Officials turn to unexpected helpers to restore crucial landscape: 'The perfect lawnmowers'

A wildlife trust in England is taking a natural, if unconventional, approach to nurturing and protecting a crucial landscape: animal helpers. 

According to late-May reporting from the BBC, the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust is introducing 10 Highland cows and eight Exmoor ponies to the Trent Valley "as part of a rewilding project intended to restore habitats and increase biodiversity." 

Now, as for that "unconventional" descriptor — really, it's only accurate if we ignore the broader historical context. That's because, per the BBC, these animals' long-ago predecessors lived in richly varied "mosaic landscapes" where, we're told, a mix of wildlife coexisted for resilience. 

A part of this resilience had to do with the benefits of the animals' grazing. "These are the perfect lawnmowers," said grazing assistant Alex Fisher. "They know exactly which type of vegetation to eat and graze from." 

By eating away at grassy overgrowth and trampling down some greenery here and there, the cattle and horses can also help provide a natural defense against the starting and spreading of wildfires. England has dealt with massive wildfires in 2025, and human-caused climate change is creating conditions conducive to more and more extreme weather events.

Living landscape officer Katie Last thinks Derbyshire's new animal residents can help to enrich and protect the environment in more ways than one.

"The way that they manage our grasslands, they're much better at capturing carbon in the ground," Last told the BBC. "They don't overgraze, which gives the soil time to regenerate."

Indeed, research from the University of Oxford published in 2024 has shown that herbivores grazing in rewilded areas can have a beneficial impact on plants' ability to store carbon. 

And Derbyshire isn't the only place turning to herbivores to help with natural landscape management. Officials in the city of Columbus, Ohio, are working with goats to help manage invasive species — communities in Minnesota are doing the same. 

Last hopes to see the wildlife trust's program grow beyond Trent Valley too. 

"We'd like to see our grazing expanded across the whole of Derbyshire," she said. "[These breeds] are ecosystem engineers. They create fantastic, diverse mosaic habitat which boosts wildlife and creates a resilient eco-system overall."

If you were to switch from a grass lawn to a more natural option, which of these factors would be your primary motivation? Making it look better 🌱 Saving money on water and maintenance 💰 Helping pollinators 🐝 No way I ever get rid of my lawn 🚫 Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

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