In 2000, author Isabella Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell were almost £1.5 million in debt. The couple had spent 17 years trying to make their family farm in West Sussex, England, profitable, but nothing worked, according to a feature in Country Life. So they gave up farming altogether, tore out the fences and let 3,500 acres go wild.
According to a peer-reviewed study published in PLOS ONE, that gamble turned Knepp Estate into one of the most closely watched rewilding projects in the world. This British tale will feel oddly familiar to American readers who grew up hearing about Yellowstone wolves and prairie restoration.
