Meet Our
Wilding Wild Rewilding Passionate Team
Meet The Wilding Team
Steve and Gary are the practical heart of the Wild by Design team, bringing decades of hands-on skill to every rewilding project. Steve is our rewilding ranger, focused on habitat restoration and long-term stewardship, from woodland regeneration and meadow creation to the site-based work that helps landscapes recover their natural richness. Gary is our horticultural specialist with over 35 years’ experience and a deep knowledge of plants and trees, pairing expert judgement with meticulous craft. He’s also a wizard at dry stone walling, building beautiful, durable boundaries that sit naturally in the landscape. Together, they combine ecology, horticulture, and traditional countryside skills to create places that look great and thrive with life.
Steve, our Wilding Ranager, grew up in Wales with a lifelong connection to the outdoors and a deep respect for traditional countryside skills.
At the National Trust’s Polesden Lacey estate (1,600 acres of ancient woodland, chalk grassland and rewilded pasture), Steve led a wide range of conservation work, from coppicing, ride and glade creation, seed collection, and tree safety surveys to fencing and practical habitat improvements. His work also included meadow creation and restoration, helping diversify landscapes and build stronger habitat mosaics. He managed volunteer teams and woodland workshops too, turning felled timber into useful, low-waste products like bird boxes, tables, and charcoal, supporting a circular woodland economy where management feeds back into the land.
With extensive qualifications in forestry, countryside management and land-based machinery, Steve combines hands-on delivery with an ecology-first approach. Today, he helps lead Wild by Design’s rewilding and habitat services, focused on long-term restoration, nature-led design, and creating the conditions for landscapes to recover their ecological richness year after year.
Gary is Wild by Design’s horticultural specialist, with over 35 years of hands-on gardening experience and a deep, practical knowledge of plants and trees. He’s the person you want on site when something needs diagnosing, selecting, or getting established properly. From planting plans to long-term garden health, Gary brings calm confidence and serious expertise. And when it comes to craftsmanship, he’s also a wizard with dry stone walling, building beautiful, durable boundaries that look like they’ve always belonged in the landscape.
Why do we need to restore our wild spaces?.
The 2023 State of Nature Report concluded that Britain is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world, with one in six species identified as being at risk of extinction. Most of our habitats for nature (including woodlands) are classed as being in poor condition. It’s hard not to be pessimistic when you read these shocking statistics, but thankfully, it’s not all bad news.
Wilding & Restoration projects have been proven to have clear benefits for nature and people. They also provide an opportunity for climate change adaptation and resilience. By adopting the nature-friendly strategies we advocate, you and your land (no matter how small), will help play a vital role in the protection of our flora and fauna.
Most people imagine a healthy woodland as one that is tightly packed with trees. However, this high density in tree numbers is often a major cause of its poor condition. An overgrown canopy can severely restrict the amount of sunlight that reaches the understory, shrub layer and ground flora, negatively affecting species health and diversity. A healthy woodland is a complex, biodiverse one, and home to multiple species of flora and fauna. It should also contain trees of varied age and structure. Unfortunately, due to a lack of or poor management, many of our woodlands are now nature depleted. None more so than the monocultures we see in softwood plantations. Although filled with trees, these areas are effectively green deserts, with little to no biodiversity present.
One of the main reasons our land is in such a poor state is down to the lack of wild grazing animals in this country. Once, large herbivores such as the auroch and tarpan (extinct species of wild bovine and horse) would have played an important role in engineering our landscapes. Due to these animals’ grazing techniques and by them rootling, rubbing and debarking trees, snapping twigs and trampling with their hooves, they would have disturbed the ground, allowing life to take hold. Combined with their ability to transfer seeds and nutrients, these animals have always played a vital role in the shaping of the land.
Rather than species-poor closed canopy woodlands (as we once thought), much of the country was likely to have been a more open form of woodland pasture driven by grazing animals. It would have had dynamic, shifting landscapes of open-grown trees, emerging scrub, grazing lawns, groves and thorny thickets. Animals and vegetation would have therefore been involved in a continual battle, with each trying to reclaim the land as their own. Without those herbivores, those battles have largely been won by the vegetation, creating an overgrown habitat lacking in diversity.
What can we do?
Acting as proxies for those animals, we can create disturbance, allowing light and life back into our woodland. There are various techniques we will use to do this which include selective thinning of trees, which apart from opening up space, also helps us to promote a diversity of tree ages. Coppicing, and the creation of rides (tracks), glades and scallops help to create habitat diversity by creating much needed open spaces that contrast with the more overgrown land that surround them. This ‘edge effect’ where two or more habitats meet, leads to an increase in biodiversity and species numbers. The edge of a habitat often supports a much greater variety of species than either of the adjacent habitats. The more edge you have, the better! The rides will also act as an access route through the woodland.
Removal of invasive or non-native species reduces the risk of the land becoming a monoculture filled with one hardy, aggressive species of plant. Similarly, woodlands that have not been managed will often be home to a thick shrub layer of holly, which can dominate a habitat and block out light. In these circumstances, we will remove much of the holly, leaving a certain amount as it provides shelter and food for birds and mammals. It is important to keep some dark areas in the woodland, as these are the places where fungi, lichens, mosses and a host of invertebrates will flourish. This reflects the importance of a diverse mosaic of habitats and the complexity of a woodland.
Another thing we would always try and do is put at least one water source on your land. Ponds are an absolute magnet for nature, providing food and shelter for multiple species of insects, birds, small mammals, reptiles, and of course, amphibians. The more ponds you have, the better, as each, depending on its location, shade and age, can offer a slightly different habitat for the species that live there. At Wild By Design, we have been making ponds for our customers for many years. It is something we take pride in and want to install as many of them on our wild spaces as possible. If you’re lucky enough to live in an area with clay soils, you wouldn’t even need a liner!
We can also plant trees where necessary, or given that it often leads to a far more resilient, adaptive environment, create the appropriate conditions for natural regeneration to occur. Veteran trees, being one of the most important habitats in a woodland, with all the holes, hollows and nooks they possess are a vital habitat for hundreds of species of birds, invertebrates and small mammals such as bats. These complex niches do not exist in youngers trees. If you do not have any of these elders statesmen on your land, we can veteranize younger trees by providing them with some of those attributes.
What else can we do?
Deadwood is a crucial part of a woodland. It plays a big part in nutrient recycling, acting as a carbon storage system, and stabilising our all-important soil. For these reasons, at least 20-30% of the woodland should comprise of deadwood in one of its many forms. If your land does not have any, we can create standing deadwood by ringbarking live trees. This may sound extreme, but they are an excellent habitat for saproxylic (deadwood loving) insects such as the endangered stage beetle. Fallen deadwood can be left in place as it holds a reservoir of nutrients which will slowly be released back into the soil, the most important part of our woodland of all. Log piles and rotting tree stumps are also valuable deadwood stores.
If you choose to work with Wild By Design to help restore your land, we will create a long-term plan to make it as biodiverse as possible. We can provide baseline surveys of your soil, water (if applicable), flora and fauna, which will allow you to document how the land has improved over time. Throughout the process, we will continue to make interventions. One year we may cut back thorny scrub in one area whilst encouraging it to grow in another. The next year, we may flip it around. In effect, we would be acting like those grazing animals, continually altering the environment. If you are lucky enough to own a larger tract of land, we may be able to work with conservation grazers and bring in the real thing! Hardy cattle such as the belted Galloway or English longhorn, Exmoor ponies or Tamworth pigs could potentially be brought onto your land for short periods, helping to shape its future. A healthy woodland is dynamic and should not be in stasis. Nature thrives on disturbance and the opportunities it presents.
There are a multitude of other services we offer that will benefit you and your land. Whether that be planting or laying hedges, or erecting barn owl, kestrel and bat boxes. We want to give nature the best chance to thrive. If you like the sound of what we do, please get in touch to arrange a consultation with our rewilding manager. We look forward to meeting you and helping you make your green spaces a little greener.
