Sir Charles Raymond Burrell, 10th Baronet (born 27 August 1962) is an English landowner, conservationist and founder of the Knepp Wildland, the first large-scale lowland rewilding project in England, which was created in the early 2000s when he stopped conventional farming on 3,500 acres (1,400 ha) of land surrounding the ancestral family home at Knepp Castle in West Sussex.

Personal life

Burrell spent his early years on his parents' farm in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia and then in Australia but returned to England for secondary education. He was educated at Millfield and the Royal Agricultural College. He succeeded to the baronetcy upon the death of his father, Sir John Raymond Burrell, 9th Baronet, on 29 May 2008.

He married the travel writer Isabella Elizabeth Nancy Tree on 2 December 1993.[1] They have two children, Nancy (born 29 May 1995) and Edward (born 10 October 1996).

Knepp Estate management

Burrell lives in West Sussex with his family on the ancestral 3,500 acres (1,400 ha) Knepp Wildland estate in a castellated mansion built for the Burrell family around 1808 by John Nash (built next to the ruins of the medieval Knepp Castle).[2] Burrell inherited the estate at the age of 21 and managed it using conventional intensive farming for 17 years before starting to convert it using rewilding principles in 2000.[3]

Awards and recognition for the Knepp Wildland project

  • 2015 People Environment Achievement (PEA) award for Nature
  • 2015 Innovative & Novel Project award in the UK River Prize for the River Adur restoration project
  • 2017 Anders Wall Award for special contribution to the rural environment in the European Union
  • 2017 Gold, Best Guided Tour of the Year, Beautiful South Awards [4]
  • In 2023 Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell received the Zoological Society of London’s Silver Medal for outstanding contributions to the understanding and appreciation of zoology

Appointments

As of January 2023, Burrell is Chair of Foundation Conservation Carpathia, and on the advisory board of The Arcadia Fund, he is on the oversight committee for the Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme. Is chair of The White Stork Project, Knepp Wildland Foundation, and Nattergal Ltd. Vice Chair of rePLANET and Trustee to te Argolic Enviroment Foundation. He is on the Supervisory Board of Rewilding Europe.

References

  1. ↑ Person Page 18983
  2. ↑ "Welcome to the Knepp Castle Estate".
  3. ↑ "Background". Knepp Wildland.
  4. ↑ "Beautiful South Tourism Award Winners and Highly Commended 2017". Archived from the original on 4 February 2021. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
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