Why the Isle of Wight has been ranked alongside the Okavango
Volcanoes and game reserves may not immediately spring to mind when visiting the Isle of Wight but the island off the coast of Hampshire now ranks alongside the iconic landscapes of Mount Vesuvius and the Okavango Delta in Botswana as a biosphere reserve.
The designation – awarded by Unesco, the cultural arm of the United Nations – has been hailed by supporters who have long argued that there is more to the Isle of Wight than its traditional seaside image of buckets and spades and Victorian-era amusement parks.
Biosphere status recognises not only the island’s diverse range of landscapes, from cliffs and coastal flood plains to heathlands, but the way in which the population interacts with it. With more than 500 miles of waymarked footpaths – and a new, improved coastal trail opening next year – access to the island’s substantial rural hinterland is easy.
The island is often said to have a little bit of everything that southern Britain has to offer, from Kent to Somerset. This includes the downland of the South Downs, the cliffs of Dorset and the wooded coastline of the New Forest.
“The island is essentially a rural landscape with thinly spread settlements,” says local ecologist Ian Boyd. “It’s great that wildlife encounters and an experience of the natural world here are so readily available. The thing about the island is that it can offer a world-class beach holiday backed up by a world-class adventure into the natural world.”
This collision of two worlds – nature and the Victorian theme park experience – is most apparent in the southwest corner of the island amid the wild beauty of Tennyson Down, once likened by Sir John Betjeman to “an earthquake poised in mid-explosion”.
The ski-jump contours of the downland make for a spectacular landscape that appealed to Lord Tennyson, who regularly took the air in these parts. Here, the iconic chalk pinnacles of the Needles dangle off the sheer western cliffs of the Down. Yet in the shadow of this natural drama, and the contorted, multi-coloured sand cliffs of Alum Bay, you can visit the Needles Landmark Attraction and indulge in the Victorian creations of candyfloss, marshmallows and liquorice allsorts.
The same combination of wildlife and the natural world is apparent at the opposite end of the island where the seaside towns of Shanklin, Lake and Sandown, with their risqué postcards and sticks of rock, are bookended by magnificent cliffs.
Here, Jurassic precipices overshadow the bay while at low tide, the sea retreats to expose the sand all the way from Culver Down at the north end to Knock Point at the southern tip with five miles of beach for you to barefoot along. “How many other five-mile beaches are there in Britain?” asks Boyd. “Look along the beach here and you are looking at 100 million years of geology.”
This summer, white-tailed eagles will add to this spectacle, with the re-introduction of a bird last seen in this area in 1780. Eight juvenile birds will be transferred from Scotland and conservationists, led by the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation.
Wildlife lovers will find plenty of other creatures to spot across the island. Red squirrels are common (Parkhurst Forest is a good place to see them) but Newton National Nature Reserve on the north coast is a wonderful land of lagoon-like waters, mudflats and creeks where black-headed gulls jerkily flick back and forth in mid-air and little egrets settle down among the reeds for a spot of fish-catching. Inland, around the village of Alverstone, streams and mixed woodlands of wild cherry, oak and hazel offer every chance to see barn owls and kingfishers.
Increasingly, land and coast are used by food producers in a way that is sympathetic to the environment. The island places great emphasis on local and sustainable food production, with more than 40 enterprises producing breads, cheeses, fruits, garlic, wine, beer, biscuits and salad oils. The island is also home to several family-run butchers, fishmongers, farm shops and delicatessens.
These include Richard Hodgson of the Isle of Wight Cheese Company, who works from a farm deep in a valley near the village of Arreton. Hodgson’s latest products include the mild and milky Blue Slipper (named after the local moniker for the island’s slippery gault clay) and the hard cheeses Gallybagger and Gallybagger Mature, made entirely from raw milk.
“You are using all your senses, from handling the cows, to the smell and the look of the cheese,” he explains. “You buy supermarket cheese and it is homogenous. It tastes the same all year round because that’s what customers want. My cheeses taste different according to what the cows have eaten, whether that’s fresh grass or silage. If I did [produce like larger companies] the cheese wouldn’t have a soul.”
Quarr Abbey, on the north coast, has had a Cistercian presence on the island since the 12th century and is set among woodlands home to red squirrels. The abbey gardens feature 300 orchard trees and many heritage varieties of beetroot and tomato, such as Mr Stripey (red and yellow) and Yellow Stuffer (pepper-shaped, with an easily hollowed-out centre, perfect for stuffing).
“We look to grow heritage varieties, which were used before the 1950s,” says head gardener Matt Noyce. Several beehives produce pots of honey that find their way both to the shop and the monk’s breakfast table.
Everything that Unesco approves of is squeezed into an island just 12 miles north-south and 25 miles from west to east. “The island has a very defined sense of place and belonging,” says Paul Armfield, a popular local singer/songwriter. “Being an island allows us to look slightly askance at things – there is no doubt that we have a different perspective from the mainland. This island is just about conquerable, you are not overwhelmed by distance.”
Mark Rowe is an environmental writer and author of Slow Wight, an online guide to the Island. See slowwighttravelguide.co.uk
The essentials
How to get there
Wightlink (wightlink.co.uk) sails from Lymington to Yarmouth or Portsmouth to Fishbourne. Red Funnel (redfunnel.co.uk) sails between Southampton and Cowes.
Where to stay
Complete with safari tents, Tom's Eco Lodge in Freshwater is a ranch-like retreat suited to sticklers for sustainability (tents from £99 Tents per night).
See our guide to the best hotels on the Isle of Wight.
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