The wild horses that are rewilding Britain

Now for a film that's been 14 years in the making. Back in 2002 we told you how wild horses have been introduced to Kent to help with the countryside and we've been watching them ever since. If you're out enjoying the Kent countryside you may come across this enchanting scene. These are the wild horses of Kent. They now call several nature reserves across the county their homes. The horses are called conics. They're genetically the closest thing to the wild horses which roamed across England 7,000 years ago. And they aren't here for decoration, they're working for a living. Peter Smith from Wildwood Trust near Canterbury is a big fan of the conic horses. Many of the nature reserves that we couldn't manage properly are now managed thanks to these wonderful horses. So where did they come from? In a word, Holland. Many years ago wild horses were successfully introduced to a nature reserve near Amsterdam called Oostvaardersplassen. Oostvaardersplassen is fantastic. I mean what a wealth of wildlife. I've never seen so much rare birds, so many rare forms of plant all living in one area. So in 2002 Peter raised some money and bought some wild horses to bring back to Kent. The first ones were released in Stodmarsh near Canterbury. 14 years later these are at Orrmarshes near Faversham. Peter is the first to admit that in the early days they were rather making it up as they went along. And we just didn't know what we were doing. It was all new, it was exciting. You know we were becoming cowboys instead of conservationists. This is how it works. If this land was left alone the scrub would grow and it would eventually turn into woodland. But conservationists want to keep the land like this as a habitat for rare animals. It's too difficult and expensive to cut back the scrub with machinery but wild horses will eat anything. They're stopping fields from scrubbing over and creating wetlands the natural way. Providing a home for all sorts of wildlife. It's an example of what's becoming known as rewilding. Across the whole of the community of people who work in nature conservation, ecologists, academics, they're all coming to understand that rewilding is the future of nature conservation. The horses started off managing the wetland at Stodmarsh near Canterbury and Ham Fen near Sandwich. They then spread across the county. Nature evolved to live in harmony with the grazing of these horses and then all the rare beasties, things that we think are incredibly rare, will have a place to live and we can have them all back in our country. And it's not just Kent. Soon the horses were heading to pastures new across the border and into Sussex. For instance, the Breed Valley near Hastings. You'll notice that they're all fairly scraggly. The coats have been rolling in a lot of mud. We met Philip Newton five years ago when he converted 100 acres of his farm into wetlands and needed the help of wild horses. About 15 years ago this whole area that you can see was arable and it was all drained and ironically I reversed the process. As a friend of mine says, just add water and see what happens. So five years on, what has happened? The whole of this landscape of where they are has changed considerably. A lot of open grazed areas and it's providing the perfect habitat for the nesting waders and the overwintering waders and wetland birds. The habitat is nearly what I would consider to be exactly as required, the optimum. The word spread and many different conservation organisations became interested. PETA isn't in charge of some kind of coordinated rollout programme but over the years the idea gained momentum and soon the horses set foot or rather set hoof all across the country. For instance, Wiccan Fen Nature Reserve in Cambridgeshire received 13 conic horses 13 years ago and now has over 90. The births are always lovely when you come down to the herd in the morning and there's a brand new little foal, it's always really exciting. More horses have made their way to Black Toft Sands Reserve near Gould, the east riding of Yorkshire. Normally they're quite calm. And then all of a sudden you'll just get this burst of energy where they start rustling and tussling with each other and the visitors love it. Yeah, we'd be lost without them really. The team at the Loch of Strathfeg Reserve in Scotland use GPS devices on their horses to keep track of them. They are wild and untamed so it can be a little bit interesting if they choose to be a bit frisky but hopefully they'll behave themselves today. But the horses can't be left completely alone. Sometimes they have to be swapped between locations to make sure they don't become inbred. But what we're going to do to get genetic diversity is we'll take stallions away and put new stallions on. That's the best way so it's like all herd structures, ladies are in charge and they've got the knowledge and the true instincts to protect the herd so we're going to try to keep the ladies together as much as we have and the men, superfluous, just have to move around and do their job. Back over in Sussex, Philip Newton has left his horses wild and free and hasn't had to interfere with their day-to-day business apart from one memorable occasion. The only time we've ever had a problem was when there was a serious flash flood and somebody on the train considered that they were stranded in the field and the RSPCA lady turned up, police, fire and rescue and it was pathetic. The horses could have swum if they'd wanted to and yet these chaps turned up in dry suits, breathing apparatus. I was forbidden to go near them and they just walked out. So that is how the wild horses are rewilding the countryside. Peter Smith hopes that this is the way nature will be preserved in the future. We need to rebalance, we need to learn to stop taking from nature and start giving back and that's the future of nature conservation. Rewilding, let nature get on with it and have bigger nature reserves to be created to our children. So wild horses were in Kent 7,000 years ago and at this rate their relatives will be here in 7,000 years time.