Name: Homecoming Presents: Derek Gow
Start: 2025-10-15T17:00:00+01:00
Location: Heligan, PL26 6EN Pentewan, United Kingdom

15 Oct: 5:30pm - doors open from 5pm
We are excited to invite you to join us this Autumn as we launch an inspirational new programme at The Lost Gardens of Heligan. ‘Homecoming Presents’ will welcome authors, musicians, poets, horticulturalists, chefs, artists and thought leaders to Cornwall for inspiring evenings and important conversations.
October sees Matthew Shaw host a conversation with farmer-turned-ecologist and author Derek Gow.
Bringing to life some of the stories within his books Derek will tell us all about the realities of rewilding: how he reared delicate roe deer and a sofa-loving wild boar piglet, moved a raging bison bull across the country, got bitten by a Scottish wildcat, returned honking skeins of graylag geese to the land and water that was once theirs, and restored the white stork to the Knepp Estate with Charlie Burrell and Isabella Tree.
The conversation will be followed by a Q&A so bring along your burning questions about conservation, rewilding, biodiversity and the re-introduction of species.
Tearing down fences literally and metaphorically, Derek Gow is the one person with the character and strength of will to defy authority, bend the rules, and save our wildlife.
Derek will be signing copies of his books after this event.

About Derek:
Derek Gow is a farmer and nature conservationist, and author of the recent book Bringing Back the Beaver. Born in Dundee in 1965, he left school when he was 17 and worked in agriculture for five years. Inspired by the writing of Gerald Durrell, all of whose books he has read – thoroughly – he jumped at the chance to manage a European wildlife park in central Scotland in the late 1990s before moving on to develop two nature centres in England. He now lives on a 300-acre farm on the Devon/Cornwall border which he is in the process of rewilding. Derek has played a significant role in the reintroduction of the Eurasian beaver, the water vole and the white stork in England. He is currently working on a reintroduction project for the wildcat.