{"id":355902,"date":"2026-09-24T18:06:49","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T18:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/355902\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T18:06:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T18:06:49","slug":"bader-college-launches-major-rewilding-initiative-at-herstmonceux-castle-estate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/355902\/","title":{"rendered":"Bader College launches major rewilding initiative at Herstmonceux Castle Estate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BNG and working with Nattergal<\/p>\n<p>Biodiversity Net Gain is an environmental policy, in place since 2024 and used in the U.K.\u2019s planning system, which aims to ensure new developments leave nature in a measurably better state than they found it. The legislation mandates new development projects to deliver a minimum 10 per cent increase in biodiversity relative to the pre-development state, and to deliver this gain either on-site or off-site. The castle estate will be one of the sites for which developers can purchase BNG units off-site.<\/p>\n<p>Nattergal owns and manages large-scale rewilding sites across Essex, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire. At Herstmonceux, the nature restoration company will support habitat restoration, land management, and ecological monitoring. Its monitoring program will track changes in land use over time and provide data to support research, reporting, and decision-making.<\/p>\n<p>Nattergal will manage the sale of the BNG credits for the estate. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/guidance\/getting-and-using-a-conservation-covenant-agreement\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Conservation Covenant <\/a>is a legal requirement and will be established to ensure the long-term protection of the land for a minimum of 30 years.<br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What rewilding means at Herstmonceux<\/p>\n<p>Rewilding at Herstmonceux involves actively supporting natural processes across the estate. This includes careful monitoring, managed grazing, habitat restoration, and long-term stewardship to promote nature recovery. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The project will transform large sections of the estate, historically leased to farmers, into a diverse landscape of grassland, scrub, wetlands, woodland, and wood pasture. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHerstmonceux Rewilding will create richer habitats for plants, insects, birds, mammals, and other wildlife,\u201d says Matthew Evans, Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic). \u201cIt will help the estate address broad environmental challenges, including habitat loss, soil degradation, the need for landscapes that retain water, store carbon, and support biodiversity, and of course, climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The nature restoration plan will strengthen ecological connections to the <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalcharacterareas.co.uk\/pevensey-levels\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pevensey Levels<\/a>, a wetland of international and national conservation importance, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and an internationally protected Ramsar site. Free-roaming herbivores, such as cattle and pigs, will be introduced and will help shape the maturing habitats, with buffer zones and fencing planned in consultation with local stakeholders and farmers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BNG and working with Nattergal Biodiversity Net Gain is an environmental policy, in place since 2024 and used&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-355902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}