I stand on the river’s edge, looking out at 22 square miles of marshland and reedbeds. A passing sheet of rain crackles against my coat, then golden rays between parting clouds make me take it off. It’s been alternating like that all day.
A heavy bird of prey lifts from the bushes, and on the horizon several thousand geese rise up and blacken the sky before dissipating again like smoke beneath the changing hues of Spring.
It’s a place I’ve been wanting to visit for a long time since reading about it in both Isabella Tree’s iconic book Wilding and Tim Flannery’s Europe, a seminal example of rewilding:
The mighty Oostvardersplassen.
On the surface, the concept of rewilding is simple. It’s about letting nature take its course to restore an environment in a way that more closely resembles how it would have looked before humans turned up.
Obviously that’s not all totally possible when working in a confined area from which animals cannot migrate, and also due to the fact that many cornerstone species from prehistory are extinct (oops) so adjustments must be made in a more managed way.
A line of Heck cattle lumbers past, pausing to scratch with their long horns and watch me for just a moment. They play the role of aurochs, heavy herbivores keeping the trees low and carving out healthy damp soils that attract waterbirds like warblers, geese and swans. Konik horses and red deer also graze, as wild as you can get in an area ringfenced by roaring traffic and passenger trains.
The original plan was even more radical. In leaving it entirely alone, the site attracted criticism from people who didn’t much like seeing animals starve to death over a particularly harsh winter. Today the grazers are more closely monitored, extra food is provided in times of famine and the weakest animals are culled.
It wasn’t easy to find out just how accessible the place was. Details on the website are thin at best, and despite the presence of three visitor centres the trails are not clearly marked. I was convinced I’d find a place that was locked up tight, a wild place reserved only for nature and visiting ecologists embarking on their own rewilding journeys.
But after just a short train journey from Amsterdam and a pleasant walk through a residential neighbourhood, the paths opened up to reveal a bastion of wildlife. A place alive with birdsong in a way that I haven’t experienced in a long time.
In laying the foundations of the ecosystems, the animals have worked hard over the last few decades to completely transform land that was originally earmarked for industry.
The experiment paved the way for similar ambitions in the UK, with Knepp Estate employing a similar approach. It’s not about abandoning it completely, it’s about nudging it in the right direction with the help of some cornerstone species acting as ecosystem engineers.
In the distance beneath the rolling leaden skies, wild ponies shake and rear. Close by, Cetti’s warblers belt out their warning songs. Fish whirl in the river, known to attract spoonbills, cormorants and egrets. Miles away a minuscule black kestrel hangs over the marsh, a pinprick among the clouds. The paths are almost totally empty: a couple of keen birders and some passing cyclists are the only other visitors.
After lunch, a short walk takes me back to the street and soon I’m on the Amsterdam Metro again, surrounded by people with their heads in the phones, oblivious of the miles of Eden just down the road. Part of me wants to grab them by the collar like a madman and demand to know why they aren’t spending every weekend watching eagles and marsh harriers and kingfishers. The other part of me wants Oostvardersplassen to remain as it is: an oasis of life, as close to prehistory as it can be, hidden in open sight away from thumping Bluetooth speakers, discarded single use plastics and overflowing car parks.
But it’s not my decision to make. All I can do is take the inspiration from this biological tapestry and thread it into my own work, whatever that may be.