One million trees and counting

Count Konrad Goesssaurau farms 2,000 acres of Wiltshire downland on the edge of Marlborough. Since he bought Temple Farm in 1985, he has planted more than 23 miles of hedges and one million trees.

A conservation pioneer, Goess-saurau started transforming the farm as soon as he arrived. “There was nothing you’d expect from an English estate, not so much as a mouse.”

Determined to create the habitat for a pheasant shoot, he sought GWCT advice. Trees, hedges and game crops were planted and higher ground sown with traditional grasses. Newly dug dew ponds attracted wildfowl; the area now boasts breeding populations of corn buntings, yellowhammers, lapwings, turtle doves, tree sparrows, skylarks, barn owls, stone curlews, grey partridges and hares.

“What’s extraordinary is how little there was before and how much has returned,” he added.

This abundance of wildlife ensured the estate was chosen to launch the South West Farmland Bird Initiative in 2010 and later selected – with 41 neighbouring farms

– to be one of 12 Nature Improvement Areas.

Today, Goess-saurau shows no sign of slowing down the tree planting. He believes conservation efforts will fail if they are driven by financial incentives alone: “You have to see conservation as rewarding in its own right, to genuinely want to witness wildlife return.”

Joe Dimbleby Count Konrad Goesssaurau’s case study is part of the GWCT’S Working for Wildlife initiative. To read it in full, visit: workingforwildlife.co.uk