Ep. 025: Finding Your Tribe with Rewilding Training

·1 hr 1 min·3 clips

Embercombe says its nine-month, seven-module programme is the UK's first in-depth rewilding course.

1. Wilder Podcast episode 25 focuses on rewilding training at Embercombe in Devon. 2. Laura Fares is Embercombe's rewilding manager, and Tom and Chloe host the conversation because they want to understand course design and alumni impact. 3. The episode asks what a nine-month rewilding course is for, and whether it can turn learning into action. 4. Laura says Embercombe was founded by Matt McCartney and began as a land-based learning farm. 5. She explains that the site shifted about seven or eight years ago from food production toward rewilding because of concern about biodiversity loss. 6. Laura describes Embercombe as a 50-acre site that has to combine rewilding principles with a visitor and course venue. 7. She says the team uses natural processes, wild-grazing ideas, and smaller-scale habitat management because the site cannot host mega-herbivores or carnivores. 8. Laura says the course began with four-day residential rewilding camps linked to Ecosystem Restoration Camps, now called Ecosystem Restoration Communities. 9. She recalls that participants often left saying they thought they knew about rewilding, then realised they had only just bought their ticket. 10. Laura says the current course launched in 2023 with Ashley Brown and uses seven modules across nine months. 11. She says module one covers Britain's land-use history, including power, politics, enclosures, post-war change, the Industrial Revolution, megafauna, and Rewilding Britain data. 12. She says module three includes surveying practice such as butterfly transects, hedgerow surveys, bird surveys, bats, moth traps, soils, and fungi. 13. She says module four covers species reintroductions, grazing herbivores, and legal and bureaucratic issues, and module five addresses community involvement and access barriers. 14. She says module six covers stewardship grants, carbon credits, and nature credits, while module seven ends with rewriting a rewilding plan and business plan. 15. Laura says the final residential sends participants away with a real-site plan and a community of peers they can contact later. 16. She says the cohort includes lawyers, IT contractors, ecologists, rangers, landowners, and people who just love birdwatching or walking. 17. Laura says some graduates have found jobs, been promoted, secured funding bids, or started management plans and meadow restoration projects. 18. She says the course creates 'beacons' across the land, and that many participants leave with renewed hope as well as grief about biodiversity loss. 19. The episode uses an interview format with Tom and Chloe asking detailed follow-up questions and keeping the tone reflective and practical. 20. Listeners interested in rewilding education, community learning, and land projects will get the most from it, while people wanting a short, purely practical overview may skip it.

As heard by us

A conversational look at rewilding training, shaped as much by the alumni as by the course lead.

The episode stays with rewilding training and gives real weight to the people involved: Laura Fares from Embercombe, plus three alumni reflecting on why they signed up, what the course was like, and how it might shape what comes next.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a candid look at rewilding training through the voices of the course lead and three alumni.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Wilder Podcast