Hands-on, mission renewed: two days at Wendling Beck
We recently spent two days in the place where our work actually happens: on a habitat bank.
The team headed to Wendling Beck in Norfolk, one of the UK's largest nature recovery projects, for two days on site.
Wendling Beck is a fantastic rewilding story, built on the progressive vision of a new generation of land owners. Repurposing almost 2,000 acres of arable land across four neighbouring farms, delivering over 3,000 high quality biodiversity units across 35 habitat types, plus lodges and a farm shop.
This project is a shining example in our new industry.
It was great for all of us to be together “IRL” as much of our work takes place online. After an introduction to the project - and tour of the estate - with founders Tom, Alex and “Regen” Glen we got stuck into the real work of re-wilding.
We all spent an afternoon coppicing a tract of woodland - opening up the canopy to let light reach the forest floor, and building “bug hotels” to support insect life, which in turn supports the estate's birds. Hard work but fun - and with purpose.
We also witnessed how the estate manages its wild deer population, turning culled deer into venison products sold through the local pub and farm shop. That evening, we had a barbecue with venison shot on the estate - about as short a supply chain as you'll find.
Day two was a walk across the estate to see the scale of what's been achieved.
A genuinely restorative way to spend two days as a team: strategy conversations mixed in with real, physical work in the landscape we are all committed to help restore.
BNG exists to fund nature recovery like this at scale, and it's easy to lose sight of that behind spreadsheets and metrics. Getting hands-on in the field was a useful reset, and a reminder of why we do this.
Massive thanks to all the team at Wendling Beck - we highly recommend it as a place to visit for a fantastic experience (and buy fantastic units from).
Great people, doing great work. Team awesome.