Overview
The Somerset Levels and Moors were once a vast wetland, closer to a delta than to farmland. Almost all of it has been drained, straightened and grazed. Somerset Wildlands exists to buy back pieces of it and hand them to nature.
The charity grew out of a personal experiment. Its director bought a few small fields in the Levels in 2016 and simply watched what arrived. Somerset Wildlands followed in 2020, and bought its first land as a charity in 2022.
Wild Stepping Stones
Most large rewilding projects work by assembling one big block of land. The Levels do not allow that easily: the landscape is a patchwork of small fields, droves and rhynes. So the charity works with the grain of it, buying scattered parcels and managing each as lightly as it can.
The result is a set of refuges spread through farmland and reserves, each developing differently depending on its water, soil and history. It is a model any smallholder can copy, which is part of the point.
Athelney & the Levels
One of the charity's larger acquisitions is 73 acres below the Isle of Athelney, the marshy refuge where Alfred the Great sheltered from the Vikings in the ninth century. It is a reminder that this was once genuinely impassable wet country.
Sites like this flood in winter, which is exactly what makes them valuable. Standing water, reedy edges and slow recovery from grazing are the conditions that wetland wildlife needs.
Returning Wildlife
The charity's ambitions run from the very small to the very large. Harvest mice, glow-worms and water voles are realistic now. Beaver, wild boar and sea eagle may well arrive on their own, and the charity says it will welcome them rather than resist them.
Bigger returns, such as pelicans or wildcat, are framed as long-term possibilities that depend on habitat and on working with others, not as promises.
How to Support Somerset Wildlands
You can become a supporting member, give to a land appeal, join surveys and guided walks, or get in touch if you have land in the Levels you would like to rewild. Details are at somersetwildlands.org.
Further Resources
Watch
Introducing Somerset Wildlands
A short introduction to the charity's rewilding sites on the Somerset Levels.
Learn More
Somerset Wildlands
Somerset WildlandsOfficial site with news from the sites, membership and donation options.
About Somerset Wildlands
Somerset WildlandsThe charity's mission, its beginnings in 2016 and the wild stepping stones approach.
Support Somerset Wildlands
Somerset WildlandsMembership, one-off gifts and land appeals that fund new sites on the Levels.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Somerset Wildlands?
Somerset Wildlands is a charity founded in 2020 that buys land on the Somerset Levels and Moors and sets it aside for rewilding. Rather than creating one large estate, it is building a network of small sites it calls 'wild stepping stones', each managed as lightly as possible so nature can lead.
What are wild stepping stones?
They are separate parcels of land, scattered across the Levels, that are allowed to develop with minimal management. Each one turns out slightly different, and together they add refuges and variety to a landscape otherwise made up of farmland and closely managed nature reserves.
When did Somerset Wildlands start buying land?
The charity was founded in 2020 and purchased its first land in 2022. The idea grew out of its director's own small-scale rewilding of a few fields in the Levels from 2016. Later purchases include 73 acres below the Isle of Athelney.
Which species could return to the Somerset Levels?
The charity works on smaller species such as harvest mice and glow-worms, and welcomes animals that return under their own steam, including beaver, wild boar and sea eagle. Longer term it points to the Levels' lost wetland fauna, from pelicans to larger predators, as a measure of how much has gone.
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