Introduction

I am standing at the front door of the house where I live. It is a bright day in May. The sun creeps up above the ridge to the east as it rises from the sea. Immediately below me is a meadow that sweeps away down the hill, bright with wildflowers in the morning sun. At the bottom of a long hill lies the old woodland where I can hear a woodpecker drumming on a dead branch. Beside it is a burgeoning plantation of native trees that is beginning to merge with the old woodland. I can hear the rushing river in the wood and imagine its winding path through the ancient trees. In the distance is a craggy hill covered in heather and flanked by dark green forest. The sun is lighting up one side of the hill while the other remains in shadow. Over me drifts the first red kite of the morning, effortlessly soaring above the meadow as it searches for its first meal of the day. I am surrounded by nature and beauty.

A decade ago, I was presented with the opportunity to buy this small farm in the valley where I live in the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains. I had always wanted to plant trees, to surround myself with nature and to be able to observe the natural world changing from day to day. Within a year I suddenly found myself with the keys to the gate. It was pure exhilaration to wander at will, to observe the land in all its diversity. The pasture had been grazed by horses and sheep and was shorn to the length of a mown lawn. The patch of old woodland at the foot of the hill was a mysterious, magical place, but the sheep were wintering there and browsing the undergrowth. Deer were also browsing in the woodland and emerged occasionally to graze in the pasture.

Spring is my favourite time of year. All is new in nature after the long cold months of winter when the struggle to survive takes precedence over everything else. As I stand here in the brightening dawn, I celebrate the return of heat from the sun. Blackbirds are singing loudly from the trees all around and wrens belt out their incessant calls from the undergrowth. The meadow is filled with butterflies and bees all working to ensure the next generations will replace them in a short time. They feed on the abundant wildflowers that have returned here since the sheep and horses were removed. Just a short walk from my front door, badgers are sleeping underground, their growing cubs venturing out at sunset to explore the woodland and meadow that their ancestors have known for hundreds of years. A solitary deer stands in the meadow, its ears twitching to listen for danger, ready to race to the cover of the trees. Nature is alive here.

Although it is not a wilderness, but a landscape managed by humans for thousands of years, this is the place that I love. It is like a painting, a panorama that stretches from east to west. I never tire of gazing out to watch the clouds that drift across, sometimes bordered in gold, sometimes carrying the threat of rain that speeds in from the west. At night the moon follows the setting sun picking out the hillside above with a ghostly light. Then I listen to the calls of a family of owls and watch them dodging in and out of our growing plantations. I want to intimately know every wild creature and wild plant here. My aim from the start was to restore nature on this land and make it a refuge for wildlife in a rapidly changing world. The red kite, extinct in Ireland for300 years, yet now gently drifting across the fields, is a sign that nature restoration can work. I want to give back to nature, as much as possible, the beauty and diversity that has been modified and simplified by landscape change. To live with nature instead of trying to exploit it.

Nature for me is both an inspiration and a refuge. It gives me endless pleasure to immerse myself in the wild places and find there the animals and plants that still live the way they have done for