A rare opportunity in Northumberland

A rare opportunity to secure a strategically important piece of Northumberland and give natural processes the space to reconnect, recover and shape a much wilder landscape.

Adjoining the Kielder/Border Forest landscape, the holding contains an unusually varied mosaic of upland habitats — including ancient wet birch woodland, peat and bog, wet heath, valley mire, river, floodplain and meadow. The River Rede runs through the land, connecting the uplands with the wider catchment, while native woodland is already beginning to expand naturally in places where agricultural pressures have reduced.

Its importance, however, extends beyond what lies within its boundaries.

Birdhope has the potential to help reconnect woodland, wetland, river and upland systems across a much wider area. Restoring natural water movement, allowing floodplains greater freedom, enabling woodland and other habitats to shift and expand, and reducing the constraints imposed by historic drainage and land management could allow a considerably wilder and more dynamic landscape to emerge.

With other significant nature-recovery initiatives nearby and the possibility of extending recovery into adjoining land in future, securing Birdhope now could protect something increasingly difficult to recreate later: the space and connectivity needed for nature to recover at landscape scale.

This is therefore not simply an opportunity to restore a farm.

It is an opportunity to secure a missing piece of a larger landscape and give natural processes the space to shape what comes next.

This ecological rationale is informed by a 2025 habitat assessment, building on previous Northumberland National Park and Natural England assessments to consider the site in the context of its ecological recovery potential and its relationship with the wider landscape.

Prepared by Jessica Fallon MSc

Rewilding specialist; Co-author, IUCN Global Rewilding Guidelines
Member, IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management – Rewilding Thematic Group
Member, IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas