It’s a strange feeling to settle into a space knowing all the changes the next 12 weeks will bring, recognising the gift that is and appreciating how quickly it will pass by, but until then there’s a lot to take in. This week Ambios has welcomed a new cohort to the nature recovery traineeship. Over the Autumn Lower Sharpham Farm will be home to a team with different backgrounds but a common goal to upskill and connect to the natural environment.
The first few days involved lots of site tours and getting used to life in this unique ecosystem. Walking the hillside and down to the riverbed, listening to the singing of the birds and swaying of the trees. The farm is home to more than just humans, from cows and sheep, to Yeti the labrador, beyond the obvious Lower Sharpham is home to many more ecosystem engineers. The land is alive with the wisdom that all life is home here.
Food is grown on the farm, with veg from the garden and beef from the cows, any extra shopping is done with good conscience at a partnered local store. We share our communal responsibilities around mealtime and rotate all the chores weekly but with so many hands to help it hardly sounds dull.
We’ve already been out to the orchard to prepare for our juice pressing, next week we get to work, with helpers from a local school, to bottle up the year’s harvest. Soon after we have the Barn Dance (with ceilidh) to join with the community in a night of celebration, and luckily everyone at United Response is here to help with the preparations too. United Response is a charity who provides care for people with learning difficulties by giving them the space and opportunities to look after the animals or get handy in the workshops. We had a great introduction to the work of the charity and those they support, and are looking forward to working alongside those involved at points throughout the traineeship.
This farm is unique and that phrase feels slightly amiss, it might be the foundation but it has become so much more.
The landscape is steeped in history and fame, brewing amongst that is a new way of working with the land. Moving away from standard farming practices to embracing a model of Nature Recovery. Farmland takes up a large proportion of the UK landscape and is associated with or impacted by many problems faced by modern society. More extreme weather events, food insecurity, social isolation and disconnection. Nature Recovery looks to natural solutions by enhancing or reimplementing natural processes. Here on the Sharpham Estate that looks like a mixture of low input agriculture and the revival of intertidal wetland. Placed alongside the river Dart, it serves as a buffer between Dartmoor and the ocean. When farming is no longer profitable and conservation can’t go far enough, this revolution of rewilding hopes to bring people and place back together.
As new trainees in the landscape we feel so fortunate to be spending the next 3 months getting to know the land and those individuals who call it home. So thank you to all those who have made this a truly special experience, and let’s get started.
Aedan Lawton, Autumn 2025 Trainee
