Moving with Nature | Wild Solace

Jon Cripps, a Cornwall Wildlife Trust Ranger, spends his days caring for ever-shifting dune systems. From tracking wild ponies to remote evening surfs, he shares how he finds purpose in Cornwall’s wild spaces.

I look after Penhale Dunes: a vast 600 hectare stretch of landscape on Cornwall’s North Coast between Holywell and Perranporth. It's one of the most pristine sand dune systems in the whole of the southwest.

I feel incredibly privileged and grateful to care for such an amazing space. Every day in the dunes looks different. Everything is always changing: the weather, the plants, the flora, the fauna. I see all sorts of different things at different times of the year.  

I think the abundance of nature here is the thing that would blow people away. It’s the colours when you walk across the dunes. You've got the purple carpets of wild thyme covered in bumblebees, then the yellows of bird’s-foot trefoil, lady’s bedstraw and kidney vetch. There’s just colour everywhere.

Our flagship species is the silver-studded blue butterfly – there are thousands of them here. You can be walking through the dunes on a late June day, and you’ll just get clouds of them coming up around your feet.

A ranger’s main role is habitat management; trying to make sure the site is in the best condition it can be for the species that thrive in the sand dunes. Every day is different. One day I could be out checking on the wild grazing herds, the next day I could be head-down organising funding bids. I’m often joined by volunteers who come rain or shine to help me with management onsite – their contribution is incredibly important to the work I do. 

The wild ponies more or less look after themselves. They need to be friendly enough that we can get close to them in case they need a vet or farrier, but wild enough that they’ll roam freely. The aim is to reintroduce and mimic the species that would have roamed here in the wild. They lightly graze the land, keeping the grass short enough for the rabbits, who then do the bulk of the work to keep the vegetation from taking over and choking the dune.  

To thrive, the sand dune should be dynamic. If there’s space for it to blow around, it should. We’ve been doing some work with European funding to create V-shaped notches in the dune, so that the wind can funnel through and create this dynamic and evolving dune system. There are three smaller ones, then one huge one which might be the sort of pinnacle of my career success so far.

At the end of every year, we invite the local running club to race up and down the sandy notches we’ve created. It’s an absolute feat of endurance, but it also helps to break up the surface of the sand and stop the vegetation stabilising too much.   

This stretch of water is one of my favourite spots to surf. There’s so much space, it gives it that really wild feeling like you’re miles from anywhere. In the right conditions, I don’t think there’s anything better.

It’s a relaxing, wonderful place to be, but I feel an underlying sense of responsibility to leave it in better condition than I found it. 

Discover the charities and partners we're working with in our latest impact report and find out more about the work of Cornwall Wildlife Trust on their website. Jon wears items from our Autumn/Winter 2025 collection.