Opwall Wallacea - Knepp Field Course

Video Created by Jack Hague
Instagram: @jbhague_wildlife
This project is based at the Knepp Estate in the Low Weald of Sussex, which is Britain’s premier and most famous rewilding site. The 3500 acre estate is being returned to a pre-human habitat by almost abandoning human intervention in the management of the landscape and allowing fields to revert to natural vegetation.
The aim of the course is to give the participants experience in field survey techniques that are likely to be encountered if undertaking a field ecology or climate change career. Thus practicals involve completing pollinator surveys and how to identify bee and hoverfly species, how to map areas using UKHab and quantify the biodiversity score of an area using the DEFRA biodiversity metric, how to quantify carbon storage in a range of habitats and how the voluntary carbon market works.
In addition, the course includes evening presentation from professional ecologists or climate change specialists in how they developed their careers.