In 2019, Jim Lowther, owner of the estate at Lowther in Cumbria, found himself caught up in the increasing global anxiety about the future of farming. Like many other landowners across the UK, Jim had begun to comprehend the extent of the damage that successive years of intensive agricultural practices had wrought on flora and fauna.

Under the Lowther Conservation programme, a team of ecologists and environmental experts is exploring solutions to these problems - trying to reverse the decline in insects, birds, wildlife, wildflowers by looking carefully at the management of lowland, woodland, wetland and upland.