2024 is the third full year for Consano Earth having been formalised in 2021. Our objective for this year, and every year going forward, is to add momentum to the fantastic work being done by our charity partners through rising financial and other support. Our efforts focus on smaller organisations where we believe our unrestricted funding can make a real difference and where we hope to be able to add value either ourselves or through our personal and professional contacts. Up to now we have published a letter every Christmas that looks back on what we have been up to as well as some of the things we are looking forward to for the following year. However, given a very busy first half of 2024 we broke with tradition and published this mid-year review (available here). This Christmas Letter will therefore focus on our activities in the second half of the year and a look ahead to 2025.
Our two core charities remain Heal Rewilding and Project Seagrass but in 2024 we have added the Great Bustard Group and Friends of Clapham Common to the organisations we support. This page provides details of all our charities as well as links to their websites for those wanting to learn more.
“If not now, when? Again 2024” Rewilding Symposium
For the second consecutive year in late July we spent a weekend attending the fantastic “If not now, when?” species reintroduction and rewilding symposium hosted by Keep It Wild at Rewilding Coombeshead in Devon. You can see some of the highlights form the event here.
Derek Gow, Nick Viney and all the team once again did a fantastic job with three days of fascinating and inspirational talks mixed in with seeing old friends and making some new ones.
There were too many excellent talks to call out everybody, but special mention has to go to Sir John Lister-Kaye, Ted Green (pictured here with Nick), Alan Watson Featherstone, Rebecca Wrigley (Rewilding Britain) and Sacha Dench. We spent some time with Sacha, founder of Conservation without Borders, over the weekend and will be supporting her ambitious “Flight of the Vultures” expeditions in 2025.
We again came away from the weekend even more determined to do what we can as we all battle this climate emergency.
The most inspirational talk of the weekend in our view came from 21-year-old Oliver Crowther, founder of OC Aviary (pictured below). His topic was the Twite Conservation Project that was formed in 2023 with partners Derek Gow and Keep It Wild. To be honest when we saw a talk on Twites on the agenda, we were not sure what to expect but we were treated to a presentation by a young man whose passion and dedication to his work was clear for all to see.
Here is a brief overview of Oliver’s story in his own words:
My passion for birds began as a child, as early as 4 to 5 years of age, where I loved to watch birds in my garden and visit local nature reserves spotting birds with my Dad. One of my earliest memories of birds was watching life develop before my very eyes, as a pair of Dunnocks nested in a small hedge in our back garden.
This passion evolved into a fascination for aviculture, where I began incubating and raising chickens from hatchings eggs at the tender age of 10. This quickly progressed, with the addition of an aviary in our garden housing exotic finches and Canaries.
Since those early days, I have successfully bred over 30 species of birds, including an ever-growing list of 15+ British native species. Bird conservation has always been a dream of mine, and this became reality in 2023 with the formation of the Twite Conservation Project alongside Derek Gow and the Keep It Wild Trust. Currently, the Twite is functionally extinct in England, therefore without immediate intervention, we will lose this species entirely from our landscape.
The Twite Conservation Project aims to use aviculture as a conservation tool to source and captive breed the pipilans Twite subspecies in significantly large numbers to allow for future reintroduction. Although the project is still in its infancy, it is rapidly progressing with several key indicators having been achieved.
A dedicated native bird breeding facility is under construction and our captive Twite population is growing year on year. Progress is revealing promising results and hopefully reintroductions will follow in the not-too-distant future!
We have since followed up with Oliver to learn more about his work at OC Aviary and we will be supporting him on the Twite reintroduction as well as other projects he is working on collaborating with Derek and the Keep It Wild team.
One of the most rewarding aspects of what we do with Consano Earth is helping jump start the careers of future conservation leaders like Oliver. We hope to do more of this in the years to come.
We have committed further funding to Keep It Wild for 2025 and beyond which includes support for their Species Recovery Centre.
Return of the Wildcat?
Whilst we were at Rewilding Coombeshead Derek showed us the new wildcat enclosures that we funded in 2023 pictured here.
This year saw the arrival of their first residents, and we were very keen get an update on the wildcat breeding program as well on the Devon Wildcat Reintroduction Project.
As we wandered round the new enclosures and Derek’s previous facility, we were delighted to spot many of the recently born wildcat kittens…….
Derek gave us an update on the wildcats as we look to 2025:
“Our wildcat population continues to grow to a total of 61 individuals at present and we are hoping to import some individuals from Europe to broaden our gene pool. Devon Wildlife Trust has completed its public consultation process with c.1,000 people to date responding. The overwhelming majority have expressed their strong support, and we will begin to look for release sites early in the new year.”
Visiting Panson Bridge
Before we left Devon, we took the opportunity to revisit Panson Bridge. As we noted in our Summer 2024 letter an exciting opportunity presented itself in the summer of 2023 when a 23-acre plot of river meadows and woodland came up for sale within 2 miles of Rewilding Coombeshead owned by Derek. Subsequently we helped with the purchase of Panson Bridge by providing an interest free loan to Keep It Wild.
Derek gave us this update:
“The land purchased as 3 fields as a result of the generous loan received from Consano Earth is proving to be a real delight. Our camera traps set out through the summer continue to provide a wealth of surprises. Groups of red deer hinds and calves; a family of otters crossing overland through the wildflowers to hunt frogs in the willow lined pools; beavers foraging on the bankside trees and a female mandarin duck taking her clutch of tiny stripped offspring for their first swim on the River Carey. In a year of poor insect recordings the wildflower rich sections of the meadows have produced decent butterfly returns while demoiselles, darters and a myriad of other dragonfly species have been visibly abundant. Dippers and kingfishers can be easily observed. We hope to get the whole area into mid-tier stewardship shortly to enable the site fencing to begin which will allow the buffalo to fill the flood plain grasslands with more wallows.”
A visit to Wilder Doddington
In 2023 we attended a gathering at Wild Ken Hill where owner Dom Buscall brought together an inspiring group involved in rewilding initiatives in the East Anglia area. One of the guests was Isobel Wright (pictured below right) who worked at Doddington Hall which is situated in the outskirts on Lincoln.
Doddington Hall was completed in 1600 and has had over 400 years of unbroken family occupation and is now under the stewardship of Claire (pictured below left) and James Birch. In June 2021 they embarked on an ambitious 100-year project to bring more nature back to the Doddington Estate. The Wilder Doddington project started with a bold vision to turn previously intensively farmed arable fields, the heavily grazed grassland and the woodland into a haven for nature.
Isobel kindly invited us to come and see it for ourselves. During an overnight stay in July Claire and James told us all about their exciting plans for the Doddington Estate.
The Doddington team are also leading the Lincoln and Witham Valley Farming and Nature Network. They have brought together a group of 34 land managers with land stretching from inner Lincoln towards Newark along the Witham Valley to improve and link the many existing protected wildlife sites in the project area with corridors for nature. In November 2023 the project received pilot funding as part of DEFRA’s second round of Landscape Recovery funding. The project area encompasses 6,300 ha including productive farmland in the Witham valley, parks and commons in the urban fringes of Lincoln, as well as Wilder Doddington and Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust’s nature reserve at Whisby. It also includes Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), Ancient Woodlands, wildlife sites, MOD land, privately owned and community interest sites.
We donated to the Doddington Hall Conservation Charity following our visit and have committed to partially fund a beaver reintroduction feasibility study as well as the build out of the mapping software that will underpin the Lincoln and Witham Valley Farming and Nature Network (replicating the work we did with the wonderful team at Knepp Wildland Foundation on their “Weald to Waves” pledge map).
An update on the Ealing Beavers
One of our highlights in 2023 was supporting the reintroduction of beavers at Paradise Fields in Ealing, London for the first time in 400 years. The project is led by Sean McCormack of Ealing Wildlife Group and Elliot Newton of Citizen Zoo.
Having attended the release on 11 October 2023, we were excited to return to the site in mid-June to see what the beavers have been up to. The team were hopeful at the time that the beaver family might shortly have some new additions and in mid-August it was announced that the first baby beavers were born in London for the first time in more than four centuries.
This project has been a wonderful success and is undoubtedly a flagship London rewilding project. This 10-hectare site is well worth a visit and tours are available. There is nothing like visiting the site in person but failing that Consano Earth funded a 15-minute film “Beavers in Paradise” that has documented the before and after of the project.
Director Matt Brierley did a wonderful job and the film is available to watch in the Films section of our website which you can access by clicking on the image below.
“Beavers in Paradise” was premiered in an Ealing cinema in July with the event hosted by project leader Sean McCormack. This was followed by an online event in September kindly hosted by the wonderful Megan McCubbin.
Speaking of beavers, we continue to support the excellent work of Beaver Trust and in December we provided some matched funding for their Big Give campaign.
We have also supported Citizen Zoo beyond the Ealing Beaver project by giving them a donation that has enabled them to offer subsidised tickets for financially disadvantaged people who want to attend their amazing conference in Cambridge on 17-18th January 2025. Check out their website for more information and to book tickets.
Rewilding closer to home in Clapham Common
Whilst we are lucky to be able to spend time visiting so many wonderful projects around the UK (and beyond) we live in Central London and both have day jobs, so we rely on local parks to get our regular nature fix. The fabulous Battersea Park is a 15-minute walk away but just around the corner and closest to home is Clapham Common. For many years now we have wandered around the Common a couple of times a week. During the COVID lockdowns this became an incredibly important daily routine helping us to keep our sanity.
Clapham Common covers about 200 acres and is Lambeth’s biggest green space with an estimated 46k regular users. In late 2023 we became aware of the work of the Friends of Clapham Common who run conservation projects to improve the biodiversity of the Common and restore its buildings and facilities.
A great example was the planting of wildflower meadows in several areas around the Common this year for the first time. Here is the evolution of the one nearest to us which is right next to a children’s play area and one of the busiest areas of the Common.
We were excited to learn about an ambitious project that Friends of Clapham Common were pursuing in partnership with another local charity Wild Clapham. This was to transform a subterranean hollow measuring approximately 40 metres by 25 metres into a wonderful wetland for amphibians with the banks planted with species of flora to provide foliage food for butterflies and moths. There will be dragonfly perches installed around the water’s edge and vertical stands of tree timber for stag beetles.
The secondary purpose of the new wetland is to provide an educational resource for children and school visits. There are currently no places on the Common where children can dip for tadpoles and other aquatic life.
The existing site will be transformed from this…….
Into this……
We are proud that Consano Earth is one of the major funders and partners of this wonderful project. Construction work began in November and the wetland should be completed early in 2025.
A shout out to Boki at Wildwood Kent…….
In September we attended a special Wildwood Trust dinner event at the charity’s park in Kent. Paul Whitfield and his team treated us to a great update on the fantastic work they are doing including the Blean Bison project as well as conservation work with Wildcats, Pine Martens, Red Billed Choughs and many other species. A highlight was a visit to the brown bear enclosure to see Boki who was adopted by Wildwood during the 2022 Christmas season. Sadly, the team recently noticed that Boki appeared to be having seizures and after having an MRI, they found that Boki was suffering from hydrocephalus (fluid on the brain). We learned during our visit a few weeks later Boki was scheduled to receive the first brain surgery on a bear in UK history (Boki is pictured here with Paul).
On 9th October Boki endured a marathon 6-hour procedure. It was an incredible success and since the operation Boki had made an excellent start to what will be a long recovery journey.
The Wildwood team do a great job updating us all on Boki’s progress through their social media channels so please follow them there.
The team also provided a great video if you want to learn more about Boki and his amazing journey.
During the Wildwood dinner we participated in a blind auction with Elena determined to win the right to name one of Wildwood's most recent arrivals, an Arctic Fox cub. We are looking forward to meeting “Luna” in 2025!
All aboard……the Sea Ranger Service ship visits St Katharine’s Dock in London
In early January we provided a loan to Sea Ranger Service which helped fund the establishment of their first Sea Ranger Bootcamp in the UK with an initial focus in Port Talbot, South Wales.
The Sea Ranger Service was founded in 2016 by the inspirational Wietse Van Der Werf (pictured with us and two of the UK Sea Rangers). They have a mission to create combined social and environmental impact to strengthen coastal regions and improve the protection of the world’s oceans. Their focus lies on the regeneration of fragile ocean biodiversity in some of the world’s marine hotspots, whilst simultaneously training and coaching young unemployed people as Sea Rangers towards a maritime career. Their ambition is to restore 1 million hectares of ocean biodiversity by 2040 whilst training 20,000 young people to kickstart a maritime career.
Sea Ranger Service has its roots in the Netherlands and in 2018 its first Bootcamp was organised there with its first 12 Sea Rangers selected. Since then, a further 4 Bootcamps have taken place in the Netherlands but this year was the first time a Bootcamp has happened elsewhere. To celebrate the UK’s incredible first year, Sea Ranger Service held an event in November at St Katharine’s Dock in London introducing guests to all the team.
Over 1,000 applicants applied for the UK program which was then whittled down to 30 candidates who endured a 9-day challenge led by veterans of the Royal Navy in March.
This led to the first 8 UK Sea Rangers being employed over the summer period (all pictured here with Wietse). Interestingly whilst only 1% of seafarers globally are women, 72% of Sea Ranger applicants to date since 2018 have been young women.
We were also treated to a tour of “Fantastiko”, the sailing vessel used for their work. Since it is primarily powered by wind there is roughly a 70% emission reduction for doing tasks that would have ordinarily completed by motorised ships.
For its first UK assignment, the Sea Ranger Service worked in partnership with The Crown Estate. Sea Rangers were deployed in the Celtic Sea to carry out wildlife monitoring as part of a multi-year surveying programme in support of floating offshore wind developments.
As well as marine surveying services Sea Rangers are involved in active seagrass restoration. In October the Sea Rangers completed a busy fieldwork season with seagrass work carried out in six countries across Europe. Most of their work focused on Eastern Scheldt in The Netherlands and the Bay of Arcachon in France with additional seed collection work and monitoring takes place in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the UK. As part of the Seagrass Consortium, which the Sea Ranger Service co-founded in 2022, young people can now be vocationally trained and employed as full-time restoration professionals to accelerate large-scale seagrass restoration in Europe.
In November the Sea Rangers were recognised in the House of Lords for their contribution to maritime innovation.
In exciting news, a second vessel is under construction and is expected to be deployed next year exclusively in the UK.
Looking ahead to 2025
We expect 2025 will be another year of good progress for the charities and work we support. What follows are just a handful of what we hope to see over the coming year.
Our core rewilding charity for the land is Heal Rewilding. Jan Stannard, Heal founder and CEO, had the following to say as we move closer to 2025:
Heal’s 460-acre rewilding site near Frome in Somerset is only in its second year and the team has been really struck by the strong signs of recovery they’ve seen already. This year has been focused on indicator species baselining and a community engagement programme, with Heal Somerset acting as a pilot site for Rewilding Britain’s monitoring framework, covering both ecological and social impacts of rewilding.
The most exciting wildlife news has been the discovery of two wild-living beavers! They have already built three dams and the team is now waiting to see if they will build a lodge nearby. Alongside the work of these ecosystem engineers, the team wants to renaturalise the flows of water across the land and create ponds, scrapes and wetlands, and commissioned a hydrology report this year to prepare for work in 2025.
The abundance of some species of birds in 2024 has been really remarkable. Goldfinches, attracted to wildflower seeds, have been seen in a flock of some 250 birds by regular volunteer bird surveyors, who have also counted around 50 meadow pipits together. Along with neighbouring fields, the site has become a stronghold for tree pipits. Bullfinches and stonechats appear to be breeding as their numbers are rising. There are regular visits from barn owls, tawny owls are breeding, short-eared owls appeared for the first time and there are many more kestrels than last year with two pairs raising young. Over 50 bird species have now been seen. The professional bird surveys underway this year will provide the official picture and the bird population baselines.
Specialist surveyors completed the first small mammal survey in October and they found very good numbers, including more shrews in the survey field than they’ve ever found anywhere. The large areas of undisturbed, tussocky grassland developing on the site appear to be providing very good habitat. The presence of growing populations of small mammals is important because they are food for a range of larger species. In addition to the seven species of bat identified anecdotally on site in 2023, the professional bat surveys being done this year suggest there could be up to eight more species. The report is eagerly awaited!
A new and important activity this year has been developing partnerships with local community organisations which support underserved groups, including people with dementia, people experiencing mental health issues, teenagers with special needs, young carers and families facing challenging times. There have been nearly 300 visits from people in those groups, benefiting from spending time outside in peaceful natural surroundings.
Finally, two volunteer film makers have spent a huge amount of time on site, documenting its progress. A 25-minute film, ‘Heal the Land’, will be launched early in the New Year. You can watch the trailer here.
Our core rewilding charity for the sea is Project Seagrass. Leanne Cullen-Unsworth, Project Seagrass CEO and Co-Founder provided this update for us:
Project Seagrass has had a productive 2024 advancing our mission to save the world’s seagrass through their pillars of community, research, and action. We have worked with communities across the UK, and internationally, guiding stakeholders in the use of standardised scientific methodologies and building capacity in others for seagrass action. We have led and supported scientific research to advance conservation and restoration actions that facilitate net gain and the long-term resilience of seagrass ecosystems. Some Highlights:
Seagrass planted across four major regional projects
>1,000 new data points entered into Seagrass Spotter, our citizen science framework supporting the mapping of seagrass globally www.seagrassspotter.org
Engaged 1,000 volunteers who supported our work on the ground
Presented at the annual STEM schools’ event ‘Protecting our Planet’ to more than 100,000 pupils
The Project Seagrass nursery has achieved the full seagrass life cycle (wild seed harvest-plant growth-nursery seed harvest).
Some things on the agenda for 2025:
Further development of our international programme of work, including supporting the UN 2030 seagrass breakthrough and launching our own Global Seagrass Challenge Fund to support coordinated small-scale research and action.
Coordination of Seagrass Network Cymru and supporting the development of a National Seagrass Action Plan for Wales
Scaling recovery of seagrass in the UK.
Hosting the second UK Seagrass Symposium in South Wales from 11-13 November, save the date!
2025 takes the crown from 2024 as the most important year in the climate emergency just as 2024 took it from 2023. The time for action is now and everyone can make difference. For anyone looking for an inspiring stocking filler here are some great reads:
Hedgelands – Christopher Hart
Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet – Hannah Ritchie
Hunt for the Shadow Wolf – Derek Gow
Groundbreakers – Chantal Lyons
The Lie of the Land – Guy Shrubsole
Nature’s Ghosts – Sophie Yeo
English Pastoral – James Rebanks
Ravenous – Henry Dimbleby
Myself & Other Animals – Gerald Durrell
We hope to be much more active on social media going forward so please follow us on X and Instagram. We also plan to do some more regular updates in 2025. If you want to receive these please sign up on from our homepage.
We wish you all the very best for 2025
Nick & Elena Martin
Consano Earth Co-Founders
December 2024