Sir Charles Burrell, 10th Baronet


Sir Charles Raymond Burrell, 10th Baronet is an English landowner and conservationist.
Burrell spent his early years on his parents' farm in 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. They have two children, Nancy and Edward.

Estate management

Sir Charles lives with his family at Knepp Castle, West Sussex, a castellated mansion built for the Burrells around 1808 by John Nash.
He has managed the 3,500-acre Knepp estate since he was 21, and is now known for the rewilding project that he has undertaken there.
He was able to start improving his estate when he received Countryside Stewardship funding to restore 350 acres around the castle that had been under the plough since the Second World War. presented him with the chance to look at the land in a different way.
Further inspired by a visit to the Oostvaardersplassen nature reserve in the Netherlands in 2002 and the work of Dutch ecologist Dr :nl:Frans Vera|Frans Vera, Burrell set about establishing a 'hands-off', naturalistic grazing system across the entire Estate. He used free-roaming herds of old English longhorns, Exmoor ponies and Tamworth pigs as proxies for the aurochs, tarpan and wild boar that would once have roamed the British countryside, as well as red and fallow deer. Headline species include nightingales, white storks, turtle doves and purple emperor butterflies. Knepp now has all five UK species of owls and 13 out of the UK's 17 species of bats.
In 2010 the project received Higher Level Environmental Stewardship funding. of over twenty or so ecologists, including Dr Frans Vera and Prof Sir John Lawton, author of the 2010 'Making Space for Nature' report, advises the project.
The Estate is still farming, albeit far more extensively, producing 75 tonnes of low-input, organic, pasture-fed meat per annum from its free-roaming herds. provides another significant income stream.

Awards & recognition for the Knepp Wildland project

2015 People Environment Achievement award for Nature
2015 Innovative & Novel Project award in the UK River Prize for the
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
The Knepp Wildland project is recognised as a Verified Conservation Area and is a member of the Rewilding Europe Network.

Appointments

Sir Charles Burrell is Chair of Rewilding Britain, and . He is on the board of , , , Wildlife Estates England, and .