Peak Ridge

6 Surprising Ways the Peak Ridge Network is Rewriting the Rules of Rewilding

For decades, conservation was a game of lines on a map. One organisation managed a patch of forest, another a stretch of heath, and a third a sliver of coast—each operating within the rigid geometry of property borders. But nature has never been particularly good at following instructions or respecting fences. Across the Peak Ridge, a new philosophy is taking hold. Here, a patchwork of owners—including Clinton Devon Estates, the National Trust, Forestry England, and the East Devon District Council—is dissolving these invisible boundaries. They are stitching a landscape back together, moving past isolated management to act as a single, living organism.

The Grand Connection: From Heaths to the Sea

The "Heaths to Sea" project is not merely a collection of sites; it is a twenty-year journey across the spine of the landscape. By treating the terrain as a series of strategic puzzle pieces, the network allows life to flow from the inland heights down to the salty air of the Jurassic Coast. This journey begins at Muttersmoor, the project’s rugged eastern anchor, before sweeping across Greystone and Lydes Hill, which serve as a vital inland buffer against development. The path then moves through the "Western Gate" at Bulverton Hill, finally resting at Harpford Wood, the western anchor that ties the ridge directly into the lifeblood of the River Otter.

This shift represents a profound realisation in modern ecology: nature is not a series of museum exhibits to be kept in separate rooms. By viewing the landscape as a unified corridor, the network ensures that species aren't trapped on islands of habitat but can migrate, hunt, and adapt as the climate shifts.

"The project aims to seamlessly reconnect inland heathlands... down to the Jurassic Coast."

Death of the Clear-Cut: The Rise of Continuous Cover

For years, the visual language of commercial forestry was one of extremes: either a wall of dark timber or a scarred, brown hillside left in the wake of a clear-cut. The Peak Ridge is silencing the chainsaws of the old guard. At sites like Harpford Wood and Bulverton Hill, the era of the clear-cut is over, replaced by Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF). Instead of stripping the land bare and exposing the soil to "ecological shock," foresters now practice a surgical, selective harvest. This method maintains a permanent green canopy that never disappears from the horizon. Beneath this protective shield, a multi-generational forest is being born. Tens of thousands of diverse broadleaf and climate-resilient trees are being planted, replacing the fragile monocultures of the post-war era with a dappled, vibrant woodland where light and shadow play across a forest floor that is never left naked to the elements.

Blurring the Lines: Why "Soft Edges" Beat Fences

Nature rarely works in straight lines, yet human management is obsessed with them. The Peak Ridge strategy is a deliberate embrace of chaos, aggressively promoting "wood pasture and scrub mosaics" over sharp, fenced boundaries. By thinning the dense, artificial edges of conifer plantations, managers are allowing light to bleed into the shadows, creating a messy, beautiful transition zone. These "soft edges" are where biodiversity truly thrives. This isn't a forest and it isn't a field; it is a scrubby, sun-drenched middle ground that acts as a linear wildlife corridor. For the Dormouse, the Nightingale, and the Nightjar, these transitional zones provide the perfect architecture for nesting and hunting. It is a move away from the rigid "either/or" of land management toward a more fluid "both," mimicking the natural margins where life has always been most abundant.

The Invisible Shepherd: GPS Collars as Eco-Engineers

Walk across Peak Hill or Muttersmoor today and you will notice a strange silence: the absence of the clatter of wire and the visual clutter of traditional fencing. In its place is a high-tech "invisible shepherd." Using GPS "NoFence" collars, herds of Exmoor Ponies and cattle are being deployed as precision eco-engineers. These animals are guided not by timber and wire, but by virtual boundaries programmed into their collars. This allows them to roam freely across the ridge, breaking up suffocating stands of bracken and gorse with their weight and movement. As they graze, they create vital patches of bare ground—micro-habitats essential for the survival of rare wasps and sun-loving lizards. It is a marriage of ancient grazing instincts and modern satellite technology, restoring the heath without scarring the view-shed with a single physical post.

"The technology allows for the creation of bare ground... without the need for unsightly physical fences."

The Landscape as a Sponge: Slowing the Flow

The Peak Ridge is more than a sanctuary; it is a vital piece of green infrastructure. In an era of increasingly volatile weather, the ridge has been reimagined as a "natural water defence system" for the communities nestled in the valleys below. The strategy here is simple but profound: turn the landscape into a hydrological sponge. On the high ground of Muttersmoor, boggy mires are being re-wetted to hold water at its source. At Bulverton Bottom, "leaky dams"—logs pinned strategically across streams—act as speed bumps for flash floods. Crucially, on the steep slopes of Greystone and Lydes Hill, the commitment to permanent tree cover serves a secondary purpose. The deep, established root systems of the forest act as anchors and interceptors, drinking up the rain and anchoring the soil. By slowing the flow of water through biological means, the ridge protects the human world from the extremes of the water cycle.

Guardians of the Night: Protecting the Dark Corridors

Perhaps the most radical "invisible" strategy is the protection of the night itself. Conservationists often focus on what we can see, but for the Greater Horseshoe bat and the Nightjar, the landscape is defined by a topography of shadows. Across Bulverton Hill and Harpford Wood, there is a strict mandate to eliminate artificial light and preserve "Dark Corridors." To a bat, a tree silhouette against a starry sky is a landmark, a navigational guidepost used for millennia. By protecting these silhouettes and ensuring the ridge remains a bastion of true darkness, the network preserves ancient navigation routes and hunting grounds that would otherwise be severed by the "light pollution" of the modern world. It is a reminder that a landscape must remain functional twenty-four hours a day, not just when the sun is up.

A New Blueprint for the Future

The Peak Ridge network is a masterclass in the power of the invisible. It proves that the most effective restoration doesn't always require massive earthworks or towering walls. Sometimes, it is found in the slowing of water, the removal of a fence, or the preservation of a shadow. As this model of landscape-scale connectivity becomes the new standard, it forces us to reconsider our own relationship with the wild. We are left to wonder: can a landscape truly be called "wild" when its boundaries are digital and its shepherds are guided by satellites—or is this high-tech invisibility the only way to truly set nature free?