Benedict Macdonald

RESTORE: it's launch day! After six months of building our team, completing our equity raise and building our wildland & bio-abundance farming client portfolio of >76,000 acres, we are delighted to launch RESTORE with our new website. RESTORE restorenature.com

Arriving back in #Wales from Switzerland and you immediately see why we are so #nature depleted. Barren hillsides with few trees or wildflowers compared to hillsides full of flowers, birds, insects, trees and cattle. The difference is mind blowing. We need urgent change.

A gorgeous book every orchardist and cider maker should read. Orchard, by Benedict Macdonald and Nicholas Gates. In fact a good read for anyone with soul. Mine is well thumbed now. Great text , great woodcuts. #cider #orchards #books #ecology #conservation

@HighFarndale @BenGoldsmith @RestoreNatureUK We will still utilise no-fence for this to a degree. The free roaming means they have the run of 2800 acres with no field boundaries stopping them. Probably didn’t come over in the article coverage though.

@BenGoldsmith @Rebirding1 @RestoreNatureUK ‘Free roaming’ cattle..? Appears to be a missed opportunity not to manage a large herd behind electric fence; to simulate the role of a predator.

Delighted to see the launch of our @RestoreNatureUK flagship project, the Pertwood Plain, in @guardian today. This is an exciting chance to restore at scale; reinstate lost processes and demonstrate what a true living ecosystem should and can become. theguardian.com/environment/20…

@2bluntstilettos @RestoreNatureUK Is this the same owner or a change of owner? Thanks. Happy to engage if so

@RestoreNatureUK You should speak to the new owner of Lawn Farm just outside Pewsey, Wiltshire. What was 35years of organically farmed 1000 acres with cattle, pigs, sheep & chickens is now all non-organic arable & just chickens 😭

@projecto_vito @BirdLife_News @SeabirdEcology @UniBarcelona Wonderful news - have just sent you a message. Ben

FIRST BREEDING RECORD OF PHAETHON LEPTURUS IN CABO VERDE🤩😮🥳 #Phaethonlepturus is a pantropical #seabird that has been sighted on Cima islet since 2020. On February 13, 2024, our team identified a chick, accompanied by an adult in the islet! #biodiversity #conservation

@BenGoldsmith @patrick_barkham @CraigBennett3 @ChrisGPackham @herdyshepherd1 @NFUtweets @guardianeco @TonyJuniper @some_yeo @RobGMacfarlane Thanks Ben!

@Rebirding1 @patrick_barkham @CraigBennett3 @ChrisGPackham @herdyshepherd1 @NFUtweets @guardianeco @TonyJuniper @some_yeo @RobGMacfarlane Congrats Ben!

RESTORE: it's launch day! After six months of building our team, completing our equity raise and building our wildland & bio-abundance farming client portfolio of >76,000 acres, we are delighted to launch RESTORE with our new website. RESTORE restorenature.com

@RareBreedChris @patrick_barkham @BenGoldsmith @CraigBennett3 @ChrisGPackham @herdyshepherd1 @NFUtweets @guardianeco @TonyJuniper @some_yeo @RobGMacfarlane I wouldn't tell the Poles they're doing much wrong in Biebrza, Chris... but you know I'll ask :)

@Rebirding1 @patrick_barkham @BenGoldsmith @CraigBennett3 @ChrisGPackham @herdyshepherd1 @NFUtweets @guardianeco @TonyJuniper @some_yeo @RobGMacfarlane Great news! And if you want help on selecting more appropriate cattle breeds, just ask.

Look what I got for Christmas - one chapter in before lunch - excellent ⁦@Rebirding1⁩

After 3 years of some amazing debates & engagements on Twitter, I’ll be migrating to LinkedIn where I’ll be sharing (in longer articles) the ecological restoration journey we’re starting at RESTORE. A huge thanks to all my followers - let’s keep up the dialogue/challenge/debate!

Working in “land”, I know any praise of @ChrisGPackham can land one in trouble - but one doesn’t care. This is the most eloquently-narrated, well-crafted series I’ve ever watched in the field of science education. Every sentence brings revelation. It’s why we pay the licence fee.

Science now says more than half of all species on earth live in soil. So why do we pay fertilizer and pesticide companies to wage chemical warfare on them? They call it agriculture but it's really ecocide. Time to bring legal charges against firms making our planet unliveable

@Alexander_Lees @ChristosA89 @woodlandbirder @philespin @joshual951 Alex I totally agree we should analyse the (100s) of owl bones yet to be assigned to a species as next course of action, not immediate reintroduction! Fossil record not only patchy but funding for analysis likewise. Finding same in our Dalmatian pelican diggings.

@ChristosA89 @woodlandbirder @philespin @Rebirding1 @joshual951 We are going in circles here Christopher, repeating arguments doesn't improve them. I'm totally open to be convinced that EO had a UK Holocene presence, but that is dependent on evidence.

1. This is a thread about the most powerful bird of all: a Guardian Giant. It’s essential to the recovery of nature – and could help farmers and landowners too. This thread explains how Eagle-owls could transform Britain: our island's most important avian keystone species.

@Freedomofdoubt @Alexander_Lees @NaturalEngland @TonyJuniper Sorry this was a joke. My point is many species carry no fossil record or little but breed here in good numbers

@Rebirding1 @Alexander_Lees @NaturalEngland @TonyJuniper Do we remove visitors who fly across the Channel off their own accord & with their own wings now?

When will this fiendish British obsession with orderliness and tidiness in the countryside end? It’s not a green and pleasant land when it’s been mowed, flailed and strimmed to within an inch of its life. Roadside verges ought to be refuges for biodiversity… @Love_plants

@Alexander_Lees @simon_r_tucker @Freedomofdoubt @joshual951 Why not? Surely one glacial slide isolating our island is no less or more arbitrary than pan-continental ecosystem rules ?

@simon_r_tucker @Freedomofdoubt @Rebirding1 @joshual951 I don't have a problem with EO status as an intra-guild predator, that is a natural process. The issue is that Britain is naturally without that pressure and as a result its insular community structure will be distinct. We do not want to homogenise this natural variation.

@Freedomofdoubt Thanks and will take a look!

@Rebirding1 You may find this Article (available as full PDF download) of research on the Eagle-owl's diet in Trøndelag fylke in my country in 2016 where the population is relatively stable or declining only slowly. Amazing variety of prey found in pellets. researchgate.net/publication/31…

#Aspen trees prefer moist soils and are an ideal riparian species, providing vital shade for cold water dependent #salmon. Their leaves also boost nutrients in upland systems while deadwood shelters fry and diversifies flows➡️healthy rivers. #Riverwoods #PaintingScotlandYellow

@woodlandbirder @joshual951 It’s a fair point Richard, but the term “universal” is a means of bullying solidarity. Not a fan of crowd-think. As I’ve argued, the species was here, and vanished due to non-climactic reasons: it’s not a “cold bird”. We must consider overkill hypothesis + further bone analysis.