Rewilding Wild Finca: 7 Lessons from 7 Years on a Small Farm in Northern Spain

When Luke and I first arrived in Asturias in 2018, we were two wildlife storytellers who had burnt ourselves out travelling the world documenting other people's conservation work. We didn't yet know that our own story was waiting for us on seven exhausted hectares of former dairy land at the foot of the majestic Picos de Europa mountains.

The place was worn out – a monoculture grassland, bramble creeping in thick and unproductive carpets. There were no ponds, no hedgerows- just silence. And yet something in the land resonated, a familiarity neither of us could quite explain. Yet we could imagine what might return if we simply stepped back, listened, and let the place breathe again.