Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.
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So now let's jump in.
Welcome back to Live Free, ride Free.
Today I've got Nick Viney from the southwest of England.
Who, what is she?
Is she a regenerative agriculture person?
Is she an artist?
Is she a re wilder and introducer of endangered species?
Is she a glamping host?
Is she a wildlife ranger?
Is she, well, I, it appears that she might be all of these things.
And in terms of living a self-actualized life down there on Dartmore, I'd say
she's having a pretty good crack at it.
So, Nick, thanks for coming on.
Who, who are you, which of those things are you and, and,
and how and why and stuff?
Nick Viney: Well, thanks for the introduction, Rupert.
Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm definitely trying to be all those things and in my,
certainly in my bio and, and I've had a fairly intense last few years helping an
organization that I work for and, and I'd lost my, lost my artistic thing a little
bit, my own thing because I was putting it all, all that creativity into their place.
And so I decided I would definitely put my artist side first and foremost, because.
If you ask me the question, what do you want to what do you want to do today?
You can do absolutely anything.
I would say I would like to paint the world a better place.
So I, I have this show that I'm working on, which is a large
scale live painting event.
Where we show the transition from where we are now in land use through
to a regenerative abundance state.
And so there's lots of there's lots of questions and answers,
lots of audience participation.
And, and you layer up the you layer up a painting in the same
way as you have to restore land.
You can't just immediately bung in a golden eagle.
'cause you know, three days later it's just gonna die.
You have to do the groundwork, you have to build it up.
So, so primarily an artist.
And, and in terms of.
What, what I then bring to the nature recovery space is is imagination.
And for me it's, it's really one of the massive missing tools in
our toolbox in landscape recovery.
And in, in, in agriculture then we have been conditioned to, to
see to see agriculture, to see the landscape a as it is now.
So the uk, what is it, 75% minimum agriculture.
And we have been con conditioned to see it in that way at, you know, if we're
lucky, we get a crisscross of hedges.
This is all a construct and this has, and we have, you know,
farmed nature outta this picture.
And so for me, I like to, I really like to, when I look at a landscape,
I like to imagine it, how it wants to be, how it was before we started
putting up our boundaries and, you know, saying, get off my land.
And, and understand really how does water move?
How does it wanna move on that landscape?
How should it move on that landscape to to allow for regeneration?
Where would trees like to be what animals should be passing through this landscape?
Yeah, so imagination.
So I'm,
Rupert Isaacson: I'm looking at the those, those people who are listening on, on
apple as opposed to those of you who are watching on YouTube will not see that.
Nick is sitting in her studio and I'm looking behind your back.
I see a, a raven or a crow.
Yeah.
Talking to somebody perhaps Odin, I don't know.
And then on the other side, I see what looks like a, a rough of a lady
riding side saddle to the hunt, but the hounds of foxes perhaps or something.
Nick Viney: I like that.
I like that interpretation.
Rupert Isaacson: That's what it looks like.
And I, I certainly like that idea.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
But you come, you're a farmer.
Yeah.
And one of the things I like about your bio is that, 'cause I I also
come from a park farming background and there's this absolute division
that people make in their minds often about, well, if you're a farmer,
you couldn't possibly be an artist.
Which of course isn't true.
But also a lot of farmers might make that.
I know a lot of pharmacy would also, you know, and the sort of
anti-intellectualism or the anti artism among the farming community is as bad
as it is in other parts of society.
And one of the things which I did grow up with, because my family
farmed in Africa, but they also farmed a little bit in the uk and.
In the work that we do with you know, autism in the brain.
Actually a lot of the people we work with are farmers many of whom are
special needs parents themselves and have learned how to bring their land
into play in this way for sort of human wellbeing as well as well for the,
the, the mental and emotional wellbeing as well as the nutritional wellbeing.
'cause farmers, of course, are involved in human wellbeing.
It's easy to forget that 'cause they feed us at the same time they're
grumpy, bunch of grumpy grumps.
And I know this because I grew up among them and they're their own worst enemies.
So that this idea that, well you've got to respect the farmers and, but often
they're just so horrible to deal with.
That unfortunately it creates this alienation between town and co.
Or it promotes the alienation within TA between town and country, which
I always sort of think, yeah, but dudes, there's more people in the
cities than there are of you or us.
So how about a charm offensive?
Because they resent the fact that you own this land, even if, even though
you're producing food for them, and no amount of telling them they shouldn't,
doesn't, and certainly being grumpy to them is not gonna help that you sit.
It seems it's all really interesting to me squarely in the liminal space
between those two populations.
And so you to some degree have an ambassadorial role there for the land.
And it, it seems to me that maybe you're pissing off both sides that,
you know, you're, you're, you're going into the traditional farmers
and saying, well, maybe we should do regenerative agriculture and some
rewilding and that sort of thing.
And then perhaps the urban environmentalists are saying,
ah, but it's not enough.
You know, this has got to be completely rewild and therefore are you, are
you in that position where you are annoying everybody and you therefore
kind of can't get, can't get it right.
Nick Viney: Quite possibly.
You might, you might have just described the last 20 years of my life.
But
' Rupert Isaacson: cause the people who do that are the people I trust the most.
Nick Viney: But I, I, I believe other people
Rupert Isaacson: trying to do the right thing.
Right.
Nick Viney: I fully intend to stay in that position because I, so, so
we had a small farm here growing up, and I'm lucky, lucky to, to be here,
back here where, where I grew up.
And our family business was the vets, the local vets.
So we were You were vets.
We were vets.
Okay.
So, so we were, so my, my stepfather.
Was a vet.
And eventually as a little, I had a little detour into business studies, couldn't
hack that and became a veterinary nurse.
And, and we were a small mixed practice, so think James Harriet.
Yeah.
And so we did everything from, you know, pets to you know, an hour later doing a
cesarean on a cow to going and shooting a pony that's been hit on the mos, or, you
know, so this incredibly varied existence and a very trusted part of the community.
And so I was able to to be in that, in, in that space, in the, in the farming
space, grew up going to young farmers.
All yeah, so, so a very a very enjoyable and, and, you know,
hugely rewarding time of my life.
And then.
But, but, but I was, you know, it's interesting you, as you talk about
that, that painting I can remember a day that on the Thursday I was called
or we were called to a fox in a snare.
Okay.
So I drove across the mall.
I was, I was 17 years old.
I've not, not long past my driving test, I drove across the mall.
I found where the, where the fox was in a snare.
Okay.
So I climb up the hedge and I can, and I see the fox in a snare.
You know, I have to approach this fox, you know, it's, it's struggling.
It's it, and I had to make a decision to, to get it to asphyxiate itself,
to the point where I can get close enough to get the new soft around
its neck and, and see what happens.
I didn't have any choices there.
So, so I do that and it, and I take the, I take the snare from
around its neck and, you know, eventually it gets up and it's gone.
On the Saturday I go hunting on my horse and we go out and kill foxes.
So,
Rupert Isaacson: which hunt, by the way, which dartmore hunt,
Nick Viney: am I allowed to say that?
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Spoons.
Spoons and westmores.
I've hunted with the spoons.
Have you?
Ah yeah.
So they're, you know, right on my doorstep here.
Mm-hmm.
And never thought a thing about it.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
Nick Viney: never thought a think about it.
It really, and we never did.
We, we never, we never questioned those things.
We did, we did all the work for the hunt for free.
Yet we would be patching up wildlife and, and, and animals all week.
So, so completely unbeknown to me there are these, these odd cognitive
dissonance then maybe setting, setting themselves up in, in myself.
And it really wasn't until I had, I had my own kids.
I actually had three kids under a year old.
And that was pretty incapacitating in terms of what, what else you can do
with your life at that time and, and our land here, we destocked everything
and our land here was able to have a rest for the first time in my lifetime.
And for the first probably, you know, it'd been conventionally
found for however long.
And we saw orchids for the first time and then I started to think about how.
You know, how what I was doing was impacting and how is that possible that
spending my entire life on this place, how, how I never seen that plant before.
And I just, you know, and then I got into permaculture
design and holistic management.
So really looking at energy systems and the flow of energy through,
you know, through your land and holistic management obviously.
And, and that really, that got me into planned grazing.
So, and planned grazing was the key for me to understand.
I didn't have to be, I didn't have to have no animals.
And.
Rewilding wasn't a thing then.
I could actually understand how these animals worked in nature and
then play those animals to their strengths and then actually restore
the land using those animals.
And so that's what I've been doing ever since.
And they're absolutely fanatic grazer.
I, I mean, I, I just love, how
Rupert Isaacson: do you digest the grass?
Sorry, I'm just kidding.
Nick Viney: Exactly.
And I just, yeah, I just, there is an absolute joy, not just
for me, but for those animals.
When you move animals daily you know, when you see those pictures of those
films of those dairy cows when they've been let out for, you know, for the
first time since last autumn, and, you know, they're bucking and kicking
and everyone's really happy, that's every single day for these animals
because it's completely clean grass.
No one has shot over it.
It's all, you know, it's, it's just pristine.
And it's pristine every single day.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, if, if they're living on it every single day,
how are they not shitting on it?
Nick Viney: Because you move them every day.
They move to fresh pasture every day.
So, so what you, what you do is you replicate natural systems.
So in our case, we don't have, you know, we've killed everything.
We don't have wolves left in this country, which would keep all these herba wars
bunched up and moving in this slight fear state, which is, you know, why horses
are so good at bolting because, you know, they have that flight instinct.
We don't have the, the, the carnivals now.
So, so we have to replicate that, and we do that with a bit of electricity
either side, and so we keep 'em bunched.
So, which, which affects not, it's not just about it's not just about
the fear state and there, and there is no fear state, particularly they, you
know, they learn within three days.
I don't go near that fence.
And, and I'm, I've lost my thread here.
Rupert Isaacson: I talked about shit.
Sorry.
It's, it's because Yeah, no, you're, you're, you're, you're saying you're
replicating the way that the animals would move through the land naturally
as opposed to in an unnatural way.
And this of course regenerates the land and this I completely get and
so, you know, when I flippantly said, well, how are they not, why
are they on pristine grass every day?
That's not being shot on, that wasn't quite as flippant as it sounded.
Okay.
Because I think you, you need to understand that most
listeners wouldn't know that.
From what you described, you were necessarily moving the stock every
day to make sure that the land gets grazed as evenly as it would if the
livestock were ranging across it in a natural way with the pressure
of predators and or just moving.
Because when you eat down one area, you move to the next and you
eat down other, you know, and we are used to seeing animals either
static in fields or in sheds.
And if, if they're in sheds, actually we don't see them.
We're unaware of it.
You drive past those sheds, you never know that those pigs are there.
You never know that those chickens are there.
You see the, you see the corn fields on either side, but you wouldn't
know the factory farm that was going in because there's a big sign
saying 10,000 cows in cow fits here.
That exactly.
Obviously people don't wanna, don't wanna advertise that fact.
So the reason I asked that was because it's, it's not necessarily known.
And what's interesting with grazing is that people assume, I think quite
rationally that that is how farmers would graze their fields, right?
You would graze down a field, you'd move your animals to another
one, they'd graze that field, you'd move them to another one.
So why isn't that the norm?
I.
Nick Viney: I, as far as I'm concerned, it's, it's shepherding.
We, we are no longer good shepherds.
Mm.
And I, and I mean that in the, in the biblical sense is it because it's
Rupert Isaacson: too labor intensive now, you know that people don't actually
have the money and they don't have the extended families living on the land.
So you've either gotta employ people or you've gotta have them in your own family.
People have neither anymore.
So the animals are more like to sort of sit where they are because you
haven't got the time to move them, or
Nick Viney: possibly.
But I think, you know, what have we done?
We've, we, we've, we've, we've removed shepherds, you know, because all our
huts now go for glamping, don't they?
I mean, you know, shepherd,
Rupert Isaacson: but also who can afford to pay a shepherd,
Nick Viney: who can afford to pay a shepherd.
But, but if, I mean, can you think of a better job than being a shepherd
than, than than herding all day?
I just, for me, and I guess this is why I'm, you know, managed 20 years on the
range, was, was because, well, I, I'm very I'm very calmed by the sound of
grazing animals for me, when I, you know, if I go anywhere, if I, if I leave home
for a long time, I will seek out, you know, the sound of animals cutting or, or
it's, it is a very restful thing for me.
But, but, but actually I, I think.
As a shepherd.
And I feel there's a,
if you imagine the land as the garden, I mean land with a capital LI don't, I
don't like to call it the land because I feel like land is, is a thing.
It's an, it's an alive thing.
It's a bio, it's a, it's like a bigger version of us.
You know, that goes all around the outside of the, the world.
For us, in order for us to have a place in that, I, I feel like shepherding
is a, is a very important role.
A very important role.
When you say shepherding, you don't
Rupert Isaacson: just mean sheep, right?
You mean
Nick Viney: No.
Okay.
In general.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I
Nick Viney: mean, I mean, herding, herding and that could be, you know, that could be
pigs, that could be, you know, my perfect little, my dream scenario is going around
helping people restore their land with my little you know, precision grazing ponies.
A couple of, couple of mini cows, a co and a pig.
And the odd chicken coming up behind, or Turkey just scraping the,
you know, the shit around because we don't have any birds left.
So, but, but coming back to the, to the human place in it.
But we, especially in the UK where we don't have predators, we have to keep the
stock off the trees or else, guess what?
We won't have any trees.
And, and this is where we're at.
We have coming back to that aesthetic.
We think that you have trees in woods, up to this fence here,
and then you have pasture.
This is a dead end.
If this is the way you, you think land behaves.
This is a dead end because how do trees reproduce?
They have to roll out into the landscape.
They have to move in this dynamic way because they, there's a tree here
and, and, and it drops its babies here just into the, just into off the
skirts, off of the canopy where there should be brambles to receive these
baby trees to then let them grow up.
Then this tree dies down here, falls down, whatever.
And this tree tree comes up here without the predators.
And because we have an aversion to scrub, scrub is not a dirty word,
but we cannot tolerate anything that stings us or prickles us.
Then there is no way these trees can get away.
So, you know, in, in, in a landscape where most of a land completely shaped by sheep
and sheep farming, 85% of which we export
85% of timber, we import.
We can't grow our own trees, you know, when the floods come, what
are we building our life raft with?
Rupert Isaacson: I'm gonna ask you a couple of devil's advocate questions
because I think they bear explanation, but they need to be posed in a way that
allows for context, if that makes sense.
So the part of England that I partly grew up in Leicestershire, big
horse area, big hunting area very much livestock, large livestock,
so beef, cattle, sheep, big hedges.
So I love hedges.
I would argue that England is a forested landscape that the miles and miles and
miles of hedge rows, which now die.
For example, I live in Germany where you don't see them, but we have big
blocks of forest here in Germany.
Different type of land management.
But those snaking hedge systems through the uk, assuming they haven't
been rubbed up, are in fact forests.
It's just that instead of covering a blanket canopy or a Savannah,
which as you might find in say a park they are yes, contained.
But there's so many thousands of miles of them that as you know, along the
side of each one, you get what's called woodland edge, where the thorn and
the larger trees that are in the edge meet the grassland or the cropland.
And in there, of course you get a big insect wildflower, narrow
corridor, but nonetheless, an intense corridor which supports a
lot of wildlife and so on and so on.
So are we not actually still a forest landscape in the uk, but just now one
that has been shaped by humans in a slightly loving sort of a way that
still is biodiverse, or am I wrong?
Nick Viney: Well, you're wrong about the biodiverse.
I mean, the UK is, is the most nature depleted country in
Europe, not in Europe anymore.
So, so as much as I absolutely love our hedgerows, and I completely
agree that they are they are the last remaining corridors, but we
stock fence right up to those walls.
If we're lucky enough to have hedges, you know, we, we stock fence right up to them.
And, and so nothing, I mean that's, I was on a site yesterday and yeah,
you could see, you could see beautiful emergence of meadow suite and dog violets
yesterday and, you know, and inch this side of the wire and it's just nothing.
It's just, just rye grass, you know.
So yeah, they are, they are fantastic, but the, the bar is very, very low.
And so, and of course one of the things, and one, one area where farmers are
judged harshly, and this is amongst their peers, is is through tidiness.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know, you are considered to be a poor farmer and that would be poor in
both senses of the word, poor as in your crap, and poor as in you don't have enough
fuel to be cutting those, you know, to, to be trimming those hedges, you know,
within an inch of the top of that bank.
Yeah.
Now you, you know, these hedges are offering.
A massive amount.
They are desperately trying to deliver fruit nuts.
Yeah.
Shelter, you know, they year on year, they push back and they'll grow another meter.
And, you know, and, and every November will come along and we'll smack 'em down.
And, and this for me is just, you know, it, it really is
nuts, you know, because northern hemisphere, massively high rainfall.
One thing we are really good at growing is trees.
So, so when I reimagine a, a farm or, or a landscape for someone, it's,
it's always going to incorporate fruit and nut trees and livestock,
you know, silver pasture type thing.
So, so, you know, yes, it's a, it's, it can be slightly contrived
looking to see all these, say, say we wanna put trees on contour.
But I'm prepared to go with that aesthetic if it means we get more
trees into the landscape and we can still you know, fairly reasonably
push a mob of cattle through.
What I'm trying to avoid is, is, is driving on the landscape as well.
Rupert Isaacson: Is your, is your farm, how, how, how many acres is your farm?
Nick Viney: It's only 40 acres.
Okay.
Actually, we should talk about, we should talk about, 'cause we, you
know, you asked me, was I a farmer?
I said yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Nick Viney: Now in this area.
You know, without doubt there would be people here that say, oh
yeah, but she's not a real farmer.
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
Nick Viney: So I wanna know what, what's a real farmer?
Rupert Isaacson: Well,
Nick Viney: is it somebody who you know, do
Rupert Isaacson: you produce food off your land for sale to other people?
Nick Viney: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
I think for me, that would define it.
Nick Viney: And, and fiber.
So we try and use all, all the animal.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
And so describe to me now, okay.
Presumably when you inherited the farm or when you came into custody of the
farm, you inherited what I would know from the English landscape of a patchwork
of semi rectangular fields intersected by either hedges or banks or walls.
And 'cause you're there on dartmoor, for those listeners who dunno what Dartmoor
is, Dartmoor is one of the wilder areas of Southern England where it gives way
to open moorland, upland, low mountain ranges that are somewhat wild by English
standards, including we have herds of wild ponies up there and things like that.
And a bit of a sort of hostile landscape above a certain altitude.
So it protects its integrity to some degree, although probably it ought to all
be covered in forest and isn't, but pay.
But you would've inherited that patchwork that we all love to see.
So how's it look differently now that you, so you like trees, what?
Have you done with trees on your place?
And how can we picture that and imagine that?
And how does that look different to what was there before?
And why isn't that attacking the integrity of the English landscape madam?
You know, talk to us about that.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Well, it would be classed as bloody untidy if you ask my mother.
Yeah, she's, you know, she's, she's, she's good now.
She gets it.
She gets it now.
But
Rupert Isaacson: have you fenced off areas for trees to grow?
Have you actively planted trees?
Are you letting trees rewild themselves?
What, what's the, what's the philosophy?
Nick Viney: So my, yes, we've planted some trees fruit trees mainly and walnuts.
But my holy grail in terms of what I want to be as a land manager
is someone who allows trees to, to reproduce on their own.
'cause no shit.
They've done that for years.
And how you gonna do that intensively
Rupert Isaacson: grazing your land enough to be commercial
Nick Viney: years?
You have to mob graze your cows and you have to be, you, you have to be creative.
In how you, in how you do that.
So, so if, if the only thing you can stomach is going in straight lines
with, with your electric fences, then sure you're gonna run into problems.
I mean, you can come, you know, why not for a start just bring them two meters off
that hedge and give those, you know, give that hedge the opportunity to reproduce.
Well,
Rupert Isaacson: because again, delve as a advocate, someone would say,
well, if I do that, then I'm losing X amount of hectares and therefore
that's losing X amount of money.
So what's your answer to that?
If somebody says, well, I can't afford to,
Nick Viney: because most people are grazing extensively, and, and
your carrying capacity will go up at least three times when you start
putting your animals in a mob.
And that back, why, why back fencing?
Why
Rupert Isaacson: is that more?
Nick Viney: Is that because the, everything about the way the animal
behaves is com is then complimentary to the landscape from what goes in the
front end to what comes in the back end to how their feet move on the soil
to how then when you move them on, you don't come back there for a long time.
So rest is a massive part of this.
So you have to, you have to understand and appreciate, appreciate rest.
It's just like, it's just like us.
You know, you can, you can train and train and train and train, but part
of that training you have to have a recovery time and or else you don't
mill, build muscle in the right way.
Or you, or you or you succumb to injury.
The, exactly the same thing is happening in land and at landscape scale.
It is wearing out,
Rupert Isaacson: indeed.
You've got 40 acres, you've got cows on it.
If you want to rest those bits of land so that they regenerate in that
way, how long must you rest them for?
And how many cows can you have on that 40 acres?
Nick Viney: So like a lot of these things, it depends.
So I want to, I'm mainly floodplain here, so I don't want to be in a
position A where I've got too much stock over winter and b I don't
wanna be putting stuff in sheds.
'cause if I've got anything in a shed, I've got a massive pile
of shit at the end of the winter and what am I gonna do with that?
I've got a mile stretch of river.
Anything that goes onto this land is going to be straight into the river.
So, you know, so when I say it depends, what I mean is it is really complex stuff.
So anyone who thinks that managing that, but what
Rupert Isaacson: do you do?
Nick Viney: Simple.
Okay.
So we, we tend not to over winter.
So I will run stock on, I will, I will fatten stuff because we can
grow a phenomenal amount of grass in the summer and then kill it off.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
And how much, how many stock will you have there in the summer?
Nick Viney: It depends.
Maybe only four bullocks and, and 20 sheep.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Or,
Nick Viney: or we, or we go a whole year because if, if, if I, if I can, I would
like to give this ground a year off.
It's only my, my sort of, you know, addiction to keeping animals.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, that was gonna be my question, given that, so
you, you couldn't possibly with that number of sheep and that number of
bullocks make a quote unquote living in the modern sense of the word.
So, you are, you're obviously, we haven't gone in yet to.
The other ways you're making a living.
We haven't gone into how you make a living as an artist.
We haven't gone into how you make a living as a regenerative, you know, land person.
And rewilding, which I'm gonna go into and I'm gonna ask you about in a minute.
Rewilding is obviously a hot topic right now, and it should be, A lot
of people want to know about it, but it's a misunderstood topic, I feel.
But you, you are diverse.
You're also farming people.
You, you, you're glamping.
And I'm not saying, and this is exactly of course, what one ought to do, but
my question is, well then as a Rew Wilder and so on, given that in the
paleolithic landscape where you are, it probably would've been somewhat open
canopy, Beachwood, Beachwood, I should imagine, with some grazing planes from
large ungulates, you know, interspersing that why not go back to that?
Why, why farm at all?
Nick Viney: I, I, yeah.
I ask myself that a lot and I
Rupert Isaacson: surely that's what the land wants at the end of the day.
I mean, if you left it alone completely, that's more or less what it would do.
No,
Nick Viney: I've got, I've got one paddock, call it a paddock which
we haven't grazed for 40 years.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Nick Viney: And I'm just, and I'm just, it's like.
It's like what the rewers would pray for, but I'm doing it in reverse, so now
I've got a completely scrubbed over area.
And
Rupert Isaacson: with what?
With Hawthorne?
Blackthorn?
Nick Viney: With mainly with Bramble.
Uhhuh, yeah.
But with, with a certain amount of blackthorn, willow ash trees.
I mean, you know, massive s and this is all self colonized.
Rupert Isaacson: You haven't gone in there and planted it.
Nick Viney: We haven't done anything.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Nick Viney: So, so then I thought, right.
I, I wanna actually just reclaim this a little bit and just start sculpting it.
And so I'm gonna start put putting these ponies in.
So I,
but I, but I want to main is it is a massive songbird breeding
area, as you can imagine.
Mm-hmm.
You know, it's really, there is a direct correlation between the amount of bramble
you've got, the amount of scrub you've got, and how many songbirds you have.
Yeah.
If, you know, if we were ha if we had a, just
Rupert Isaacson: explain why that is, for people who might not know the correlation.
Nick Viney: Because if we had a, a full ecosystem, say we would
have, we would have wildcats.
So what we think of in the UK as, as, as a Scottish Wildcat
it, it, it's not Scottish.
We just drove it to Scotland and not in a car.
We, we just killed everything.
It had a price put on, its on its head.
So the brambles
Rupert Isaacson: will give you safe cover from small predators?
Nick Viney: Exactly.
So cats will not pounce through, through, through bramble.
So really, really safe nursery.
You know, not just for young trees, but for young, young birds.
So that's why s
Rupert Isaacson: eat.
Nick Viney: Exactly.
Yeah.
Okay.
And, and also under brambles the soil is, is the best soil you'll find.
So
Rupert Isaacson: is that because, are they nitrogen fixers?
Blackberry bushes,
Nick Viney: it's not, I don't know whether it's nitrogen and I, and I don't
I never it's much more complex than that.
What I would say is the microrisal connections under
brambles are really phenomenal.
And so the soil health you know, is always just fantastic.
So, so in times of carbon sequestration you know, fabulous.
So, so how do you, you're gonna drive
Rupert Isaacson: some large ungulates into it in the way that, that's exactly
Nick Viney: what I'm doing.
Rupert Isaacson: Paleolithic.
Why not some cows as well, because they would've been a rocks.
They would've been wild captaining.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Nick Viney: Exactly.
So, so at the moment we're just coming out of, we're just coming out of winter.
And so there is only hairy little ponies here, and particularly hairy
ponies with, with, with long feathers are fantastic for, for this job.
So I go in and if I think, okay, I wanna make a a very, and for those
Rupert Isaacson: listeners, feathers are not bird feathers.
They are the hairs that grow on the lower part of the horse's leg.
If they are shaggy horses, which are designed to go through rough areas.
Okay.
Yeah.
Nick Viney: So they're like armor plated.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Nick Viney: And, and so they will, you know, happily and the,
and kind of small ponies with big feet and feathery, feathery legs
are really, really good for this.
In, in the rewilding sort of, field ex mos have become very popular.
It's, it tends to be a bit, a bit fashionable for me.
I'm.
It's, it's in the same way as in other things.
It's not the cow, it's the how.
And this is, you know, we don't have to be specific on the pony type.
Wait, talk about
Rupert Isaacson: my mother.
Sorry.
Nick Viney: It's a, it's a, it's a pony and it's gonna behave like a
pony, you know, if you let it near trees, it's gonna strip the bark.
It will eat very close to the ground if you leave.
Right.
Rupert Isaacson: It will create wallows, it will dig up the ground a bit.
Yeah.
Nick Viney: And it'll also, and these things with, with
hair will plow through ramble.
So all I have to do is I, I don't want dead, I don't want any straight lines.
There are no, you know, nature doesn't really do straight lines.
I'm about creating edge.
So at the moment I've got this big you know, field of, of brambles.
And now I wanted to turn those into islands of life.
So we still have lots of, we still have lots of loads for the
birds to, to nest and to feed.
But I want to be able to sort of per ambulate through this.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
And presumably those brambles would serve as nurseries for hardwood trees too.
Yeah.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: So eventually in your perfect world, it would end up
looking like a paleolithic savanna.
Nick Viney: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: More or less, right?
Nick Viney: Yes.
And then, but, but, but also, so as those big trees, you've gotta
have the succession, you've gotta have big trees and medium trees
and little trees and tiny trees.
And you, so you have to, so the landscape is doing this all the time
and, and this is why land ownership.
You are always gonna be struggling because you've only got this amount of land.
And so, you know, you've, you wanna do this there and you, and you, you can't
get your head around how, how on earth are you going to have these islands?
And then they're not only islands, they're moving islands, you know,
because they've gotta creep around and grow big trees and little trees.
So I, it's complex and it's brilliant.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, it's interesting, it's interesting because I was 20 years in
Texas and the, the part of Texas is huge.
There's many ecosystems.
So the particular part of Texas that we have written, it's Central Texas,
which is around the Austin area.
And that's what you call post Oak Savannah.
And interestingly it's a landscape that looks almost identical to
say the Southern Spanish, Southern Portuguese Post Oak Savannahs.
Yeah.
But it looked like that before the whitey showed up with their cows
because bison were grazing it and basically doing the same effect.
And so what you've got, what you get is these very big oak trees
that put their branches quite low and then that creates a shade camp.
'cause it gets very, very hot there.
Creates a shade canopy where animals do come and shelter from the shade.
But there's seasons where they don't go because it's.
More temperate.
And then under those things you get a lot of thorn coming up.
And in that thorn you get the young trees.
And that's how when one tree collapses and dies, the other ones can come up.
But the look of the thing, generation to generation tends
to look like an English park.
Large stately trees.
Yeah.
Because you can't, you're not really aware of those younger ones coming
up because they're coming up sort of slightly camouflaged by that canopy
with some areas of thicket as well.
And particularly in the, in the swampy areas or, you know, things.
What's interesting about that landscape is it's basically pre-Columbian landscape.
It looks basically the same as it did before the colonists showed up there.
And it's, that would've been 500 years ago.
'cause it's Spanish, early Spanish conquest close to Mexico.
And it's made that shift to a European
Nick Viney: aesthetic
Rupert Isaacson: livestock thing.
It's not really farming, it's livestock.
It, it's more herding really, it's cattle ranching without losing much of
its biological integrity unless they decide to put a shopping mall and a
McDonald's on it, and then they can like do an entire county in like a weekend.
And that's awful.
But as long as they don't do that, it's as it was.
What's what's interesting to me about.
England is that we're better at preserving the land than they are in the us.
Like one, one of the heartbreaking things about living in the US is
that you can fall in love with the landscape 'cause it's so beautiful.
And one year later, you know, some that your neighbor can just flog that
for housing development and it's gone.
Boom.
There's no, there's no conservation laws, nothing.
And they'll just go and bulldoze, you know, a thousand year old trees.
It's, it's, it's, it's really heartbreaking.
In the UK we are much, much better at preserving the aesthetic of the
countryside, which I'm a great believer.
We need spiritually, we need to be able to see that green.
We need to be able to get out of a city quickly and see it, and if
possible, walk on it and touch it.
Which in Texas you can't 'cause they'll shoot you.
So people don't feel any kind of you know, attachment to the land because they don't,
they didn't grow up playing under that tree or whatever because it's so weirdly,
I think there's some things we get really right in the uk with land ownership
give, we, we have large landowners, but quite a lot of ac public access to the
land, even though the ramblers would say that they don't just go live in Texas.
And you'll be like, actually we have a lot of, you know, and the
worst that will happen is if you stray from the footpath in the uk.
Someone might yell at you, but they're not gonna shoot you, you know?
But they probably won't even yell at you, you know, and
there are plenty of footpaths.
I.
Now we're talking about Rewilding in the uk.
And so you look at a landscape and you say, well, how does the water want to go?
Or how do the trees want to go?
You've now helped farmers in the UK to sort of go towards this.
Are we going to lose this whimsical landscape that we know and love
of the patchwork field system and the the hedgerows and all of that?
Whether people argue that it's not bi biodiverse enough or not, it's
beautiful and, and it's there and at least we have a countryside to
argue about, which is a good thing.
Or are we gonna, is it gonna be replaced by something else, or are we
gonna have kind of a mishmash of both?
What, what are we gonna see in the next 20 to 50 years?
Nick Viney: I think we're gonna see a more beautiful, an even more beautiful version.
So, you mentioned the word green and how, how people it's important for
people to get out into the green.
What we've gotta remember is.
Yeah.
And, and we, and we are, we are wired to recognize green as this, you know,
calming influence on us, aren't we?
And also
Rupert Isaacson: biodiverse, we, we see it as, I think when, when we know that, when
I say biodiverse, I mean food producing.
It mean we feel calm inside when we know, oh, we're in a place
that can support life basically.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Unfortunately, ryegrass, which is that holy kind of shade of green if, you know,
if you, there are certain colors that that land should be at certain times of year.
Right.
And, and that kind of blue, th green in spring is, is really a reflection
of the, the awful, awful amount of nitrates that are on there and really
burning through the soil health and really having detrimental effects on,
on not only the cows that eat them, eat that, which, you know, obviously
they're burning out within three years.
You know, that's a very, very short life expectancy for a cow.
You know, it would naturally live well, well into its teens and beyond.
So, so it's nuanced is what I'm saying.
Green does not necessarily mean healthy.
What actually is a much healthier landscape is, is lots
of different shades of green.
And, and to, to not.
Not expect to see the land in this very linear sort of you know,
flat feel to a 90 degree hedge if you're lucky to have a hedge.
And then, you know, that's, you know, we've talked about clipping
those hedges off very, very tight.
What, what you could imagine in a more abundant landscape and,
and with abundance comes beauty, real beauty that we recognize and
it literally resonates within us.
So when you go into, I've got a nice bit of floodplain Maya down there,
and when that is just humming within insects and, and you, you just dunno
where to walk because you can feel under your feet that every footstep you
are treading and squishing something.
There is something that resonates inside you.
And really I hope I would like everyone to get an opportunity to experience
that because when you experience that and, and I'm someone who is sort of not
religious and and not sort of, I wouldn't have classed myself as spiritual, but
there is something unmistakably moving.
When you experience those kind of those kind of.
Ecosystems.
And, and as to what that would look like now in our, in our green
and pleasant land, I think our hedges are a great place to start.
So they, you know, they're still old trees in the hedges.
So, so what, what I'm planning on doing here is, is where I've got these lovely
hedges, I just wanna knock a hole at one end and a hole at the other,
and then that, that whole line then actually becomes a big circle in itself.
I see.
So the
Rupert Isaacson: cows could just rotate through.
Nick Viney: So, so, yeah.
So we'll just You keep the
Rupert Isaacson: hydro
Nick Viney: Yeah, exactly.
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Nick Viney: Because the, the, you know, why would we set ourselves back?
There's, you know, there's very old trees and especially stuff like
asht trees, you know, which are dropping like flies, you know, a
middle-aged asht tree now, dead gone.
The only ones left standing for now are the you know, are the really old ones.
So, you know, a lot of these tree diseases, you know, we experienced
this in the seventies with the elms and going, which dramatically changed
the, the way our landscape looked.
Mm-hmm.
You know, we have to appreciate that with the ash trees, you know,
with no baby asht trees coming up.
This is a, this is a major problem.
We don't, we don't really see that yet.
And, and I do worry about, you know, what's ne what's coming
down the road for the trees.
Next.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, I presume that your efforts with Rewilding, which
I want to talk about now, might hold some of the keys to this, right?
So you've been involved, I know, in the reintroduction of the beaver to the uk.
And at the risk of making 27 do entendre jokes.
I just want to lit tip my hat to the, all the do undre beaver jokes, so I don't
have to make one every time we say beaver.
However, the European beaver was as we know, wiped out largely in western Europe,
almost completely in western Europe.
And that led and then they went east, you know, into the Baltic and into Russia,
and then they depleted them there, and then they went to the Americas.
And the fur trade in the Americas was what opened up the northern
end of, of, of the Americas.
But now for the first time in four or 500 years, people like
you are bringing beavers back into the landscape of Western Europe.
Let's talk about that.
You talked about how water would flow.
We know beavers and water are synonymous.
Why bring back beavers?
What do they do for the landscape?
Why did they get rid of them in the first place?
And then let's talk from that species towards other lost species.
Okay, so why beavers?
Why, why, why did you get involved in, in the reintroduction of them?
Nick Viney: So f first off I just wanna say that really there's, there's
three people responsible for bringing back the beaver to the UK and who
we all need to be grateful for.
Derek Gao rashe Campbell Palmer, and Ghar Schwab.
So, do those names
Rupert Isaacson: again slowly so that people can write 'em down if they want to.
Nick Viney: Derek Gao.
Rupert Isaacson: Derek Gao.
GGOW.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Hin Campbell.
Palmer
Rupert Isaacson: Hin.
Campbell Palmer.
I dunno how to spell hin, but Campbell Palmer, I think people can,
Nick Viney: R-R-O-I-S-I-N.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Rashe Campbell Palmer.
And,
Nick Viney: and Gerhard Schwab.
Rupert Isaacson: Gerhard, that sounds German.
Nick Viney: It is, yeah.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Gerhard Schwab.
S-C-H-W-A-B.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
In the uk or in, in No,
Nick Viney: he's in Bavaria.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Right.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
And the, these guys are, sorry.
These, these guys are they've, you know, they have, we need to be great.
Very.
Why, why do we need to be grateful
Rupert Isaacson: to them?
What, what's the value of the beavers?
Nick Viney: So beavers, beavers are known as a keystone species, and
that this means that the presence of beavers in a, in an ecosystem has a
profound effect on every other species.
What, what the Beaver offers is water security.
So without water security, we are nothing.
Rupert Isaacson: You mean water conservation?
They keep water in a landscape.
Nick Viney: They keep water in a landscape.
They purify water.
They slow water down.
So, so, beavers, beavers, willow and water are, are this incredible sort
of you know, just that, that they work together in this very nuanced
and, and beautiful, beautiful way.
If you've, if you get a chance, watch beavers on Go.
Go on Beaver watch.
Come to Rewilding Cobes head.
Watch beavers at night.
Watch them working the incredible way these, these creatures can hold
back water with only sticks and clay.
Now if you've, you know, try and do it yourself.
Try and hold back water.
Try and create something, you know, and these, and these dams can be 10 foot
high and holding back water and just letting it come through very, very gently.
So what that does, and, and especially as we shift into much more erratic weather
patterns, is it, is these storm surges.
These, these, so we have if you think about what the UK looks like, we have
these uplands that are completely naked, completely devoid of trees,
highest rainfalls in the country.
So it's like a bald head drops all this water on it, what's
gonna happen to that water?
It just rushes off completely unimpeded, getting faster and faster and faster.
And then just smashes everything out the way as it goes down and out to sea.
Not only does it smash up all our urban areas, but it takes thousands
of years worth of soil with it.
And in that soil, nothing can, nothing can live in those waters.
Our salmon can't, you know, they can't breed.
So, so the, the knock on effects of having water, leaving the
land too quickly is huge.
Absolutely huge.
So we are in Devon, we've got maybe 2.4
meters of rain a year.
What's that?
I don't know.
Is that eight, nine feet?
I dunno.
This is a high rainfall area, and we have to slow that water
down and in slowing it down.
And the beavers do this all night for free.
Absolutely.
For free.
All as they ask is, can I have some trees?
And I, and I'll do the rest.
So we have to, we have to, it's not to put it this way, it's not too many beavers.
It's too few trees per start.
Where did they go in the first place?
So, so we had, you know, we had beavers throughout the uk.
But we hunted them all, every single one.
We killed them all.
And we did that because A, they have this incredible fur, this incredible
double you know, double kind of very soft under fur and beautiful, beautiful fur.
So, so like you said worldwide, they've, they've been hunted.
But also they have this very interesting relationship with willow and the tree
willow which contains salicylic acid.
Salicylic acid.
Rupert Isaacson: Aspirin
Nick Viney: is aspirin.
Exactly right.
And so we hunted the beaver for its scent glands because of the
massive amounts of salicylic acid in those, in that, in those glands.
And we use that medicinally for hundreds of years.
So we just like, like all good humans, you know, we just, castor
Rupert Isaacson: oil, cast oil
Nick Viney: castor.
Okay.
Yeah.
Not castor oil different.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Castor.
Yeah.
'cause castor is beaver in Latin, right?
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And actually in French still castor.
Yeah.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
So, so as we, you know, as we go into these erratic climate you know,
climate change events, we're gonna have massive rainfall events, but
we're also gonna have droughts.
So, so a way of steadying our water cycle is very, very important.
And, and whereas, you know, we certainly around where, where I am on
dartmore, you know, there, there would be a ne very negative pushback on,
on free beaver release, for example.
I would predict.
Yeah.
Thanks.
I would predict that it give it three years, five years max.
There will be, people will be fighting to get beavers onto their land.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, this is, this is actually a question.
So do you have beavers on your land now?
Nick Viney: No.
No, I don't.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Why not?
Nick Viney: They are a few miles down, down river.
But
Rupert Isaacson: why, why not?
Why not?
Nick Viney: Why not re introduce them?
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Nick Viney: Basically because I don't, I would've had to up until, up until very
recently, the last few weeks I would've had to have put them in an enclosure.
And most people can't afford a beaver enclosure.
It's very, very expensive to put up that kind of fencing.
The
Rupert Isaacson: legislation has changed You now no longer need I.
Nick Viney: The legislation has changed and you can apply or have an expression
of interest for, for a free release.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Yeah.
And this is literally like the last few weeks.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So this is historic now, but let's say then you do that, are your neighbors
not gonna say, well, hold on, you know, they're not gonna stay on your land.
They're gonna come on my land.
Nick Viney: Exactly.
So
Rupert Isaacson: what about that?
Nick Viney: So at the moment, and this is the downfall of this new
legislation, there is mass celebrations, but actually what it means is if
you, if you are the license holder for this free release, then you are
liable for whatever happens either way.
So it, it's crazy.
This is an, an animal, it is a native animal.
It is, you know, it is supposed to be here.
Yes, we are going to have to work around it.
We cannot farm right to the water's edge.
If you plant carrots within three meters of, of the the water's edge, it's, you
know, either the beavers that they're gonna come out and eat them or as,
as beavers makes dams, and they don't tend to make dams across big rivers.
It's not, they're, they're not into that.
It's these little tributaries.
And then the water starts moving.
You know, once they put in a dam, then the water starts moving laterally, both sides.
And and that's when they can come into conflict with landowners.
It's, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
I mean, you put a drone up, it's the most stunning environment
and the, the, the life that is.
Brought back by beavers.
You, you know, we have never ex, there's nobody alive that has
experienced this other than people that are living close to beavers now,
you know, we don't know on baseline.
Yeah, no, I, I,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
You are preaching to the converted here.
I know that though.
Okay.
You might be liable.
But I think, you know, and I both know that there's quite a lot of
Gorilla Rewilding going on and people taking it into their own hands to
just release things into the wild now.
And you know, quite recently they found all those links as
in Scotland and rounded them up.
But I know people are doing it with Beaver.
I know people are doing it with other things, and I don't think that's
something that's gonna go away.
So, and honestly, I have to say I'm on the sidelines with pom poms because
sooner or later it's gonna happen.
So one can get grumpy about it and say, oh, it's terrible.
Or you can say, well, this is part of historical process, which is
inevitable, and I'd rather see that than ripping out hedges, frankly.
But talk to me about that.
So I, I presume that's going to make that change, right?
Because let's say for example, you did want to do a free release
of Beaver, but you think, oh, but I'm, I can't afford the liability.
But then some beavers show up on your land.
Because somebody, either they got out of somebody else's place or there and you
decide, well, I didn't put them there, therefore I can just leave them alone.
Are you still liable if one of these self rewild or gorilla rewild beavers
shows up in your land and makes a damn, are you supposed to therefore
go and kill it to protect you?
Nick Viney: You can't kill them.
You can't kill them.
But what I mean is are you wouldn't matter who you're supposed to, they're protected.
Are
Rupert Isaacson: you still liable, basically?
Or can you say, look, it's got nothing to do with me and it's outta my control.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
As far as I'm aware, you can, you know, if, if you haven't put them
there, it's, you know, they are just part of the fabric of the ecosystem.
They are protected.
They cannot, if you, if you know, you are in big trouble, if you kill 'em now,
I'm not saying it's not gonna happen.
Right.
You know, look at, look at all the birds of prey that are still persecuted.
You know, sure.
There's, there's gonna be, you know, as Brits, we love killing stuff, don't we?
I mean, we have export.
Oh,
Rupert Isaacson: everybody.
We, that's not just the Brits, everybody.
Nick Viney: I just feel like, you know, at, at a colonial level, we've,
we've got some pretty, you know, some pretty strong history in this.
And this is very,
it's very much part of the, the, you know, the fabric of the,
of living in the countryside.
What has, and that, that sort of.
That mindset has, has continued.
But the, the things that have been available, you know, to, to, to be
killed are are less and less and less that really there's only foxes.
The only reason we have Red Fox in the UK is because we kept them to hunt them.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
We, we, we created Super foxes.
Yeah, yeah.
Basically we, we, we promoted their habit.
Well, but again, devils have got, we have actually a lot of
quote unquote game animals in the UK for the very same reason.
So, you know, our partridges are better in the UK than they are in
Europe because we like to shoot them, obviously have a lot of pheasant.
I know that people raise them, you know, in pens, but there's also a lot
of wild pheasant 'cause they go feral.
There are graphs on the mos.
There are, you know, and as you say this is because people like to kill 'em hairs
in the fields and so on, but they don't want to kill them to eradicate them.
They want to kill them to have a relationship with them.
And this is, you know, having lived with hunter-gatherers, I grew up fox hunting.
I don't do it anymore.
And I can tell you an interesting story about how and why I gave
up, but I would say that it, I.
Is responsible for my environmentalism because it was something that brought
me into relationship with having to look after habitat as a young boy.
We hedged, we looked after the hedgerows, we looked after the
spinnings because we wanted foxes.
Yeah.
And there was knock on effects for a lot of other wildlife.
And we wouldn't use chemicals and that sort of thing for the same reason.
But there's, so, to my mind, there's nothing wrong with having a relationship
with hunting because, or let's say if you think it's wrong, it's gonna
happen anyway because it's in humans, because we are hunter-gatherers.
So I do respect someone's philosophy that they don't want to, or they feel
it's wrong, but it's gonna happen because that is how we've always related to that.
So if we're going to have this, surely then these new rewild species that are
gonna come in are also going to be hunted or surely must be hunted, or we won't be
in any kind of relationship with them.
That's authentic.
And then how do we dance around that?
'cause I think there's a, a difference, again, between hunting and extermination.
Extermination is a whole other thing, right?
But how are we gonna dance through all of this?
Nick Viney: Well, how, how do we know what, which is
the last beaver for a start?
I mean, how do you know?
It's like who chopped down the last tree on Dartmore?
We just, you know, we don't really pay attention to, to
those, to those sorts of things.
And, and I think in terms of ecosystem restoration, then you have
to build up a massive population,
Rupert Isaacson: right?
Nick Viney: A healthy population right before you then put yourself in a position
where then you can start thinking about culling out young males unhealthy.
So, so we're a long way from that.
And, you know, just, and look at the deer population so, so equal
to our sheep population in the uk.
You know, the, the trees have a double whammy and double nemesis.
You know, the deer, the outta control deer population in the uk.
So, you know, a little Scots Pine, for example, Scotland,
you know, Scott's Pine this big.
Is it a year old?
You look at it closely, it could be 15 years old.
And it's still this big because it's just had its head taken off year after year
after year, and yet it's still trying.
So until we get those, you know, the, these, these massive sort of
oversteer problems under top, but we do hunt a lot of deer, right?
Rupert Isaacson: We, we do shoot a lot of deer in the uk,
Nick Viney: not nearly enough.
Rupert Isaacson: But how would we, how would you possibly shoot
more deer than we do already?
You'd have to have like everyone walking around with a gun.
Nick Viney: I think, I think, well, I dunno about that, but I would
certainly like to see us shift away from industrial pig and poultry
and into wild venison and, and, and these things aren't set in right, but
Rupert Isaacson: how, like really you must have thought it through a bit bit.
I'm quite intrigued.
Well,
Nick Viney: I, I, I know someone who has a who has a butchery business and
they have so much deer coming into them from, from, you know, guys out stalking.
You are kind of, you're getting into, you're talking about more
Rupert Isaacson: stalkers, you're talking about more hunters, basically.
You would need more hunters than we have currently.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: What's the likelihood of that?
Nick Viney: I think it, it's, the reason I'm
Rupert Isaacson: asking you is this question is going somewhere.
Nick Viney: I think it's the only okay.
So, so whatever I'm saying here and now I think is relevant to here and now.
I'm not saying it's a forever solution.
What I'm saying is we have an, we have an explosion of deer population,
so some native, a lot not and.
But those are, that's a relatively clean, a very, I would say, a
very clean source of protein.
So if, if we were, then I'm with you.
If we were then harvesting those and that could positively impact our tree
you know, our tree, lack of trees.
Then for me, for now, that's a good, that's a good solution.
Rupert Isaacson: Should we have fewer deer or fewer sheep?
Nick Viney: Both.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
If sheep, and we were looking at a healthy UK ecosystem, I presume that
you would go to any part of the UK and see a relative profusion of road
deer, some big-ish herds of red deer moving through the landscape and, okay.
We have people say fallow or not, we're introduced by the Romans.
But given that that's 2000 years ago, okay.
I think we could sort of say that they're naturalized and then we
got the ones that are from Asia.
We got the M Jackson, the Chinese water deer, but they're not gonna go away.
But you and I both know when you drive through the English countryside, you
do not see a plethora of rho air you do in Germany, where I'm from, I was out
this morning, so I would expect to see X number of rodia every time I go out.
I'm sorry.
In some areas of the UK you do, but most of the UK you
actually don't and not like here.
And the Red Deer, yes, there are some contained populations of Red Deer
below Scotland, but you don't see that.
Like you'd see migrating elk, for example, in parts of the
American West or that sort thing.
So how is it that we have too many deer?
It seems to me that no, do we actually have too many deer or do we actually have
too many people in conflict with deer?
Nick Viney: Well, yeah, okay.
We're an island, aren't we?
It isn't getting any, it isn't getting any bigger.
Rupert Isaacson: But it's not like you're seeing deer every time you go out.
You know, you're not,
Nick Viney: you are not.
So I would say, well, I am, I am.
Rupert Isaacson: You live in a, the se the second really wild corner of the uk,
Nick Viney: the second you make habitat, it's a, it's a magnet.
So anything that needs somewhere to hide it needs to, you know, it's the second you
start growing trees and, and giving cover.
Yeah.
You, you are a magnet.
It is,
Rupert Isaacson: are gonna show up.
Yeah,
Nick Viney: yeah, yeah.
The, the, one of the biggest problems in the UK and, and why you have these
concentrations of, of, say deer for example, is, is the lack of connectivity.
So this, this herb Oh, okay.
Has to stay, you know, it's only you're talking about
Rupert Isaacson: corridors, wildlife corridor.
Nick Viney: Yes, exactly.
So it can't, you know, so, so I.
I've been on the range and I've seen I've seen stags cross from, so three Dartmore,
365 square miles of missed opportunity.
I would say.
But you know, you'll see stags coming right across the top in the open, open
moland, you know, they're not comfortable in that scenario, but they know, you
know, they can smell over the hill.
There's, there's somebody good over the other side of the hill and they will,
you know, try and use Dartmore as this sort of you know, they'll bolt for it.
And, and Dartmore still has just a few you know, few of these wooded valleys
where they can, you know, get down into those and, you know, and they're steep
enough and, and uninhabited enough that they can have a quietish life.
Rupert Isaacson: And we haven't gone into your 20 years as a wildlife
ranger on Dartmore, which, not,
Nick Viney: not a wildlife ranger.
Rupert Isaacson: Sorry,
Nick Viney: not a wildlife ranger.
No.
What were you No, I'm a, I'm what's called a range clearer.
So Uhhuh, I actually so I would be on horseback with the dogs.
So that's the, that's the, the, that painting there.
And and I would move livestock.
So Dartmore parts of dartmore are used by the military.
And and so you have live firing ranges, so people and livestock
have to be kept out of those areas.
And so, range clearers are employed to move the livestock off those areas
and then hold them back in, you know, until, until the live firings finished.
What
Rupert Isaacson: Brilliant job.
How long do you do that for?
Nick Viney: 20, 20 years.
Rupert Isaacson: Why'd you stop?
Nick Viney: Complicated reasons, but you still
Rupert Isaacson: do it a bit like, is that still part of what I still
Nick Viney: I still got my ticket.
Yeah.
Still a ticket.
Yeah.
Is that something
Rupert Isaacson: you can actually make a, a full living off?
Like you could be like a, a fully bring up your kids and pay mortgage on that?
Yeah,
Nick Viney: yeah, yeah.
I did that.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Brilliant.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: That's a good, so that's actually, yeah, well,
Nick Viney: you know, because it's actually a, it's an un and the job is
unchanged for over a hundred years.
Okay.
You know, Dartmoor is, dartmore is full of unexploded or ordinance, you know,
it's, you know, we've been, we don't have tanks down here anymore, but you
know, these, these open wilder areas were considered in a sense waste ground yeah.
That you could, you could just lob things into.
Sure.
Actually what the ranges are, and this is true on Dartmore, but also up and
down the country, is they are some of the best, recovering landscapes, I'm
sure in the UK because we, we keep people off and we create rest by, by
keeping the stock on certain areas.
Well, this
Rupert Isaacson: leads me to the, so the reason I, I, I was asking
all those devil's advocate questions about deer is the obvious one, right?
You yourself have said We lack large predators.
You are a rew wilder.
Okay.
So we all know what the top predator in the UK ought to be.
Now it's the wolf.
So in Germany where I live it's very interesting.
I live in Hessen but not far from Frankfurt.
Like you could be in downtown Frankfurt from where I'm sitting right now, and
40 minutes, you could be in downtown v Spartan in about less than 20.
But the forest and the, the farmland around here is the
farmland is either crops or orchard.
Not all of the orchard is managed, so a lot of it is semi rewild.
And big areas of forest, which are working forests, they're all owned, like,
like in France, they're owned by the local community and they're logged, but
they're logged some semis sustainably.
So there's a lot of wildlife in them.
In the last five years or six years, wolves have shown up again.
And I lived in Canada for a while and lots of Ws.
You never saw 'em, like, you know, so you, I think I saw one once.
I was, however, as a journalist involved in covering the early stages of the Wolf
Free introductions in Yellowstone National Park in, and I watched how the landscape
regenerated itself once they came in and all of the ranches going up in arms.
I said, and I realized actually you guys aren't, it's not the wolves.
You just hate government and, and you are just resentful of the fact that
government has put these things here.
But you and I both know you're not gonna go outta business 'cause of
a wolf because economically that's just not gonna happen anymore.
So you are, it's an inherited hatred of it's an inherited farmer or herder
to the com com competition with another predator that's come down the generations.
And it's also resentment of government interference.
But ecologically, there's no question.
It's a good thing.
Anyway, as on horseback here I don't know, about four years ago and I'd
been reading, oh yeah, they're back.
And they sort of pinpointed where they'd seen a breeding panel.
Yeah, but we won't see 'em.
I totally, totally saw one and it was a small female and she popped out on the
woodland ride in front of me and then she ran up the ride for a good a hundred
yards before she popped off into us.
Wow.
I got to see her.
Well, I haven't seen her since because there's been a shoot shovel and shut up.
Policy.
But no matter how much the locals here will do that, I suspect the wolves will
find their foothold because times have changed economically that people are
not living off the land in the same way that they were a hundred years ago.
So, and people are more and more tolerant, not less and less tolerant, but equally,
the, the story of why the wolves got here in the first place is so weirdly
human, because it's because of Bel.
When Chernobyl happened, you know, they basically created
a massive wildlife reserve.
All Yeah.
As you say, you give once, soon as the cover comes, all the, all the stuff comes
back, then it comes, then it goes out.
And the wolves just began to expand westward first through Poland
and then, you know, into here.
Now they're, they're in Belgium.
So, but what's interesting to me is I then was in Poland a couple of
years ago, and there were wolf kills.
There's a big red deer wolf kill, like right outside where we were staying.
And, but they were farming cattle and other livestock.
And I said to them, aren't you in conflict with the wolves?
And they said, oh, Rupert, the W See, the thing is the wolves never left
here, so we know how to live with them.
And I said, so you, you let your calves cow carve out your cows,
carve outside, not, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And yeah, sure, we lose one or two, but honestly no more than we would
lose to other th you know, winter crap or this thing or that thing.
Rupert, it's not a big deal.
But the Germans, they're all panicking because they were without the wolf for
over a hundred years, and now they kind of dunno how to live with it anymore.
And so sure, you've gotta hunt some of them.
If you got a problem, one, you're gonna, you're gonna go shoot it.
But in general, they, they, they, they're not interested in you.
They keep away.
And as long as you've got enough deer, that's really what they want to eat.
Yeah.
Now the uk so I don't believe we really have too many deer.
I'm sorry.
I just don't, I grew up in the countryside in the uk.
It's not like I was tripping over a deer every five seconds.
I do know that there are issues with growing trees, but one
can also fence trees off.
And they do, otherwise we wouldn't be able to grow the industrial
plantations of trees that we do.
And that's another environmental thing.
But yet they do grow those trees.
So clearly th there are ways to manage the deer, but we ha
we do have a plethora of sheep.
We do have a plethora of humans.
Bringing back the wolf is obviously a conversation that's been going on for
30, 50, a hundred years or whatever.
Is it gonna happen, do you think, in the uk because surely that would be
the authentic landscape, would it not?
The top predator back in play and us living with it.
Nick Viney: Well, if you are looking for the cheapest, quickest
solution to landscape recovery, then yeah, it's an absolute no brainer.
For
Rupert Isaacson: sure.
Nick Viney: Nothing.
It's just not that simple, is it?
Rupert Isaacson: No, I'm not saying it was,
Nick Viney: you talk about us being tolerant.
I'm really not sure how tolerant we are.
Especially in the, especially in the countryside.
Yeah.
I mean this is a massive, you know, we have the rise of reform, Nigel Farage,
you know, you'll see those, those boards all over the place in the countryside,
you know, and that's not, they
Rupert Isaacson: what No wolves.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Yeah.
So, you know, I
Rupert Isaacson: think he is the w
Nick Viney: it's, it's the sensible thing to do, but, you know, but will it happen?
When do we go for that?
Yeah.
Do
Rupert Isaacson: you think it'll happen at some point?
Eventually?
Nick Viney: Yeah, I think it will happen.
Rupert Isaacson: If you made it this far into the podcast, then I'm
guessing you're somebody that, like me, loves to read books about not
just how people have achieved self actualization, but particularly
about the relationship with nature.
Spirituality, life, the universe, and everything.
And I'd like to draw your attention to my books.
If you would like to read the story of how we even arrived here, perhaps
you'd like to check out the two New York Times bestsellers, The Horseboy
and The Long Ride Home, and come on an adventure with us and see what engendered,
what started Live Free Ride Free.
And before we go back to the podcast, also check out The Healing
Land, which tells the story of.
My years spent in the Kalahari with the Sun, Bushmen, hunter gatherer people
there, and all that they taught me, and mentored me in, and all that I learned.
Come on that adventure with me.
Yeah.
And, and how will it happen?
'cause I'm interested in this, you know.
Well,
Nick Viney: they, you know, they're not gonna cross the channel, so they,
we will be humans bringing them back.
It may not be, I, I don't know how long that's gonna
be, but something will happen.
And what
Rupert Isaacson: do you think will happen?
Nick Viney: I think we'll wise up, I think.
Rupert Isaacson: But specifically like where would they do it
and how would they do it?
And
Nick Viney: I think they, I think probably they'd do something in Scotland.
Mm-hmm.
And I think it will be the best thing they ever did economically, because I
mean, that is seriously progressive.
You know, there's, there's a, there's a incredible, you know,
even just from ecotourism, forget, forget the timber perspective.
No
Rupert Isaacson: doubt.
Nick Viney: You know, it's just, or t-shirts.
Rupert Isaacson: No, for sure.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, I mean, that it would just be extraordinary.
Yes.
Extraordinary.
But
Rupert Isaacson: do you think, do you think it's 10 years away,
20 years away, 50 years away?
Nick Viney: No.
No.
What do you reckon?
I, I think it, I'd, I'd say 25 years and some biblical shit climate wise.
'cause I think, I think it's not until we really start feeling it, it's like,
you know, you know, look at what, look at what happened to us in COVID.
Okay.
You know, within two weeks of COVID, the shelves are empty.
You know, we, we are all faced with the reality that we have bugger
all resilience in our food system.
Okay?
So we all turn to our local farmers, blah, blah, blah, and everything's,
you know, and the weather's fabulous.
And and we all you know, things look like there's a, there's
a moment for change here.
Well, the second we, that people started to to look sideways for food,
then suddenly we're all back to work.
Back to work, get the gravy train going again, because, you know.
Food resilience, food sovereignty, the ability to feed yourself is
the most subversive act there is.
You know, if you can self sustain what you see you to, to, you know, whoever
wants you to be their bitch, it's just not you know, I guess they can tax
Rupert Isaacson: your something, but Yeah, they can
Nick Viney: tax something.
Yeah.
So, so I, I guess what I'm saying is that took a pandemic.
So, and, and I, and I think c climate wise, we haven't so
climate wise we're looking at 30 to 40% higher rainfall events.
You, you know, as, as we get through this century, you know, I, I live, you know,
I've grown up next, next to a river.
It is an awesome, awesome power.
I, I, I love to, to this feeling of kind of insignificance that, you know, if I was
to go near that water, I just wouldn't, you know, you just wouldn't last a minute.
And I, and I like that because I like to be reminded that, that
Rupert Isaacson: you're talking about flash floods, nature
Nick Viney: is powerful.
It's not really flash floods.
I mean, the, the, the problem is there's nothing keeping it down there.
It's like, you know, there's no beavers up there slowing it down
'cause there's no trees up there for the beavers to eat, you know?
So, so, so these rivers get, literally get overwhelmed.
And, and I mean that in a,
in they are like, we get overwhelmed.
Literally sense.
Rupert Isaacson: Whelm is the old English for wave over.
Waved over.
Nick Viney: Nice.
Rupert Isaacson: Blowing over.
Nick Viney: Okay.
Well, so, so I didn't know that, but this is how I sense this river is.
And it's not just, it's not the, the river's not the thing is that the
river's, the, I have this idea that water, one water is all water, okay?
And water is all as water is trying to get to do, is to get
back to the main body of water.
And
Rupert Isaacson: nicely put,
Nick Viney: And it doesn't, you know, so it's out at sea and then, and then
something happens and it's, and it's, and it's drawn up into the clouds, you
know, and then these, these droplets are all, are all there and they're,
and in these things called clouds, and then they're getting heavier
and heavier and heavier, and then something pulls them to the ground.
And they are smashed into the ground.
Now if what, what water really wants is a soft landing.
And a soft landing is, is lots of soil is, is lots of cover on the soil.
Is is a, is a nice lot of vegetation.
So it's, so it's cushioned as it gradually meets the ground.
And ideally then it starts to.
Percolate into the ground and then work its way down through the soil
profile where it can have a rest in the aquifer to it gently coming out
into a nice, steady river, which then allows it to go back to sea.
What happens is, like we talked about earlier, smashing of, you know, everything
overwhelmed and and it's a, it's a crisis.
So, so it,
Rupert Isaacson: so as this relates to wolves is the scenario as follows, we
get more of these extreme weather events.
There's more flooding in the urban areas that are downstream of, and the
farming areas, but mostly the urban areas that are downstream of these uplands.
Therefore, we need, we realize we need more trees on those uplands to contain
the rain and beavers and things like that.
And because of that we need fewer things up there that would eat the trees.
And so therefore, rather, like in Yellowstone where they found that,
where they've been overpopulation of elk when they brought the wolves back
in, not a vast amount of them even, but they brought some back in immediately.
You've got regeneration of forests on the upper slopes.
That was the first thing that everybody saw.
Is that what we're talking about?
Is that, that the sort of biblical type event that you think would bring back the
wolf in 25 years where people suddenly say, okay, we need this sort of working
thing to contain the water, basically?
Nick Viney: Yeah, that, and I think it's the cheapest, you know, we're
all driven by the economics of it, and it's just the cheapest thing there is.
And, and I'm not saying you wouldn't get 10 years into it as a, as
a thing, and then you'd have to start, you know, culling, who knows.
Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: sure.
Well, hopefully, hopefully they would get a healthy enough population.
Yeah.
That that would be a thing.
Yeah.
But you and I both know then that, of course, the other thing the Wol
would do is they'd migrate and they'd migrate down the uplands of Southern
Scotland, and then the Pennines
then they would begin to show up in areas like yours.
You are the manager of Dartmouth at this point.
Okay.
Let's posit that you are.
And now the first wolves are showing up and we say, Hey Nick what's the strategy?
What would be your strategy?
Nick Viney: Oh, let 'em come, let 'em come.
And, you know, and like I said at the beginning, it's
all about good shepherding.
Mm-hmm.
So, you know, wolves are turned up in the Netherlands.
This is a Yeah.
This is an equally densely populated country.
It's, it's very, if not more so.
Yeah.
Very similar to us.
Yeah.
And they, you know, one way or another, they're kind of making it work.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Nick Viney: So it is doable.
And, and I'm always, always gonna go for the nature-based solution.
Always.
Rupert Isaacson: So you are the manager of Dartmoor.
It's 25 years on from now.
And Nick is the, you know, generalism of, of Dartmore.
Am I seeing
the recovery of the upland Beachwood?
Am I seeing bison?
Am I seeing moose?
Am I seeing wolf?
Am I seeing links?
Am I seeing what else has gone?
Obviously wild cats.
Nick Viney: Eagles,
Rupert Isaacson: Eagles.
Am I seeing all of that?
Is it, is it suddenly starting to look paleolithic?
Nick Viney: It is for me.
It is always in my head.
Yeah.
That's exactly how I, that's exactly how I live, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
50
Nick Viney: years.
It is, that's, that's the thing I see all the time.
You know, when I, you know, you can be riding across dartmore, so 5,000
more than 5,000 pre-historic remains.
You know, hu hut circles the longest stone rose in Europe,
you know, phenomenal archeology.
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
Nick Viney: Those, those people would not have been there in this naked landscape.
You know, what, what would they have lived on?
What would they have hunted?
What would they have burnt?
You know, what, what would've sheltered them from the wind?
You know, it was, there were trees, there were open areas.
It was, you know, to to coin the phrase, it was a mosaic of habitats.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
It's interesting, you know, about an hour from.
Bit more hour and a half from where I'm sitting now.
There are now wild bison again, European bison in the, in the woods
of a low mountain area called the Z Land, which is a bit north of us.
And I know that in Kent, in the uk So interesting that it happened in Kent,
which is for those listeners who dunno what Kent is, it's like that little bit
that sticks out east of London into the cheekily, sort of into the north Sea.
But it's like really populated.
It's sort of where the channel tunnel comes out and like you'd expect they were
gonna reintroduce the European bison.
It would've been in Scotland or Wales or Dartmore or something.
No, it's Kent crazy.
But yeah, they did it.
Have you been following that and are you like among the Rewilding community in
the uk Do you all know each other and it, are you all talking with each other
about expanding that and creating those corridors for those types of species?
And
Nick Viney: so, so yeah, we certainly work closely together and, and big shout
out to Paul Whitfield and the Wilder
Rupert Isaacson: bleed, isn't it?
Wilder Bleed.
Yeah.
Nick Viney: So the Wildwood Trust for, for getting that project.
So, so.
What you have to start off with is you have to have a suitable habitat.
Yeah.
You know, and so they had a suitable woodland that needed those, you
know, those you know, needed some of that brash taking out of it.
But they could have, they could have put like
Rupert Isaacson: old English longhorn cattle in there or
something, but they didn't, they went for the bison, which I applaud.
But why,
Nick Viney: Charismatic species?
Slightly different behavior.
Very, you know, just, just those tiny little details that, you know, in a, in
a, in a conversation between a, an animal and a tree are very, very significant.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Nick Viney: So yeah, and, and I think obvi experimentation, you know, we have
to be, we have to have this imagination and bravery to, to experiment.
You know, gay Brown says, you know, if you're not making one
massive mistake every year, you are not trying enough things.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Nick Viney: You're not, you know, we are just stuck in this.
This is the way it's, we've always done it, and this is
the way it's always gonna be.
Well, it isn't gonna be bloody like this because it can't be, because we
have proved it is not sustainable.
So now we have to think about, we're not talking about sustaining,
we're not talking about keeping the same 'cause the same is shit.
We have to regenerate.
We have to create abundance.
Abundance is not only good for us, it nourishes us, but it's
absolutely beautiful to look at.
It's the Garden of Eden.
And, and we have such a forgiving climate in the UK that we can
create the Garden of Eden.
Rupert Isaacson: I love it.
That's a rather artistic, imaginative
worldview.
And we started by looking at some of the art that's behind you.
You are also a living and working artist as well as a farmer and
land regenerator and re wilder.
What are you doing with your art?
How does your art come into this conversation?
And also crucially, how do you make that part of the economics of your whole thing?
'cause really, while a lot of people are listening to this podcast is
this idea of self-actualization.
And I think we, what we find when we talk to everybody on here is people come on,
you know, usually wearing a certain hat, you know, I'm a musician or I'm a horse
trainer, or I'm a educator, or whatever, and I've made this big thing outta it.
But when you actually talk to them, you actually realize
that they do about 50 things.
And th those 50 things all like an ecosystem sustain both economically and
spiritually, emotionally, and so on.
So your art, talk to us about how you got going with that, because it's very good.
I'm looking at.
The stuff on your one.
I, I want that one of the, the size saddle lady with the foxes.
And I, I know you don't think that's what it's, but I think that's what
Nick Viney: it's, no, as soon as I as far as I'm concerned with
the painting it's, well what happens with most paintings anyway?
No, and I'll tell you what, I'm not, if you
Rupert Isaacson: actually paint it that way, I'll buy it.
Nick Viney: I,
Rupert Isaacson: as long as I can afford it.
Nick Viney: What I was gonna say was the, what happens when you paint is
this glorious thing called creativity or whatever this weird thing is
that happens that, that, you know, each of us explain differently,
connection to source, whatever it is.
But there's this, this out of body state.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
So you set flow, you set out flow.
We, we set out with a certain intention for a painting.
This is how it works for me.
I'm sure it's different for everybody.
I set out with a certain intention and at some point something else has taken over.
Now I don't know when that point is and I, I can't be conscious of that
point because else I'm out of flow.
So, so the important part for me is just to get it done.
It's to get it outta me.
And there it is.
It's, it's ma it's now manifested.
That was the thing for me.
If for you it's a side saddle lady with two foxes.
Going hunting for whoever, people, I don't know.
It's exactly what you want it to be because it's moving on, it's
moving into a different life.
So, so that's my thing about paintings.
I don't get possessive over the meaning.
This, you know, this is bird, this is birds bring ideas.
So this is a, a Jungian a Jungian philosophy about birds bringing ideas.
And I had this, I had this time where I, you know, I'd be doing something.
Rupert Isaacson: What is, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
What is the Jungian philosophy of what, what did Carl Jung
say about birds bringing ideas?
Because not everyone knows.
Nick Viney: I don't know anything more than birds bring ideas.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Nick Viney: It's been a long time since you're not, you're
Rupert Isaacson: not like a, a a a, a deep Jungian.
Nick Viney: No, no, I'm not.
I'm, no.
I was lucky enough to grow up, grow up with some very, starts, some deep
youngian people, and, and I said, I said, this weird thing keeps happening to me.
I, I'm like, you know, I'm doing something.
I dunno, I'll make the bed or bend over to share my ch list.
And I get this sensation of this, of this bird swooping down over
me, just like over the top of me.
And, and, you know, and he just turned around and he said, well, you know
what Carl said, birds bring ideas.
And, and maybe it was the fact that, the birds were bringing me
ideas, but I wasn't seeing them.
And you, you know, if you're a creative person, and I think actually,
I think everybody's creative.
Sure.
I do not believe that there is this thing, oh, I don't have
a creative bone in my body.
Right.
But some people do
Rupert Isaacson: and others don't.
Yeah.
Nick Viney: And, and not only that, it's not, some people have
really had it knocked outta them.
Indeed.
And it's, it's a profound sense of inadequacy that, that, you know, and it
could just be a flippant comment as a child, and, and that has knocked, you
know, completely knocked that out of you.
And, and so in enter stage left only Art and Beaver will save us.
Which is, which is a, a program of of creative workshops where
where I use the, the native species at Rewilding COO's head to.
To, to really understand what should be in our landscape, what we have
a right to, what we really have a right to see what has a right to
be in our landscape here in the uk.
And then really understand what role they play in i i in the
ecosystem and trying to connect us to nature through our creativity.
So it doesn't, you know, I don't believe you don't have to have a, you
know, an arts practice or anything.
You just want to be driven to to ha to have a nature connection.
And so talking about your, your various, you know, people coming on with lots of
different hats on you know, a I'm 55 years old now, so, you've gotta have acquired a
few, like, you know, whatever experiences.
Yeah.
And, and then trying, you know, and then weaving those different experiences
through to then create something that hopefully then does some good, is.
It is something that's very interesting to me.
And and I, you know, some people think maybe they say I'm an idealist
and I, I wanna be an idealist.
Okay.
Because if I'm not an idealist, what am I, I'm like, oh, this is
okays, or this is absolutely shitty.
I
Rupert Isaacson: think I know what we offer an idealist.
Bored.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
So I want to see this.
Yes, I wanna see this better world because it, we are so, it is so within
our grasp, and this is why, you know, this is why I'm not actually a rewild,
or, yes, sometimes I'm a rewild.
Part of my land, you could say was rewild, but actually I'm blurring the
lines all the time because land is a, the whole thing is a very dynamic thing.
And we have to, we have to allow it to move.
We have to allow our rivers to move across the floodplains.
The trees have to be able to, you know, be in a procession across the landscape.
So, so yeah, weaving all that through to find some sort of to make some
sort of living is is, is, yeah, what I spend all my days doing.
And, and
Rupert Isaacson: that's brilliant.
It, it sounds, what it sounds to me like is there's a couple
of images sprang to mind.
The, you know, we talked at the beginning of this conversation a little bit,
or at least I did, about, the sort of anti artistic, anti-intellectual side
of both, say the farming population and also the urban population that
doesn't like the farming population.
The two sets of grumps grumping at each other from either side of
a, of a perceived divide, which of course is completely illusory anyway.
And but what they're essentially arguing about is even if they don't know they're
arguing about it, is, is, is the nature of happiness and nature and access to it.
When I was working with the initial group of Sun Bushman hunter gatherers in South
Africa, which got me drawn into my human rights thing, and I got drawn into that
'cause I turned out to be related to them and I could go into that whole story.
I wrote a book about it called The Healing Land.
He said, plugging his book, the Healing Land, available in all good books.
We turned out to be cousins in-law through a weird thing.
So I got involved in their land rights struggle and one of the interesting
things was that there, they had been kicked out of what is now South
Africa's second biggest national park in the 1970s amid a sort of fake news.
Thing that there were no real bushmen left.
These guys were just, what they then we call actually
still wood colored mixed race.
They're not really like that anymore.
They might have had some ancestry, but no, they're just like rural slum dwellers.
Yeah, no, they were totally living in there.
And they, they got kicked out and they were living by the side
of the road for about 25 years.
And after Mandela came to power, they popped up and said, we are still here
and we'd like our land back please.
And long and the short of it, they got it.
And so I've been involved in three big land rights struggles in my life.
One in with the Cree in against Hydro Quebec.
So I've eaten a lot of beaver, I have to say that.
And it jolly good at taste too.
With the Ani Bushman in South Africa with the qua and boom
Bushman in Central Kalahari Game Reserve, which came after that.
In each case they won and they won against all odds.
Hydro Quebec, one of the biggest power companies in the world, they
won de Beers diamonds, which is basically what they were up against,
you know, in box one at day one.
And up against the, the, the post apartheid National Park system, they won.
Now those guys were all artists.
They were living off the land fully, a hundred percent, including the cr, the
Cree, they were still living under canvas up there in like minus 30, minus 50.
All of them creating art all the time.
Was it Confucius said, for happiness, practice, the arts.
So some of them, it was music, some of them it was visual arts.
Some of it was, it was sculpting.
Some of it was philosophy and storytelling.
And it was completely, completely, completely tied up with livelihood,
nature, and the real practicality of just like surviving in these
incredibly harsh environments.
They still were so good at it that they had the time for culture.
And to my mind, the, the image of sort of human authenticity, it's
the, it's the, it's the caved dweller painting on the, the rock wall, right?
You what's that cave?
Well dweller done, he's not just come from a Starbucks, you know, he's been out there
carving the intestines out of a wild sheep.
But now he's painting with paints that he's made actually from the
blood of that wild sheep and the fat.
And that the, and he is fully involved in the spirit of these bushmen these son had,
were, had been kicked off some areas of land, particularly up in Botswana, where
they had traditionally done rock painting.
Yeah, because the rock painting, this is an area called the Soo Hills had
been designated a national monument, so no one was allowed to deface it.
So Bush kicked out to live, you know, five kilometers that
they were allowed to be guides.
That was nice of the government to, to let them show you around.
But no, they weren't allowed to paint anymore, even though their painting
tradition had never, they still had a living rock painting tradition.
So, of course, what did they do?
They would sneak in and they would just continue their rock painting,
and then they would show people the, these ancient paintings.
And then to me, they'd sometimes giggle and say, Rupert, that
one's actually from last week.
But they knew how to make it look old.
Yeah.
And they said, and they, and, and, and then you read all these
anthropological things saying, oh, we don't know, really know what they
mean and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
We, we speculate that this one is about, you know, some rain thing and this, and
they said it, dude, we know exactly what they mean and they would tell me, but
they said, but no one listens to us.
No one asks us.
And if we tell them they don't believe us because we're just little brown people.
And what would we know just about that?
The fact that our mom and dad actually painted those things.
So this disconnect is in incred, you know, but flow seems to me therefore
the that meeting of culture and nature.
And it seems to me that that's what you do, Nick.
And if you have something to impart to the world, whichever hat that you are wearing,
I could encounter you as a regenerative farming person and you could be showing
me how to you know, have my livestock better so that my land can be healthier.
Or you could be helping me rewild.
'cause I know that you guys were involved in a beaver reintroduction
on some land that actually a friend of mine has down in Cornwall.
And or you could be involved in, you know, water stuff, or you, I
could encounter you as an artist and in eat, or as a horse woman.
And in each of those things, you'd be authentically, you could say,
yeah, I'm wearing that hat today.
But in each of those things, what would I be encountering?
I'd be encountering a person who's self-actualized through this
melding of culture and nature.
And that you, by doing it, would be showing me, Hey Ru,
it's possible to do this.
It's possible to be in this flow state.
Would you like to do it too?
Because it makes humans happy to do this.
And that seems to me a great contribution to the world.
You may not see yourself that way, but I could say that through this conversation.
What I would take away is
also the happiness of applying my imagination to the landscape and
entering into an interaction with the landscape that involves the imagination.
And then seeing where that leads.
And that seems to be quality of life.
What, I mean, what do you think to that?
And if you agree with that, how do we make that more possible for more folk?
Nick Viney: You, you're absolutely right about quality of life.
So for me, it's I always, I, I value time more than money.
I don't have a particularly good, I would, I'm not very
driven to make money in, in that.
I, if I've got enough money to do the things I wanna do and, and look after this
place in the way I wanna look after it, then, then I'm kind of, I'm, I'm happy.
What I value more than anything is being able to go, I'll, I'll say, I'll
say to my partner here, I'm just, I'm going out to stare at things 'cause
I'm not, you know, maybe I've been hours on my computer or whatever.
And actually.
Being, being out there, there is no time wasted with your feet on the,
on the ground is what I would say.
Rupert Isaacson: Moving in the landscape as a human being part of it.
Yeah.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Just moving, literally staring at stuff.
You see stuff that you just, I, like yesterday one thing I I I, I locked
onto this when I was going into little corners of the, the, this place to hitch
up fences where you wouldn't normally go.
'cause it was a pain to get in there to hook up fences for,
you know, to move livestock.
And I, and I noticed that we had this particular beetle that I'd never seen,
you know, I hadn't clocked before.
And turns out this beetle is like, yeah, it's quite rare, but it, it's got
the most amazing lifecycle where it's, its babies crawl up onto the, onto the
flowers and wait for a particular type of miner bee, and then these, these
scrubs climb onto that miner bee and then ride it back to the hole and then
go down the hole and then feed off.
Paint no dragon.
Yeah, exactly.
So, so these things are happening out there and, and I suppose what, what is,
what is the ultimate feeling for me?
Is it's to, it is to like, feel connected to it.
It is all connected.
Everything, you know.
The, the, the work is, is connected.
The, the going out and staring at things is connecting.
And you know, like our glamping thing, you know, we could have, we could have
like expanded and made six of them.
Most people would put six in the field that we've got one in.
Because that would certainly be the economic thing to do.
But actually when people, you know, we, we say with the glamping thing, we're
changing the world to, to campers at a time because it is profound the, the
level of rest that people get here.
Yeah.
And the, the quality of of rest.
Leeward glamping.
By the way rewilding futures.co
Don't worry, we're gonna give you all your websites in a minute.
Yeah.
And I mean, people that stay here for a week, they're like, they go
to Ton, you know, the village two miles up the hill, and they think
it's like fast paced because things have slowed so profoundly for them.
Mm-hmm.
That, you know, it really is a, you know, we're, there's lots of
things driving us in this, in this construct that we have created.
Mm-hmm.
And,
and it's extremely hard to get away from that.
Whether it's your, you know, the wifi or, or the, or the anxiety because
you've left your phone plugged in because it's off grid and you've had
to go like 400 meters away from it.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, he said, looking for his phone.
Yeah.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: To plug my phone.
Nick Viney: Exactly.
But, but
last year, no, not last year, A couple years ago, I, I I, there was
a lot going on and I was spending way too much time at the computer,
so I thought, right, that's it.
I'm, I'm picking up my tent and I'm going down the valley.
So I went down the valley, I hung out with some animals and I'm walking around
in the moonlight and I thought, oh shit.
I've, I've dropped my phone over there and I, but then I kind of look
at my hand, my phone's in my hand.
It's like, so what the hell's that?
Interesting?
And I went up to it, and it's a glow worm.
I hadn't seen a glow worm for 50 years.
Okay.
Here.
You know, and this, this, this incredible bioluminescent beetle,
you won't believe how bright it is.
And, and literally I can remember the last time I saw one at the bridge.
So have they come
Rupert Isaacson: back because of the rewilding work that you've done?
Nick Viney: They have not been, they've obviously hung on here.
And then, you know, maybe, hopefully I've, I corrected, you know, how I was treating
the land in time that hopefully they're gonna be able to you know, proliferate
and actually, you know, this is, it's such a charismatic, it's such a beautiful
thing for kids, especially, you know, to have this bele that glows in it.
I mean, how many, how many?
Well, I think, yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: it's more than that.
I mean, if, if you want the personification of magic, if you
want the personification of what it feels like to dance with God,
you know, in the landscape Yeah.
Is to walk among fireflies.
Yeah.
It's, it's
Nick Viney: just, just phenomenal.
So I, I, I just want,
you know, everybody, we are all connected and we are all connected to nature.
Whether we, whether we like it or not, we all eat.
And how we eat profoundly affects what is going on in the countryside.
Mm-hmm.
And, and so, so what we have is this opportunity for farmers to de deliver
food, but also have, have the solutions which help mitigate climate change.
So, so farmers, you know, they can get a bad rep for various things and
there are some bad things going on.
Actually what we have here is an amazing opportunity.
And don't give me the guff about who's gonna feed the world, because
you know, that's not, we are, we have 40% waste in our food system.
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
And we're gonna go to vertical farming in cities and all of that.
We, we can,
Nick Viney: there's so many, you know, if, if you, if you, if you come off
this call and wanna do anything, I would say get yourself on a course, a
permaculture design certificate course, because it will change your life.
It will expand your brain like you never thought possible.
And I don't care how old or young you are this is not a farming thing.
This is a life thing.
This is, it's really hard to bring, bring artistry into everything you do, into the
design of your life and just, just the most beautiful you know, the, the earth,
the earth care manual Bill Linson's.
You know, it's a phenomenal piece of work, man.
Doesn't matter what, you know, what you're interested in, there's
something for you in there.
It's just fabulous.
So yeah, permaculture, permanent agriculture systems, you know, it's
about sustainable civilizations.
I dunno if you can hear me 'cause I'm in a tin.
She, and it's starting to rain.
Rupert Isaacson: Permaculture.
A design system for creating sustainable and self-sufficient ecosystems
by mimicking natural patterns.
It aims to integrate human activity with the natural environment to
minimize waste, prevent pollution, and maximize biodiversity, resiliency
and sustainability in practice.
Permaculture applies principles of design, engineering, and land management to create
productive and resilient landscapes.
Thank you, ai.
I just looked it up.
Thank
Nick Viney: you.
Thank you.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Well, but it's, it's one of
Rupert Isaacson: those things with one, here's the word a lot and I think
when people hear that word, unless they have been exposed to it, it's
almost like an eyes glaze over thing.
Yeah, absolutely.
And it's, and it's a boring word.
Permaculture is a boring word.
Word.
It doesn't, it doesn't really, if we called it magic making so you can
eat while supping with the gods or something.
But that is basically sort of, kind of what it is.
Yeah.
And it's interesting in Botswana, you know, where I spent a lot of time
actually banned from Botswana 'cause of the human rights work I did there.
But when I was spending a lot of time in Botswana they have a, they have a
whole department of permaculture Alright.
At government level.
Yeah.
It's very interesting because dry land, agroforestry.
Is, is a big thing.
Yeah.
And so interestingly, while persecuting the sun and the bushmen, they've
actually learned a lot from them and apply a lot of, a lot of you know,
those, those principles to the land.
And it, it gives me great joy that people like you who are coming from that
sense of stasis that we had in the farming community in the uk growing up,
you're my generation, are now looking at it in this way because it depresses
me, I have to say, when I see the wind farms go up and it depresses me
when I see the solar panels covering fields because the reason is, is it's
not beautiful and humans need nature.
Nature is beautiful.
So when we see industrial shit on the landscape, even if it's providing us with
clean energy is profoundly depressing.
And I hope to, I, I and I actually have faith that our technology's gonna move
us beyond that relatively quickly and we won't need to put concrete on green things
in order to not pollute the environment.
It's people like you out there doing what you're doing that
are moving us towards that.
And I'm grateful, grateful for the work that you're doing.
So.
With that in mind, people need to know how to get to the work that you're doing.
So you have your regenerative agriculture practice, you also have your glamping
sites, which sound brilliant and I think I would like to come and stay in that.
You also have your art, so these things have different websites.
How do people reach you, Nick?
Nick Viney: So I can pretty much always be reached on www.nickfiy.co.uk,
N-I-C-K-V-I-N-E y.co.uk.
I will be sort of trying to split up everything so it's
less confusing for people.
I operate if you wanna come and stay here, you can come to www.rewildingfutures.co
uk.
I, I made up that name just because I'd lost my other
name to a computer era thing.
I had no idea at the time what a buzzword Rewilding was gonna be.
Interesting.
And yeah, so it's.
And I'm only part re wilder anyway, so, but yeah, so Rewilding Futures,
and it's really about giving people the opportunity to, to have a different
aesthetic, you know, try and then try and scratch their head and wonder why
is she laying so many brambles grow?
And you know, and then hopefully see those trees coming up.
And yeah.
What else do we do?
So Rewilding coombs head, ww dot rewilding coombs head.co
uk is, is where I work.
And
Rupert Isaacson: s there's many ways to spell co.
So how we spelling Coom in this
Nick Viney: so Rewilding Coombs head, C double O-M-V-E-S-H-E-A d.co
do uk and there you can do Beaver Watches and we run yes, short.
We do, you can stay in the Shepherds Huts, obviously.
No shepherds left.
We've got Shepherd Huts.
You can come and.
Come to our conferences.
So for example, we've got a conference a kind of a rolling
theme called, if Not Now, when.
And this year is, if not now, when Sea Beyond.
And we're actually, we're, we're taking the, we're we're following
the water from the uplands, so from the peat bogs, and we're following
that water down and out to sea.
And we're talking to experts about all the critters.
When is this conference?
And this conference is July the 25th, 26th and 27th.
In Devon.
And if you, at yours at, in Devon?
At at Derek Go Rewild and CO's head.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Yeah,
Nick Viney: I, I've, I've sort of converted his barns
into a conference center.
We call it the, the straw auditorium.
Gosh, I'd like to get
Rupert Isaacson: to that.
Yeah.
Nick Viney: And, and you know, the, the most phenomenal speakers come every year.
We have the most, you know, we've got this year we actually have, so we
have John Lister, k Charlie Burrow, and these guys have been so generous.
They've come every year to, to, to supply.
Listeners
Rupert Isaacson: might not know this goes across the English speaking world.
Who are these people?
Nick Viney: Okay, so, so, so John Lister.
K so formed AGA Field Center, one of the first field centers up in the
Highlands of Scotland, up in Inness.
And is absolutely one of the original nature conservation guys.
And it's like having this.
Comedian in the place.
He is the most fantastic standup comedian.
He just brilliant.
And, but all in nature recovery,
Rupert Isaacson: John Lister.
K,
Nick Viney: so John Lister.
K, yeah.
KAY, K-A-Y-E-E.
And then Sir Charlie Bur so of the great NEP estate so we've got
Rupert Isaacson: net per state in Su in Sussex.
Nick Viney: Yes.
And so that's with A-K-K-N-E, double P.
And
Rupert Isaacson: just again, for listeners who dunno what that is
we talked about where they've got the, the bison, the European bison
coming back in Kent of all places.
But Sussex, which is another place that's actually very close to London,
but also oddly wild there's a massive estate down there where they turned
it back to the wild and the net.
K-N-E-P-P, it's sort of a thing in the uk, but outside the uk it may not be known.
Yeah,
Nick Viney: yeah.
So it's so it was a, it was a big farm, a big estate.
It's through 3000, 500 acres.
And it was a very uneconomic farmer anyway, so they've
turned it back to nature.
And, and really, so this is, so Charlie Bur and his, his wife
Isabella Tree and that Isabelle Tree wrote a book called Wilding.
Mm-hmm.
Which I would recommend everybody reads.
It has touched so many people and it will help.
It will.
She's so eloquently, describes the struggle of, of a, a lot of really what
we've been talking about here, that that's, that's that conflict between
rewilding and conventional agriculture and really how we're going to, you know,
segue through that and, and they've, you know, they've lived that experience.
Really recommend that book.
Rupert Isaacson: Where can people find your art?
Nick Viney: Well, my art.
My art.
So through the website.
Which website?
Nick viney.co.uk.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Nick Viney: And I'm really rubbish at getting new stuff up there.
So what I tend to do is, well, apparently nothing for two years until
I've got a big enough body of work.
And then maybe we do open studios, or maybe I spend a week trying to
get everything onto the website.
But it's much better off contacting me direct and then I'll just walk
around the studio with a webcam and say, do you like any of this?
Or, I'll come and stay.
Come and stay.
Rupert Isaacson: I presume you also do commissions too, if
somebody wanted something painted.
Nick Viney: I do commissions.
I, I did used to do a lot of commissions.
I'm a little bit what would I say?
I you know, I don't like to, to compromise when it comes to my
creativity and I, yeah, I like to put my own stamp on stuff, but
Rupert Isaacson: if somebody comes to you with an idea that tickles you, you.
Do it.
Nick Viney: Absolutely.
And, and really the, the, you know, the paint the world a better place is, is, is
all commission in a sense, what I describe is, so say I go to a conference and they
have a particular problem and they're trying to describe a transition between
where we are now and where we wanna be.
As soon as I understand that problem then, you know, I can paint that transition.
That's cool.
And, and, and that can be, you know, you can have a, this is where we are
now, and this is where we end up on the same painting, or we can go together
through, this is where we are now, and then layer it up into something.
Well, people
Rupert Isaacson: bring you as an, as a sort of consultant to do that.
Nick Viney: Yeah.
So we call it an artist in residence and you know, for, for however many
days or hours or whatever it is.
And once I get my head around a problem, I can, you know, I, I, I
think in images, so interesting.
Rupert Isaacson: So
Nick Viney: I feel like my job as an artist is to distill complex
problems into very clear imagery, which, which allows people to have
their own penny dropping moments because we don't know what that is.
And that's, that's, that's difficult with the written word.
Not all of us absorb the written word very comfortably.
Right.
But with art we can, we can, yeah.
We can fill in the gaps as we are, as, as we were.
So somebody
Rupert Isaacson: could, could contact you to come in and do that.
Nick Viney: Yeah, absolutely.
That's really what I'm leaning into now is, is I feel like it's, it's
a sort of a science communicator.
But, but yeah, I really wanna bring the bring the art and
the sh and the show into it.
Yeah.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, fantastic.
Right.
I'm gonna read the websites back.
So if you want to check out Nick's art and it's good 'cause I'm looking at it.
And if you would like to hire her as an artist in residence, come in
and paint your problem and solution for you, which sounds brilliant.
Nick Viney, N-I-C-K-V-I-N-E-Y-N-I-C-K-V-I-N-E y.co.uk.
Don't worry, we're gonna put this in the show notes.
If you are wanting to go glamping on her land and who
wouldn't rewilding futures.co.uk.
If you want to check out the Rewilding work that she's also doing with Derek
Gao, who's a bit of a legend in the UK and go Beaver watching Hoho and
stay in the wild and such like, and do this amazing conference that she's
talking about down there in Devon.
Rewilding, Coombs head, C-O-O-M-B-E-S Co, of being a narrow, shallow.
Upland Valley bowl thing in old English rewilding coombs head.co.uk.
And the theme is, if not now, when?
July
Nick Viney: 25th to 27th.
Rupert Isaacson: 25th to 27th, yeah.
Got it.
Of this year, 2025.
And if you come across this podcast, not in 2025, well, I presume there's gonna
be one next year and the year after.
And you can contact Nick.
Nick, it's been brilliant.
Nick Viney: Rob.
Really enjoyed this Ruper.
Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: thank you for taking us on this, on this
self-actualization journey.
It's, it's, I've learned a lot.
Inspiring course.
Yeah.
Nick Viney: Great.
Yeah.
And hopefully see you in the southwest.
Rupert Isaacson: I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did.
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