
you know, it, it really is

00:23:05.325 --> 00:23:10.305
nuts, you know, because northern
hemisphere, massively high rainfall.

00:23:10.755 --> 00:23:13.365
One thing we are really
good at growing is trees.

00:23:14.205 --> 00:23:19.365
So, so when I reimagine a, a farm
or, or a landscape for someone, it's,

00:23:19.395 --> 00:23:25.035
it's always going to incorporate
fruit and nut trees and livestock,

00:23:25.095 --> 00:23:26.995
you know, silver pasture type thing.

00:23:26.995 --> 00:23:31.635
So, so, you know, yes, it's a,
it's, it can be slightly contrived

00:23:31.635 --> 00:23:36.195
looking to see all these, say,
say we wanna put trees on contour.

00:23:36.525 --> 00:23:39.975
But I'm prepared to go with that
aesthetic if it means we get more

00:23:39.975 --> 00:23:45.295
trees into the landscape and we can
still you know, fairly reasonably

00:23:45.295 --> 00:23:46.945
push a mob of cattle through.

00:23:47.485 --> 00:23:51.565
What I'm trying to avoid is, is, is
driving on the landscape as well.

00:23:52.015 --> 00:23:55.075
Rupert Isaacson: Is your, is your farm,
how, how, how many acres is your farm?

00:23:55.285 --> 00:23:56.335
Nick Viney: It's only 40 acres.

00:23:57.295 --> 00:23:57.355
Okay.

00:23:57.355 --> 00:24:00.115
Actually, we should talk about, we
should talk about, 'cause we, you

00:24:00.115 --> 00:24:01.345
know, you asked me, was I a farmer?

00:24:01.345 --> 00:24:02.185
I said yes.

00:24:02.365 --> 00:24:02.635
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.

00:24:02.755 --> 00:24:04.165
Nick Viney: Now in this area.

00:24:04.600 --> 00:24:08.590
You know, without doubt there
would be people here that say, oh

00:24:08.590 --> 00:24:09.880
yeah, but she's not a real farmer.

00:24:10.270 --> 00:24:10.360
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.

00:24:10.450 --> 00:24:13.330
Nick Viney: So I wanna know
what, what's a real farmer?

00:24:13.660 --> 00:24:14.020
Rupert Isaacson: Well,

00:24:15.070 --> 00:24:17.240
Nick Viney: is it
somebody who you know, do

00:24:17.240 --> 00:24:19.525
Rupert Isaacson: you produce food off
your land for sale to other people?

00:24:20.065 --> 00:24:20.575
Nick Viney: Yes.

00:24:20.635 --> 00:24:20.845
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

00:24:21.205 --> 00:24:22.735
I think for me, that would define it.

00:24:22.945 --> 00:24:24.235
Nick Viney: And, and fiber.

00:24:24.265 --> 00:24:26.905
So we try and use all, all the animal.

00:24:26.995 --> 00:24:27.385
Rupert Isaacson: Right.

00:24:27.595 --> 00:24:30.135
And so describe to me now, okay.

00:24:30.135 --> 00:24:35.115
Presumably when you inherited the farm
or when you came into custody of the

00:24:35.115 --> 00:24:42.255
farm, you inherited what I would know
from the English landscape of a patchwork

00:24:42.255 --> 00:24:47.445
of semi rectangular fields intersected
by either hedges or banks or walls.

00:24:47.925 --> 00:24:51.225
And 'cause you're there on dartmoor, for
those listeners who dunno what Dartmoor

00:24:51.225 --> 00:24:56.325
is, Dartmoor is one of the wilder areas
of Southern England where it gives way

00:24:56.325 --> 00:25:02.625
to open moorland, upland, low mountain
ranges that are somewhat wild by English

00:25:02.625 --> 00:25:05.745
standards, including we have herds of
wild ponies up there and things like that.

00:25:06.235 --> 00:25:09.475
And a bit of a sort of hostile
landscape above a certain altitude.

00:25:09.475 --> 00:25:14.485
So it protects its integrity to some
degree, although probably it ought to all

00:25:14.485 --> 00:25:16.555
be covered in forest and isn't, but pay.

00:25:17.095 --> 00:25:20.575
But you would've inherited that
patchwork that we all love to see.

00:25:20.935 --> 00:25:26.185
So how's it look differently now
that you, so you like trees, what?

00:25:26.515 --> 00:25:28.765
Have you done with trees on your place?

00:25:28.765 --> 00:25:31.195
And how can we picture
that and imagine that?

00:25:31.685 --> 00:25:35.405
And how does that look different
to what was there before?

00:25:36.275 --> 00:25:39.755
And why isn't that attacking the
integrity of the English landscape madam?

00:25:40.205 --> 00:25:41.475
You know, talk to us about that.

00:25:42.685 --> 00:25:42.925
Nick Viney: Yeah.

00:25:42.925 --> 00:25:47.155
Well, it would be classed as
bloody untidy if you ask my mother.

00:25:47.785 --> 00:25:51.205
Yeah, she's, you know,
she's, she's, she's good now.

00:25:51.205 --> 00:25:51.775
She gets it.

00:25:51.865 --> 00:25:52.585
She gets it now.

00:25:53.035 --> 00:25:53.455
But

00:25:53.965 --> 00:25:55.825
Rupert Isaacson: have you fenced
off areas for trees to grow?

00:25:55.825 --> 00:25:57.445
Have you actively planted trees?

00:25:57.445 --> 00:25:59.665
Are you letting trees rewild themselves?

00:25:59.665 --> 00:26:01.555
What, what's the, what's the philosophy?

00:26:01.735 --> 00:26:07.385
Nick Viney: So my, yes, we've planted
some trees fruit trees mainly and walnuts.

00:26:07.745 --> 00:26:14.495
But my holy grail in terms of what
I want to be as a land manager

00:26:14.495 --> 00:26:21.215
is someone who allows trees
to, to reproduce on their own.

00:26:21.875 --> 00:26:23.255
'cause no shit.

00:26:23.345 --> 00:26:24.245
They've done that for years.

00:26:24.455 --> 00:26:26.465
And how you gonna do that intensively

00:26:26.465 --> 00:26:28.445
Rupert Isaacson: grazing your
land enough to be commercial

00:26:29.645 --> 00:26:29.795
Nick Viney: years?

00:26:29.795 --> 00:26:36.605
You have to mob graze your cows and you
have to be, you, you have to be creative.

00:26:36.995 --> 00:26:39.185
In how you, in how you do that.

00:26:39.185 --> 00:26:43.475
So, so if, if the only thing you can
stomach is going in straight lines

00:26:43.475 --> 00:26:47.855
with, with your electric fences, then
sure you're gonna run into problems.

00:26:47.855 --> 00:26:53.375
I mean, you can come, you know, why not
for a start just bring them two meters off

00:26:53.375 --> 00:26:58.205
that hedge and give those, you know, give
that hedge the opportunity to reproduce.

00:26:58.205 --> 00:26:58.295
Well,

00:26:58.295 --> 00:27:00.245
Rupert Isaacson: because again, delve
as a advocate, someone would say,

00:27:00.245 --> 00:27:04.205
well, if I do that, then I'm losing
X amount of hectares and therefore

00:27:04.265 --> 00:27:05.915
that's losing X amount of money.

00:27:05.975 --> 00:27:07.625
So what's your answer to that?

00:27:07.625 --> 00:27:09.455
If somebody says, well, I can't afford to,

00:27:09.725 --> 00:27:13.265
Nick Viney: because most people
are grazing extensively, and, and

00:27:13.265 --> 00:27:17.375
your carrying capacity will go up
at least three times when you start

00:27:17.945 --> 00:27:19.355
putting your animals in a mob.

00:27:19.685 --> 00:27:22.445
And that back, why, why back fencing?

00:27:22.445 --> 00:27:22.535
Why

00:27:22.670 --> 00:27:23.070
Rupert Isaacson: is that more?

00:27:23.650 --> 00:27:28.025
Nick Viney: Is that because the,
everything about the way the animal

00:27:28.295 --> 00:27:33.515
behaves is com is then complimentary
to the landscape from what goes in the

00:27:33.515 --> 00:27:37.625
front end to what comes in the back
end to how their feet move on the soil

00:27:37.985 --> 00:27:42.275
to how then when you move them on, you
don't come back there for a long time.

00:27:42.485 --> 00:27:45.035
So rest is a massive part of this.

00:27:45.275 --> 00:27:53.055
So you have to, you have to understand
and appreciate, appreciate rest.

00:27:53.055 --> 00:27:54.735
It's just like, it's just like us.

00:27:55.125 --> 00:27:59.325
You know, you can, you can train and
train and train and train, but part

00:27:59.325 --> 00:28:03.675
of that training you have to have a
recovery time and or else you don't

00:28:03.675 --> 00:28:05.655
mill, build muscle in the right way.

00:28:05.815 --> 00:28:08.695
Or you, or you or you succumb to injury.

00:28:09.025 --> 00:28:14.245
The, exactly the same thing is happening
in land and at landscape scale.

00:28:14.425 --> 00:28:15.625
It is wearing out,

00:28:17.515 --> 00:28:17.905
Rupert Isaacson: indeed.

00:28:18.775 --> 00:28:20.695
You've got 40 acres,
you've got cows on it.

00:28:21.535 --> 00:28:25.345
If you want to rest those bits of
land so that they regenerate in that

00:28:25.345 --> 00:28:27.685
way, how long must you rest them for?

00:28:27.955 --> 00:28:30.565
And how many cows can you
have on that 40 acres?

00:28:33.055 --> 00:28:35.425
Nick Viney: So like a lot
of these things, it depends.

00:28:36.025 --> 00:28:39.775
So I want to, I'm mainly floodplain
here, so I don't want to be in a

00:28:39.775 --> 00:28:46.340
position A where I've got too much
stock over winter and b I don't

00:28:46.340 --> 00:28:47.545
wanna be putting stuff in sheds.

00:28:48.025 --> 00:28:51.145
'cause if I've got anything in
a shed, I've got a massive pile

00:28:51.145 --> 00:28:54.205
of shit at the end of the winter
and what am I gonna do with that?

00:28:54.415 --> 00:28:55.825
I've got a mile stretch of river.

00:28:56.155 --> 00:28:59.695
Anything that goes onto this land is
going to be straight into the river.

00:29:00.145 --> 00:29:07.015
So, you know, so when I say it depends,
what I mean is it is really complex stuff.

00:29:07.015 --> 00:29:08.995
So anyone who thinks that
managing that, but what

00:29:08.995 --> 00:29:09.175
Rupert Isaacson: do you do?

00:29:09.925 --> 00:29:10.405
Nick Viney: Simple.

00:29:10.585 --> 00:29:10.945
Okay.

00:29:10.945 --> 00:29:13.255
So we, we tend not to over winter.

00:29:13.825 --> 00:29:18.595
So I will run stock on, I will, I
will fatten stuff because we can

00:29:18.595 --> 00:29:23.065
grow a phenomenal amount of grass
in the summer and then kill it off.

00:29:23.575 --> 00:29:23.785
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

00:29:23.995 --> 00:29:26.485
And how much, how many stock will
you have there in the summer?

00:29:29.635 --> 00:29:30.145
Nick Viney: It depends.

00:29:30.175 --> 00:29:34.525
Maybe only four bullocks
and, and 20 sheep.

00:29:35.095 --> 00:29:35.305
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

00:29:35.305 --> 00:29:35.365
Or,

00:29:35.665 --> 00:29:45.085
Nick Viney: or we, or we go a whole year
because if, if, if I, if I can, I would

00:29:45.085 --> 00:29:47.815
like to give this ground a year off.

00:29:48.175 --> 00:29:57.475
It's only my, my sort of, you
know, addiction to keeping animals.

00:29:57.865 --> 00:29:59.935
Rupert Isaacson: Well, that was
gonna be my question, given that, so

00:29:59.935 --> 00:30:03.235
you, you couldn't possibly with that
number of sheep and that number of

00:30:03.235 --> 00:30:07.675
bullocks make a quote unquote living
in the modern sense of the word.

00:30:08.125 --> 00:30:11.485
So, you are, you're obviously,
we haven't gone in yet to.

00:30:12.295 --> 00:30:13.555
The other ways you're making a living.

00:30:13.555 --> 00:30:15.355
We haven't gone into how you
make a living as an artist.

00:30:15.355 --> 00:30:19.495
We haven't gone into how you make a living
as a regenerative, you know, land person.

00:30:19.495 --> 00:30:22.375
And rewilding, which I'm gonna go into
and I'm gonna ask you about in a minute.

00:30:22.525 --> 00:30:25.555
Rewilding is obviously a hot topic
right now, and it should be, A lot

00:30:25.555 --> 00:30:28.555
of people want to know about it, but
it's a misunderstood topic, I feel.

00:30:28.795 --> 00:30:29.875
But you, you are diverse.

00:30:29.875 --> 00:30:30.985
You're also farming people.

00:30:30.985 --> 00:30:32.245
You, you, you're glamping.

00:30:32.705 --> 00:30:35.555
And I'm not saying, and this is exactly
of course, what one ought to do, but

00:30:35.855 --> 00:30:40.535
my question is, well then as a Rew
Wilder and so on, given that in the

00:30:40.535 --> 00:30:44.405
paleolithic landscape where you are,
it probably would've been somewhat open

00:30:44.405 --> 00:30:50.165
canopy, Beachwood, Beachwood, I should
imagine, with some grazing planes from

00:30:50.165 --> 00:30:54.585
large ungulates, you know, interspersing
that why not go back to that?

00:30:54.615 --> 00:30:55.575
Why, why farm at all?

00:30:57.560 --> 00:30:58.245
Nick Viney: I, I, yeah.

00:30:58.245 --> 00:31:00.680
I ask myself that a lot and I

00:31:01.455 --> 00:31:03.555
Rupert Isaacson: surely that's what
the land wants at the end of the day.

00:31:04.065 --> 00:31:07.305
I mean, if you left it alone completely,
that's more or less what it would do.

00:31:07.305 --> 00:31:07.575
No,

00:31:08.565 --> 00:31:13.695
Nick Viney: I've got, I've got one
paddock, call it a paddock which

00:31:13.695 --> 00:31:15.825
we haven't grazed for 40 years.

00:31:16.575 --> 00:31:16.815
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

00:31:17.085 --> 00:31:21.495
Nick Viney: And I'm just,
and I'm just, it's like.

00:31:22.065 --> 00:31:26.955
It's like what the rewers would pray
for, but I'm doing it in reverse, so now

00:31:27.165 --> 00:31:30.705
I've got a completely scrubbed over area.

00:31:31.335 --> 00:31:32.055
And

00:31:32.060 --> 00:31:32.590
Rupert Isaacson: with what?

00:31:32.590 --> 00:31:33.390
With Hawthorne?

00:31:33.440 --> 00:31:34.110
Blackthorn?

00:31:34.365 --> 00:31:36.855
Nick Viney: With mainly with Bramble.

00:31:37.485 --> 00:31:38.115
Uhhuh, yeah.

00:31:38.115 --> 00:31:42.025
But with, with a certain amount
of blackthorn, willow ash trees.

00:31:42.025 --> 00:31:44.575
I mean, you know, massive s
and this is all self colonized.

00:31:44.575 --> 00:31:45.625
Rupert Isaacson: You haven't
gone in there and planted it.

00:31:45.625 --> 00:31:46.705
Nick Viney: We haven't done anything.

00:31:46.825 --> 00:31:47.065
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

00:31:47.210 --> 00:31:50.185
Nick Viney: So, so then I thought, right.

00:31:50.185 --> 00:31:54.925
I, I wanna actually just reclaim this a
little bit and just start sculpting it.

00:31:55.255 --> 00:31:59.065
And so I'm gonna start put
putting these ponies in.

00:31:59.065 --> 00:32:00.505
So I,

00:32:02.575 --> 00:32:06.165
but I, but I want to main is it
is a massive songbird breeding

00:32:06.165 --> 00:32:06.960
area, as you can imagine.

00:32:06.960 --> 00:32:07.320
Mm-hmm.

00:32:07.405 --> 00:32:12.045
You know, it's really, there is a direct
correlation between the amount of bramble

00:32:12.105 --> 00:32:15.615
you've got, the amount of scrub you've
got, and how many songbirds you have.

00:32:15.915 --> 00:32:16.035
Yeah.

00:32:16.115 --> 00:32:18.875
If, you know, if we were
ha if we had a, just

00:32:18.875 --> 00:32:21.305
Rupert Isaacson: explain why that is, for
people who might not know the correlation.

00:32:21.755 --> 00:32:26.705
Nick Viney: Because if we had a,
a full ecosystem, say we would

00:32:26.705 --> 00:32:28.445
have, we would have wildcats.

00:32:28.685 --> 00:32:32.345
So what we think of in the UK
as, as, as a Scottish Wildcat

00:32:32.715 --> 00:32:34.185
it, it, it's not Scottish.

00:32:34.470 --> 00:32:37.120
We just drove it to
Scotland and not in a car.

00:32:37.390 --> 00:32:39.430
We, we just killed everything.

00:32:39.430 --> 00:32:41.500
It had a price put on, its on its head.

00:32:41.770 --> 00:32:42.465
So the brambles

00:32:42.465 --> 00:32:44.295
Rupert Isaacson: will give you
safe cover from small predators?

00:32:44.595 --> 00:32:45.255
Nick Viney: Exactly.

00:32:45.255 --> 00:32:50.445
So cats will not pounce through,
through, through bramble.

00:32:50.535 --> 00:32:52.425
So really, really safe nursery.

00:32:52.695 --> 00:32:55.185
You know, not just for young
trees, but for young, young birds.

00:32:55.525 --> 00:32:56.185
So that's why s

00:32:56.965 --> 00:32:57.025
Rupert Isaacson: eat.

00:32:57.115 --> 00:32:57.925
Nick Viney: Exactly.

00:32:58.045 --> 00:32:58.375
Yeah.

00:32:59.335 --> 00:32:59.365
Okay.

00:32:59.365 --> 00:33:04.476
And, and also under brambles the soil
is, is the best soil you'll find.

00:33:04.800 --> 00:33:05.020
So

00:33:05.135 --> 00:33:07.445
Rupert Isaacson: is that because,
are they nitrogen fixers?

00:33:07.555 --> 00:33:08.335
Blackberry bushes,

00:33:08.665 --> 00:33:11.665
Nick Viney: it's not, I don't know
whether it's nitrogen and I, and I don't

00:33:11.855 --> 00:33:14.215
I never it's much more complex than that.

00:33:14.395 --> 00:33:17.715
What I would say is the
microrisal connections under

00:33:17.715 --> 00:33:20.415
brambles are really phenomenal.

00:33:20.415 --> 00:33:24.515
And so the soil health you
know, is always just fantastic.

00:33:24.515 --> 00:33:28.205
So, so in times of carbon
sequestration you know, fabulous.

00:33:28.805 --> 00:33:31.295
So, so how do you, you're gonna drive

00:33:31.295 --> 00:33:34.055
Rupert Isaacson: some large ungulates
into it in the way that, that's exactly

00:33:34.055 --> 00:33:34.535
Nick Viney: what I'm doing.

00:33:35.045 --> 00:33:35.705
Rupert Isaacson: Paleolithic.

00:33:35.705 --> 00:33:38.045
Why not some cows as well, because
they would've been a rocks.

00:33:38.045 --> 00:33:39.035
They would've been wild captaining.

00:33:39.040 --> 00:33:39.875
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:33:40.115 --> 00:33:40.595
Nick Viney: Exactly.

00:33:40.595 --> 00:33:45.655
So, so at the moment we're just coming
out of, we're just coming out of winter.

00:33:45.895 --> 00:33:50.065
And so there is only hairy little
ponies here, and particularly hairy

00:33:50.065 --> 00:33:55.705
ponies with, with, with long feathers
are fantastic for, for this job.

00:33:55.705 --> 00:33:59.125
So I go in and if I think, okay, I
wanna make a a very, and for those

00:33:59.125 --> 00:34:01.350
Rupert Isaacson: listeners,
feathers are not bird feathers.

00:34:01.500 --> 00:34:05.135
They are the hairs that grow on
the lower part of the horse's leg.

00:34:05.135 --> 00:34:08.735
If they are shaggy horses, which are
designed to go through rough areas.

00:34:08.735 --> 00:34:08.765
Okay.

00:34:08.915 --> 00:34:09.305
Yeah.

00:34:09.665 --> 00:34:11.465
Nick Viney: So they're like armor plated.

00:34:11.555 --> 00:34:11.795
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

00:34:11.885 --> 00:34:14.795
Nick Viney: And, and so they
will, you know, happily and the,

00:34:14.795 --> 00:34:18.935
and kind of small ponies with big
feet and feathery, feathery legs

00:34:18.935 --> 00:34:20.105
are really, really good for this.

00:34:20.355 --> 00:34:25.525
In, in the rewilding sort of, field
ex mos have become very popular.

00:34:25.835 --> 00:34:29.135
It's, it tends to be a bit,
a bit fashionable for me.

00:34:29.185 --> 00:34:29.695
I'm.

00:34:30.055 --> 00:34:32.695
It's, it's in the same
way as in other things.

00:34:32.695 --> 00:34:34.105
It's not the cow, it's the how.

00:34:34.345 --> 00:34:38.845
And this is, you know, we don't have
to be specific on the pony type.

00:34:39.205 --> 00:34:39.505
Wait, talk about

00:34:39.505 --> 00:34:39.895
Rupert Isaacson: my mother.

00:34:39.895 --> 00:34:40.135
Sorry.

00:34:41.035 --> 00:34:43.795
Nick Viney: It's a, it's a, it's a
pony and it's gonna behave like a

00:34:43.795 --> 00:34:46.435
pony, you know, if you let it near
trees, it's gonna strip the bark.

00:34:46.735 --> 00:34:49.495
It will eat very close to
the ground if you leave.

00:34:49.495 --> 00:34:49.585
Right.

00:34:49.585 --> 00:34:52.330
Rupert Isaacson: It will create wallows,
it will dig up the ground a bit.

00:34:52.330 --> 00:34:52.570
Yeah.

00:34:52.575 --> 00:34:54.325
Nick Viney: And it'll also,
and these things with, with

00:34:54.325 --> 00:34:56.275
hair will plow through ramble.

00:34:56.275 --> 00:35:01.015
So all I have to do is I, I don't want
dead, I don't want any straight lines.

00:35:01.015 --> 00:35:03.655
There are no, you know, nature
doesn't really do straight lines.

00:35:04.285 --> 00:35:05.635
I'm about creating edge.

00:35:05.635 --> 00:35:09.445
So at the moment I've got this big
you know, field of, of brambles.

00:35:09.625 --> 00:35:12.325
And now I wanted to turn
those into islands of life.

00:35:12.325 --> 00:35:15.975
So we still have lots of, we
still have lots of loads for the

00:35:15.975 --> 00:35:17.865
birds to, to nest and to feed.

00:35:18.115 --> 00:35:20.965
But I want to be able to sort
of per ambulate through this.

00:35:20.995 --> 00:35:21.205
Rupert Isaacson: Right.

00:35:21.210 --> 00:35:26.665
And presumably those brambles would serve
as nurseries for hardwood trees too.

00:35:26.695 --> 00:35:26.815
Yeah.

00:35:26.815 --> 00:35:26.875
Nick Viney: Yeah.

00:35:27.805 --> 00:35:30.085
Rupert Isaacson: So eventually in
your perfect world, it would end up

00:35:30.085 --> 00:35:31.975
looking like a paleolithic savanna.

00:35:32.365 --> 00:35:32.665
Nick Viney: Yes.

00:35:32.755 --> 00:35:33.415
Rupert Isaacson: More or less, right?

00:35:33.475 --> 00:35:33.895
Nick Viney: Yes.

00:35:34.105 --> 00:35:38.695
And then, but, but, but also, so
as those big trees, you've gotta

00:35:38.695 --> 00:35:41.695
have the succession, you've gotta
have big trees and medium trees

00:35:41.695 --> 00:35:43.435
and little trees and tiny trees.

00:35:43.645 --> 00:35:47.305
And you, so you have to, so the
landscape is doing this all the time

00:35:47.700 --> 00:35:50.455
and, and this is why land ownership.

00:35:51.385 --> 00:35:55.225
You are always gonna be struggling because
you've only got this amount of land.

00:35:55.585 --> 00:36:00.145
And so, you know, you've, you wanna do
this there and you, and you, you can't

00:36:00.145 --> 00:36:03.775
get your head around how, how on earth
are you going to have these islands?

00:36:03.775 --> 00:36:06.055
And then they're not only islands,
they're moving islands, you know,

00:36:06.055 --> 00:36:08.545
because they've gotta creep around
and grow big trees and little trees.

00:36:08.845 --> 00:36:12.745
So I, it's complex and it's brilliant.

00:36:13.135 --> 00:36:16.555
Rupert Isaacson: Well, it's interesting,
it's interesting because I was 20 years in

00:36:16.555 --> 00:36:19.275
Texas and the, the part of Texas is huge.

00:36:19.275 --> 00:36:20.175
There's many ecosystems.

00:36:20.175 --> 00:36:22.995
So the particular part of Texas that
we have written, it's Central Texas,

00:36:22.995 --> 00:36:24.345
which is around the Austin area.

00:36:24.855 --> 00:36:27.015
And that's what you
call post Oak Savannah.

00:36:28.005 --> 00:36:33.915
And interestingly it's a landscape
that looks almost identical to

00:36:33.915 --> 00:36:38.595
say the Southern Spanish, Southern
Portuguese Post Oak Savannahs.

00:36:38.985 --> 00:36:39.165
Yeah.

00:36:39.325 --> 00:36:44.035
But it looked like that before the
whitey showed up with their cows

00:36:44.455 --> 00:36:48.955
because bison were grazing it and
basically doing the same effect.

00:36:48.955 --> 00:36:53.455
And so what you've got, what you
get is these very big oak trees

00:36:54.055 --> 00:36:59.755
that put their branches quite low
and then that creates a shade camp.

00:36:59.755 --> 00:37:00.985
'cause it gets very, very hot there.

00:37:01.475 --> 00:37:05.705
Creates a shade canopy where animals
do come and shelter from the shade.

00:37:06.165 --> 00:37:10.225
But there's seasons where
they don't go because it's.

00:37:10.720 --> 00:37:11.410
More temperate.

00:37:11.680 --> 00:37:15.700
And then under those things you
get a lot of thorn coming up.

00:37:15.730 --> 00:37:17.290
And in that thorn you get the young trees.

00:37:17.470 --> 00:37:20.980
And that's how when one tree collapses
and dies, the other ones can come up.

00:37:21.130 --> 00:37:25.840
But the look of the thing,
generation to generation tends

00:37:25.840 --> 00:37:28.360
to look like an English park.

00:37:28.360 --> 00:37:29.740
Large stately trees.

00:37:29.980 --> 00:37:30.310
Yeah.

00:37:30.410 --> 00:37:33.620
Because you can't, you're not really
aware of those younger ones coming

00:37:33.620 --> 00:37:37.130
up because they're coming up sort of
slightly camouflaged by that canopy

00:37:37.400 --> 00:37:39.770
with some areas of thicket as well.

00:37:40.070 --> 00:37:43.910
And particularly in the, in the
swampy areas or, you know, things.

00:37:44.990 --> 00:37:47.900
What's interesting about that landscape
is it's basically pre-Columbian landscape.

00:37:47.900 --> 00:37:53.090
It looks basically the same as it did
before the colonists showed up there.

00:37:53.840 --> 00:37:55.640
And it's, that would've
been 500 years ago.

00:37:55.670 --> 00:37:58.460
'cause it's Spanish, early
Spanish conquest close to Mexico.

00:37:59.030 --> 00:38:03.350
And it's made that shift to a European

00:38:04.580 --> 00:38:05.150
Nick Viney: aesthetic

00:38:05.210 --> 00:38:06.920
Rupert Isaacson: livestock thing.

00:38:06.920 --> 00:38:08.300
It's not really farming, it's livestock.

00:38:08.330 --> 00:38:12.800
It, it's more herding really, it's
cattle ranching without losing much of

00:38:12.800 --> 00:38:17.210
its biological integrity unless they
decide to put a shopping mall and a

00:38:17.210 --> 00:38:21.110
McDonald's on it, and then they can like
do an entire county in like a weekend.

00:38:21.110 --> 00:38:21.830
And that's awful.

00:38:22.010 --> 00:38:25.370
But as long as they don't
do that, it's as it was.

00:38:25.730 --> 00:38:27.830
What's what's interesting to me about.

00:38:28.250 --> 00:38:32.780
England is that we're better at preserving
the land than they are in the us.

00:38:33.050 --> 00:38:36.440
Like one, one of the heartbreaking
things about living in the US is

00:38:36.440 --> 00:38:39.140
that you can fall in love with the
landscape 'cause it's so beautiful.

00:38:39.800 --> 00:38:44.750
And one year later, you know, some
that your neighbor can just flog that

00:38:45.230 --> 00:38:46.790
for housing development and it's gone.

00:38:47.060 --> 00:38:47.420
Boom.

00:38:47.480 --> 00:38:50.660
There's no, there's no
conservation laws, nothing.

00:38:51.360 --> 00:38:53.850
And they'll just go and bulldoze,
you know, a thousand year old trees.

00:38:53.850 --> 00:38:55.590
It's, it's, it's, it's
really heartbreaking.

00:38:56.280 --> 00:39:01.080
In the UK we are much, much better
at preserving the aesthetic of the

00:39:01.080 --> 00:39:02.730
countryside, which I'm a great believer.

00:39:02.730 --> 00:39:06.630
We need spiritually, we need
to be able to see that green.

00:39:06.630 --> 00:39:12.210
We need to be able to get out of
a city quickly and see it, and if

00:39:12.210 --> 00:39:13.740
possible, walk on it and touch it.

00:39:14.460 --> 00:39:16.620
Which in Texas you can't
'cause they'll shoot you.

00:39:17.049 --> 00:39:20.549
So people don't feel any kind of you know,
attachment to the land because they don't,

00:39:21.210 --> 00:39:25.589
they didn't grow up playing under that
tree or whatever because it's so weirdly,

00:39:25.589 --> 00:39:29.499
I think there's some things we get really
right in the uk with land ownership

00:39:29.829 --> 00:39:34.749
give, we, we have large landowners, but
quite a lot of ac public access to the

00:39:34.749 --> 00:39:38.769
land, even though the ramblers would say
that they don't just go live in Texas.

00:39:38.769 --> 00:39:41.859
And you'll be like, actually we
have a lot of, you know, and the

00:39:41.859 --> 00:39:43.959
worst that will happen is if you
stray from the footpath in the uk.

00:39:43.959 --> 00:39:46.120
Someone might yell at you, but
they're not gonna shoot you, you know?

00:39:46.509 --> 00:39:48.850
But they probably won't even
yell at you, you know, and

00:39:48.850 --> 00:39:50.109
there are plenty of footpaths.

00:39:50.659 --> 00:39:50.720
I.

00:39:54.424 --> 00:39:57.035
Now we're talking about
Rewilding in the uk.

00:39:58.535 --> 00:40:05.075
And so you look at a landscape and you
say, well, how does the water want to go?

00:40:05.075 --> 00:40:06.334
Or how do the trees want to go?

00:40:08.644 --> 00:40:16.535
You've now helped farmers in the
UK to sort of go towards this.

00:40:17.194 --> 00:40:24.245
Are we going to lose this whimsical
landscape that we know and love

00:40:24.245 --> 00:40:27.785
of the patchwork field system and
the the hedgerows and all of that?

00:40:28.774 --> 00:40:32.345
Whether people argue that it's not
bi biodiverse enough or not, it's

00:40:32.345 --> 00:40:35.854
beautiful and, and it's there and
at least we have a countryside to

00:40:35.854 --> 00:40:37.714
argue about, which is a good thing.

00:40:39.095 --> 00:40:44.044
Or are we gonna, is it gonna be
replaced by something else, or are we

00:40:44.044 --> 00:40:45.725
gonna have kind of a mishmash of both?

00:40:45.754 --> 00:40:49.205
What, what are we gonna see
in the next 20 to 50 years?

00:40:51.964 --> 00:40:58.115
Nick Viney: I think we're gonna see a more
beautiful, an even more beautiful version.

00:40:58.384 --> 00:41:01.795
So, you mentioned the word green and
how, how people it's important for

00:41:01.795 --> 00:41:03.055
people to get out into the green.

00:41:03.595 --> 00:41:05.215
What we've gotta remember is.

00:41:06.649 --> 00:41:07.129
Yeah.

00:41:07.129 --> 00:41:10.879
And, and we, and we are, we are wired
to recognize green as this, you know,

00:41:10.879 --> 00:41:12.379
calming influence on us, aren't we?

00:41:12.649 --> 00:41:12.979
And also

00:41:12.979 --> 00:41:17.120
Rupert Isaacson: biodiverse, we, we see it
as, I think when, when we know that, when

00:41:17.120 --> 00:41:18.709
I say biodiverse, I mean food producing.

00:41:18.709 --> 00:41:22.220
It mean we feel calm inside when
we know, oh, we're in a place

00:41:22.220 --> 00:41:23.990
that can support life basically.

00:41:24.890 --> 00:41:25.309
Nick Viney: Yeah.

00:41:25.339 --> 00:41:32.149
Unfortunately, ryegrass, which is that
holy kind of shade of green if, you know,

00:41:32.149 --> 00:41:37.489
if you, there are certain colors that that
land should be at certain times of year.

00:41:37.699 --> 00:41:37.879
Right.

00:41:37.884 --> 00:41:44.699
And, and that kind of blue, th green
in spring is, is really a reflection

00:41:44.699 --> 00:41:50.759
of the, the awful, awful amount of
nitrates that are on there and really

00:41:50.759 --> 00:41:54.929
burning through the soil health and
really having detrimental effects on,

00:41:55.949 --> 00:41:59.909
on not only the cows that eat them,
eat that, which, you know, obviously

00:41:59.909 --> 00:42:01.799
they're burning out within three years.

00:42:01.799 --> 00:42:06.389
You know, that's a very, very
short life expectancy for a cow.

00:42:06.789 --> 00:42:11.629
You know, it would naturally live
well, well into its teens and beyond.

00:42:11.999 --> 00:42:14.759
So, so it's nuanced is what I'm saying.

00:42:15.029 --> 00:42:17.699
Green does not necessarily mean healthy.

00:42:18.659 --> 00:42:23.039
What actually is a much
healthier landscape is, is lots

00:42:23.039 --> 00:42:24.959
of different shades of green.

00:42:25.289 --> 00:42:27.389
And, and to, to not.

00:42:28.034 --> 00:42:32.114
Not expect to see the land in
this very linear sort of you know,

00:42:32.324 --> 00:42:35.774
flat feel to a 90 degree hedge
if you're lucky to have a hedge.

00:42:35.964 --> 00:42:38.844
And then, you know, that's, you
know, we've talked about clipping

00:42:38.844 --> 00:42:40.764
those hedges off very, very tight.

00:42:42.564 --> 00:42:46.864
What, what you could imagine in
a more abundant landscape and,

00:42:47.914 --> 00:42:53.734
and with abundance comes beauty,
real beauty that we recognize and

00:42:53.734 --> 00:42:55.834
it literally resonates within us.

00:42:56.014 --> 00:43:00.354
So when you go into, I've got a nice
bit of floodplain Maya down there,

00:43:00.384 --> 00:43:05.124
and when that is just humming within
insects and, and you, you just dunno

00:43:05.124 --> 00:43:09.594
where to walk because you can feel
under your feet that every footstep you

00:43:09.594 --> 00:43:11.604
are treading and squishing something.

00:43:12.624 --> 00:43:15.624
There is something that
resonates inside you.

00:43:16.104 --> 00:43:20.754
And really I hope I would like everyone
to get an opportunity to experience

00:43:20.754 --> 00:43:27.144
that because when you experience that
and, and I'm someone who is sort of not

00:43:27.144 --> 00:43:33.074
religious and and not sort of, I wouldn't
have classed myself as spiritual, but

00:43:33.074 --> 00:43:36.704
there is something unmistakably moving.

00:43:36.984 --> 00:43:40.234
When you experience those
kind of those kind of.

00:43:41.569 --> 00:43:42.529
Ecosystems.

00:43:43.069 --> 00:43:46.369
And, and as to what that would
look like now in our, in our green

00:43:46.369 --> 00:43:49.249
and pleasant land, I think our
hedges are a great place to start.

00:43:49.249 --> 00:43:51.559
So they, you know, they're
still old trees in the hedges.

00:43:51.559 --> 00:43:56.419
So, so what, what I'm planning on doing
here is, is where I've got these lovely

00:43:56.419 --> 00:44:00.349
hedges, I just wanna knock a hole
at one end and a hole at the other,

00:44:00.349 --> 00:44:05.030
and then that, that whole line then
actually becomes a big circle in itself.

00:44:05.030 --> 00:44:05.032
I see.

00:44:05.037 --> 00:44:05.135
So the

00:44:05.140 --> 00:44:06.559
Rupert Isaacson: cows
could just rotate through.

00:44:06.714 --> 00:44:07.574
Nick Viney: So, so, yeah.

00:44:07.574 --> 00:44:08.414
So we'll just You keep the

00:44:08.414 --> 00:44:08.574
Rupert Isaacson: hydro

00:44:09.084 --> 00:44:10.279
Nick Viney: Yeah, exactly.

00:44:10.489 --> 00:44:13.149
Rupert Isaacson: As you know, if
you followed any of my work, I'm

00:44:13.149 --> 00:44:20.329
an autism dad and we have a whole
career before this podcast in helping

00:44:20.329 --> 00:44:25.049
people with neurodivergence, either
who are professionals in the field.

00:44:25.129 --> 00:44:25.969
Are you a therapist?

00:44:26.389 --> 00:44:27.659
Are you a caregiver?

00:44:28.049 --> 00:44:29.059
Are you a parent?

00:44:29.494 --> 00:44:31.524
Or are you somebody with neurodivergence?

00:44:32.964 --> 00:44:37.904
When my son, Rowan, was
diagnosed with autism in 2004,

00:44:37.944 --> 00:44:39.574
I really didn't know what to do.

00:44:39.774 --> 00:44:45.044
So I reached out for mentorship, and
I found it through an amazing adult

00:44:45.084 --> 00:44:47.884
autistic woman who's very famous, Dr.

00:44:48.034 --> 00:44:48.924
Temple Grandin.

00:44:49.124 --> 00:44:50.764
And she told me what to do.

00:44:50.814 --> 00:44:55.054
And it's been working so
amazingly for the last 20 years.

00:44:55.404 --> 00:44:59.854
That not only is my son basically
independent, but we've helped

00:45:00.114 --> 00:45:03.864
countless, countless thousands
of others reach the same goal.

00:45:04.204 --> 00:45:08.104
Working in schools, working at
home, working in therapy settings.

00:45:09.134 --> 00:45:13.574
If you would like to learn this
cutting edge, neuroscience backed

00:45:13.794 --> 00:45:15.834
approach, it's called Movement Method.

00:45:16.494 --> 00:45:19.852
You can learn it online, you
can learn it very, very simply.

00:45:19.852 --> 00:45:22.114
It's almost laughably simple.

00:45:23.054 --> 00:45:25.754
The important thing is to begin.

00:45:26.684 --> 00:45:29.834
Let yourself be mentored as I was by Dr.

00:45:29.834 --> 00:45:33.124
Grandin and see what results can follow.

00:45:34.154 --> 00:45:37.084
Go to this website, newtrailslearning.

00:45:39.354 --> 00:45:41.859
com Sign up as a gold member.

00:45:42.299 --> 00:45:45.189
Take the online movement method course.

00:45:45.679 --> 00:45:47.049
It's in 40 countries.

00:45:47.659 --> 00:45:49.719
Let us know how it goes for you.

00:45:49.919 --> 00:45:50.689
We really want to know.

00:45:50.699 --> 00:45:55.199
We really want to help people like
me, people like you, out there

00:45:55.549 --> 00:45:58.829
live their best life, to live
free, ride free, see what happens.

00:45:59.819 --> 00:46:02.639
Nick Viney: Because the, the, you
know, why would we set ourselves back?

00:46:03.029 --> 00:46:05.399
There's, you know, there's very
old trees and especially stuff like

00:46:05.399 --> 00:46:08.489
asht trees, you know, which are
dropping like flies, you know, a

00:46:08.489 --> 00:46:10.589
middle-aged asht tree now, dead gone.

00:46:10.859 --> 00:46:16.269
The only ones left standing for now are
the you know, are the really old ones.

00:46:16.689 --> 00:46:21.129
So, you know, a lot of these tree
diseases, you know, we experienced

00:46:21.129 --> 00:46:25.059
this in the seventies with the elms
and going, which dramatically changed

00:46:25.059 --> 00:46:26.439
the, the way our landscape looked.

00:46:26.949 --> 00:46:27.039
Mm-hmm.

00:46:27.149 --> 00:46:30.869
You know, we have to appreciate
that with the ash trees, you know,

00:46:30.869 --> 00:46:32.639
with no baby asht trees coming up.

00:46:33.179 --> 00:46:35.009
This is a, this is a major problem.

00:46:35.559 --> 00:46:38.259
We don't, we don't really see that yet.

00:46:38.589 --> 00:46:42.519
And, and I do worry about, you
know, what's ne what's coming

00:46:42.519 --> 00:46:43.569
down the road for the trees.

00:46:43.569 --> 00:46:44.199
Next.

00:46:44.769 --> 00:46:48.699
Rupert Isaacson: Well, I presume that
your efforts with Rewilding, which

00:46:48.699 --> 00:46:52.749
I want to talk about now, might hold
some of the keys to this, right?

00:46:52.749 --> 00:46:57.699
So you've been involved, I know, in the
reintroduction of the beaver to the uk.

00:46:58.389 --> 00:47:01.329
And at the risk of making
27 do entendre jokes.

00:47:01.329 --> 00:47:05.709
I just want to lit tip my hat to the,
all the do undre beaver jokes, so I don't

00:47:05.709 --> 00:47:07.869
have to make one every time we say beaver.

00:47:08.529 --> 00:47:13.519
However, the European beaver was as we
know, wiped out largely in western Europe,

00:47:13.819 --> 00:47:15.139
almost completely in western Europe.

00:47:15.479 --> 00:47:20.759
And that led and then they went east, you
know, into the Baltic and into Russia,

00:47:20.849 --> 00:47:25.559
and then they depleted them there,
and then they went to the Americas.

00:47:25.559 --> 00:47:29.099
And the fur trade in the Americas
was what opened up the northern

00:47:29.099 --> 00:47:31.079
end of, of, of the Americas.

00:47:31.180 --> 00:47:36.329
But now for the first time in
four or 500 years, people like

00:47:36.329 --> 00:47:40.859
you are bringing beavers back into
the landscape of Western Europe.

00:47:41.759 --> 00:47:42.899
Let's talk about that.

00:47:42.899 --> 00:47:44.609
You talked about how water would flow.

00:47:44.609 --> 00:47:47.189
We know beavers and water are synonymous.

00:47:48.419 --> 00:47:49.409
Why bring back beavers?

00:47:50.009 --> 00:47:51.449
What do they do for the landscape?

00:47:52.079 --> 00:47:54.149
Why did they get rid of
them in the first place?

00:47:55.339 --> 00:48:00.169
And then let's talk from that
species towards other lost species.

00:48:00.649 --> 00:48:01.879
Okay, so why beavers?

00:48:01.879 --> 00:48:04.579
Why, why, why did you get involved
in, in the reintroduction of them?

00:48:05.629 --> 00:48:08.839
Nick Viney: So f first off I just
wanna say that really there's, there's

00:48:08.839 --> 00:48:12.019
three people responsible for bringing
back the beaver to the UK and who

00:48:12.019 --> 00:48:13.669
we all need to be grateful for.

00:48:13.669 --> 00:48:16.999
Derek Gao rashe Campbell
Palmer, and Ghar Schwab.

00:48:17.359 --> 00:48:18.329
So, do those names

00:48:18.329 --> 00:48:20.699
Rupert Isaacson: again slowly so that
people can write 'em down if they want to.

00:48:21.029 --> 00:48:22.169
Nick Viney: Derek Gao.

00:48:22.649 --> 00:48:23.519
Rupert Isaacson: Derek Gao.

00:48:23.519 --> 00:48:24.599
GGOW.

00:48:24.749 --> 00:48:25.019
Nick Viney: Yeah.

00:48:26.489 --> 00:48:27.059
Hin Campbell.

00:48:27.059 --> 00:48:27.629
Palmer

00:48:28.589 --> 00:48:28.799
Rupert Isaacson: Hin.

00:48:28.799 --> 00:48:29.999
Campbell Palmer.

00:48:29.999 --> 00:48:33.089
I dunno how to spell hin, but
Campbell Palmer, I think people can,

00:48:33.089 --> 00:48:35.609
Nick Viney: R-R-O-I-S-I-N.

00:48:35.879 --> 00:48:36.629
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

00:48:36.629 --> 00:48:37.349
Rashe Campbell Palmer.

00:48:37.409 --> 00:48:37.739
And,

00:48:37.744 --> 00:48:39.484
Nick Viney: and Gerhard Schwab.

00:48:40.524 --> 00:48:41.364
Rupert Isaacson: Gerhard,
that sounds German.

00:48:41.744 --> 00:48:42.284
Nick Viney: It is, yeah.

00:48:42.284 --> 00:48:42.484
Yeah.

00:48:42.924 --> 00:48:43.564
Rupert Isaacson: Gerhard Schwab.

00:48:44.124 --> 00:48:45.924
S-C-H-W-A-B.

00:48:46.154 --> 00:48:46.444
Nick Viney: Yeah.

00:48:46.674 --> 00:48:47.244
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.

00:48:47.544 --> 00:48:49.679
In the uk or in, in No,

00:48:49.679 --> 00:48:50.429
Nick Viney: he's in Bavaria.

00:48:50.699 --> 00:48:50.939
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

00:48:51.059 --> 00:48:51.329
Right.

00:48:51.389 --> 00:48:51.659
Nick Viney: Yeah.

00:48:52.089 --> 00:48:54.339
And the, these guys are, sorry.

00:48:54.554 --> 00:48:59.669
These, these guys are they've, you
know, they have, we need to be great.

00:48:59.669 --> 00:49:00.239
Very.

00:49:00.454 --> 00:49:01.979
Why, why do we need to be grateful

00:49:01.979 --> 00:49:02.189
Rupert Isaacson: to them?

00:49:02.399 --> 00:49:04.169
What, what's the value of the beavers?

00:49:04.979 --> 00:49:08.669
Nick Viney: So beavers, beavers are
known as a keystone species, and

00:49:08.669 --> 00:49:14.399
that this means that the presence of
beavers in a, in an ecosystem has a

00:49:14.399 --> 00:49:19.049
profound effect on every other species.

00:49:19.559 --> 00:49:23.459
What, what the Beaver
offers is water security.

00:49:24.089 --> 00:49:28.079
So without water security, we are nothing.

00:49:28.409 --> 00:49:29.729
Rupert Isaacson: You
mean water conservation?

00:49:30.239 --> 00:49:31.649
They keep water in a landscape.

00:49:32.039 --> 00:49:33.359
Nick Viney: They keep
water in a landscape.

00:49:33.359 --> 00:49:34.919
They purify water.

00:49:34.919 --> 00:49:36.329
They slow water down.

00:49:36.539 --> 00:49:44.099
So, so, beavers, beavers, willow and
water are, are this incredible sort

00:49:44.099 --> 00:49:49.849
of you know, just that, that they
work together in this very nuanced

00:49:49.849 --> 00:49:52.399
and, and beautiful, beautiful way.

00:49:52.399 --> 00:49:55.939
If you've, if you get a
chance, watch beavers on Go.

00:49:55.939 --> 00:49:56.719
Go on Beaver watch.

00:49:56.719 --> 00:49:57.829
Come to Rewilding Cobes head.

00:49:57.889 --> 00:49:59.689
Watch beavers at night.

00:49:59.689 --> 00:50:06.019
Watch them working the incredible
way these, these creatures can hold

00:50:06.019 --> 00:50:09.439
back water with only sticks and clay.

00:50:09.874 --> 00:50:11.944
Now if you've, you know,
try and do it yourself.

00:50:11.944 --> 00:50:13.174
Try and hold back water.

00:50:13.174 --> 00:50:17.794
Try and create something, you know, and
these, and these dams can be 10 foot

00:50:17.794 --> 00:50:23.284
high and holding back water and just
letting it come through very, very gently.

00:50:23.494 --> 00:50:29.524
So what that does, and, and especially as
we shift into much more erratic weather

00:50:29.704 --> 00:50:32.794
patterns, is it, is these storm surges.

00:50:32.794 --> 00:50:36.634
These, these, so we have if you think
about what the UK looks like, we have

00:50:36.634 --> 00:50:40.084
these uplands that are completely
naked, completely devoid of trees,

00:50:40.384 --> 00:50:42.064
highest rainfalls in the country.

00:50:42.244 --> 00:50:46.234
So it's like a bald head drops
all this water on it, what's

00:50:46.234 --> 00:50:47.044
gonna happen to that water?

00:50:47.044 --> 00:50:51.064
It just rushes off completely unimpeded,
getting faster and faster and faster.

00:50:51.364 --> 00:50:56.344
And then just smashes everything out
the way as it goes down and out to sea.

00:50:56.674 --> 00:51:00.664
Not only does it smash up all our
urban areas, but it takes thousands

00:51:00.664 --> 00:51:02.494
of years worth of soil with it.

00:51:03.184 --> 00:51:07.744
And in that soil, nothing can,
nothing can live in those waters.

00:51:07.744 --> 00:51:10.264
Our salmon can't, you
know, they can't breed.

00:51:10.534 --> 00:51:14.674
So, so the, the knock on effects
of having water, leaving the

00:51:14.674 --> 00:51:17.494
land too quickly is huge.

00:51:17.614 --> 00:51:18.604
Absolutely huge.

00:51:18.844 --> 00:51:21.814
So we are in Devon, we've got maybe 2.4

00:51:21.814 --> 00:51:23.399
meters of rain a year.

00:51:23.674 --> 00:51:24.244
What's that?

00:51:24.874 --> 00:51:25.294
I don't know.

00:51:25.444 --> 00:51:26.524
Is that eight, nine feet?

00:51:26.524 --> 00:51:26.944
I dunno.

00:51:29.884 --> 00:51:34.204
This is a high rainfall area,
and we have to slow that water

00:51:34.204 --> 00:51:35.734
down and in slowing it down.

00:51:35.944 --> 00:51:38.524
And the beavers do this
all night for free.

00:51:38.824 --> 00:51:39.364
Absolutely.

00:51:39.364 --> 00:51:39.694
For free.

00:51:39.724 --> 00:51:42.964
All as they ask is, can I have some trees?

00:51:43.504 --> 00:51:44.794
And I, and I'll do the rest.

00:51:45.154 --> 00:51:51.544
So we have to, we have to, it's not to put
it this way, it's not too many beavers.

00:51:51.574 --> 00:51:53.374
It's too few trees per start.

00:51:54.244 --> 00:51:55.654
Where did they go in the first place?

00:51:55.654 --> 00:52:00.034
So, so we had, you know, we
had beavers throughout the uk.

00:52:00.484 --> 00:52:04.274
But we hunted them all, every single one.

00:52:04.304 --> 00:52:05.024
We killed them all.

00:52:05.444 --> 00:52:10.364
And we did that because A, they have
this incredible fur, this incredible

00:52:10.364 --> 00:52:15.524
double you know, double kind of very soft
under fur and beautiful, beautiful fur.

00:52:16.394 --> 00:52:19.844
So, so like you said worldwide,
they've, they've been hunted.

00:52:20.184 --> 00:52:25.434
But also they have this very interesting
relationship with willow and the tree

00:52:25.434 --> 00:52:28.864
willow which contains salicylic acid.

00:52:29.014 --> 00:52:29.974
Salicylic acid.

00:52:29.974 --> 00:52:30.334
Rupert Isaacson: Aspirin

00:52:30.694 --> 00:52:31.444
Nick Viney: is aspirin.

00:52:31.504 --> 00:52:32.164
Exactly right.

00:52:32.404 --> 00:52:36.364
And so we hunted the beaver for
its scent glands because of the

00:52:36.604 --> 00:52:40.414
massive amounts of salicylic acid
in those, in that, in those glands.

00:52:40.714 --> 00:52:43.444
And we use that medicinally
for hundreds of years.

00:52:44.494 --> 00:52:49.174
So we just like, like all good
humans, you know, we just, castor

00:52:49.174 --> 00:52:51.544
Rupert Isaacson: oil, cast oil

00:52:51.604 --> 00:52:52.084
Nick Viney: castor.

00:52:52.594 --> 00:52:52.624
Okay.

00:52:53.674 --> 00:52:53.974
Yeah.

00:52:54.124 --> 00:52:55.504
Not castor oil different.

00:52:55.534 --> 00:52:55.864
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

00:52:56.824 --> 00:52:57.184
Castor.

00:52:57.694 --> 00:52:57.844
Yeah.

00:52:57.844 --> 00:52:59.704
'cause castor is beaver in Latin, right?

00:52:59.764 --> 00:53:00.004
Nick Viney: Yeah.

00:53:00.004 --> 00:53:00.454
Yeah.

00:53:01.054 --> 00:53:02.404
Rupert Isaacson: And actually
in French still castor.

00:53:02.584 --> 00:53:02.974
Yeah.

00:53:02.974 --> 00:53:03.034
Nick Viney: Yeah.

00:53:03.694 --> 00:53:07.534
So, so as we, you know, as we go
into these erratic climate you know,

00:53:07.534 --> 00:53:09.994
climate change events, we're gonna
have massive rainfall events, but

00:53:09.994 --> 00:53:11.524
we're also gonna have droughts.

00:53:11.824 --> 00:53:18.154
So, so a way of steadying our water
cycle is very, very important.

00:53:18.554 --> 00:53:23.874
And, and whereas, you know, we
certainly around where, where I am on

00:53:23.874 --> 00:53:27.694
dartmore, you know, there, there would
be a ne very negative pushback on,

00:53:27.784 --> 00:53:30.514
on free beaver release, for example.

00:53:31.054 --> 00:53:32.284
I would predict.

00:53:32.314 --> 00:53:32.554
Yeah.

00:53:32.764 --> 00:53:32.974
Yeah.

00:53:33.094 --> 00:53:33.364
Thanks.

00:53:33.524 --> 00:53:37.694
I would predict that it give
it three years, five years max.

00:53:38.084 --> 00:53:42.674
There will be, people will be fighting
to get beavers onto their land.

00:53:43.334 --> 00:53:45.044
Rupert Isaacson: Well, this is,
this is actually a question.

00:53:45.104 --> 00:53:47.264
So do you have beavers on your land now?

00:53:47.589 --> 00:53:47.809
Nick Viney: No.

00:53:48.134 --> 00:53:48.524
No, I don't.

00:53:48.644 --> 00:53:48.674
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

00:53:48.674 --> 00:53:49.034
Why not?

00:53:50.174 --> 00:53:52.814
Nick Viney: They are a few
miles down, down river.

00:53:53.124 --> 00:53:53.304
But

00:53:53.304 --> 00:53:53.724
Rupert Isaacson: why, why not?

00:53:53.724 --> 00:53:54.144
Why not?

00:53:54.294 --> 00:53:55.314
Nick Viney: Why not re introduce them?

00:53:55.554 --> 00:53:55.764
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

00:53:56.064 --> 00:54:01.254
Nick Viney: Basically because I don't, I
would've had to up until, up until very

00:54:01.254 --> 00:54:04.564
recently, the last few weeks I would've
had to have put them in an enclosure.

00:54:04.984 --> 00:54:09.064
And most people can't
afford a beaver enclosure.

00:54:09.514 --> 00:54:12.064
It's very, very expensive to
put up that kind of fencing.

00:54:12.244 --> 00:54:12.304
The

00:54:12.304 --> 00:54:14.674
Rupert Isaacson: legislation has
changed You now no longer need I.

00:54:15.184 --> 00:54:19.124
Nick Viney: The legislation has changed
and you can apply or have an expression

00:54:19.124 --> 00:54:21.764
of interest for, for a free release.

00:54:22.064 --> 00:54:22.424
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

00:54:22.429 --> 00:54:22.449
Yeah.

00:54:22.934 --> 00:54:23.204
Yeah.

00:54:23.294 --> 00:54:24.974
And this is literally
like the last few weeks.

00:54:25.304 --> 00:54:25.514
Nick Viney: Yeah.

00:54:25.964 --> 00:54:26.294
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

00:54:26.624 --> 00:54:30.854
So this is historic now, but let's say
then you do that, are your neighbors

00:54:30.854 --> 00:54:35.294
not gonna say, well, hold on, you know,
they're not gonna stay on your land.

00:54:35.354 --> 00:54:36.524
They're gonna come on my land.

00:54:36.824 --> 00:54:37.124
Nick Viney: Exactly.

00:54:37.124 --> 00:54:37.424
So

00:54:38.504 --> 00:54:39.104
Rupert Isaacson: what about that?

00:54:40.004 --> 00:54:42.224
Nick Viney: So at the moment, and
this is the downfall of this new

00:54:42.224 --> 00:54:45.134
legislation, there is mass celebrations,
but actually what it means is if

00:54:45.134 --> 00:54:48.044
you, if you are the license holder
for this free release, then you are

00:54:48.044 --> 00:54:50.114
liable for whatever happens either way.

00:54:50.594 --> 00:54:52.094
So it, it's crazy.

00:54:52.154 --> 00:54:54.074
This is an, an animal,
it is a native animal.

00:54:54.264 --> 00:54:56.244
It is, you know, it is
supposed to be here.

00:54:56.604 --> 00:54:58.524
Yes, we are going to
have to work around it.

00:54:58.524 --> 00:55:00.654
We cannot farm right to the water's edge.

00:55:00.654 --> 00:55:06.174
If you plant carrots within three meters
of, of the the water's edge, it's, you

00:55:06.174 --> 00:55:09.394
know, either the beavers that they're
gonna come out and eat them or as,

00:55:09.454 --> 00:55:12.694
as beavers makes dams, and they don't
tend to make dams across big rivers.

00:55:12.694 --> 00:55:14.224
It's not, they're, they're not into that.

00:55:14.494 --> 00:55:15.874
It's these little tributaries.

00:55:16.204 --> 00:55:17.314
And then the water starts moving.

00:55:17.314 --> 00:55:20.674
You know, once they put in a dam, then the
water starts moving laterally, both sides.

00:55:20.734 --> 00:55:23.454
And and that's when they can come
into conflict with landowners.

00:55:24.714 --> 00:55:27.354
It's, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

00:55:27.534 --> 00:55:31.254
I mean, you put a drone up, it's
the most stunning environment

00:55:31.824 --> 00:55:34.884
and the, the, the life that is.

00:55:35.334 --> 00:55:37.194
Brought back by beavers.

00:55:37.434 --> 00:55:42.594
You, you know, we have never ex,
there's nobody alive that has

00:55:42.594 --> 00:55:46.014
experienced this other than people
that are living close to beavers now,

00:55:47.184 --> 00:55:49.074
you know, we don't know on baseline.

00:55:49.149 --> 00:55:50.079
Yeah, no, I, I,

00:55:50.274 --> 00:55:50.394
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.

00:55:50.844 --> 00:55:52.284
You are preaching to the converted here.

00:55:53.544 --> 00:55:55.584
I know that though.

00:55:55.974 --> 00:55:56.214
Okay.

00:55:56.214 --> 00:55:57.264
You might be liable.

00:55:57.774 --> 00:56:00.504
But I think, you know, and I both
know that there's quite a lot of

00:56:00.504 --> 00:56:06.714
Gorilla Rewilding going on and people
taking it into their own hands to

00:56:06.714 --> 00:56:08.844
just release things into the wild now.

00:56:09.414 --> 00:56:12.264
And you know, quite recently
they found all those links as

00:56:12.264 --> 00:56:13.584
in Scotland and rounded them up.

00:56:13.944 --> 00:56:15.444
But I know people are
doing it with Beaver.

00:56:15.774 --> 00:56:17.964
I know people are doing it with other
things, and I don't think that's

00:56:17.964 --> 00:56:19.074
something that's gonna go away.

00:56:19.644 --> 00:56:26.094
So, and honestly, I have to say I'm
on the sidelines with pom poms because

00:56:26.674 --> 00:56:28.024
sooner or later it's gonna happen.

00:56:29.044 --> 00:56:33.094
So one can get grumpy about
it and say, oh, it's terrible.

00:56:33.244 --> 00:56:37.084
Or you can say, well, this is part
of historical process, which is

00:56:37.084 --> 00:56:40.684
inevitable, and I'd rather see that
than ripping out hedges, frankly.

00:56:41.134 --> 00:56:42.514
But talk to me about that.

00:56:42.514 --> 00:56:45.934
So I, I presume that's going
to make that change, right?

00:56:45.934 --> 00:56:49.774
Because let's say for example,
you did want to do a free release

00:56:49.774 --> 00:56:53.794
of Beaver, but you think, oh, but
I'm, I can't afford the liability.

00:56:54.754 --> 00:56:56.584
But then some beavers
show up on your land.

00:56:57.604 --> 00:57:01.864
Because somebody, either they got out of
somebody else's place or there and you

00:57:01.864 --> 00:57:08.044
decide, well, I didn't put them there,
therefore I can just leave them alone.

00:57:08.344 --> 00:57:15.514
Are you still liable if one of these
self rewild or gorilla rewild beavers

00:57:15.514 --> 00:57:18.484
shows up in your land and makes a
damn, are you supposed to therefore

00:57:18.484 --> 00:57:20.824
go and kill it to protect you?

00:57:20.824 --> 00:57:21.179
Nick Viney: You can't kill them.

00:57:21.359 --> 00:57:22.114
You can't kill them.

00:57:22.204 --> 00:57:24.619
But what I mean is are you wouldn't matter
who you're supposed to, they're protected.

00:57:24.619 --> 00:57:24.819
Are

00:57:24.819 --> 00:57:25.984
Rupert Isaacson: you
still liable, basically?

00:57:26.194 --> 00:57:29.194
Or can you say, look, it's got nothing
to do with me and it's outta my control.

00:57:29.494 --> 00:57:29.764
Nick Viney: Yeah.

00:57:29.764 --> 00:57:33.634
As far as I'm aware, you can, you
know, if, if you haven't put them

00:57:33.634 --> 00:57:37.354
there, it's, you know, they are just
part of the fabric of the ecosystem.

00:57:37.684 --> 00:57:38.644
They are protected.

00:57:38.734 --> 00:57:42.784
They cannot, if you, if you know, you
are in big trouble, if you kill 'em now,

00:57:42.784 --> 00:57:44.164
I'm not saying it's not gonna happen.

00:57:44.374 --> 00:57:44.464
Right.

00:57:44.464 --> 00:57:47.824
You know, look at, look at all the
birds of prey that are still persecuted.

00:57:48.124 --> 00:57:49.074
You know, sure.

00:57:49.074 --> 00:57:53.814
There's, there's gonna be, you know, as
Brits, we love killing stuff, don't we?

00:57:53.994 --> 00:57:55.314
I mean, we have export.

00:57:55.524 --> 00:57:55.554
Oh,

00:57:55.554 --> 00:57:56.034
Rupert Isaacson: everybody.

00:57:56.244 --> 00:57:58.074
We, that's not just the Brits, everybody.

00:57:58.914 --> 00:58:01.944
Nick Viney: I just feel like, you
know, at, at a colonial level, we've,

00:58:01.944 --> 00:58:05.664
we've got some pretty, you know,
some pretty strong history in this.

00:58:06.054 --> 00:58:08.154
And this is very,

00:58:11.244 --> 00:58:15.114
it's very much part of the, the,
you know, the fabric of the,

00:58:15.354 --> 00:58:16.974
of living in the countryside.

00:58:17.544 --> 00:58:20.604
What has, and that, that sort of.

00:58:22.059 --> 00:58:24.879
That mindset has, has continued.

00:58:25.239 --> 00:58:29.919
But the, the things that have been
available, you know, to, to, to be

00:58:29.919 --> 00:58:34.289
killed are are less and less and
less that really there's only foxes.

00:58:34.319 --> 00:58:39.899
The only reason we have Red Fox in the
UK is because we kept them to hunt them.

00:58:40.079 --> 00:58:40.319
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

00:58:40.319 --> 00:58:42.059
We, we, we created Super foxes.

00:58:42.209 --> 00:58:42.599
Yeah, yeah.

00:58:42.604 --> 00:58:45.899
Basically we, we, we promoted their habit.

00:58:46.019 --> 00:58:48.419
Well, but again, devils have
got, we have actually a lot of

00:58:48.599 --> 00:58:51.659
quote unquote game animals in
the UK for the very same reason.

00:58:51.989 --> 00:58:55.769
So, you know, our partridges are
better in the UK than they are in

00:58:55.769 --> 00:58:59.309
Europe because we like to shoot them,
obviously have a lot of pheasant.

00:58:59.369 --> 00:59:02.879
I know that people raise them, you
know, in pens, but there's also a lot

00:59:02.879 --> 00:59:04.259
of wild pheasant 'cause they go feral.

00:59:04.719 --> 00:59:06.009
There are graphs on the mos.

00:59:06.009 --> 00:59:09.859
There are, you know, and as you say this
is because people like to kill 'em hairs

00:59:09.859 --> 00:59:13.309
in the fields and so on, but they don't
want to kill them to eradicate them.

00:59:13.729 --> 00:59:16.789
They want to kill them to
have a relationship with them.

00:59:17.179 --> 00:59:22.939
And this is, you know, having lived with
hunter-gatherers, I grew up fox hunting.

00:59:22.939 --> 00:59:23.959
I don't do it anymore.

00:59:24.829 --> 00:59:27.859
And I can tell you an interesting
story about how and why I gave

00:59:27.859 --> 00:59:30.469
up, but I would say that it, I.

00:59:32.014 --> 00:59:36.154
Is responsible for my environmentalism
because it was something that brought

00:59:36.154 --> 00:59:40.054
me into relationship with having to
look after habitat as a young boy.

00:59:40.054 --> 00:59:43.084
We hedged, we looked after the
hedgerows, we looked after the

00:59:43.084 --> 00:59:44.944
spinnings because we wanted foxes.

00:59:44.944 --> 00:59:45.004
Yeah.

00:59:45.334 --> 00:59:48.334
And there was knock on effects
for a lot of other wildlife.

00:59:48.834 --> 00:59:51.504
And we wouldn't use chemicals and that
sort of thing for the same reason.

00:59:51.934 --> 00:59:56.134
But there's, so, to my mind, there's
nothing wrong with having a relationship

00:59:56.134 --> 01:00:00.544
with hunting because, or let's say
if you think it's wrong, it's gonna

01:00:00.544 --> 01:00:04.354
happen anyway because it's in humans,
because we are hunter-gatherers.

01:00:04.354 --> 01:00:09.094
So I do respect someone's philosophy
that they don't want to, or they feel

01:00:09.094 --> 01:00:14.254
it's wrong, but it's gonna happen because
that is how we've always related to that.

01:00:14.254 --> 01:00:20.884
So if we're going to have this, surely
then these new rewild species that are

01:00:20.884 --> 01:00:26.374
gonna come in are also going to be hunted
or surely must be hunted, or we won't be

01:00:26.374 --> 01:00:28.204
in any kind of relationship with them.

01:00:28.414 --> 01:00:29.434
That's authentic.

01:00:29.524 --> 01:00:31.174
And then how do we dance around that?

01:00:31.894 --> 01:00:34.864
'cause I think there's a, a difference,
again, between hunting and extermination.

01:00:34.864 --> 01:00:36.754
Extermination is a whole
other thing, right?

01:00:37.234 --> 01:00:40.684
But how are we gonna
dance through all of this?

01:00:41.914 --> 01:00:45.154
Nick Viney: Well, how, how
do we know what, which is

01:00:45.154 --> 01:00:46.684
the last beaver for a start?

01:00:47.584 --> 01:00:48.994
I mean, how do you know?

01:00:48.994 --> 01:00:51.004
It's like who chopped down
the last tree on Dartmore?

01:00:51.884 --> 01:00:55.874
We just, you know, we don't
really pay attention to, to

01:00:55.874 --> 01:00:57.644
those, to those sorts of things.

01:00:58.154 --> 01:01:03.159
And, and I think in terms of
ecosystem restoration, then you have

01:01:03.159 --> 01:01:05.529
to build up a massive population,

01:01:05.859 --> 01:01:06.129
Rupert Isaacson: right?

01:01:06.279 --> 01:01:09.789
Nick Viney: A healthy population right
before you then put yourself in a position

01:01:09.789 --> 01:01:14.469
where then you can start thinking about
culling out young males unhealthy.

01:01:14.739 --> 01:01:16.904
So, so we're a long way from that.

01:01:17.324 --> 01:01:20.954
And, you know, just, and look at
the deer population so, so equal

01:01:20.954 --> 01:01:23.114
to our sheep population in the uk.

01:01:23.294 --> 01:01:26.924
You know, the, the trees have a
double whammy and double nemesis.

01:01:27.174 --> 01:01:30.654
You know, the deer, the outta
control deer population in the uk.

01:01:30.984 --> 01:01:34.984
So, you know, a little Scots
Pine, for example, Scotland,

01:01:35.314 --> 01:01:36.784
you know, Scott's Pine this big.

01:01:37.024 --> 01:01:38.014
Is it a year old?

01:01:38.464 --> 01:01:41.494
You look at it closely,
it could be 15 years old.

01:01:41.794 --> 01:01:45.904
And it's still this big because it's just
had its head taken off year after year

01:01:45.904 --> 01:01:47.554
after year, and yet it's still trying.

01:01:48.094 --> 01:01:53.524
So until we get those, you know,
the, these, these massive sort of

01:01:53.524 --> 01:01:56.709
oversteer problems under top, but
we do hunt a lot of deer, right?

01:01:56.714 --> 01:01:58.444
Rupert Isaacson: We, we do
shoot a lot of deer in the uk,

01:01:58.984 --> 01:01:59.854
Nick Viney: not nearly enough.

01:02:00.154 --> 01:02:01.834
Rupert Isaacson: But how would
we, how would you possibly shoot

01:02:01.834 --> 01:02:03.034
more deer than we do already?

01:02:03.124 --> 01:02:05.104
You'd have to have like everyone
walking around with a gun.

01:02:06.209 --> 01:02:10.739
Nick Viney: I think, I think, well,
I dunno about that, but I would

01:02:10.739 --> 01:02:15.569
certainly like to see us shift away
from industrial pig and poultry

01:02:15.629 --> 01:02:20.489
and into wild venison and, and, and
these things aren't set in right, but

01:02:20.489 --> 01:02:23.614
Rupert Isaacson: how, like really you
must have thought it through a bit bit.

01:02:23.619 --> 01:02:24.419
I'm quite intrigued.

01:02:25.229 --> 01:02:25.709
Well,

01:02:26.014 --> 01:02:30.289
Nick Viney: I, I, I know someone who
has a who has a butchery business and

01:02:30.349 --> 01:02:37.279
they have so much deer coming into them
from, from, you know, guys out stalking.

01:02:37.669 --> 01:02:39.804
You are kind of, you're getting
into, you're talking about more

01:02:39.924 --> 01:02:41.569
Rupert Isaacson: stalkers, you're
talking about more hunters, basically.

01:02:41.779 --> 01:02:44.089
You would need more hunters
than we have currently.

01:02:44.629 --> 01:02:44.929
Nick Viney: Yeah.

01:02:45.289 --> 01:02:45.499
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

01:02:46.009 --> 01:02:46.279
Nick Viney: Yeah.

01:02:46.759 --> 01:02:48.889
Rupert Isaacson: What's
the likelihood of that?

01:02:51.439 --> 01:02:52.369
Nick Viney: I think it,
it's, the reason I'm

01:02:52.369 --> 01:02:53.929
Rupert Isaacson: asking you is
this question is going somewhere.

01:02:54.979 --> 01:02:58.029
Nick Viney: I think it's the only okay.

01:02:58.239 --> 01:03:03.879
So, so whatever I'm saying here and now
I think is relevant to here and now.

01:03:04.299 --> 01:03:07.839
I'm not saying it's a forever solution.

01:03:08.199 --> 01:03:12.429
What I'm saying is we have an, we
have an explosion of deer population,

01:03:12.429 --> 01:03:15.879
so some native, a lot not and.

01:03:18.504 --> 01:03:22.074
But those are, that's a relatively
clean, a very, I would say, a

01:03:22.074 --> 01:03:24.384
very clean source of protein.

01:03:25.074 --> 01:03:26.604
So if, if we were, then I'm with you.

01:03:26.814 --> 01:03:32.004
If we were then harvesting those and
that could positively impact our tree

01:03:32.114 --> 01:03:34.124
you know, our tree, lack of trees.

01:03:34.514 --> 01:03:39.164
Then for me, for now, that's a
good, that's a good solution.

01:03:40.214 --> 01:03:42.134
Rupert Isaacson: Should we
have fewer deer or fewer sheep?

01:03:43.514 --> 01:03:43.814
Nick Viney: Both.

01:03:44.504 --> 01:03:44.804
Rupert Isaacson: Right.

01:03:46.004 --> 01:03:51.254
If sheep, and we were looking at a
healthy UK ecosystem, I presume that

01:03:51.254 --> 01:03:58.454
you would go to any part of the UK
and see a relative profusion of road

01:03:58.454 --> 01:04:05.774
deer, some big-ish herds of red deer
moving through the landscape and, okay.

01:04:05.774 --> 01:04:09.314
We have people say fallow or not,
we're introduced by the Romans.

01:04:09.314 --> 01:04:11.654
But given that that's
2000 years ago, okay.

01:04:11.714 --> 01:04:15.914
I think we could sort of say that
they're naturalized and then we

01:04:15.914 --> 01:04:17.594
got the ones that are from Asia.

01:04:17.594 --> 01:04:20.534
We got the M Jackson, the Chinese water
deer, but they're not gonna go away.

01:04:22.514 --> 01:04:25.544
But you and I both know when you drive
through the English countryside, you

01:04:25.544 --> 01:04:31.124
do not see a plethora of rho air you do
in Germany, where I'm from, I was out

01:04:31.154 --> 01:04:37.754
this morning, so I would expect to see
X number of rodia every time I go out.

01:04:38.894 --> 01:04:39.404
I'm sorry.

01:04:39.464 --> 01:04:41.594
In some areas of the UK you
do, but most of the UK you

01:04:41.594 --> 01:04:44.354
actually don't and not like here.

01:04:44.714 --> 01:04:49.924
And the Red Deer, yes, there are some
contained populations of Red Deer

01:04:50.464 --> 01:04:54.664
below Scotland, but you don't see that.

01:04:54.694 --> 01:04:57.844
Like you'd see migrating elk,
for example, in parts of the

01:04:57.844 --> 01:04:58.954
American West or that sort thing.

01:04:59.134 --> 01:05:01.384
So how is it that we have too many deer?

01:05:02.014 --> 01:05:05.614
It seems to me that no, do we actually
have too many deer or do we actually have

01:05:05.614 --> 01:05:07.864
too many people in conflict with deer?

01:05:09.244 --> 01:05:10.354
Nick Viney: Well, yeah, okay.

01:05:10.354 --> 01:05:11.434
We're an island, aren't we?

01:05:11.434 --> 01:05:13.504
It isn't getting any, it
isn't getting any bigger.

01:05:14.144 --> 01:05:15.944
Rupert Isaacson: But it's not like
you're seeing deer every time you go out.

01:05:16.334 --> 01:05:16.966
You know, you're not,

01:05:18.769 --> 01:05:19.269
Nick Viney: you are not.

01:05:19.554 --> 01:05:22.494
So I would say, well, I am, I am.

01:05:22.704 --> 01:05:25.314
Rupert Isaacson: You live in a, the se
the second really wild corner of the uk,

01:05:25.344 --> 01:05:28.824
Nick Viney: the second you make
habitat, it's a, it's a magnet.

01:05:29.154 --> 01:05:34.674
So anything that needs somewhere to hide
it needs to, you know, it's the second you

01:05:34.674 --> 01:05:37.344
start growing trees and, and giving cover.

01:05:37.824 --> 01:05:38.124
Yeah.

01:05:38.129 --> 01:05:39.024
You, you are a magnet.

01:05:39.024 --> 01:05:39.234
It is,

01:05:39.234 --> 01:05:39.834
Rupert Isaacson: are gonna show up.

01:05:39.894 --> 01:05:40.284
Yeah,

01:05:40.404 --> 01:05:40.765
Nick Viney: yeah, yeah.

01:05:41.124 --> 01:05:44.694
The, the, one of the biggest problems
in the UK and, and why you have these

01:05:44.694 --> 01:05:50.364
concentrations of, of, say deer for
example, is, is the lack of connectivity.

01:05:50.874 --> 01:05:52.944
So this, this herb Oh, okay.

01:05:52.944 --> 01:05:54.775
Has to stay, you know, it's
only you're talking about

01:05:55.009 --> 01:05:55.849
Rupert Isaacson: corridors,
wildlife corridor.

01:05:56.029 --> 01:05:56.649
Nick Viney: Yes, exactly.

01:05:56.869 --> 01:05:59.329
So it can't, you know, so, so I.

01:06:00.264 --> 01:06:05.444
I've been on the range and I've seen I've
seen stags cross from, so three Dartmore,

01:06:05.444 --> 01:06:09.674
365 square miles of missed opportunity.

01:06:09.774 --> 01:06:10.434
I would say.

01:06:10.734 --> 01:06:14.484
But you know, you'll see stags coming
right across the top in the open, open

01:06:14.484 --> 01:06:17.874
moland, you know, they're not comfortable
in that scenario, but they know, you

01:06:17.874 --> 01:06:19.584
know, they can smell over the hill.

01:06:19.719 --> 01:06:22.854
There's, there's somebody good over the
other side of the hill and they will,

01:06:22.854 --> 01:06:26.904
you know, try and use Dartmore as this
sort of you know, they'll bolt for it.

01:06:27.089 --> 01:06:31.514
And, and Dartmore still has just a few
you know, few of these wooded valleys

01:06:31.514 --> 01:06:34.634
where they can, you know, get down into
those and, you know, and they're steep

01:06:34.634 --> 01:06:37.994
enough and, and uninhabited enough
that they can have a quietish life.

01:06:39.074 --> 01:06:42.464
Rupert Isaacson: And we haven't gone
into your 20 years as a wildlife

01:06:42.464 --> 01:06:44.144
ranger on Dartmore, which, not,

01:06:44.419 --> 01:06:45.404
Nick Viney: not a wildlife ranger.

01:06:45.764 --> 01:06:46.064
Rupert Isaacson: Sorry,

01:06:46.154 --> 01:06:47.114
Nick Viney: not a wildlife ranger.

01:06:47.114 --> 01:06:47.115
No.

01:06:47.120 --> 01:06:49.904
What were you No, I'm a, I'm
what's called a range clearer.

01:06:49.934 --> 01:06:54.404
So Uhhuh, I actually so I would
be on horseback with the dogs.

01:06:54.404 --> 01:06:57.374
So that's the, that's the,
the, that painting there.

01:06:57.674 --> 01:06:59.434
And and I would move livestock.

01:06:59.464 --> 01:07:02.944
So Dartmore parts of dartmore
are used by the military.

01:07:02.989 --> 01:07:07.569
And and so you have live firing
ranges, so people and livestock

01:07:07.569 --> 01:07:09.279
have to be kept out of those areas.

01:07:09.549 --> 01:07:14.049
And so, range clearers are employed
to move the livestock off those areas

01:07:14.289 --> 01:07:18.649
and then hold them back in, you know,
until, until the live firings finished.

01:07:18.649 --> 01:07:18.739
What

01:07:18.739 --> 01:07:19.279
Rupert Isaacson: Brilliant job.

01:07:19.279 --> 01:07:20.119
How long do you do that for?

01:07:20.479 --> 01:07:22.009
Nick Viney: 20, 20 years.

01:07:22.069 --> 01:07:22.759
Rupert Isaacson: Why'd you stop?

01:07:23.539 --> 01:07:25.589
Nick Viney: Complicated
reasons, but you still

01:07:25.589 --> 01:07:27.324
Rupert Isaacson: do it a bit like,
is that still part of what I still

01:07:27.324 --> 01:07:28.019
Nick Viney: I still got my ticket.

01:07:28.139 --> 01:07:28.349
Yeah.

01:07:28.349 --> 01:07:28.979
Still a ticket.

01:07:28.979 --> 01:07:29.129
Yeah.

01:07:29.294 --> 01:07:29.849
Is that something

01:07:29.849 --> 01:07:31.349
Rupert Isaacson: you can actually
make a, a full living off?

01:07:31.349 --> 01:07:36.029
Like you could be like a, a fully bring
up your kids and pay mortgage on that?

01:07:36.034 --> 01:07:36.234
Yeah,

01:07:36.314 --> 01:07:36.569
Nick Viney: yeah, yeah.

01:07:36.569 --> 01:07:36.989
I did that.

01:07:36.989 --> 01:07:37.199
Yeah.

01:07:37.349 --> 01:07:37.589
Yeah.

01:07:37.949 --> 01:07:38.279
Rupert Isaacson: Brilliant.

01:07:38.429 --> 01:07:38.759
Nick Viney: Yeah.

01:07:38.979 --> 01:07:40.239
Rupert Isaacson: That's a good,
so that's actually, yeah, well,

01:07:40.299 --> 01:07:42.579
Nick Viney: you know, because it's
actually a, it's an un and the job is

01:07:42.579 --> 01:07:44.169
unchanged for over a hundred years.

01:07:44.174 --> 01:07:44.234
Okay.

01:07:44.234 --> 01:07:47.919
You know, Dartmoor is, dartmore is full
of unexploded or ordinance, you know,

01:07:48.264 --> 01:07:52.049
it's, you know, we've been, we don't
have tanks down here anymore, but you

01:07:52.049 --> 01:07:57.979
know, these, these open wilder areas were
considered in a sense waste ground yeah.

01:07:57.979 --> 01:07:59.964
That you could, you could
just lob things into.

01:07:59.964 --> 01:08:00.054
Sure.

01:08:00.384 --> 01:08:05.154
Actually what the ranges are, and this
is true on Dartmore, but also up and

01:08:05.154 --> 01:08:10.314
down the country, is they are some of
the best, recovering landscapes, I'm

01:08:10.314 --> 01:08:15.104
sure in the UK because we, we keep
people off and we create rest by, by

01:08:15.104 --> 01:08:16.544
keeping the stock on certain areas.

01:08:16.544 --> 01:08:16.724
Well, this

01:08:16.724 --> 01:08:19.064
Rupert Isaacson: leads me to the,
so the reason I, I, I was asking

01:08:19.064 --> 01:08:22.064
all those devil's advocate questions
about deer is the obvious one, right?

01:08:22.334 --> 01:08:24.554
You yourself have said
We lack large predators.

01:08:24.674 --> 01:08:25.874
You are a rew wilder.

01:08:26.534 --> 01:08:27.014
Okay.

01:08:27.374 --> 01:08:30.104
So we all know what the top
predator in the UK ought to be.

01:08:30.674 --> 01:08:31.964
Now it's the wolf.

01:08:32.204 --> 01:08:36.284
So in Germany where I live
it's very interesting.

01:08:36.614 --> 01:08:38.904
I live in Hessen but
not far from Frankfurt.

01:08:38.904 --> 01:08:42.534
Like you could be in downtown Frankfurt
from where I'm sitting right now, and

01:08:42.534 --> 01:08:46.524
40 minutes, you could be in downtown
v Spartan in about less than 20.

01:08:47.124 --> 01:08:51.414
But the forest and the, the
farmland around here is the

01:08:51.414 --> 01:08:53.694
farmland is either crops or orchard.

01:08:54.624 --> 01:08:57.834
Not all of the orchard is managed,
so a lot of it is semi rewild.

01:08:58.614 --> 01:09:02.004
And big areas of forest, which are
working forests, they're all owned, like,

01:09:02.034 --> 01:09:05.994
like in France, they're owned by the
local community and they're logged, but

01:09:06.324 --> 01:09:08.124
they're logged some semis sustainably.

01:09:08.124 --> 01:09:09.834
So there's a lot of wildlife in them.

01:09:10.524 --> 01:09:13.854
In the last five years or six
years, wolves have shown up again.

01:09:14.634 --> 01:09:17.895
And I lived in Canada for
a while and lots of Ws.

01:09:18.014 --> 01:09:21.674
You never saw 'em, like, you know,
so you, I think I saw one once.

01:09:22.364 --> 01:09:27.374
I was, however, as a journalist involved
in covering the early stages of the Wolf

01:09:27.374 --> 01:09:32.024
Free introductions in Yellowstone National
Park in, and I watched how the landscape

01:09:32.024 --> 01:09:38.504
regenerated itself once they came in
and all of the ranches going up in arms.

01:09:38.504 --> 01:09:42.224
I said, and I realized actually you
guys aren't, it's not the wolves.

01:09:42.524 --> 01:09:46.304
You just hate government and, and you
are just resentful of the fact that

01:09:46.304 --> 01:09:48.104
government has put these things here.

01:09:48.594 --> 01:09:50.994
But you and I both know you're not
gonna go outta business 'cause of

01:09:50.994 --> 01:09:54.724
a wolf because economically that's
just not gonna happen anymore.

01:09:55.184 --> 01:10:04.394
So you are, it's an inherited hatred
of it's an inherited farmer or herder

01:10:04.394 --> 01:10:09.014
to the com com competition with another
predator that's come down the generations.

01:10:09.074 --> 01:10:11.954
And it's also resentment
of government interference.

01:10:12.254 --> 01:10:13.989
But ecologically, there's no question.

01:10:14.294 --> 01:10:14.744
It's a good thing.

01:10:15.044 --> 01:10:20.454
Anyway, as on horseback here I don't
know, about four years ago and I'd

01:10:20.544 --> 01:10:21.924
been reading, oh yeah, they're back.

01:10:21.954 --> 01:10:25.014
And they sort of pinpointed where
they'd seen a breeding panel.

01:10:25.044 --> 01:10:25.974
Yeah, but we won't see 'em.

01:10:26.124 --> 01:10:31.674
I totally, totally saw one and it was a
small female and she popped out on the

01:10:31.674 --> 01:10:38.964
woodland ride in front of me and then
she ran up the ride for a good a hundred

01:10:38.964 --> 01:10:40.614
yards before she popped off into us.

01:10:40.734 --> 01:10:41.094
Wow.

01:10:41.094 --> 01:10:42.114
I got to see her.

01:10:42.624 --> 01:10:45.924
Well, I haven't seen her since because
there's been a shoot shovel and shut up.

01:10:46.374 --> 01:10:46.854
Policy.

01:10:47.814 --> 01:10:54.384
But no matter how much the locals here
will do that, I suspect the wolves will

01:10:54.384 --> 01:10:59.394
find their foothold because times have
changed economically that people are

01:10:59.394 --> 01:11:02.634
not living off the land in the same
way that they were a hundred years ago.

01:11:03.144 --> 01:11:07.824
So, and people are more and more tolerant,
not less and less tolerant, but equally,

01:11:07.849 --> 01:11:11.424
the, the story of why the wolves got
here in the first place is so weirdly

01:11:11.424 --> 01:11:13.614
human, because it's because of Bel.

01:11:14.724 --> 01:11:16.944
When Chernobyl happened, you
know, they basically created

01:11:16.944 --> 01:11:18.054
a massive wildlife reserve.

01:11:18.054 --> 01:11:18.294
All Yeah.

01:11:18.324 --> 01:11:22.134
As you say, you give once, soon as the
cover comes, all the, all the stuff comes

01:11:22.134 --> 01:11:24.294
back, then it comes, then it goes out.

01:11:24.684 --> 01:11:28.134
And the wolves just began to expand
westward first through Poland

01:11:28.134 --> 01:11:29.214
and then, you know, into here.

01:11:29.214 --> 01:11:30.324
Now they're, they're in Belgium.

01:11:31.104 --> 01:11:37.014
So, but what's interesting to me
is I then was in Poland a couple of

01:11:37.014 --> 01:11:39.714
years ago, and there were wolf kills.

01:11:39.714 --> 01:11:43.224
There's a big red deer wolf kill, like
right outside where we were staying.

01:11:43.894 --> 01:11:47.494
And, but they were farming
cattle and other livestock.

01:11:47.674 --> 01:11:49.924
And I said to them, aren't you
in conflict with the wolves?

01:11:50.014 --> 01:11:53.104
And they said, oh, Rupert, the W See,
the thing is the wolves never left

01:11:53.104 --> 01:11:55.114
here, so we know how to live with them.

01:11:55.504 --> 01:11:58.384
And I said, so you, you let your
calves cow carve out your cows,

01:11:58.564 --> 01:12:00.484
carve outside, not, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:12:00.484 --> 01:12:04.174
And yeah, sure, we lose one or two,
but honestly no more than we would

01:12:04.174 --> 01:12:10.534
lose to other th you know, winter
crap or this thing or that thing.

01:12:10.864 --> 01:12:12.004
Rupert, it's not a big deal.

01:12:12.634 --> 01:12:16.954
But the Germans, they're all panicking
because they were without the wolf for

01:12:17.074 --> 01:12:20.104
over a hundred years, and now they kind
of dunno how to live with it anymore.

01:12:20.464 --> 01:12:21.784
And so sure, you've
gotta hunt some of them.

01:12:21.964 --> 01:12:24.094
If you got a problem, one, you're
gonna, you're gonna go shoot it.

01:12:24.244 --> 01:12:26.974
But in general, they, they, they,
they're not interested in you.

01:12:26.974 --> 01:12:27.454
They keep away.

01:12:27.454 --> 01:12:30.184
And as long as you've got enough deer,
that's really what they want to eat.

01:12:30.244 --> 01:12:30.574
Yeah.

01:12:30.844 --> 01:12:35.944
Now the uk so I don't believe
we really have too many deer.

01:12:35.944 --> 01:12:36.364
I'm sorry.

01:12:36.364 --> 01:12:38.584
I just don't, I grew up in
the countryside in the uk.

01:12:39.154 --> 01:12:41.524
It's not like I was tripping
over a deer every five seconds.

01:12:41.524 --> 01:12:44.314
I do know that there are issues
with growing trees, but one

01:12:44.314 --> 01:12:45.604
can also fence trees off.

01:12:45.604 --> 01:12:48.484
And they do, otherwise we wouldn't
be able to grow the industrial

01:12:48.514 --> 01:12:50.044
plantations of trees that we do.

01:12:50.554 --> 01:12:52.084
And that's another environmental thing.

01:12:52.084 --> 01:12:53.494
But yet they do grow those trees.

01:12:53.494 --> 01:12:58.024
So clearly th there are ways
to manage the deer, but we ha

01:12:58.054 --> 01:12:59.524
we do have a plethora of sheep.

01:12:59.524 --> 01:13:01.324
We do have a plethora of humans.

01:13:03.304 --> 01:13:06.064
Bringing back the wolf is obviously a
conversation that's been going on for

01:13:06.064 --> 01:13:08.404
30, 50, a hundred years or whatever.

01:13:08.409 --> 01:13:13.504
Is it gonna happen, do you think, in
the uk because surely that would be

01:13:13.654 --> 01:13:15.754
the authentic landscape, would it not?

01:13:16.234 --> 01:13:19.744
The top predator back in
play and us living with it.

01:13:21.124 --> 01:13:23.104
Nick Viney: Well, if you are
looking for the cheapest, quickest

01:13:23.104 --> 01:13:26.884
solution to landscape recovery, then
yeah, it's an absolute no brainer.

01:13:26.884 --> 01:13:26.944
For

01:13:27.124 --> 01:13:27.544
Rupert Isaacson: sure.

01:13:28.969 --> 01:13:29.779
Nick Viney: Nothing.

01:13:30.469 --> 01:13:31.759
It's just not that simple, is it?

01:13:32.044 --> 01:13:33.079
Rupert Isaacson: No,
I'm not saying it was,

01:13:33.079 --> 01:13:34.579
Nick Viney: you talk
about us being tolerant.

01:13:34.579 --> 01:13:36.409
I'm really not sure how tolerant we are.

01:13:37.139 --> 01:13:40.109
Especially in the, especially
in the countryside.

01:13:40.109 --> 01:13:40.169
Yeah.

01:13:40.559 --> 01:13:44.879
I mean this is a massive, you know, we
have the rise of reform, Nigel Farage,

01:13:45.299 --> 01:13:48.809
you know, you'll see those, those boards
all over the place in the countryside,

01:13:49.379 --> 01:13:51.359
you know, and that's not, they

01:13:51.359 --> 01:13:52.079
Rupert Isaacson: what No wolves.

01:13:52.979 --> 01:13:53.219
Nick Viney: Yeah.

01:13:53.219 --> 01:13:53.220
Yeah.

01:13:53.589 --> 01:13:53.919
Yeah.

01:13:54.379 --> 01:13:57.254
So, you know, I

01:13:57.254 --> 01:13:57.894
Rupert Isaacson: think he is the w

01:13:59.684 --> 01:14:03.350
Nick Viney: it's, it's the sensible thing
to do, but, you know, but will it happen?

01:14:03.355 --> 01:14:04.459
When do we go for that?

01:14:05.629 --> 01:14:05.869
Yeah.

01:14:05.869 --> 01:14:05.989
Do

01:14:05.989 --> 01:14:06.979
Rupert Isaacson: you think
it'll happen at some point?

01:14:06.979 --> 01:14:07.459
Eventually?

01:14:07.939 --> 01:14:09.169
Nick Viney: Yeah, I think it will happen.

01:14:09.349 --> 01:14:12.759
Rupert Isaacson: If you made it
this far into the podcast, then I'm

01:14:12.759 --> 01:14:17.439
guessing you're somebody that, like
me, loves to read books about not

01:14:17.439 --> 01:14:21.339
just how people have achieved self
actualization, but particularly

01:14:21.359 --> 01:14:25.049
about the relationship with nature.

01:14:25.499 --> 01:14:28.679
Spirituality, life, the
universe, and everything.

01:14:29.419 --> 01:14:32.369
And I'd like to draw your
attention to my books.

01:14:32.379 --> 01:14:37.059
If you would like to read the story
of how we even arrived here, perhaps

01:14:37.059 --> 01:14:41.519
you'd like to check out the two New
York Times bestsellers, The Horseboy

01:14:42.219 --> 01:14:47.189
and The Long Ride Home, and come on an
adventure with us and see what engendered,

01:14:47.249 --> 01:14:49.399
what started Live Free Ride Free.

01:14:49.419 --> 01:14:53.199
And before we go back to the
podcast, also check out The Healing

01:14:53.199 --> 01:14:55.689
Land, which tells the story of.

01:14:56.394 --> 01:15:01.784
My years spent in the Kalahari with the
Sun, Bushmen, hunter gatherer people

01:15:01.784 --> 01:15:05.944
there, and all that they taught me, and
mentored me in, and all that I learned.

01:15:06.194 --> 01:15:07.454
Come on that adventure with me.

01:15:07.479 --> 01:15:07.749
Yeah.

01:15:07.749 --> 01:15:08.889
And, and how will it happen?

01:15:09.189 --> 01:15:10.539
'cause I'm interested in this, you know.

01:15:10.599 --> 01:15:10.749
Well,

01:15:11.199 --> 01:15:13.779
Nick Viney: they, you know, they're
not gonna cross the channel, so they,

01:15:13.779 --> 01:15:16.149
we will be humans bringing them back.

01:15:16.899 --> 01:15:19.959
It may not be, I, I don't
know how long that's gonna

01:15:19.959 --> 01:15:22.749
be, but something will happen.

01:15:22.749 --> 01:15:23.139
And what

01:15:23.139 --> 01:15:24.159
Rupert Isaacson: do you think will happen?

01:15:26.749 --> 01:15:28.429
Nick Viney: I think
we'll wise up, I think.

01:15:28.439 --> 01:15:30.419
Rupert Isaacson: But specifically
like where would they do it

01:15:30.869 --> 01:15:32.429
and how would they do it?

01:15:32.429 --> 01:15:32.639
And

01:15:33.089 --> 01:15:37.439
Nick Viney: I think they, I think
probably they'd do something in Scotland.

01:15:37.439 --> 01:15:37.529
Mm-hmm.

01:15:38.189 --> 01:15:41.819
And I think it will be the best thing
they ever did economically, because I

01:15:41.819 --> 01:15:43.379
mean, that is seriously progressive.

01:15:44.039 --> 01:15:47.699
You know, there's, there's a,
there's a incredible, you know,

01:15:48.029 --> 01:15:51.449
even just from ecotourism, forget,
forget the timber perspective.

01:15:51.479 --> 01:15:51.539
No

01:15:51.539 --> 01:15:51.869
Rupert Isaacson: doubt.

01:15:52.139 --> 01:15:53.909
Nick Viney: You know,
it's just, or t-shirts.

01:15:53.969 --> 01:15:54.569
Rupert Isaacson: No, for sure.

01:15:54.629 --> 01:15:54.989
Nick Viney: Yeah.

01:15:55.169 --> 01:15:55.409
Yeah.

01:15:55.829 --> 01:16:00.569
So yeah, I mean, that it
would just be extraordinary.

01:16:00.569 --> 01:16:00.839
Yes.

01:16:00.839 --> 01:16:01.739
Extraordinary.

01:16:02.209 --> 01:16:02.719
But

01:16:02.839 --> 01:16:05.839
Rupert Isaacson: do you think,
do you think it's 10 years away,

01:16:05.839 --> 01:16:07.309
20 years away, 50 years away?

01:16:07.859 --> 01:16:07.979
Nick Viney: No.

01:16:07.979 --> 01:16:07.980
No.

01:16:07.985 --> 01:16:08.474
What do you reckon?

01:16:08.519 --> 01:16:13.889
I, I think it, I'd, I'd say 25 years
and some biblical shit climate wise.

01:16:15.329 --> 01:16:20.969
'cause I think, I think it's not until
we really start feeling it, it's like,

01:16:20.969 --> 01:16:23.914
you know, you know, look at what,
look at what happened to us in COVID.

01:16:23.919 --> 01:16:24.479
Okay.

01:16:24.809 --> 01:16:27.509
You know, within two weeks of
COVID, the shelves are empty.

01:16:27.739 --> 01:16:34.729
You know, we, we are all faced with
the reality that we have bugger

01:16:34.729 --> 01:16:37.879
all resilience in our food system.

01:16:38.239 --> 01:16:38.629
Okay?

01:16:38.899 --> 01:16:41.509
So we all turn to our local farmers,
blah, blah, blah, and everything's,

01:16:41.509 --> 01:16:43.159
you know, and the weather's fabulous.

01:16:43.159 --> 01:16:46.269
And and we all you know, things
look like there's a, there's

01:16:46.269 --> 01:16:47.499
a moment for change here.

01:16:48.489 --> 01:16:54.879
Well, the second we, that people
started to to look sideways for food,

01:16:55.209 --> 01:16:57.609
then suddenly we're all back to work.

01:16:58.539 --> 01:17:02.679
Back to work, get the gravy train
going again, because, you know.

01:17:04.059 --> 01:17:09.789
Food resilience, food sovereignty,
the ability to feed yourself is

01:17:10.149 --> 01:17:12.759
the most subversive act there is.

01:17:13.089 --> 01:17:18.789
You know, if you can self sustain what
you see you to, to, you know, whoever

01:17:18.789 --> 01:17:24.009
wants you to be their bitch, it's just
not you know, I guess they can tax

01:17:24.009 --> 01:17:25.599
Rupert Isaacson: your
something, but Yeah, they can

01:17:25.599 --> 01:17:26.289
Nick Viney: tax something.

01:17:26.289 --> 01:17:26.349
Yeah.

01:17:26.609 --> 01:17:31.979
So, so I, I guess what I'm
saying is that took a pandemic.

01:17:33.479 --> 01:17:39.019
So, and, and I, and I think
c climate wise, we haven't so

01:17:39.019 --> 01:17:43.989
climate wise we're looking at 30
to 40% higher rainfall events.

01:17:44.169 --> 01:17:48.714
You, you know, as, as we get through this
century, you know, I, I live, you know,

01:17:48.714 --> 01:17:50.514
I've grown up next, next to a river.

01:17:51.594 --> 01:17:55.344
It is an awesome, awesome power.

01:17:55.594 --> 01:18:02.374
I, I, I love to, to this feeling of kind
of insignificance that, you know, if I was

01:18:02.374 --> 01:18:06.184
to go near that water, I just wouldn't,
you know, you just wouldn't last a minute.

01:18:06.214 --> 01:18:09.934
And I, and I like that because
I like to be reminded that, that

01:18:11.824 --> 01:18:12.904
Rupert Isaacson: you're talking
about flash floods, nature

01:18:13.504 --> 01:18:14.074
Nick Viney: is powerful.

01:18:14.314 --> 01:18:15.484
It's not really flash floods.

01:18:15.484 --> 01:18:18.784
I mean, the, the, the problem is
there's nothing keeping it down there.

01:18:18.784 --> 01:18:22.054
It's like, you know, there's no
beavers up there slowing it down

01:18:22.114 --> 01:18:24.394
'cause there's no trees up there
for the beavers to eat, you know?

01:18:24.694 --> 01:18:29.494
So, so, so these rivers get,
literally get overwhelmed.

01:18:30.094 --> 01:18:31.624
And, and I mean that in a,

01:18:33.874 --> 01:18:35.854
in they are like, we get overwhelmed.

01:18:35.854 --> 01:18:36.214
Literally sense.

01:18:37.769 --> 01:18:40.264
Rupert Isaacson: Whelm is the
old English for wave over.

01:18:40.264 --> 01:18:41.374
Waved over.

01:18:41.914 --> 01:18:42.394
Nick Viney: Nice.

01:18:42.634 --> 01:18:42.964
Rupert Isaacson: Blowing over.

01:18:43.279 --> 01:18:43.569
Nick Viney: Okay.

01:18:43.834 --> 01:18:48.484
Well, so, so I didn't know that, but
this is how I sense this river is.

01:18:49.354 --> 01:18:51.964
And it's not just, it's not the, the
river's not the thing is that the

01:18:51.964 --> 01:18:57.964
river's, the, I have this idea that
water, one water is all water, okay?

01:18:58.144 --> 01:19:02.314
And water is all as water is
trying to get to do, is to get

01:19:02.314 --> 01:19:03.784
back to the main body of water.

01:19:04.404 --> 01:19:04.854
And

01:19:05.364 --> 01:19:05.904
Rupert Isaacson: nicely put,

01:19:06.034 --> 01:19:11.704
Nick Viney: And it doesn't, you know,
so it's out at sea and then, and then

01:19:11.704 --> 01:19:16.234
something happens and it's, and it's,
and it's drawn up into the clouds, you

01:19:16.234 --> 01:19:20.764
know, and then these, these droplets
are all, are all there and they're,

01:19:20.764 --> 01:19:23.584
and in these things called clouds,
and then they're getting heavier

01:19:23.584 --> 01:19:26.284
and heavier and heavier, and then
something pulls them to the ground.

01:19:26.624 --> 01:19:29.174
And they are smashed into the ground.

01:19:29.204 --> 01:19:33.584
Now if what, what water really
wants is a soft landing.

01:19:33.824 --> 01:19:40.144
And a soft landing is, is lots of
soil is, is lots of cover on the soil.

01:19:40.424 --> 01:19:43.004
Is is a, is a nice lot of vegetation.

01:19:43.004 --> 01:19:46.844
So it's, so it's cushioned as
it gradually meets the ground.

01:19:47.054 --> 01:19:48.554
And ideally then it starts to.

01:19:49.049 --> 01:19:52.619
Percolate into the ground and then
work its way down through the soil

01:19:52.619 --> 01:19:57.569
profile where it can have a rest in
the aquifer to it gently coming out

01:19:57.809 --> 01:20:02.369
into a nice, steady river, which
then allows it to go back to sea.

01:20:03.239 --> 01:20:07.379
What happens is, like we talked about
earlier, smashing of, you know, everything

01:20:07.379 --> 01:20:10.624
overwhelmed and and it's a, it's a crisis.

01:20:10.924 --> 01:20:11.434
So, so it,

01:20:11.764 --> 01:20:15.964
Rupert Isaacson: so as this relates to
wolves is the scenario as follows, we

01:20:15.964 --> 01:20:18.234
get more of these extreme weather events.

01:20:18.774 --> 01:20:23.634
There's more flooding in the urban
areas that are downstream of, and the

01:20:23.634 --> 01:20:27.864
farming areas, but mostly the urban areas
that are downstream of these uplands.

01:20:28.404 --> 01:20:33.504
Therefore, we need, we realize we need
more trees on those uplands to contain

01:20:33.504 --> 01:20:35.814
the rain and beavers and things like that.

01:20:36.354 --> 01:20:39.894
And because of that we need fewer things
up there that would eat the trees.

01:20:40.404 --> 01:20:43.314
And so therefore, rather, like in
Yellowstone where they found that,

01:20:43.584 --> 01:20:46.854
where they've been overpopulation of
elk when they brought the wolves back

01:20:46.854 --> 01:20:51.084
in, not a vast amount of them even, but
they brought some back in immediately.

01:20:51.084 --> 01:20:53.274
You've got regeneration of
forests on the upper slopes.

01:20:53.484 --> 01:20:55.104
That was the first thing
that everybody saw.

01:20:55.764 --> 01:20:56.844
Is that what we're talking about?

01:20:56.904 --> 01:21:02.514
Is that, that the sort of biblical type
event that you think would bring back the

01:21:02.514 --> 01:21:06.504
wolf in 25 years where people suddenly
say, okay, we need this sort of working

01:21:06.504 --> 01:21:08.244
thing to contain the water, basically?

01:21:09.114 --> 01:21:11.724
Nick Viney: Yeah, that, and I think
it's the cheapest, you know, we're

01:21:11.724 --> 01:21:14.904
all driven by the economics of it, and
it's just the cheapest thing there is.

01:21:15.684 --> 01:21:18.954
And, and I'm not saying you wouldn't
get 10 years into it as a, as

01:21:18.954 --> 01:21:22.434
a thing, and then you'd have to
start, you know, culling, who knows.

01:21:22.494 --> 01:21:22.614
Yeah,

01:21:22.614 --> 01:21:22.944
Rupert Isaacson: sure.

01:21:23.014 --> 01:21:26.494
Well, hopefully, hopefully they would
get a healthy enough population.

01:21:26.854 --> 01:21:26.914
Yeah.

01:21:26.914 --> 01:21:28.474
That that would be a thing.

01:21:28.984 --> 01:21:29.074
Yeah.

01:21:29.074 --> 01:21:31.714
But you and I both know then that,
of course, the other thing the Wol

01:21:31.714 --> 01:21:37.264
would do is they'd migrate and they'd
migrate down the uplands of Southern

01:21:37.264 --> 01:21:38.674
Scotland, and then the Pennines

01:21:40.204 --> 01:21:44.104
then they would begin to
show up in areas like yours.

01:21:47.344 --> 01:21:51.034
You are the manager of
Dartmouth at this point.

01:21:51.574 --> 01:21:51.814
Okay.

01:21:51.814 --> 01:21:52.834
Let's posit that you are.

01:21:53.794 --> 01:21:58.704
And now the first wolves are showing up
and we say, Hey Nick what's the strategy?

01:21:58.734 --> 01:21:59.694
What would be your strategy?

01:22:01.344 --> 01:22:02.844
Nick Viney: Oh, let
'em come, let 'em come.

01:22:03.084 --> 01:22:06.234
And, you know, and like I
said at the beginning, it's

01:22:06.234 --> 01:22:07.254
all about good shepherding.

01:22:07.764 --> 01:22:07.854
Mm-hmm.

01:22:07.854 --> 01:22:09.984
So, you know, wolves are
turned up in the Netherlands.

01:22:10.044 --> 01:22:10.554
This is a Yeah.

01:22:10.614 --> 01:22:13.164
This is an equally
densely populated country.

01:22:13.164 --> 01:22:14.309
It's, it's very, if not more so.

01:22:14.309 --> 01:22:14.509
Yeah.

01:22:14.509 --> 01:22:14.789
Yeah.

01:22:14.794 --> 01:22:15.864
Very similar to us.

01:22:15.954 --> 01:22:16.014
Yeah.

01:22:16.074 --> 01:22:19.554
And they, you know, one way or another,
they're kind of making it work.

01:22:19.614 --> 01:22:19.854
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

01:22:19.969 --> 01:22:21.404
Nick Viney: So it is doable.

01:22:21.614 --> 01:22:27.134
And, and I'm always, always gonna
go for the nature-based solution.

01:22:27.674 --> 01:22:28.184
Always.

01:22:28.844 --> 01:22:30.794
Rupert Isaacson: So you are
the manager of Dartmoor.

01:22:31.964 --> 01:22:33.374
It's 25 years on from now.

01:22:34.649 --> 01:22:38.399
And Nick is the, you know,
generalism of, of Dartmore.

01:22:39.359 --> 01:22:40.229
Am I seeing

01:22:42.239 --> 01:22:44.459
the recovery of the upland Beachwood?

01:22:44.549 --> 01:22:46.169
Am I seeing bison?

01:22:46.679 --> 01:22:48.929
Am I seeing moose?

01:22:49.289 --> 01:22:50.399
Am I seeing wolf?

01:22:50.399 --> 01:22:51.509
Am I seeing links?

01:22:51.899 --> 01:22:53.939
Am I seeing what else has gone?

01:22:53.969 --> 01:22:54.929
Obviously wild cats.

01:22:55.224 --> 01:22:55.644
Nick Viney: Eagles,

01:22:56.699 --> 01:22:57.119
Rupert Isaacson: Eagles.

01:22:57.119 --> 01:22:58.289
Am I seeing all of that?

01:22:58.349 --> 01:23:03.779
Is it, is it suddenly
starting to look paleolithic?

01:23:05.099 --> 01:23:05.789
Nick Viney: It is for me.

01:23:05.789 --> 01:23:06.779
It is always in my head.

01:23:07.019 --> 01:23:07.079
Yeah.

01:23:07.079 --> 01:23:12.989
That's exactly how I, that's
exactly how I live, you know?

01:23:13.259 --> 01:23:13.559
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

01:23:13.559 --> 01:23:13.769
50

01:23:13.769 --> 01:23:14.069
Nick Viney: years.

01:23:14.069 --> 01:23:16.919
It is, that's, that's the
thing I see all the time.

01:23:17.219 --> 01:23:21.179
You know, when I, you know, you can
be riding across dartmore, so 5,000

01:23:21.179 --> 01:23:24.889
more than 5,000 pre-historic remains.

01:23:24.889 --> 01:23:29.329
You know, hu hut circles the
longest stone rose in Europe,

01:23:29.359 --> 01:23:31.789
you know, phenomenal archeology.

01:23:32.599 --> 01:23:32.659
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.

01:23:32.659 --> 01:23:35.479
Nick Viney: Those, those people would not
have been there in this naked landscape.

01:23:36.469 --> 01:23:38.239
You know, what, what
would they have lived on?

01:23:38.419 --> 01:23:39.229
What would they have hunted?

01:23:39.229 --> 01:23:40.129
What would they have burnt?

01:23:40.499 --> 01:23:43.259
You know, what, what would've
sheltered them from the wind?

01:23:43.679 --> 01:23:47.189
You know, it was, there were
trees, there were open areas.

01:23:47.339 --> 01:23:51.959
It was, you know, to to coin the
phrase, it was a mosaic of habitats.

01:23:52.139 --> 01:23:52.439
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

01:23:53.579 --> 01:23:53.819
Yeah.

01:23:54.389 --> 01:23:56.869
It's interesting, you
know, about an hour from.

01:23:57.394 --> 01:23:59.494
Bit more hour and a half
from where I'm sitting now.

01:23:59.914 --> 01:24:04.354
There are now wild bison again,
European bison in the, in the woods

01:24:04.414 --> 01:24:08.884
of a low mountain area called the
Z Land, which is a bit north of us.

01:24:09.404 --> 01:24:13.464
And I know that in Kent, in the uk So
interesting that it happened in Kent,

01:24:13.494 --> 01:24:17.244
which is for those listeners who dunno
what Kent is, it's like that little bit

01:24:17.244 --> 01:24:22.424
that sticks out east of London into the
cheekily, sort of into the north Sea.

01:24:22.424 --> 01:24:24.644
But it's like really populated.

01:24:24.644 --> 01:24:27.524
It's sort of where the channel tunnel
comes out and like you'd expect they were

01:24:27.524 --> 01:24:29.084
gonna reintroduce the European bison.

01:24:29.084 --> 01:24:32.684
It would've been in Scotland or
Wales or Dartmore or something.

01:24:32.714 --> 01:24:35.324
No, it's Kent crazy.

01:24:35.324 --> 01:24:36.434
But yeah, they did it.

01:24:36.714 --> 01:24:44.284
Have you been following that and are you
like among the Rewilding community in

01:24:44.314 --> 01:24:49.324
the uk Do you all know each other and
it, are you all talking with each other

01:24:49.324 --> 01:24:53.794
about expanding that and creating those
corridors for those types of species?

01:24:53.794 --> 01:24:53.974
And

01:24:55.294 --> 01:25:00.144
Nick Viney: so, so yeah, we certainly
work closely together and, and big shout

01:25:00.144 --> 01:25:02.274
out to Paul Whitfield and the Wilder

01:25:02.274 --> 01:25:02.994
Rupert Isaacson: bleed, isn't it?

01:25:02.994 --> 01:25:03.564
Wilder Bleed.

01:25:03.564 --> 01:25:03.804
Yeah.

01:25:03.804 --> 01:25:06.324
Nick Viney: So the Wildwood Trust
for, for getting that project.

01:25:06.654 --> 01:25:07.914
So, so.

01:25:08.559 --> 01:25:12.879
What you have to start off with is
you have to have a suitable habitat.

01:25:13.719 --> 01:25:14.049
Yeah.

01:25:14.049 --> 01:25:17.859
You know, and so they had a suitable
woodland that needed those, you

01:25:17.859 --> 01:25:21.359
know, those you know, needed some
of that brash taking out of it.

01:25:21.359 --> 01:25:22.589
But they could have,
they could have put like

01:25:22.799 --> 01:25:24.299
Rupert Isaacson: old English
longhorn cattle in there or

01:25:24.299 --> 01:25:27.629
something, but they didn't, they
went for the bison, which I applaud.

01:25:27.629 --> 01:25:28.199
But why,

01:25:28.919 --> 01:25:30.449
Nick Viney: Charismatic species?

01:25:30.499 --> 01:25:31.939
Slightly different behavior.

01:25:31.939 --> 01:25:37.669
Very, you know, just, just those tiny
little details that, you know, in a, in

01:25:37.669 --> 01:25:43.519
a, in a conversation between a, an animal
and a tree are very, very significant.

01:25:43.609 --> 01:25:43.699
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.

01:25:44.029 --> 01:25:50.329
Nick Viney: So yeah, and, and I think
obvi experimentation, you know, we have

01:25:50.329 --> 01:25:56.839
to be, we have to have this imagination
and bravery to, to experiment.

01:25:57.109 --> 01:26:00.649
You know, gay Brown says, you
know, if you're not making one

01:26:00.649 --> 01:26:04.579
massive mistake every year, you
are not trying enough things.

01:26:05.329 --> 01:26:05.359
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.

01:26:05.359 --> 01:26:07.219
Nick Viney: You're not, you
know, we are just stuck in this.

01:26:07.219 --> 01:26:09.529
This is the way it's, we've
always done it, and this is

01:26:09.529 --> 01:26:10.249
the way it's always gonna be.

01:26:10.249 --> 01:26:13.579
Well, it isn't gonna be bloody like
this because it can't be, because we

01:26:13.579 --> 01:26:16.009
have proved it is not sustainable.

01:26:16.309 --> 01:26:19.399
So now we have to think about,
we're not talking about sustaining,

01:26:19.399 --> 01:26:21.829
we're not talking about keeping
the same 'cause the same is shit.

01:26:22.189 --> 01:26:24.289
We have to regenerate.

01:26:24.559 --> 01:26:25.999
We have to create abundance.

01:26:26.029 --> 01:26:30.259
Abundance is not only good for
us, it nourishes us, but it's

01:26:30.259 --> 01:26:32.719
absolutely beautiful to look at.

01:26:33.169 --> 01:26:34.819
It's the Garden of Eden.

01:26:35.389 --> 01:26:39.169
And, and we have such a forgiving
climate in the UK that we can

01:26:39.169 --> 01:26:40.639
create the Garden of Eden.

01:26:42.619 --> 01:26:43.099
Rupert Isaacson: I love it.

01:26:45.529 --> 01:26:50.509
That's a rather artistic, imaginative

01:26:52.669 --> 01:26:53.239
worldview.

01:26:53.929 --> 01:26:57.019
And we started by looking at some
of the art that's behind you.

01:26:57.619 --> 01:27:01.459
You are also a living and working
artist as well as a farmer and

01:27:01.999 --> 01:27:04.129
land regenerator and re wilder.

01:27:05.509 --> 01:27:06.679
What are you doing with your art?

01:27:07.189 --> 01:27:10.699
How does your art come
into this conversation?

01:27:10.909 --> 01:27:15.259
And also crucially, how do you make that
part of the economics of your whole thing?

01:27:15.259 --> 01:27:18.199
'cause really, while a lot of people
are listening to this podcast is

01:27:18.199 --> 01:27:20.349
this idea of self-actualization.

01:27:20.799 --> 01:27:26.309
And I think we, what we find when we talk
to everybody on here is people come on,

01:27:26.639 --> 01:27:31.819
you know, usually wearing a certain hat,
you know, I'm a musician or I'm a horse

01:27:31.819 --> 01:27:37.729
trainer, or I'm a educator, or whatever,
and I've made this big thing outta it.

01:27:37.729 --> 01:27:40.879
But when you actually talk
to them, you actually realize

01:27:40.879 --> 01:27:42.619
that they do about 50 things.

01:27:43.039 --> 01:27:51.799
And th those 50 things all like an
ecosystem sustain both economically and

01:27:52.529 --> 01:27:55.289
spiritually, emotionally, and so on.

01:27:55.289 --> 01:27:59.009
So your art, talk to us about how you got
going with that, because it's very good.

01:27:59.009 --> 01:27:59.549
I'm looking at.

01:27:59.909 --> 01:28:00.689
The stuff on your one.

01:28:00.689 --> 01:28:04.169
I, I want that one of the, the
size saddle lady with the foxes.

01:28:04.169 --> 01:28:06.689
And I, I know you don't think that's
what it's, but I think that's what

01:28:06.689 --> 01:28:09.489
Nick Viney: it's, no, as soon as
I as far as I'm concerned with

01:28:09.514 --> 01:28:13.779
the painting it's, well what
happens with most paintings anyway?

01:28:13.779 --> 01:28:15.279
No, and I'll tell you
what, I'm not, if you

01:28:15.339 --> 01:28:17.199
Rupert Isaacson: actually
paint it that way, I'll buy it.

01:28:18.194 --> 01:28:18.314
Nick Viney: I,

01:28:18.814 --> 01:28:19.779
Rupert Isaacson: as
long as I can afford it.

01:28:21.099 --> 01:28:26.779
Nick Viney: What I was gonna say was
the, what happens when you paint is

01:28:26.779 --> 01:28:33.619
this glorious thing called creativity
or whatever this weird thing is

01:28:33.619 --> 01:28:36.679
that happens that, that, you know,
each of us explain differently,

01:28:36.679 --> 01:28:38.389
connection to source, whatever it is.

01:28:38.659 --> 01:28:42.299
But there's this, this out of body state.

01:28:42.569 --> 01:28:42.659
Mm-hmm.

01:28:42.659 --> 01:28:42.779
Okay.

01:28:42.779 --> 01:28:44.999
So you set flow, you set out flow.

01:28:45.419 --> 01:28:48.569
We, we set out with a certain
intention for a painting.

01:28:48.569 --> 01:28:49.469
This is how it works for me.

01:28:49.469 --> 01:28:50.519
I'm sure it's different for everybody.

01:28:50.909 --> 01:28:57.119
I set out with a certain intention and at
some point something else has taken over.

01:28:57.119 --> 01:29:03.299
Now I don't know when that point is
and I, I can't be conscious of that

01:29:03.299 --> 01:29:05.969
point because else I'm out of flow.

01:29:06.419 --> 01:29:10.109
So, so the important part for
me is just to get it done.

01:29:10.319 --> 01:29:11.759
It's to get it outta me.

01:29:12.329 --> 01:29:13.199
And there it is.

01:29:13.229 --> 01:29:15.329
It's, it's ma it's now manifested.

01:29:17.309 --> 01:29:18.629
That was the thing for me.

01:29:20.099 --> 01:29:24.179
If for you it's a side
saddle lady with two foxes.

01:29:24.719 --> 01:29:27.299
Going hunting for whoever,
people, I don't know.

01:29:28.139 --> 01:29:33.779
It's exactly what you want it to
be because it's moving on, it's

01:29:33.779 --> 01:29:35.369
moving into a different life.

01:29:35.879 --> 01:29:37.589
So, so that's my thing about paintings.

01:29:37.619 --> 01:29:39.329
I don't get possessive over the meaning.

01:29:39.879 --> 01:29:42.819
This, you know, this is bird,
this is birds bring ideas.

01:29:43.209 --> 01:29:48.259
So this is a, a Jungian a Jungian
philosophy about birds bringing ideas.

01:29:48.259 --> 01:29:56.089
And I had this, I had this time where
I, you know, I'd be doing something.

01:29:56.929 --> 01:29:57.404
Rupert Isaacson: What is, hold
on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

01:29:57.739 --> 01:30:01.969
What is the Jungian philosophy
of what, what did Carl Jung

01:30:01.969 --> 01:30:03.529
say about birds bringing ideas?

01:30:03.529 --> 01:30:04.399
Because not everyone knows.

01:30:05.069 --> 01:30:07.769
Nick Viney: I don't know anything
more than birds bring ideas.

01:30:08.159 --> 01:30:08.459
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

01:30:08.669 --> 01:30:10.144
Nick Viney: It's been a long
time since you're not, you're

01:30:10.144 --> 01:30:12.509
Rupert Isaacson: not like
a, a a a, a deep Jungian.

01:30:12.509 --> 01:30:13.439
Nick Viney: No, no, I'm not.

01:30:13.444 --> 01:30:14.249
I'm, no.

01:30:14.549 --> 01:30:18.389
I was lucky enough to grow up, grow
up with some very, starts, some deep

01:30:18.449 --> 01:30:22.769
youngian people, and, and I said, I said,
this weird thing keeps happening to me.

01:30:23.039 --> 01:30:25.529
I, I'm like, you know,
I'm doing something.

01:30:25.529 --> 01:30:27.929
I dunno, I'll make the bed or
bend over to share my ch list.

01:30:28.049 --> 01:30:32.549
And I get this sensation of this,
of this bird swooping down over

01:30:32.549 --> 01:30:35.009
me, just like over the top of me.

01:30:35.009 --> 01:30:37.169
And, and, you know, and he just turned
around and he said, well, you know

01:30:37.169 --> 01:30:39.599
what Carl said, birds bring ideas.

01:30:40.059 --> 01:30:43.624
And, and maybe it was the fact
that, the birds were bringing me

01:30:43.624 --> 01:30:45.124
ideas, but I wasn't seeing them.

01:30:45.874 --> 01:30:51.184
And you, you know, if you're a
creative person, and I think actually,

01:30:51.184 --> 01:30:52.324
I think everybody's creative.

01:30:52.924 --> 01:30:53.014
Sure.

01:30:53.014 --> 01:30:55.024
I do not believe that there is
this thing, oh, I don't have

01:30:55.024 --> 01:30:55.924
a creative bone in my body.

01:30:55.924 --> 01:30:56.044
Right.

01:30:56.104 --> 01:30:57.209
But some people do

01:30:57.209 --> 01:30:57.569
Rupert Isaacson: and others don't.

01:30:57.569 --> 01:30:57.729
Yeah.

01:30:57.729 --> 01:30:57.969
Yeah.

01:30:58.294 --> 01:31:01.834
Nick Viney: And, and not only
that, it's not, some people have

01:31:01.834 --> 01:31:03.274
really had it knocked outta them.

01:31:03.509 --> 01:31:03.929
Indeed.

01:31:03.929 --> 01:31:10.544
And it's, it's a profound sense of
inadequacy that, that, you know, and it

01:31:10.544 --> 01:31:15.914
could just be a flippant comment as a
child, and, and that has knocked, you

01:31:15.914 --> 01:31:17.204
know, completely knocked that out of you.

01:31:17.204 --> 01:31:23.054
And, and so in enter stage left
only Art and Beaver will save us.

01:31:23.634 --> 01:31:30.184
Which is, which is a, a program
of of creative workshops where

01:31:30.244 --> 01:31:34.934
where I use the, the native
species at Rewilding COO's head to.

01:31:35.339 --> 01:31:39.839
To, to really understand what should
be in our landscape, what we have

01:31:39.839 --> 01:31:44.069
a right to, what we really have a
right to see what has a right to

01:31:44.069 --> 01:31:46.199
be in our landscape here in the uk.

01:31:46.619 --> 01:31:51.599
And then really understand what
role they play in i i in the

01:31:51.599 --> 01:31:55.949
ecosystem and trying to connect us
to nature through our creativity.

01:31:55.949 --> 01:31:59.759
So it doesn't, you know, I don't
believe you don't have to have a, you

01:31:59.759 --> 01:32:01.229
know, an arts practice or anything.

01:32:01.559 --> 01:32:06.089
You just want to be driven to to
ha to have a nature connection.

01:32:06.459 --> 01:32:12.969
And so talking about your, your various,
you know, people coming on with lots of

01:32:12.969 --> 01:32:18.069
different hats on you know, a I'm 55 years
old now, so, you've gotta have acquired a

01:32:18.069 --> 01:32:21.879
few, like, you know, whatever experiences.

01:32:21.879 --> 01:32:21.939
Yeah.

01:32:22.359 --> 01:32:30.789
And, and then trying, you know, and
then weaving those different experiences

01:32:30.789 --> 01:32:37.929
through to then create something that
hopefully then does some good, is.

01:32:38.954 --> 01:32:40.899
It is something that's
very interesting to me.

01:32:40.899 --> 01:32:45.879
And and I, you know, some people
think maybe they say I'm an idealist

01:32:45.879 --> 01:32:47.679
and I, I wanna be an idealist.

01:32:47.769 --> 01:32:48.129
Okay.

01:32:48.429 --> 01:32:51.849
Because if I'm not an idealist,
what am I, I'm like, oh, this is

01:32:51.849 --> 01:32:54.009
okays, or this is absolutely shitty.

01:32:54.014 --> 01:32:54.064
I

01:32:54.064 --> 01:32:55.779
Rupert Isaacson: think I know
what we offer an idealist.

01:32:55.929 --> 01:32:56.229
Bored.

01:32:58.749 --> 01:32:59.019
Nick Viney: Yeah.

01:32:59.619 --> 01:33:01.544
So I want to see this.

01:33:01.684 --> 01:33:07.299
Yes, I wanna see this better world
because it, we are so, it is so within

01:33:07.299 --> 01:33:12.159
our grasp, and this is why, you know,
this is why I'm not actually a rewild,

01:33:12.159 --> 01:33:13.809
or, yes, sometimes I'm a rewild.

01:33:14.049 --> 01:33:18.189
Part of my land, you could say was
rewild, but actually I'm blurring the

01:33:18.189 --> 01:33:23.289
lines all the time because land is a,
the whole thing is a very dynamic thing.

01:33:23.289 --> 01:33:25.629
And we have to, we have
to allow it to move.

01:33:25.779 --> 01:33:28.509
We have to allow our rivers to
move across the floodplains.

01:33:28.719 --> 01:33:33.969
The trees have to be able to, you know,
be in a procession across the landscape.

01:33:34.479 --> 01:33:39.589
So, so yeah, weaving all that through
to find some sort of to make some

01:33:39.589 --> 01:33:44.394
sort of living is is, is, yeah,
what I spend all my days doing.

01:33:44.814 --> 01:33:45.394
And, and

01:33:45.734 --> 01:33:46.434
Rupert Isaacson: that's brilliant.

01:33:47.214 --> 01:33:51.369
It, it sounds, what it sounds
to me like is there's a couple

01:33:51.369 --> 01:33:52.779
of images sprang to mind.

01:33:54.159 --> 01:33:57.489
The, you know, we talked at the beginning
of this conversation a little bit,

01:33:57.579 --> 01:34:03.109
or at least I did, about, the sort of
anti artistic, anti-intellectual side

01:34:03.109 --> 01:34:07.249
of both, say the farming population
and also the urban population that

01:34:07.249 --> 01:34:08.569
doesn't like the farming population.

01:34:08.569 --> 01:34:12.649
The two sets of grumps grumping
at each other from either side of

01:34:12.649 --> 01:34:16.579
a, of a perceived divide, which of
course is completely illusory anyway.

01:34:17.299 --> 01:34:22.929
And but what they're essentially arguing
about is even if they don't know they're

01:34:22.929 --> 01:34:28.029
arguing about it, is, is, is the nature
of happiness and nature and access to it.

01:34:28.749 --> 01:34:37.314
When I was working with the initial group
of Sun Bushman hunter gatherers in South

01:34:37.314 --> 01:34:40.929
Africa, which got me drawn into my human
rights thing, and I got drawn into that

01:34:40.959 --> 01:34:44.649
'cause I turned out to be related to them
and I could go into that whole story.

01:34:44.679 --> 01:34:46.449
I wrote a book about it
called The Healing Land.

01:34:46.629 --> 01:34:50.109
He said, plugging his book, the Healing
Land, available in all good books.

01:34:50.709 --> 01:34:53.889
We turned out to be cousins
in-law through a weird thing.

01:34:54.549 --> 01:34:57.459
So I got involved in their land rights
struggle and one of the interesting

01:34:57.459 --> 01:35:02.199
things was that there, they had
been kicked out of what is now South

01:35:02.199 --> 01:35:09.369
Africa's second biggest national park
in the 1970s amid a sort of fake news.

01:35:10.119 --> 01:35:12.429
Thing that there were
no real bushmen left.

01:35:12.969 --> 01:35:15.429
These guys were just, what
they then we call actually

01:35:15.429 --> 01:35:18.219
still wood colored mixed race.

01:35:18.799 --> 01:35:21.439
They're not really like that anymore.

01:35:21.439 --> 01:35:24.919
They might have had some ancestry, but
no, they're just like rural slum dwellers.

01:35:24.919 --> 01:35:26.569
Yeah, no, they were
totally living in there.

01:35:26.569 --> 01:35:28.249
And they, they got kicked out
and they were living by the side

01:35:28.249 --> 01:35:30.109
of the road for about 25 years.

01:35:30.109 --> 01:35:34.369
And after Mandela came to power, they
popped up and said, we are still here

01:35:34.429 --> 01:35:36.049
and we'd like our land back please.

01:35:36.439 --> 01:35:38.779
And long and the short of it, they got it.

01:35:40.609 --> 01:35:43.309
And so I've been involved in three
big land rights struggles in my life.

01:35:43.309 --> 01:35:46.729
One in with the Cree in
against Hydro Quebec.

01:35:46.969 --> 01:35:49.669
So I've eaten a lot of
beaver, I have to say that.

01:35:50.089 --> 01:35:51.709
And it jolly good at taste too.

01:35:52.279 --> 01:35:56.489
With the Ani Bushman in South
Africa with the qua and boom

01:35:56.699 --> 01:35:59.909
Bushman in Central Kalahari Game
Reserve, which came after that.

01:36:00.179 --> 01:36:04.709
In each case they won and
they won against all odds.

01:36:05.499 --> 01:36:09.699
Hydro Quebec, one of the biggest
power companies in the world, they

01:36:09.699 --> 01:36:13.159
won de Beers diamonds, which is
basically what they were up against,

01:36:13.189 --> 01:36:14.629
you know, in box one at day one.

01:36:15.279 --> 01:36:19.649
And up against the, the, the post
apartheid National Park system, they won.

01:36:19.889 --> 01:36:23.369
Now those guys were all artists.

01:36:24.089 --> 01:36:28.559
They were living off the land fully, a
hundred percent, including the cr, the

01:36:28.559 --> 01:36:33.929
Cree, they were still living under canvas
up there in like minus 30, minus 50.

01:36:34.589 --> 01:36:36.539
All of them creating art all the time.

01:36:37.589 --> 01:36:40.649
Was it Confucius said, for
happiness, practice, the arts.

01:36:41.069 --> 01:36:44.439
So some of them, it was music,
some of them it was visual arts.

01:36:44.439 --> 01:36:46.359
Some of it was, it was sculpting.

01:36:46.359 --> 01:36:47.979
Some of it was philosophy
and storytelling.

01:36:48.669 --> 01:36:53.139
And it was completely, completely,
completely tied up with livelihood,

01:36:53.139 --> 01:36:57.279
nature, and the real practicality
of just like surviving in these

01:36:57.309 --> 01:36:59.169
incredibly harsh environments.

01:36:59.379 --> 01:37:04.389
They still were so good at it that
they had the time for culture.

01:37:05.109 --> 01:37:09.779
And to my mind, the, the image of
sort of human authenticity, it's

01:37:09.779 --> 01:37:16.709
the, it's the, it's the caved dweller
painting on the, the rock wall, right?

01:37:16.979 --> 01:37:18.029
You what's that cave?

01:37:18.029 --> 01:37:22.139
Well dweller done, he's not just come from
a Starbucks, you know, he's been out there

01:37:24.389 --> 01:37:28.259
carving the intestines
out of a wild sheep.

01:37:28.259 --> 01:37:31.379
But now he's painting with paints
that he's made actually from the

01:37:31.379 --> 01:37:32.819
blood of that wild sheep and the fat.

01:37:32.879 --> 01:37:39.029
And that the, and he is fully involved in
the spirit of these bushmen these son had,

01:37:39.029 --> 01:37:42.749
were, had been kicked off some areas of
land, particularly up in Botswana, where

01:37:42.749 --> 01:37:44.129
they had traditionally done rock painting.

01:37:44.144 --> 01:37:48.224
Yeah, because the rock painting, this
is an area called the Soo Hills had

01:37:48.224 --> 01:37:52.514
been designated a national monument,
so no one was allowed to deface it.

01:37:53.114 --> 01:37:57.134
So Bush kicked out to live,
you know, five kilometers that

01:37:57.134 --> 01:37:59.384
they were allowed to be guides.

01:38:00.164 --> 01:38:02.534
That was nice of the government
to, to let them show you around.

01:38:03.314 --> 01:38:06.164
But no, they weren't allowed to paint
anymore, even though their painting

01:38:06.164 --> 01:38:09.854
tradition had never, they still had
a living rock painting tradition.

01:38:10.004 --> 01:38:10.814
So, of course, what did they do?

01:38:10.814 --> 01:38:14.414
They would sneak in and they would
just continue their rock painting,

01:38:14.474 --> 01:38:18.134
and then they would show people
the, these ancient paintings.

01:38:18.134 --> 01:38:20.594
And then to me, they'd sometimes
giggle and say, Rupert, that

01:38:20.594 --> 01:38:21.644
one's actually from last week.

01:38:22.704 --> 01:38:24.234
But they knew how to make it look old.

01:38:25.344 --> 01:38:25.584
Yeah.

01:38:25.674 --> 01:38:27.774
And they said, and they, and,
and, and then you read all these

01:38:27.774 --> 01:38:30.564
anthropological things saying, oh,
we don't know, really know what they

01:38:30.564 --> 01:38:31.854
mean and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:38:31.854 --> 01:38:36.414
We, we speculate that this one is about,
you know, some rain thing and this, and

01:38:36.414 --> 01:38:39.534
they said it, dude, we know exactly what
they mean and they would tell me, but

01:38:39.534 --> 01:38:40.884
they said, but no one listens to us.

01:38:40.884 --> 01:38:41.934
No one asks us.

01:38:42.024 --> 01:38:45.774
And if we tell them they don't believe us
because we're just little brown people.

01:38:45.774 --> 01:38:46.974
And what would we know just about that?

01:38:46.974 --> 01:38:49.734
The fact that our mom and dad
actually painted those things.

01:38:50.934 --> 01:38:55.944
So this disconnect is in incred, you
know, but flow seems to me therefore

01:38:55.944 --> 01:38:58.604
the that meeting of culture and nature.

01:38:59.444 --> 01:39:02.504
And it seems to me that
that's what you do, Nick.

01:39:03.719 --> 01:39:10.529
And if you have something to impart to the
world, whichever hat that you are wearing,

01:39:10.799 --> 01:39:15.719
I could encounter you as a regenerative
farming person and you could be showing

01:39:15.719 --> 01:39:21.779
me how to you know, have my livestock
better so that my land can be healthier.

01:39:21.779 --> 01:39:24.119
Or you could be helping me rewild.

01:39:24.149 --> 01:39:27.899
'cause I know that you guys were
involved in a beaver reintroduction

01:39:27.899 --> 01:39:31.379
on some land that actually a friend
of mine has down in Cornwall.

01:39:31.829 --> 01:39:37.979
And or you could be involved in,
you know, water stuff, or you, I

01:39:37.979 --> 01:39:41.879
could encounter you as an artist
and in eat, or as a horse woman.

01:39:41.909 --> 01:39:45.719
And in each of those things, you'd
be authentically, you could say,

01:39:45.719 --> 01:39:46.919
yeah, I'm wearing that hat today.

01:39:47.579 --> 01:39:50.159
But in each of those things,
what would I be encountering?

01:39:50.159 --> 01:39:54.779
I'd be encountering a person
who's self-actualized through this

01:39:55.529 --> 01:39:58.139
melding of culture and nature.

01:39:58.949 --> 01:40:02.459
And that you, by doing it,
would be showing me, Hey Ru,

01:40:02.939 --> 01:40:04.139
it's possible to do this.

01:40:04.139 --> 01:40:05.999
It's possible to be in this flow state.

01:40:06.999 --> 01:40:09.099
Would you like to do it too?

01:40:09.279 --> 01:40:12.459
Because it makes humans happy to do this.

01:40:12.579 --> 01:40:14.949
And that seems to me a great
contribution to the world.

01:40:15.549 --> 01:40:23.889
You may not see yourself that way, but I
could say that through this conversation.

01:40:26.349 --> 01:40:28.179
What I would take away is

01:40:30.549 --> 01:40:36.099
also the happiness of applying my
imagination to the landscape and

01:40:36.099 --> 01:40:42.759
entering into an interaction with the
landscape that involves the imagination.

01:40:45.279 --> 01:40:49.179
And then seeing where that leads.

01:40:50.199 --> 01:40:52.479
And that seems to be quality of life.

01:40:52.479 --> 01:40:55.839
What, I mean, what do you think to that?

01:40:55.839 --> 01:41:00.459
And if you agree with that, how do we
make that more possible for more folk?

01:41:02.229 --> 01:41:04.659
Nick Viney: You, you're absolutely
right about quality of life.

01:41:04.959 --> 01:41:11.139
So for me, it's I always, I,
I value time more than money.

01:41:11.319 --> 01:41:16.839
I don't have a particularly
good, I would, I'm not very

01:41:18.249 --> 01:41:21.009
driven to make money in, in that.

01:41:21.429 --> 01:41:27.179
I, if I've got enough money to do the
things I wanna do and, and look after this

01:41:27.179 --> 01:41:31.259
place in the way I wanna look after it,
then, then I'm kind of, I'm, I'm happy.

01:41:31.709 --> 01:41:40.499
What I value more than anything is
being able to go, I'll, I'll say, I'll

01:41:40.499 --> 01:41:44.999
say to my partner here, I'm just, I'm
going out to stare at things 'cause

01:41:44.999 --> 01:41:50.039
I'm not, you know, maybe I've been
hours on my computer or whatever.

01:41:50.099 --> 01:41:51.899
And actually.

01:41:53.474 --> 01:41:58.634
Being, being out there, there is no
time wasted with your feet on the,

01:41:58.634 --> 01:42:00.314
on the ground is what I would say.

01:42:01.034 --> 01:42:02.834
Rupert Isaacson: Moving in the
landscape as a human being part of it.

01:42:02.834 --> 01:42:03.104
Yeah.

01:42:03.164 --> 01:42:03.524
Nick Viney: Yeah.

01:42:03.524 --> 01:42:05.804
Just moving, literally staring at stuff.

01:42:05.804 --> 01:42:12.294
You see stuff that you just, I, like
yesterday one thing I I I, I locked

01:42:12.294 --> 01:42:18.204
onto this when I was going into little
corners of the, the, this place to hitch

01:42:18.204 --> 01:42:19.854
up fences where you wouldn't normally go.

01:42:19.884 --> 01:42:23.034
'cause it was a pain to get in
there to hook up fences for,

01:42:23.064 --> 01:42:24.204
you know, to move livestock.

01:42:24.564 --> 01:42:28.104
And I, and I noticed that we had this
particular beetle that I'd never seen,

01:42:28.254 --> 01:42:29.604
you know, I hadn't clocked before.

01:42:29.934 --> 01:42:34.614
And turns out this beetle is like,
yeah, it's quite rare, but it, it's got

01:42:34.614 --> 01:42:38.904
the most amazing lifecycle where it's,
its babies crawl up onto the, onto the

01:42:38.904 --> 01:42:43.524
flowers and wait for a particular type
of miner bee, and then these, these

01:42:43.794 --> 01:42:49.584
scrubs climb onto that miner bee and
then ride it back to the hole and then

01:42:49.584 --> 01:42:52.254
go down the hole and then feed off.

01:42:52.314 --> 01:42:52.734
Paint no dragon.

01:42:53.184 --> 01:42:54.474
Yeah, exactly.

01:42:54.804 --> 01:43:03.054
So, so these things are happening out
there and, and I suppose what, what is,

01:43:03.714 --> 01:43:05.724
what is the ultimate feeling for me?

01:43:05.964 --> 01:43:10.464
Is it's to, it is to like,
feel connected to it.

01:43:10.524 --> 01:43:11.754
It is all connected.

01:43:11.754 --> 01:43:13.374
Everything, you know.

01:43:14.544 --> 01:43:17.274
The, the, the work is, is connected.

01:43:17.554 --> 01:43:21.694
The, the going out and staring
at things is connecting.

01:43:22.084 --> 01:43:25.084
And you know, like our glamping thing,
you know, we could have, we could have

01:43:25.084 --> 01:43:26.734
like expanded and made six of them.

01:43:26.734 --> 01:43:29.584
Most people would put six in
the field that we've got one in.

01:43:29.894 --> 01:43:32.204
Because that would certainly
be the economic thing to do.

01:43:32.504 --> 01:43:37.184
But actually when people, you know, we,
we say with the glamping thing, we're

01:43:37.184 --> 01:43:44.594
changing the world to, to campers at
a time because it is profound the, the

01:43:44.594 --> 01:43:46.934
level of rest that people get here.

01:43:46.934 --> 01:43:46.994
Yeah.

01:43:47.354 --> 01:43:50.354
And the, the quality of of rest.

01:43:50.444 --> 01:43:51.464
Leeward glamping.

01:43:51.464 --> 01:43:53.574
By the way rewilding futures.co

01:43:53.574 --> 01:43:55.704
Don't worry, we're gonna give you
all your websites in a minute.

01:43:55.704 --> 01:43:55.764
Yeah.

01:43:56.514 --> 01:44:03.354
And I mean, people that stay here
for a week, they're like, they go

01:44:03.354 --> 01:44:06.714
to Ton, you know, the village two
miles up the hill, and they think

01:44:06.714 --> 01:44:11.904
it's like fast paced because things
have slowed so profoundly for them.

01:44:12.654 --> 01:44:12.744
Mm-hmm.

01:44:12.744 --> 01:44:18.114
That, you know, it really is a,
you know, we're, there's lots of

01:44:18.114 --> 01:44:22.584
things driving us in this, in this
construct that we have created.

01:44:22.589 --> 01:44:22.819
Mm-hmm.

01:44:22.999 --> 01:44:23.219
And,

01:44:25.404 --> 01:44:28.974
and it's extremely hard
to get away from that.

01:44:29.349 --> 01:44:33.489
Whether it's your, you know, the wifi
or, or the, or the anxiety because

01:44:33.489 --> 01:44:35.979
you've left your phone plugged in
because it's off grid and you've had

01:44:35.979 --> 01:44:38.859
to go like 400 meters away from it.

01:44:40.059 --> 01:44:41.049
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, he
said, looking for his phone.

01:44:41.049 --> 01:44:41.199
Yeah.

01:44:41.684 --> 01:44:41.764
Nick Viney: Yeah.

01:44:43.389 --> 01:44:43.452
Rupert Isaacson: To plug my phone.

01:44:43.509 --> 01:44:44.229
Nick Viney: Exactly.

01:44:44.469 --> 01:44:44.984
But, but

01:44:47.439 --> 01:44:51.889
last year, no, not last year, A
couple years ago, I, I I, there was

01:44:51.889 --> 01:44:55.269
a lot going on and I was spending
way too much time at the computer,

01:44:55.269 --> 01:44:56.019
so I thought, right, that's it.

01:44:56.019 --> 01:44:58.479
I'm, I'm picking up my tent
and I'm going down the valley.

01:44:58.809 --> 01:45:03.219
So I went down the valley, I hung out
with some animals and I'm walking around

01:45:03.219 --> 01:45:05.109
in the moonlight and I thought, oh shit.

01:45:05.109 --> 01:45:11.619
I've, I've dropped my phone over
there and I, but then I kind of look

01:45:11.619 --> 01:45:13.329
at my hand, my phone's in my hand.

01:45:13.329 --> 01:45:14.624
It's like, so what the hell's that?

01:45:15.304 --> 01:45:15.464
Interesting?

01:45:15.464 --> 01:45:17.589
And I went up to it, and it's a glow worm.

01:45:18.489 --> 01:45:21.399
I hadn't seen a glow worm for 50 years.

01:45:21.404 --> 01:45:21.534
Okay.

01:45:21.564 --> 01:45:21.854
Here.

01:45:23.169 --> 01:45:26.019
You know, and this, this, this
incredible bioluminescent beetle,

01:45:26.019 --> 01:45:27.639
you won't believe how bright it is.

01:45:27.879 --> 01:45:33.129
And, and literally I can remember the
last time I saw one at the bridge.

01:45:33.409 --> 01:45:34.549
So have they come

01:45:34.549 --> 01:45:36.499
Rupert Isaacson: back because of
the rewilding work that you've done?

01:45:37.249 --> 01:45:41.209
Nick Viney: They have not been,
they've obviously hung on here.

01:45:41.714 --> 01:45:47.054
And then, you know, maybe, hopefully I've,
I corrected, you know, how I was treating

01:45:47.054 --> 01:45:51.474
the land in time that hopefully they're
gonna be able to you know, proliferate

01:45:51.474 --> 01:45:55.974
and actually, you know, this is, it's
such a charismatic, it's such a beautiful

01:45:55.974 --> 01:45:59.214
thing for kids, especially, you know,
to have this bele that glows in it.

01:45:59.214 --> 01:46:00.595
I mean, how many, how many?

01:46:00.600 --> 01:46:01.824
Well, I think, yeah,

01:46:01.824 --> 01:46:02.274
Rupert Isaacson: it's more than that.

01:46:02.274 --> 01:46:04.644
I mean, if, if you want the
personification of magic, if you

01:46:04.644 --> 01:46:07.854
want the personification of what
it feels like to dance with God,

01:46:07.944 --> 01:46:08.964
you know, in the landscape Yeah.

01:46:09.024 --> 01:46:10.944
Is to walk among fireflies.

01:46:10.944 --> 01:46:11.154
Yeah.

01:46:11.159 --> 01:46:11.249
Yeah.

01:46:11.304 --> 01:46:12.114
It's, it's

01:46:12.594 --> 01:46:13.914
Nick Viney: just, just phenomenal.

01:46:13.914 --> 01:46:15.384
So I, I, I just want,

01:46:17.694 --> 01:46:21.384
you know, everybody, we are all connected
and we are all connected to nature.

01:46:21.384 --> 01:46:23.394
Whether we, whether we
like it or not, we all eat.

01:46:23.874 --> 01:46:29.574
And how we eat profoundly affects
what is going on in the countryside.

01:46:30.564 --> 01:46:30.654
Mm-hmm.

01:46:30.654 --> 01:46:36.894
And, and so, so what we have is this
opportunity for farmers to de deliver

01:46:36.894 --> 01:46:42.384
food, but also have, have the solutions
which help mitigate climate change.

01:46:42.564 --> 01:46:47.154
So, so farmers, you know, they can
get a bad rep for various things and

01:46:47.154 --> 01:46:49.344
there are some bad things going on.

01:46:50.634 --> 01:46:53.394
Actually what we have here
is an amazing opportunity.

01:46:53.824 --> 01:46:57.604
And don't give me the guff about
who's gonna feed the world, because

01:46:57.694 --> 01:47:02.044
you know, that's not, we are, we
have 40% waste in our food system.

01:47:02.344 --> 01:47:02.434
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.

01:47:02.434 --> 01:47:04.774
And we're gonna go to vertical
farming in cities and all of that.

01:47:04.779 --> 01:47:05.044
We, we can,

01:47:05.284 --> 01:47:09.154
Nick Viney: there's so many, you know,
if, if you, if you, if you come off

01:47:09.154 --> 01:47:13.414
this call and wanna do anything, I
would say get yourself on a course, a

01:47:13.414 --> 01:47:18.784
permaculture design certificate course,
because it will change your life.

01:47:19.084 --> 01:47:23.194
It will expand your brain like
you never thought possible.

01:47:23.194 --> 01:47:27.064
And I don't care how old or young
you are this is not a farming thing.

01:47:27.064 --> 01:47:29.104
This is a life thing.

01:47:29.374 --> 01:47:35.974
This is, it's really hard to bring, bring
artistry into everything you do, into the

01:47:35.974 --> 01:47:41.424
design of your life and just, just the
most beautiful you know, the, the earth,

01:47:41.634 --> 01:47:44.994
the earth care manual Bill Linson's.

01:47:45.054 --> 01:47:48.264
You know, it's a phenomenal
piece of work, man.

01:47:48.264 --> 01:47:51.324
Doesn't matter what, you know,
what you're interested in, there's

01:47:51.324 --> 01:47:52.314
something for you in there.

01:47:52.314 --> 01:47:53.544
It's just fabulous.

01:47:53.544 --> 01:47:57.564
So yeah, permaculture, permanent
agriculture systems, you know, it's

01:47:57.564 --> 01:48:00.114
about sustainable civilizations.

01:48:00.834 --> 01:48:02.574
I dunno if you can hear
me 'cause I'm in a tin.

01:48:02.574 --> 01:48:04.259
She, and it's starting to rain.

01:48:05.124 --> 01:48:06.114
Rupert Isaacson: Permaculture.

01:48:06.114 --> 01:48:10.314
A design system for creating sustainable
and self-sufficient ecosystems

01:48:10.494 --> 01:48:12.264
by mimicking natural patterns.

01:48:12.594 --> 01:48:16.584
It aims to integrate human activity
with the natural environment to

01:48:16.584 --> 01:48:21.294
minimize waste, prevent pollution,
and maximize biodiversity, resiliency

01:48:21.294 --> 01:48:23.424
and sustainability in practice.

01:48:23.424 --> 01:48:28.884
Permaculture applies principles of design,
engineering, and land management to create

01:48:28.884 --> 01:48:31.134
productive and resilient landscapes.

01:48:31.134 --> 01:48:31.854
Thank you, ai.

01:48:33.054 --> 01:48:33.685
I just looked it up.

01:48:33.690 --> 01:48:33.849
Thank

01:48:33.849 --> 01:48:33.929
Nick Viney: you.

01:48:33.939 --> 01:48:34.329
Thank you.

01:48:34.689 --> 01:48:36.144
I couldn't have said it better myself.

01:48:36.144 --> 01:48:37.044
Well, but it's, it's one of

01:48:37.044 --> 01:48:39.824
Rupert Isaacson: those things with
one, here's the word a lot and I think

01:48:39.884 --> 01:48:43.454
when people hear that word, unless
they have been exposed to it, it's

01:48:43.484 --> 01:48:45.104
almost like an eyes glaze over thing.

01:48:45.134 --> 01:48:45.819
Yeah, absolutely.

01:48:45.819 --> 01:48:46.904
And it's, and it's a boring word.

01:48:46.904 --> 01:48:48.074
Permaculture is a boring word.

01:48:48.404 --> 01:48:48.734
Word.

01:48:48.734 --> 01:48:56.714
It doesn't, it doesn't really, if
we called it magic making so you can

01:48:58.904 --> 01:49:03.524
eat while supping with
the gods or something.

01:49:04.064 --> 01:49:06.674
But that is basically sort
of, kind of what it is.

01:49:06.674 --> 01:49:06.944
Yeah.

01:49:07.254 --> 01:49:09.654
And it's interesting in Botswana,
you know, where I spent a lot of time

01:49:09.654 --> 01:49:12.684
actually banned from Botswana 'cause
of the human rights work I did there.

01:49:12.684 --> 01:49:15.864
But when I was spending a lot of time
in Botswana they have a, they have a

01:49:15.864 --> 01:49:18.734
whole department of permaculture Alright.

01:49:19.154 --> 01:49:19.964
At government level.

01:49:20.024 --> 01:49:20.204
Yeah.

01:49:20.204 --> 01:49:23.474
It's very interesting because
dry land, agroforestry.

01:49:24.464 --> 01:49:26.114
Is, is a big thing.

01:49:26.594 --> 01:49:26.654
Yeah.

01:49:26.654 --> 01:49:29.804
And so interestingly, while persecuting
the sun and the bushmen, they've

01:49:29.804 --> 01:49:34.864
actually learned a lot from them and
apply a lot of, a lot of you know,

01:49:34.864 --> 01:49:36.424
those, those principles to the land.

01:49:36.874 --> 01:49:44.014
And it, it gives me great joy that
people like you who are coming from that

01:49:46.864 --> 01:49:52.814
sense of stasis that we had in the
farming community in the uk growing up,

01:49:52.904 --> 01:50:00.794
you're my generation, are now looking
at it in this way because it depresses

01:50:00.794 --> 01:50:04.664
me, I have to say, when I see the
wind farms go up and it depresses me

01:50:05.024 --> 01:50:10.244
when I see the solar panels covering
fields because the reason is, is it's

01:50:10.244 --> 01:50:13.094
not beautiful and humans need nature.

01:50:13.094 --> 01:50:14.384
Nature is beautiful.

01:50:14.594 --> 01:50:21.074
So when we see industrial shit on the
landscape, even if it's providing us with

01:50:21.074 --> 01:50:23.564
clean energy is profoundly depressing.

01:50:23.834 --> 01:50:28.964
And I hope to, I, I and I actually have
faith that our technology's gonna move

01:50:28.964 --> 01:50:34.614
us beyond that relatively quickly and we
won't need to put concrete on green things

01:50:34.619 --> 01:50:37.224
in order to not pollute the environment.

01:50:38.124 --> 01:50:40.374
It's people like you out there
doing what you're doing that

01:50:40.374 --> 01:50:41.634
are moving us towards that.

01:50:41.814 --> 01:50:44.244
And I'm grateful, grateful for
the work that you're doing.

01:50:45.654 --> 01:50:46.284
So.

01:50:46.839 --> 01:50:50.799
With that in mind, people need to know
how to get to the work that you're doing.

01:50:51.099 --> 01:50:54.879
So you have your regenerative agriculture
practice, you also have your glamping

01:50:54.879 --> 01:50:59.079
sites, which sound brilliant and I think
I would like to come and stay in that.

01:50:59.349 --> 01:51:02.919
You also have your art, so these
things have different websites.

01:51:02.919 --> 01:51:04.479
How do people reach you, Nick?

01:51:05.779 --> 01:51:12.159
Nick Viney: So I can pretty much
always be reached on www.nickfiy.co.uk,

01:51:12.159 --> 01:51:15.279
N-I-C-K-V-I-N-E y.co.uk.

01:51:15.669 --> 01:51:18.159
I will be sort of trying to
split up everything so it's

01:51:18.159 --> 01:51:19.449
less confusing for people.

01:51:19.779 --> 01:51:28.989
I operate if you wanna come and stay here,
you can come to www.rewildingfutures.co

01:51:29.199 --> 01:51:29.739
uk.

01:51:31.419 --> 01:51:35.469
I, I made up that name just
because I'd lost my other

01:51:35.499 --> 01:51:38.439
name to a computer era thing.

01:51:38.829 --> 01:51:45.099
I had no idea at the time what a
buzzword Rewilding was gonna be.

01:51:45.369 --> 01:51:45.789
Interesting.

01:51:45.789 --> 01:51:47.519
And yeah, so it's.

01:51:48.404 --> 01:51:52.614
And I'm only part re wilder anyway,
so, but yeah, so Rewilding Futures,

01:51:52.614 --> 01:51:57.664
and it's really about giving people
the opportunity to, to have a different

01:51:57.714 --> 01:52:02.364
aesthetic, you know, try and then try
and scratch their head and wonder why

01:52:02.364 --> 01:52:04.524
is she laying so many brambles grow?

01:52:05.009 --> 01:52:07.434
And you know, and then hopefully
see those trees coming up.

01:52:07.644 --> 01:52:08.504
And yeah.

01:52:09.044 --> 01:52:09.854
What else do we do?

01:52:09.914 --> 01:52:14.534
So Rewilding coombs head, ww
dot rewilding coombs head.co

01:52:14.714 --> 01:52:16.634
uk is, is where I work.

01:52:16.694 --> 01:52:17.174
And

01:52:17.814 --> 01:52:19.254
Rupert Isaacson: s there's
many ways to spell co.

01:52:20.064 --> 01:52:21.594
So how we spelling Coom in this

01:52:21.644 --> 01:52:28.004
Nick Viney: so Rewilding Coombs
head, C double O-M-V-E-S-H-E-A d.co

01:52:28.004 --> 01:52:34.944
do uk and there you can do Beaver
Watches and we run yes, short.

01:52:35.334 --> 01:52:38.604
We do, you can stay in the
Shepherds Huts, obviously.

01:52:38.664 --> 01:52:39.504
No shepherds left.

01:52:39.504 --> 01:52:40.284
We've got Shepherd Huts.

01:52:40.584 --> 01:52:42.264
You can come and.

01:52:43.359 --> 01:52:44.319
Come to our conferences.

01:52:44.319 --> 01:52:47.339
So for example, we've got a
conference a kind of a rolling

01:52:47.339 --> 01:52:48.989
theme called, if Not Now, when.

01:52:49.319 --> 01:52:53.389
And this year is, if not
now, when Sea Beyond.

01:52:53.389 --> 01:52:56.539
And we're actually, we're, we're
taking the, we're we're following

01:52:56.539 --> 01:52:59.869
the water from the uplands, so from
the peat bogs, and we're following

01:52:59.869 --> 01:53:01.819
that water down and out to sea.

01:53:01.819 --> 01:53:04.639
And we're talking to experts
about all the critters.

01:53:04.644 --> 01:53:05.564
When is this conference?

01:53:05.869 --> 01:53:11.419
And this conference is July
the 25th, 26th and 27th.

01:53:11.909 --> 01:53:12.569
In Devon.

01:53:12.989 --> 01:53:15.989
And if you, at yours at, in Devon?

01:53:15.989 --> 01:53:18.764
At at Derek Go Rewild and CO's head.

01:53:19.394 --> 01:53:19.684
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

01:53:20.139 --> 01:53:20.379
Yeah,

01:53:20.559 --> 01:53:23.019
Nick Viney: I, I've, I've
sort of converted his barns

01:53:23.019 --> 01:53:24.539
into a conference center.

01:53:24.539 --> 01:53:26.474
We call it the, the straw auditorium.

01:53:26.744 --> 01:53:27.674
Gosh, I'd like to get

01:53:27.674 --> 01:53:27.914
Rupert Isaacson: to that.

01:53:28.064 --> 01:53:28.354
Yeah.

01:53:28.424 --> 01:53:28.714
Yeah.

01:53:28.734 --> 01:53:32.049
Nick Viney: And, and you know, the, the
most phenomenal speakers come every year.

01:53:32.259 --> 01:53:35.409
We have the most, you know, we've
got this year we actually have, so we

01:53:35.409 --> 01:53:39.879
have John Lister, k Charlie Burrow,
and these guys have been so generous.

01:53:39.879 --> 01:53:42.339
They've come every year to, to, to supply.

01:53:42.339 --> 01:53:42.639
Listeners

01:53:42.639 --> 01:53:44.829
Rupert Isaacson: might not know this
goes across the English speaking world.

01:53:44.829 --> 01:53:45.459
Who are these people?

01:53:45.669 --> 01:53:47.169
Nick Viney: Okay, so, so, so John Lister.

01:53:47.169 --> 01:53:52.039
K so formed AGA Field Center, one
of the first field centers up in the

01:53:52.039 --> 01:53:53.419
Highlands of Scotland, up in Inness.

01:53:54.019 --> 01:54:00.339
And is absolutely one of the
original nature conservation guys.

01:54:00.589 --> 01:54:02.599
And it's like having this.

01:54:03.049 --> 01:54:04.549
Comedian in the place.

01:54:04.549 --> 01:54:07.999
He is the most fantastic standup comedian.

01:54:08.269 --> 01:54:08.809
He just brilliant.

01:54:09.109 --> 01:54:10.669
And, but all in nature recovery,

01:54:11.059 --> 01:54:11.629
Rupert Isaacson: John Lister.

01:54:11.629 --> 01:54:12.049
K,

01:54:12.289 --> 01:54:13.219
Nick Viney: so John Lister.

01:54:13.219 --> 01:54:14.059
K, yeah.

01:54:14.869 --> 01:54:16.494
KAY, K-A-Y-E-E.

01:54:16.849 --> 01:54:22.389
And then Sir Charlie Bur so of
the great NEP estate so we've got

01:54:22.479 --> 01:54:24.429
Rupert Isaacson: net per
state in Su in Sussex.

01:54:24.579 --> 01:54:24.969
Nick Viney: Yes.

01:54:24.969 --> 01:54:28.449
And so that's with A-K-K-N-E, double P.

01:54:28.969 --> 01:54:29.059
And

01:54:29.059 --> 01:54:31.279
Rupert Isaacson: just again, for
listeners who dunno what that is

01:54:31.389 --> 01:54:34.329
we talked about where they've got
the, the bison, the European bison

01:54:34.329 --> 01:54:36.039
coming back in Kent of all places.

01:54:36.369 --> 01:54:39.159
But Sussex, which is another place
that's actually very close to London,

01:54:39.609 --> 01:54:44.249
but also oddly wild there's a massive
estate down there where they turned

01:54:44.249 --> 01:54:45.989
it back to the wild and the net.

01:54:46.079 --> 01:54:51.629
K-N-E-P-P, it's sort of a thing in the uk,
but outside the uk it may not be known.

01:54:51.634 --> 01:54:51.814
Yeah,

01:54:52.199 --> 01:54:52.469
Nick Viney: yeah.

01:54:52.469 --> 01:54:55.285
So it's so it was a, it was
a big farm, a big estate.

01:54:55.285 --> 01:54:57.805
It's through 3000, 500 acres.

01:54:58.105 --> 01:55:01.675
And it was a very uneconomic
farmer anyway, so they've

01:55:01.675 --> 01:55:02.485
turned it back to nature.

01:55:02.485 --> 01:55:07.105
And, and really, so this is, so
Charlie Bur and his, his wife

01:55:07.135 --> 01:55:11.125
Isabella Tree and that Isabelle
Tree wrote a book called Wilding.

01:55:11.125 --> 01:55:11.215
Mm-hmm.

01:55:11.665 --> 01:55:13.620
Which I would recommend everybody reads.

01:55:14.065 --> 01:55:17.815
It has touched so many
people and it will help.

01:55:18.535 --> 01:55:18.925
It will.

01:55:19.135 --> 01:55:24.255
She's so eloquently, describes the
struggle of, of a, a lot of really what

01:55:24.255 --> 01:55:27.705
we've been talking about here, that
that's, that's that conflict between

01:55:27.885 --> 01:55:32.235
rewilding and conventional agriculture
and really how we're going to, you know,

01:55:32.235 --> 01:55:36.105
segue through that and, and they've,
you know, they've lived that experience.

01:55:36.435 --> 01:55:38.955
Really recommend that book.

01:55:39.075 --> 01:55:40.395
Rupert Isaacson: Where
can people find your art?

01:55:41.125 --> 01:55:42.115
Nick Viney: Well, my art.

01:55:43.105 --> 01:55:43.735
My art.

01:55:43.765 --> 01:55:45.445
So through the website.

01:55:45.580 --> 01:55:46.330
Which website?

01:55:46.775 --> 01:55:48.455
Nick viney.co.uk.

01:55:48.755 --> 01:55:48.785
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

01:55:48.915 --> 01:55:51.815
Nick Viney: And I'm really rubbish
at getting new stuff up there.

01:55:51.815 --> 01:55:56.375
So what I tend to do is, well,
apparently nothing for two years until

01:55:56.375 --> 01:55:57.845
I've got a big enough body of work.

01:55:57.845 --> 01:56:01.715
And then maybe we do open studios,
or maybe I spend a week trying to

01:56:01.715 --> 01:56:03.215
get everything onto the website.

01:56:03.465 --> 01:56:07.155
But it's much better off contacting
me direct and then I'll just walk

01:56:07.155 --> 01:56:10.425
around the studio with a webcam
and say, do you like any of this?

01:56:11.420 --> 01:56:12.705
Or, I'll come and stay.

01:56:12.705 --> 01:56:13.455
Come and stay.

01:56:14.265 --> 01:56:15.465
Rupert Isaacson: I presume you
also do commissions too, if

01:56:15.465 --> 01:56:16.695
somebody wanted something painted.

01:56:16.995 --> 01:56:17.895
Nick Viney: I do commissions.

01:56:17.895 --> 01:56:19.425
I, I did used to do a lot of commissions.

01:56:19.425 --> 01:56:21.765
I'm a little bit what would I say?

01:56:21.765 --> 01:56:25.955
I you know, I don't like to, to
compromise when it comes to my

01:56:26.165 --> 01:56:30.475
creativity and I, yeah, I like
to put my own stamp on stuff, but

01:56:30.475 --> 01:56:33.565
Rupert Isaacson: if somebody comes to
you with an idea that tickles you, you.

01:56:34.300 --> 01:56:34.540
Do it.

01:56:34.810 --> 01:56:35.530
Nick Viney: Absolutely.

01:56:35.675 --> 01:56:40.360
And, and really the, the, you know, the
paint the world a better place is, is, is

01:56:40.360 --> 01:56:45.430
all commission in a sense, what I describe
is, so say I go to a conference and they

01:56:45.430 --> 01:56:48.700
have a particular problem and they're
trying to describe a transition between

01:56:49.030 --> 01:56:51.310
where we are now and where we wanna be.

01:56:51.580 --> 01:56:55.850
As soon as I understand that problem then,
you know, I can paint that transition.

01:56:56.140 --> 01:56:56.350
That's cool.

01:56:56.350 --> 01:57:00.130
And, and, and that can be, you know,
you can have a, this is where we are

01:57:00.130 --> 01:57:04.960
now, and this is where we end up on the
same painting, or we can go together

01:57:05.080 --> 01:57:09.280
through, this is where we are now,
and then layer it up into something.

01:57:09.330 --> 01:57:09.750
Well, people

01:57:09.750 --> 01:57:11.970
Rupert Isaacson: bring you as an,
as a sort of consultant to do that.

01:57:12.280 --> 01:57:12.610
Nick Viney: Yeah.

01:57:12.610 --> 01:57:16.710
So we call it an artist in residence
and you know, for, for however many

01:57:16.860 --> 01:57:19.650
days or hours or whatever it is.

01:57:19.650 --> 01:57:23.820
And once I get my head around a
problem, I can, you know, I, I, I

01:57:23.820 --> 01:57:25.080
think in images, so interesting.

01:57:25.555 --> 01:57:25.715
Rupert Isaacson: So

01:57:26.070 --> 01:57:30.780
Nick Viney: I feel like my job as
an artist is to distill complex

01:57:30.780 --> 01:57:37.020
problems into very clear imagery,
which, which allows people to have

01:57:37.020 --> 01:57:40.410
their own penny dropping moments
because we don't know what that is.

01:57:40.410 --> 01:57:42.990
And that's, that's, that's
difficult with the written word.

01:57:42.990 --> 01:57:46.920
Not all of us absorb the
written word very comfortably.

01:57:46.920 --> 01:57:47.010
Right.

01:57:47.370 --> 01:57:49.740
But with art we can, we can, yeah.

01:57:49.860 --> 01:57:53.040
We can fill in the gaps
as we are, as, as we were.

01:57:53.040 --> 01:57:53.490
So somebody

01:57:53.490 --> 01:57:56.460
Rupert Isaacson: could, could
contact you to come in and do that.

01:57:56.880 --> 01:57:57.720
Nick Viney: Yeah, absolutely.

01:57:57.720 --> 01:58:02.715
That's really what I'm leaning into
now is, is I feel like it's, it's

01:58:02.715 --> 01:58:04.905
a sort of a science communicator.

01:58:05.015 --> 01:58:08.755
But, but yeah, I really wanna
bring the bring the art and

01:58:08.755 --> 01:58:10.825
the sh and the show into it.

01:58:10.825 --> 01:58:11.215
Yeah.

01:58:11.240 --> 01:58:11.530
Okay.

01:58:12.910 --> 01:58:14.065
Rupert Isaacson: Well, fantastic.

01:58:14.065 --> 01:58:14.185
Right.

01:58:14.185 --> 01:58:15.415
I'm gonna read the websites back.

01:58:15.415 --> 01:58:19.665
So if you want to check out Nick's art
and it's good 'cause I'm looking at it.

01:58:20.125 --> 01:58:23.185
And if you would like to hire her
as an artist in residence, come in

01:58:23.215 --> 01:58:28.675
and paint your problem and solution
for you, which sounds brilliant.

01:58:28.705 --> 01:58:37.975
Nick Viney,
N-I-C-K-V-I-N-E-Y-N-I-C-K-V-I-N-E y.co.uk.

01:58:37.975 --> 01:58:39.715
Don't worry, we're gonna
put this in the show notes.

01:58:40.225 --> 01:58:45.715
If you are wanting to go
glamping on her land and who

01:58:45.715 --> 01:58:52.255
wouldn't rewilding futures.co.uk.

01:58:52.915 --> 01:58:57.265
If you want to check out the Rewilding
work that she's also doing with Derek

01:58:57.415 --> 01:59:02.995
Gao, who's a bit of a legend in the
UK and go Beaver watching Hoho and

01:59:02.995 --> 01:59:06.875
stay in the wild and such like, and
do this amazing conference that she's

01:59:06.875 --> 01:59:08.345
talking about down there in Devon.

01:59:08.615 --> 01:59:17.135
Rewilding, Coombs head, C-O-O-M-B-E-S
Co, of being a narrow, shallow.

01:59:18.545 --> 01:59:26.705
Upland Valley bowl thing in old
English rewilding coombs head.co.uk.

01:59:26.735 --> 01:59:29.225
And the theme is, if not now, when?

01:59:29.435 --> 01:59:31.637
July

01:59:31.637 --> 01:59:34.760
Nick Viney: 25th to 27th.

01:59:34.760 --> 01:59:36.665
Rupert Isaacson: 25th to 27th, yeah.

01:59:36.695 --> 01:59:37.085
Got it.

01:59:37.175 --> 01:59:39.905
Of this year, 2025.

01:59:39.905 --> 01:59:46.745
And if you come across this podcast, not
in 2025, well, I presume there's gonna

01:59:46.745 --> 01:59:48.755
be one next year and the year after.

01:59:48.755 --> 01:59:50.195
And you can contact Nick.

01:59:50.195 --> 01:59:51.095
Nick, it's been brilliant.

01:59:52.235 --> 01:59:52.475
Nick Viney: Rob.

01:59:52.475 --> 01:59:53.285
Really enjoyed this Ruper.

01:59:53.495 --> 01:59:53.705
Yeah,

01:59:53.735 --> 01:59:55.595
Rupert Isaacson: thank you
for taking us on this, on this

01:59:55.625 --> 01:59:56.975
self-actualization journey.

01:59:56.975 --> 01:59:57.935
It's, it's, I've learned a lot.

01:59:58.295 --> 01:59:59.135
Inspiring course.

01:59:59.510 --> 01:59:59.800
Yeah.

01:59:59.800 --> 02:00:00.080
Nick Viney: Great.

02:00:00.245 --> 02:00:00.515
Yeah.

02:00:00.515 --> 02:00:02.255
And hopefully see you in the southwest.

02:00:02.285 --> 02:00:05.665
Rupert Isaacson: I hope you enjoyed
today's conversation as much as I did.

02:00:06.495 --> 02:00:10.245
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02:01:07.020 --> 02:01:10.570
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02:01:11.370 --> 02:01:15.160
In the meantime, remember, live free.

02:01:16.090 --> 02:01:16.640
Ride free.