Devon farmers' rewilding feud becomes unlikely friendship — SkimNews
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- Derek vs Derek, a documentary by James Dawson filmed over three years, tracks Devon neighbors Derek Gow (a rewilder credited with reintroducing beavers to England) and Derek Banbury (an intensive dairy and beef farmer) from open hostility to friendship.
- Gow is rewilding his former sheep farm, breeding storks, wildcats, red-backed shrikes, glowworms and adders for release, while Banbury runs 200 milking cows and 600 cattle in total behind tightly clipped hedges on the neighbouring property.
- Initial clashes were sharp: Gow's wild boar escaped onto Banbury's land and were shot, Banbury dismissed beavers as causing "vicious damage," and Gow called Banbury "a psychopath when it comes to hedgerows."
- By the film's end, Banbury concedes "we've got to have areas like this for the wildlife" and is considering allowing hedgerows to grow wild as nature corridors when he re-fences his fields this autumn.
- Gow proposes that if every farmer set aside 10% of their least productive land for wildlife, it could reverse the extinction crisis, and his latest scheme is to pay farmers to breed rare wild animals in captivity and release them locally so they become invested in the results.
- More than 300 farmers and neighbours attended a special on-farm screening at the Banburys' barn; the film received standing ovations at festivals in Thessaloniki and Sheffield.
- Derek vs Derek opens in UK cinemas on 2 October, with a planned programme of on-farm screenings across the country intended to spark conversations between farmers, conservationists and rewilders.
Why it matters: The film reframes Britain's rewilding-vs-farming standoff as a relationship story rather than a culture war: Banbury's concession that some land must be reserved for wildlife and Gow's pragmatic proposals — paying farmers to breed rare species and asking each to set aside 10% of least productive land — point toward a workable compromise. With more than 300 local farmers turning up to the Banburys' screening and a national on-farm tour planned, the documentary is being positioned less as agitprop than as a bridge-builder between two camps that rarely share a room.
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