Woodland Walks - The Woodland Trust Podcast

Did you know American music legend Nile Rodgers is helping the Trust plant and protect woodland in Northern Ireland? Alongside generous donations to Faughan Valley Woodlands from the We Are Family Foundation (WAFF), Nile has got stuck in with planting on site. Nile and the foundation he co-founded with his partner, Nancy Hunt, are working with us to reconnect fragmented native woods in a region where less than 1% of ancient woodland remains. We caught up with the multiple Grammy Award winner on his latest visit to find out why. We also hear from David Saddington, trustee of both WAFF and the Trust, on why empowering young people to take direct action is key to this work, and we chat to some of those volunteering at this special event. Please note this episode contains references to drugs. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust, presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. Nile: But it just made me feel so good. It was so real, it was almost like a drug. So my parents were doing heroin, I was doing music *laughs*. Nile: So I always thought that an artist was the guy trying to be the smartest person in the room, that everybody said, 'well, I wish I could play like him, I wish I could do that'. No, it was the person who touched people's hearts. Nile: We actually had them locked out the studio because we still hadn't finished the lyrics to We Are Family. Nile: Trees do, all plants, but trees, you know, especially, do so much for life. Let's not just talk about the overall environment, life, all life forms that exist. Adam: For 40 years, if you've been on a dance floor, you'll have been dancing to the music of one of our guests today. He co-founded Chic, produced and collaborated with David Bowie, Madonna, Richard Jackson, and well, to be honest, too many others to mention. But to give you an idea of the sort of musical success he's had, I can say that he has produced and performed on records which have sold more than 750 million albums and 100 million singles. Born to teenage parents in an environment where drug use was very much part of his every day, he has come from that background with an attitude to life which is as upbeat and as positive as his music. And together with his partner, Nancy Hunt, they have established the We Are Family Foundation, focused on empowering young people around the world. Together, they're in Northern Ireland, in Derry, to support and protect and indeed restore woodland in this country, and indeed Nile is on the Woodland Walks sofa and joined by one of the trustees of the We Are Family Foundation and indeed the Woodland Trust, David. So we'll come to David in a moment. Why don't we start now where it all started with the music? Reading about you and listening to stuff you've done, my impression is you're the most positive person I've read about and that surprises me because of the disjointed background you grew up in. So two questions. Do you think that's a fair description and if so, why? Nile: So the... the interesting thing about my childhood was that though my parents were heroin addicts, they were extremely loving and they believed in me so much so that, believe it or not, I was never, ever told what to do. They knew that I instinctively would figure it out. Or I was just one of those nerdy, nice kids that they knew would never get into trouble. I mean, I have never stolen anything. I've never, I bullied one kid once and the reason why is because everybody bullied me because I was a nerd. And when I bullied this kid, he started crying and I started crying. He's probably forgotten that incident. I will never forget it. It'll bother me my entire life. I could not believe that I did that. So my childhood was actually on one level very happy, but at the exact same time, and I don't know how these two situations could have coexisted, except only now forensically, but it was super happy, but then I actually called my childhood a fear-based childhood. I was afraid of things, so I did things to make me unafraid or happy. And music was that thing. But it just made me feel so good. It was so real. It was almost like a drug. So my parents were doing heroin. I was doing music *laughs*. Adam: I mean, it's weird you describe yourself as a nerd. You're the least nerdy-looking nerd I've ever come across, but fair enough. Nile: Oh God, test me. Adam: Oh really, okay, we'll do a nerd off *both laugh*. Fair, fair enough. But that positivity, I mean, you talk about being nice, but what I think is striking about your music, and perhaps problematic for some of it, is that it's relentlessly positive. And I think sometimes it's seen as sort of very surface level because of that and yet you talk about the deeper meaning behind the music, which I think some fans of yours perhaps don't see, or that's not what they're getting from it. Nile: But that's okay, though. Adam: That's fine. Nile: It's okay. Yeah, you're so correct. I mean, I'll try and quickly just tell you this story. So when I said I was a nerd, believe me, I studied music on a level that was so intense, that was ridiculous. So I thought it was my job to prove to my tutors and various teachers how smart I was, how well I learned the rules and the discipline of music. I wrote symphonic music when I was a child, I wasn't even 10 years old yet. And I remember I was going to one of my tutors. I was around 22 years old and I was a very serious jazz student. And I went into him one day with a very sourpuss attitude and look, and that was not me. He just was like, no, you're always so happy and you're always so upbeat. What's wrong with you today? And I said, well, look at this ******** pop music that I have to play tonight. Now, maybe I thought it was sort of ******** but maybe I was just trying to score brownie points with him because I always thought being a great musician was being the smartest guy or the greatest virtuoso in the room. So what happened was my teacher, I showed him the list of songs that I was playing that night. And I said, look at what I have to start my set with. This song by The Archies called Sugar, Sugar. He said, yeah, but now what's wrong? Why are you so sad? And I said, because I got to play Sugar, Sugar. You know, I want to play straight ahead jazz. He was like, that's okay that you want to play straight ahead jazz, that's what I love. But why is it bothering you to play Sugar, Sugar? And I said, because it goes, *sings* Honey, do, do, do, do, do, do, oh sugar, sugar, do, do, do, do, do, do, you are my candy girl, and you got me wanting you. And he said, Nile, that's a great composition. I went, you call Sugar, Sugar a great composition? He said, absolutely. He said, what do you think about it? He says, and I went, well, it sucks. It's some ******** bubblegum pop music. And he went, now, do you know that Sugar Sugar's been number one for about three weeks? And I said, yeah, but what does that got to do with anything? And he went, so those millions of people around the world, they're wrong, but you, Nile Rodgers, are right? And all of a sudden I felt, uh-oh, *laughs* something weird's getting ready to happen. So he held me behind my head and he pulled my face close to him and he said, Nile, let me explain something to you. Every record in the top 20 is a great composition. And so remember, we're going back now 50 years. I'm 73 years old, so we're going back a long time. And I say, every record in the top 20 is a great composition? He says, yes. I said, why would you say something so absurd? He says, Nile, because it speaks to the souls of a million strangers. And I literally started crying at that moment because in one spark, in a nanosecond, he explained to me what an artist was. So I always thought that an artist was the guy trying to be the smartest person in the room, that everybody said, well, I wish I could play like him. I wish I could do that. No, it was the person who touched people's hearts. It was the person who made people feel something, be it happiness, be it sadness or whatever. But a lot of my friends who are virtuosos, we just would go, wow, he can play his *** off. That was the thing. We didn't feel anything necessarily. Sometimes we did, but I was determined to try and make people feel something every time. And to me, I wanted people to feel happy because I wanted to feel happy. Why do I want to write sad music? Adam: So that phrase, speaking to the souls of a million strangers, it's clearly an iconic thing about your music. The other striking thing, I think, which you've talked about, is about life, not just your music, but I think obviously connected, is not about surviving the storm, but learning how to dance in the rain. Is that one of the tenets of your approach to music and life? Are they the same thing? Nile: That's exactly it. That's why people wonder why I do so much music, and it's because I believe that I could always, I honestly, and this is not an egotistical statement, I always believe that I can add something to the song. I believe that I can make it better, even if it's just a little better, but you can hear it. I mean, five minutes before I came down here, I asked an artist that I sent a piece of music to, I said, you never wrote me back. How do you feel about the guitar streams that I sent you? And Kygo just wrote me, he said, he just literally just wrote me, where the hell is it? I went, cool. He went, oh, yes sir, sounding really cool *laughs*. Minutes ago. Adam: Okay. So look, we need to talk more about that, but I want, you're here not for the music, but for the work of your, and Nancy, your partner's, foundation. And David Saddington, sitting next to you, is a trustee of that foundation. You also happen to be a trustee of the Woodland Trust as well. So the purpose of the We Are Family Foundation is what? David: I mean, the We Are Family Foundation, Nile and Nancy started 20, 25 years ago now, which is insane *both laugh*. And Nile, I mean, you'll tell it better than me in terms of sort of your origin story, which came from, you know, a horrendous event of 9/11. And Nile and Nancy wanted to do something positive for the world, to heal the world. And thankfully, you know, when they sort of asked that question around how do we sort of have more peace in the world, how do we have more harmony, young people came out as the answer and actually finding that hope, finding that positivity, finding those solutions. So the foundation really is built upon curating, nurturing and growing this talent and giving these young people visibility. Adam: And the work that the We Are Family Foundation is starting to do in Northern Ireland, we were today at a planting with Nile and Nancy and you. What is the project here? David: Yeah, my God, like, you know, I work on climate change every day. It's really sort of hard and difficult, but actually by doing something very local with the Woodland Trust, you make such a tremendous difference, not only just about place, but the communities which you bring along. So this partnership just made a lot of sense. And then when we started talking after that visit around sort of why it made sense to support from the foundation, Northern Ireland came out really as a winner. And the beautiful site we visited earlier in the Faughan Valley is so special because, in a sad way really, because so little of the ancient woodland is left in Northern Ireland, less than 1%. And the vision of the Woodland Trust in Northern Ireland to preserve those tiny fragments of ancient woodland, but protect them by restoring the land around it, letting them expand, is so special. And particularly given that site is, what, I mean, like 10 minutes away from Derry? That's so cool. It is right on the doorstep of so many people to restore such a precious habitat, but make sure that people can actually enjoy it and be part of that as well. Amazing. Adam: A little before Nile and I sat down to speak, we both visited Faughan Valley Woodlands with a group of young people who were there to help plant some trees. Now, this is an important area. Since 2000, the Woodland Trust has brought small clusters of native woodlands, including Brackfield, Oaks, Red Brae, Burntollet, Killaloo and Auter, all fragmented along the Faughan Valley, which is a site of special scientific interests. And it's been a vision of the Woodland Trust Northern Ireland for well over a decade, really, to try and connect these fragments for both people and nature. And so when I met the younger people who are busy planting trees, I asked them why they felt what they were doing was important. Speaker 1: So usually it's around every Sunday morning. We go around and it's just odd jobs, like it's never the same thing every week. It's usually planting trees, but recently we've been building fences to keep sheep out and removing tree guards. Adam: And why are you interested in that instead of watching TV or playing Xbox or whatever? Speaker 1: Well, I've always kind of liked outdoorsy stuff in nature and usually I wouldn't really do much on a Sunday. So it's just better to get out rather than do nothing on a Sunday morning so. Adam: And you're about to plant a tree. Speaker 1: Yeah. Adam: Do we know what type of tree that is? Speaker 1: I think it's oak. Adam: Oh, there we are see, I don't know, but you know, go on plant away. Speaker 2: I'm Sophie McGee. Adam: And what are you doing, Sophie? Speaker 2: Well, we're planting trees today for the 30th anniversary. It's just more interesting because we're actually doing something that's worthwhile for the environment and for ourselves. Adam: And do you feel you're making a difference? Speaker 2: Yes, every tree will help. No matter if it's a wee tiny stick or a big massive one. Speaker 3: Well my name is Evie, I'm 13 years old and I've always been interested in nature and plants and animals and stuff and then my auntie decided, or she showed me the Woodland Trust young volunteers so I thought that sounds right up my street. So I joined, I've only been here for a few weeks and so far I've really enjoyed it. We've been trimming down, we've been trimming away trees that'll grow back to let light into the forest floor. We've been looking at different kinds of moths and caterpillars and we've been for walks and here we are planting trees and meeting celebrities! Speaker 4: My name's Milo and you know we're with the Woodland Trust, you know, planting trees and stuff because, well, you know, trees are important and they support a lot of species and insects and wildlife and it's great for the water quality and soil erosion in general. And in my opinion personally, I think biodiversity is really important, especially in, the UK and Northern Ireland in general. It's just seem to be really sort of nature depleted and, you know, I kind of want to change that. I think it doesn't seem fair, you know? Adam: Nile, I think the phrase we've already used many times is We Are Family, the name of one of your most successful songs, but obviously the name of your foundation. And we've talked about your family. That's an obvious theme, family. I'm struck by that because of a disjointed background, even though loving and literarily full. Your family were artists and you had a full and rich literary life. The connection to family, clearly a theme for you. Why? Nile: It wasn't my idea. It was other people's ideas. And they talked me into it. I, as an artist, I wrote We Are Family for Sister Sledge and for Sister Sledge alone. I didn't write it for the world. I wrote it for them. And they, it was their job to now take it out into the world, which they did very well. But what happened as a byproduct of the composition was just the love that I put into the song that my partner Bernard Edwards and I put into the song, we were trying to talk about this wonderful family, you won't believe this, that we never met. We never met Sister Sledge until they came in to sing the song. The entire album was already produced. We didn't know any other way to make records except for by ourselves. So we made the record and said, okay, now sing this. And they were like, what? We've never been treated like this. We're like, we don't know any other way to make records. Me and Luther Vandross and Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson, and we go in and we write and produce, and there you go, here's your record. But so the love that we projected onto Sister Sledge was something that we superimposed upon them. We don't know whether they liked each other or not. We just presupposed that they did. And that's what we wrote, this loving, anthemic, wonderful dance song. And Kathy Sledge, at 15 years old, came in and just gave the performance of her life. We actually had them locked out the studio because we still hadn't finished the lyrics to We Are Family *both laugh*. It was the final song that we wrote, right? So we wouldn't let them come in. We're inside trying to be professional. And they're like, why can't we come in and hear what you guys are making as demos? Making as demos? No, we made, it's the record. But anyway, what happened was, as a result of the popularity of the song, this baseball team in America, the Pittsburgh Pirates, adopted it as their theme song. And they're not women, they're men. And we saw these big burly men going, we are family, I got all my sisters with me. And I was like, whoa. And anyway, they won the World Series *laughs*. Adam: But I mean, that's a fascinating insight how you made that song. But what I'm struck by is that you have talked about this deeper hidden meaning, your phrase, right, behind your songs. So that's an obvious question to ask. You talk about family. It's a key song in your career. It hints of the deeper meaning here is about the importance of your family. And your family are unusual. Super talented people, not particularly stable, I hope that's not insulting or anything. But it's sort of, I'd expect you to maybe be more traumatised by that or to have, but no, it's all good. It's all good. Nile: It wasn't, you see, it wasn't traumatic because I developed my own survival mechanism and it was actually good. But I don't think you realise this. I said, everybody told me, oh, you got Grammys, you got this, you're the head of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, you're the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I said, you know what? The thing that I am the most proud of in my life is at seven years old, I set the national truancy record for the United States of America *both laugh*. I cut school 75 days in a row and went to the movies. I learned more at the cinema in 75 days than everybody in my class learned in an entire semester. You could see Fellini, you could see Truffaut, you could see anything. My mom, when she had her second child, suffered from postpartum depression and threatened to murder my brother every day. So after a few weeks, and I can't remember how long it took because I was a child, but after her going to psychiatrist every day, that's how bad it was, they decided that she had to be separated from her children. She was a danger to herself and others. So they sent me off to Los Angeles to live with my maternal grandmother. And my youngest brother, who was just born, was sent to live with his paternal grandparents. And so while I was in Los Angeles, I was treated ah man, boy, talk about bullying. Every place in LA was sort of run by gangs. And I didn't know anything about the gang culture. And I spoke like a New Yorker. And everybody in LA was, you know, street slang. And, you know, and now look at how big hip hop is. You know, that's the way that that everyone spoke. I didn't know half the stuff they were saying. So kids would try and beat me up. They only beat me up once, no, twice, sorry, twice. And then I just decided, I'm not going to where those kids are. I'm going to where adults are. Because I got along with adults and I went to the cinema every day for 75 days straight. Adam: There's lots to talk about, not much time. But I do want to ask one more question around this sort of area. In actually the podcast we've just done, I spoke to quite a significant business leader who has ADHD. And I said to him at the end of the chat we had, if you had a magic wand and could wave away your ADHD, would you do it? And he went, no, I absolutely wouldn't do it because it's part of who I was, I am, and it's informed and helped me. And I wonder if there's a similar question about your drug past, whether if you could wipe it away, would you? Nile: Never, never, ever, ever, ever. I, you know, I developed a very horrible drug habit. I actually, my heart stopped six times in one night. I don't remember the medical phrase, but it's called something like multiple drug interaction. Like, so if you take cocaine and then you take alcohol and then you take either LSD or something else, your brain doesn't know which one is dominant, right? So it starts going, it tells your heart, do I expand or contract? I don't know. And every time they tried to revive me, I would only stay alert or alive, my heart would only pump a couple of times and then stop again. Adam: So what did that bring you as an artist in retrospect? Nile: Nothing. Because to me, all I remember was driving home, Not getting into an accident, not getting a ticket, driving home, parking in my same parking space, going up to my apartment. However, I mistakenly pushed the number 14 instead of 28. That saved my life. I didn't know that I did, I didn't know I made a mistake. I was so high, I thought 14 was 28. The way that they emptied the garbage in my building, they started at the top and they went down floor by floor. When the elevator hit 14, the doors opened, I fell out onto the floor dead. They just happened to be on the 14th floor and they saw me lying there dead. They go over, I have no pulse. They probably tried to do, I don't know any of this for a fact because I was, out, yeah. So I just assumed they must have tried to help me. They liked me, so they must have tried to do something. Fortunately, the hospital was two blocks away from my house. And they get me to the hospital. The doctors revived me six times. After the sixth time, they figured this is hopeless because they did everything they could possibly do. And he said that, we worked so hard to save your life, but in fact, I was filling out the death certificate and the orderly in the room said, hey doc, we got a live one here. And my heart just started going automatically again by itself. Adam: Amazing. I want to bring you back to your foundation. So we're here because of the good work you're doing for the environment. But the environmental issue may be relatively new, but you've been a political activist since your early days. This is not a recent conversion. You're super plugged in to these sort of big debates, aren't you? Part of the Black Panthers in your early age? Nile: Yeah, I was a subsection of the Black Panther Party when I was 16 years old. Adam: So lots of political issues. Why now the environment? Nile: It's just one of many issues that We Are Family Foundation supports. You asked me about being a nerd. So I grew up as a scientist. I have a scientific background. So I understand how these things in our environment are fundamentally to life itself. That, if you think about it, in today's world, there are a million different species on this planet, but that's only 1% of all the life that's ever lived on this planet. So it just goes up and down and up and down. And prior to humans, we were never the cause. Now we're the cause of things dying and species going away. Before, it was just the fact that Earth was this very volatile planet and over millions, billions, in fact, years, things were changing. But now we're doing the bad stuff. We're killing ourselves, which is incredible. And it's mainly because most people don't know that all these life forms are dependent upon one another. Last night I heard someone talking about plankton. And I was saying, yeah, well, look at how important plankton is. You know, like hydrogen, we need, we don't have hydrogen, we have no life. You know, it's like, so, I mean, trees do, all plants, but trees, you know, especially, do so much for life. Let's not just talk about the overall environment, life, all life forms that exist. Adam: We're running out of time. Just one last question each. David, first, you set the context of what that foundation is doing here and what the Trust is doing here. What are your hopes for if Nile, us, we all gather, come back in ten years' time? Your hope for the project by then would be what? David: I mean, my hope for the project in that time is to see the forest grow, because what I find so encouraging is when you let nature recover with a little bit of help from us, it doesn't take that long to actually start putting it right, you know, to restore those habitats, to protect that ancient woodland, to let it regrow, rejuvenate, with the help of people supporting communities at the same time. It can recover in such a remarkable amount of time, which I just find really quite hopeful and empowering in the world we're in at the moment. Will it restore very precious nature here in Northern Ireland? Will it inspire people to make a difference with all the volunteers we're bringing in? Absolutely. And who knows what the catalytic sort of nature of that will be, which I think is sort of magical to see. So it's a pleasure to bring this partnership together between the We Are Family Foundation and the Woodland Trust and see that grow and grow over the years. Adam: And I think often with trees, people think it's 100 years, their great-grandchildren will come. That's not the case, is it? 10, 20 years is a reasonable time frame to see significant change in this landscape we just visited this morning. David: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, some of the trees we were walking around this morning, the beautiful silver birches, which looked like a woodland, were 20 years old. And actually, it is incredible, actually, it doesn't take a huge amount of time for nature to recover. Adam: Nile, last question. It's been an amazing life. It is an amazing life, perhaps a great life. Your third act? Hard to imagine what new things you could do, but do you, what are the, how do you see your future and what you want to spend that third act doing? Nile: Wow, I'm doing so much now. I'm almost going back to where I started, which was with theatre performances that are more story-ented instead of just going out and playing a whole bunch of hit songs. I think I got super inspired completely accidentally. I wrote a song for Diana Ross years ago. And the first time I worked for the Prince's Trust, he said, now, my dear fellow, I wish I knew more of your music, everybody seems to love it so much. And then he became the King and he printed out his top 10 favorite songs. Number 3 was one of my songs. And he didn't realise it because, you know, the King, what have you got time to sit around and read, you know *laughs* And I said to him, I said, you know, Your Majesty, I promise you, you know some of my songs. But then his list comes out and my #3 song, I mean my song, Upside Down by Diana Ross is #3. He was like, that's one of my favorite songs, and there's a whole video that we put out of him sort of like doing his best dance to Upside Down. It's quite funny. I just thought that the one thing I've not really explored or worked hard on, I'm at the part of my life where I really do want to do all the music that I can do. And I want it to have the same effect as the pop music that I do. So I want my jazz music to make people feel good. So I did Candy Dulfer's last record and she's just unreal. So that's really, I think, where I want to be. And honestly, and I'm being very, very honest, I never keep track of any of this stuff. I did a conference a few weeks ago, and it was all these billionaires and all these tech guys and blah, blah, blah. And I said, you know, I did the biggest selling Madonna album in the world, we sold 10 million copies. All of my memories are from when I first heard this stuff. And somebody hollered out from the back of the room, 23 million copies, you know Nile, it keeps selling and keeps adding up. And I went, oh. In the first few weeks, we sold 10 million copies. And that's all I remember. And I move on to the next record and the next record and the next record. I had huge success with the last two Beyoncé records. But I've done that, and obviously you can see with Kygo, I continue to do that. That's never going to go away. But when I think in terms of full projects, it's going to be more theatrical and maybe more film. David: There's about two things as well. There's one thing that you said to me before, which I think is just so great about the foundation, about how you want the foundation to be bigger than the song, which I think is a pretty epic aspiration there to have, the We Are Family Foundation and We Are Family the song, but I just think that's amazing to think around, the impact which has been achieved over twenty-five years and thinking about the years to come, and then secondly, because with your audience, Adam, we have so many obviously sort of people who love getting out on walks and nature. And my goodness, you won't be up as early as this guy doing his morning walks. And you definitely need to follow him on Instagram at a moment because he's on a roll doing sort of walks all over the world. Nile: It's true. I love, you know, I wake up every morning very, very early. Right now, life and enjoying nature and being out in it is really exciting. Like when I was younger, being indoors, like I used to, there was a joke I used to say, I used to go to like clubs every night and go, ah the great indoors *all laugh*. Adam: Well, look, a sample of how busy you are is I know you have other meetings to go to and other jobs to do, so I won't keep you anymore. Here's to the good times. Thank you very much indeed, both of you. Nile: Thank you. I hope I wasn't too long-winded. David: Thank you. Adam: You were brilliant. It's a real treat to talk to you. David: A pleasure. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the Visiting Woods pages. Thank you.

As we head towards the New Year, we catch up with Woodland Trust CEO Darren Moorcroft to reflect on 2025 and look back at some of our favourite episodes. Darren takes us through some of the challenges and successes of the last 12 months and emphasises how the power of public support for woods and trees can create a greener, healthier future for people and nature. We also share some highlights from past woodland walks, including reading a tree with natural navigator Tristan Gooley, a former golf course being transformed into a thriving community space in Cheshire, and a visit to Welsh woodlands with Kate Humble. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust, presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. Adam: Well, as we head towards Christmas and New Year beyond that, many people will be looking back at what the past year brought them and indeed looking to the next year to see what things they want to do or what challenges they'll face. And I thought this was a good time for us to do that too on this podcast. Now, I have now done over 50 Woodland Walk podcasts for the Woodland Trust and so there's lots to pick from of some of my highlights over those 50 and I want to share just a few clips of those. But before we get to those clips, I wanted to share a chat I had with Darren Moorcroft, who is the chief executive of the Woodland Trust. And I began by asking him for his reflections on the challenges and achievements of the past year. Darren: So I think throughout 2025, probably the greatest challenges that we've faced have been a range of things, but I'd say probably the greatest has been the kind of political environment in which we're operating. Now as an organisation, we are apolitical so we advocate on behalf of woods and trees and it's felt a little bit like in 2025, there's been a growth agenda that's been versus nature and versus the environment and versus woods and trees, rather than thinking about them being an integral part of and actually underpinning our entire economy. So that's been a real challenge for us to continue to step up to and make the case for why woods and trees for people and nature are so really important. And I think that then plays into some of the great achievements that the Trust has had. It's not only been a case of taking the urgency of the cause that we are fighting for and growing the relevance and resonance of the organisation's voice so that we can stand up for people and who care about trees, the great thing about the Woodland Trust is our supporter base is really ethos sort of centred. So all of our estate is free and open to all, regardless of whether you are a member of the Trust. And that means that people aren't buying their way into the benefits that woods and trees give them. They are understanding that the benefits should be there for everyone and for nature. And therefore, it's really a strong argument when talking to decision makers at any level of government, whether that's local government, metro mayors or in the devolved administrations or Westminster, there's a real power to the voice that the Woodland Trust has for woods, trees, people and nature. And people care about woods and trees, as we saw with incidences like the Sycamore Gap and the Whitewebbs Oak in Enfield. When those trees are damaged, destroyed, then there's a real outpouring of grief, it's fair to say, because people care about this part of our natural heritage, which is really important in their individual lives, but actually for society as a whole. Adam: Well, there'll be more from Darren a little later on. But first, let's now go to one of my favourite clips. This is from a podcast where I met presenter and naturalist Kate Humble. Well, in early spring I went on a woodland walk in Wales with presenter, author and farmer Kate Humble, who was taking me around what promised to be some amazing woodland with her dogs. But as is increasingly common in these podcasts, We of course had to begin with me getting absolutely and entirely lost. Okay, this is an absolute disaster. Although I am bad at directions, this is not my fault. So Kate sent me a pin because she said, well, this is going to be hard to find my place. She sent me a map pin. I followed the map pin. Look, I'm here. I don't know if you can hear this. You probably can't hear this. This is the gate that's locked, which is across some woodland path. So I can't get there. And of course, there is no phone signal. So I'm going to have to drive all the way back to some town to find a phone signal and I'm already late. Okay. I have managed to find a village where there is a phone signal. I've managed to call Kate. And Kate...*laughs* Kate has clearly got the measure of me and has told me to give up. And she is now going to get in her car and find me in this village and I will follow her back. In the meantime, we have passed Google Map pins back and forwards, which apparently tell her that I'm sitting outside her house, but I really am nowhere near her house. So I seem to have broken Google, which, well, that's a first. Anyway, I've got a banana here. So if she's a long time, I have dinner. Meantime I'll just wait. This will never happen. This will actually never happen. We found Kate. We found her. So, yeah. So, well, you're leading me off with your two dogs. Kate: I am. I am. I'm leading you off into one of the most beautiful, I think. I mean, obviously I'm a little bit biased, but it is one of the most important areas of ancient woodland in Britain. This is the Wye Valley. We're the Lower Wye Valley, so we are the bit really where the River Wye is in its sort of last bit of its journey. It's risen in mid-Wales about... 136 miles from here. I know that because I've walked the whole route. Adam: Really? Kate: Yeah. Adam: We're not doing that today, are we? No, we're not. Kate: No, I promise. I promise, Adam *both laugh* So, yes, and we are basically about 5 or 6 miles from where it flows into the River Severn and then out into the Bristol Channel. And the woods around here are a lovely mix of broadleafs. So we're walking through broadleaf woodland now and this is literally, this is what I walk out of my front door. Aren't I lucky? Adam: You are lucky. Kate: I'm so lucky. So we've got a lovely mix of broadleaf woodland now and we're just coming into that time of year, which is the time of year that makes everybody's spirits lift because we are coming into spring. And if we actually just stop just for a second, you can hear that's a blue tit calling. And I mean, this isn't the perfect day for birdsong, but the birdsong is really picking up. And that's the lovely thing about living alongside woodlands. So even in the winter, even when you don't think there are any birds at all, what you hear in these woods is *makes ch-ch-ch noise* That's a very, very bad impression of a great spotted woodpecker. We're going to cut off piste a little bit and head down here. Adam: Is this a precursor warning that I'm about to get bumps and scrapes? Kate: This is a precursor warning that you might, yes, you might *laughs*. It's quite a steep descent. Adam: That's fine. Just as long as, my face is my fortune so as long as that's safeguarded throughout this, that'll be fine. Kate: *laughs* Of course. It'll be a soft landing. Adam: Okay, well that's good. Yeah, lots of leaves around. Kate: Lots of leaves. Adam: So, I mean, I thought we were going to chat about your conversion to nature and everything, but actually that's a lot of nonsense. This has been a constant in your life. Kate: Well, it's been, I mean, coming to Wales, so I did live in London, you know, after I left home. Adam: I mean, you didn't choose a nature career, did you? I mean, you're involved now, we can talk about that, but first, what was your first career? Kate: Well, I mean, career always seems such a grand word and that you've planned it. Adam: Yeah, OK. So your accidental career. Kate: So my accidental career. Well, I had this idea that I wanted to work in television, although, again, I don't really know where that came from. We're going just down here. Part of me also wanted to be a safari guide. Adam: Right, good. I can see the appeal of that. Kate: I went to, when I was 19, having never really been abroad at all, because again, our generation didn't really go abroad as a matter of course, and so I went to Africa when I was 19. Adam: Sorry, we're not talking on a holiday? Kate: No. It was a, it was a, it was probably a rebellion *laughs* Adam: You went as far away as possible, I'm not going out for the evening, I'm popping off to Africa. Kate: I'm popping off to Africa and I don't know when I'll be back. One of those. Adam: Good exit line. Kate: And I think it was that journey that turned my mind to really re-look and re-examine the natural world and think, it's extraordinary, it's extraordinary. It's mind-blowing in every way. And yeah, so even though I then came back and thought, I want to have this sort of career in telly, what I really wanted to do in my career in telly was work for the natural history unit. Adam: Right. And is that what you did? Kate: No. Adam: And do you feel, I mean, you feel passionate about it. Do you feel evangelical about it? Kate: Yes. Adam: So what, do you have a prescription to help to bring others on side? Kate: I wish it didn't mean, I wish you didn't have to ask me that question. I wish it didn't have to be an on side. Adam: Do you feel that's an unfair question? Kate: No, I don't. I think it's a very fair question because lots of people don't feel or don't, perhaps don't experience it, experience the advantages of the natural world or they haven't been given the opportunities to properly understand the impact that it can have on us and all those impacts are positive. I mean there's loads of science and you know it was talked about endlessly during the pandemic about how green spaces are good for our mental health, blue spaces are good for our mental health, being outdoors, being in nature, listening to birdsong, seeing plants grow, all those things are good for us. But we've got to a place where we've been so divorced from it, where we look for our pleasures in shopping malls and online, and we forget that actually all we need is right here. Adam: One of the themes that has come up over our 50 or so podcasts many times is the fact that a lot of people feel rather lost in the environmental debate. They know there's problems but don't feel they can do very much about it. And that's an issue I asked Darren Moorcroft, the Woodland Trust CEO, to address. Darren: I suppose in the face of some really big challenges that we face from climate change to nature loss, it can sometimes feel that that is such a big job, what can an individual do to play their part? And that might be that they can plant a tree if they have the opportunity, or if they're managing land, they are able to integrate trees into that land. But lots of us don't have that opportunity. So being a supporter of the Woodland Trust, giving a membership to the organisation, regular contributions adds real value. And it adds real value in a number of ways. The first of which is it gives that greater sense of voice when we as an organisation and me as chief executive can walk into what can be considered the corridors of power and say people care about woods and trees, they care about nature and they care about the benefits of those woods and trees for people. So it gives a real point to the sword when we're doing our advocacy. But the other way as well is, if you don't own large parts of, chunks of the UK, then actually what your contribution can do is be placed together with lots of others and we can make a difference with you and on your behalf. So, the individual, most individuals across the UK can't restore peatland. They can't plant new forests. But we can and we have done and we will do and continue to do so. And the only way we can do that is through those contributions that individuals make, which may on the surface only look like a small part of a bigger jigsaw, but without those small pieces, we don't able to create the picture that everybody wants to see in the landscape. Adam: Well that's Darren talking about landscapes, which reminded me of another podcast in which I met a famous explorer who had, I suppose, relearned the skill of navigating the landscape without any tools, maps, compasses or computers. Well today I'm off to meet a writer, navigator and explorer who has led expeditions in five continents and I'm told he's the only living person to have both flown solo and sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic. He's known as the natural navigator because he has learned how to find your way through the natural world, really by looking at the clues that nature provides us. Tristan Gooley: There's a very widespread feeling that we ought to connect with nature, that we should feel something, that if we just go and stand in a wood, that it should somehow magically make us feel something. But actually, our brains have evolved to be doing things and to be understanding things. And if we think about the animal kingdom, which we're obviously part of, we're not the fastest by a long way. We're not the strongest by a long way. We don't have the best senses. But the one thing we do really, really well, our one trump card, is an ability to take in a landscape and understand the patterns and build a more interesting and meaningful picture from what we see than any other creature can. So every single organism, including every single tree, is full of meaning, which is another way of saying nothing is random. And if we just come around the side of this one, I'll be able to show you, hopefully, and this one will be a good one to... So a nice introduction to the idea that that nothing is random is that if you ask anybody to draw a tree, you'll get a symmetrical tree. Symmetrical trees, of course, don't exist. When we think about it, we know that. Every single tree appears as a unique individual, and that means that there's a reason for all the asymmetries and the differences we find. I mean, as we look at this one here, we can see it's not symmetrical. There's more tree on the left side as we look at it, pretty sort of, pretty clear asymmetry. So noticing that it's not symmetrical on its own is not fascinating. But knowing that we get most of our light from the southern side and that every tree is harvesting light, we put those two pieces together and that tree is clearly showing us that south is out this way. Adam: Right. Is that true? Tristan: *laughs* It is, it is, yeah. I'm pretty confident on that one. Adam: Now, while a lot of the work of the Woodland Trust involves protecting what we have, a lot more is about creating new woodland in areas which didn't previously have it. And that's why I wanted to include this exciting podcast about a whole new landscape creation programme. Well today's podcast is a bit of an unusual one because I'm off to an abandoned golf course in Cheshire overlooking Liverpool, not far away in fact, and the vision is to create this once golf course into a thriving mosaic of habitats, including lush broadland, woodland, grassland meadows and wooded glades dotted with wild flowers. Throughout the site, they're creating a network of grassy paths so people can walk through them and get far-reaching views of the Welsh borders, the Western Pennines and the Bowland Fells, along with, of course, Liverpool and the Mersey Estuary. And very excitingly, the man actually who's all the tree planting there is also in a band and it's his music and his band's music you can hear in the background. More about that a little later. Tim: Imagine you've got an oak tree. And that throws down 40,000 acorns in usually every four years. So it doubles its weight above ground. Adam: Sorry, 40,000 acorns? Tim: 40,000. A mature oak, yeah. Adam: It's worth pausing on that. Tim: *laughs* I know, it's incredible isn't it. Adam: A mature oak drops 40,000 acorns a year? Tim: Every four years, roughly. Adam: Because it doesn't do it every year, do they? Tim: No. So, it has what they call a mast year, which is the year when everything's come together. It's usually based on the previous weather, weather conditions. So, that doubles the weight of the tree above ground, that throws all those acorns. Now you imagine they're gonna be a couple of centimetres apart on the ground. They're not all going to make it. What they're hoping is that something will take those away. So, a jay or a squirrel, they'll move those acorns away. Not all of them will get eaten. In fact, jays let the acorn germinate, and then they eat the remains. So, they wait to see where the oak tree comes up and then they come back and eat the remains of the cotyledon. So, you imagine if all those were going to germinate, there'd be a mass rush, and what they're waiting for is for the parent plant to die. And if that falls over, then they can all shoot up, but they're not all going to survive. So maybe only one, maybe two will survive out of those 40,000 if they're close to the tree. Now, what we're doing here is, imagine there's the parent plant, the parent plant's not here. We've already spaced these out by this distance already. So, we've given them a better chance. Adam: Fantastic. Well, it's been a great day for me, a half day out here, and I'll definitely return. It's an amazing, amazing, positive place, isn't it? And the sun has shone on us, sort of metaphorical smile from above. Brilliant. Thank you very much. Well from Liverpool, let's go back to the home of the Woodland Trust in Grantham, back to its CEO, Darren Moorcroft, for a final word from him. Darren: I think my message for everyone as we enter into 2026 is think about the difference that you can make and how the Woodland Trust can help you. Now that might be providing a membership subscription to the organisation in order for us to underpin the work that we do. It may be taking advantage and being one of the 7,000 plus schools and communities that we saw in 2025 stepping up and asking for free trees to plant into their community. Or many other ways, but the real difference that you can make is to stand up for woods and trees and the conversations you have and the actions that you take, because we as an organisation are fighting for the health of people and the planet with every tree. And that means improving the lives of people where they live, improving the lives of nature where they live, and also making sure that we broaden and deepen the support that woods and trees get so that when people say should we protect that tree, the automatic answer is yes. Should we restore that woodland? The automatic answer is yes. And should we create more woods and trees? Absolutely, the answer is yes. So that would be my message to people going into 2026. Adam: And so, if you can afford it and want to become a member of the Woodland Trust, they would very much like to have you join up and in fact, maybe give it as a gift this Christmas. But even if you can't afford it or don't want to, just by being the voice of nature, you will be one of its greatest friends. From all of us, to all of you, this year and next, can I wish you many happy wanderings. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the Visiting Woods pages. Thank you.

You might look at everyday items in a different light after this episode, as we hear best-selling author and Woodland Trust ambassador, Jonathan Drori CBE, reveal some of the fascinating things we make with plants. From the well-known coffee bean to the tree bark that's used in spacecraft, he shares some of the amazing relationships between familiar objects and the natural world as we meet beneath a beautiful beech tree on Parliament Hill in London. These stories and more feature in Jonathan's latest book, The Stuff That Stuff Is Made Of, which aims to spark an interest in nature for younger readers. He explains how discovering the wonder of nature in a fun, exciting way as a child can inspire a lifelong connection, just as it did for him. We also discover why fruit is sweet, the value of the mandrake plant, how beech is thought to resist lightning and more. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust, presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. Adam: Jonathan Drori CBE, is a man of many talents. He's a trustee of the Eden Project and of Kew Gardens, a member of the Royal Institution, a man who used to be a senior commissioning editor at the BBC, and he's also an ambassador for the Woodland Trust and a best-selling author of books such as Around the World in 80 Trees and his latest, The Stuff That Stuff Is Made Of, a book for younger people about the plants in their lives and the things they make which are all around them. And whereas these podcasts often take me on long journeys, this time, well, it's just a hop, skip and a jump away in London at Parliament Hill, where we met to talk about his book and the things we didn't know about the stuff around us all. Right, we are... it's a bit windy right here. It actually sounds windier than it is, but we are in Parliament Hill, or thereabouts, with Jonathan Drori, who has written the stuff that stuff is made of, and is also a big noise, essentially, in the Woodland Trust itself, of which we can talk lots about. But we're standing by a beech tree. So, Jonathan, why did you write this book? Jonathan: I wanted to do something that would make kids kind of interested in the natural environment. Starting with the things they're interested in, which are kind of ice cream and chocolate and sport and dinosaurs and all that kind of thing. And use their own interests to sort of spark other interests in nature, in trees and plants, and also actually in history and folklore and culture, which are all sort of bound up with those things. One of the things I've tried to do with the book is to explain things from the plant's point of view as well as from a human point of view. So there are all these qualities that we desire plants for, whether that's sort of sweet things to eat or things to build with or things to make musical instruments out of. And they're all in the book and that's fine. But I've also tried to explain, you know, why has bamboo evolved in the way that it has? And why has a beech tree evolved the way it has? Why does chocolate have sweet mush around the seeds? You know, why do the grasses feed us? Why is sugar cane sweet? And why do we love it? Adam: And so through this book, you're trying to attempt to do that by explaining stuff like tea and chocolate, indeed, where it comes from. Jonathan: Yeah, I mean, there are 30 different species that I deal with in the book. And on the right-hand side of the page, there's a whole lot of information about the way that the plant grows, how it's cultivated, the relationships that it has with other plants, with the little critters that might pollinate it or disperse the seeds. And on the left-hand side, there's a whole lot of stories about the plant, all kinds of kind of fascinating facts and really about the human relationships with that plant. Adam: Do you think we have lost that connection with the plants around us. So that this sort of stuff might have been really obvious a few generations ago or not. Jonathan: *laughs* A leading question, m'lud! Yes, I mean, you know, with urban living and things being in packets at the supermarket, you know, we perhaps don't think very much about where the basic materials for our existence come from, whether it's things we eat or things we build with or things that we just sort of like looking at and playing with. Adam: Is it important to know those connections? I mean, you as someone who likes nature, I can understand why you might feel that's important. But is it important for us all to rebuild that connection? Jonathan: I think that my love and interest in nature came from my parents, actually, at the time, dragging me around Kew Gardens and Richmond Park and telling me stories about the trees and plants that were growing there. And they did that in such a way that I would be interested because they knew who I was and so they found the things that would sort of excite me. And I think I want to do the same for young people so that they grow up with a kind of interest and admiration and some sort of understanding of nature. But you can't sort of ram it down people's throats. It needs to be fun. Adam: Yeah. But why is that important? I understand that's what you want to do, but why is it important? Jonathan: Well, we've only got one planet. And if we don't look after it, then, you know, our lives and livelihoods are doomed. So that's the sort of very basic reason. And also we are part of nature, so just, not having an understanding or rejecting nature is kind of rejecting part of ourselves, I think. Adam: So it's a soft environmental message here. And that's also seems to me important because, well, from my perspective anyway, it feels like a lot of environmental charities and environmentally minded people push a sort of narrative, the world could end, it's all a disaster. And actually, I worry that, although it's well-meaning, it might turn people off. Now that isn't what you're doing with this. Jonathan: No, there's none of that in the book, none of it at all. What I've tried to do is to excite people about the stories of pollination, of the little critters that live in and around plants, the relationships that the plants have with other plants and so on in the environment, and make that sort of exciting and fun and interesting enough that people will just say, say to themselves, that's kind of something that's worth protecting. Maybe they won't think that for 10 or 15 years. Adam: There's lots of interesting stories here. I think the one that really struck me, I think, was about vanilla. So vanilla, obviously, people use it in cooking, they might use essence of it or whatever. But am I right in saying, you think it's in the book, you actually go, there was a boy, and you name this boy... oh sorry is that a bird I can hear? *laughs* sorry! Jonathan: It's the parakeets. Adam: Oh it's the parakeets, I thought there was a squeaky wheel behind me! No no. All right, parakeets in the background. A named boy who taught the world how to pollinate vanilla. Tell me that story. Jonathan: Yes, it was an amazing story actually about vanilla that in about the sort of 1840s, when they brought vanilla plants over from Mexico where they were native, to Africa where they wanted the plantations to grow and the little bee that pollinates vanilla didn't really travel. And so they had to find something else that would pollinate the vanilla plants so that the vanilla plants would propagate and grow. And sadly, they couldn't find any insect that would do that. No local insects would do this in Africa or outside Mexico. So all the vanilla plants had to be pollinated by hand. And it was a 12-year-old boy, Edmond Albius, who worked out how to do this. And by basically sort of cutting a bit of membrane and then squidging the two bits together and right to this present day, that's the way that vanilla is pollinated, by hand. And that's why it's so expensive. Adam: It's amazing, isn't it? Apart from the vanilla story, do any others stand out in your mind? Is there ones your favourites? Jonathan: Oh, it's like asking your favourite children, isn't it? I mean, there are all sorts of things in there that I notice when I talk to young people, to sort of eight, nine-year-olds, they sort of come alive. Those who've read the Hogwarts stories and Harry Potter, they're amazed to discover that mandrake is actually a real plant. And of course, mandrake used to be very, very valuable because it was one of the very few plants that could be used as an anaesthetic. And people used to, back in the Roman days, they used to mix it with wine and then sort of do minor operations and things. Don't try this at home! It's actually a real plant. It grows somewhat, I've seen this in this country, but it grows in Italy quite well and it has these rather sort of mind-altering attributes to it, which are a bit odd. Adam: So it might be used by people who want that sort of druggy effect, but does it have any other purpose? Jonathan: Well, not now, but it was an anaesthetic, and anaesthetics were so sort of unlikely, you know, if you think about it, you take something and it makes the pain go away, that people associated the plant with witchcraft, especially as it gave you the impression of flying. And so a plant that could alter your outlook and the way that you see the world so profoundly, and the way you perceive it so profoundly, was associated with witchcraft. And people made all sorts of stories about the mandrakes that they, that when you pulled it out of the ground, they said, that you could hear it scream because sometimes the roots look a bit like a person, especially with a bit of judicious whittling. And so people would say you've got to get a dog, tie the dog to the mandrake root and then kick the dog or throw it some food and it pulls it out. And the scream, they said, of a mandrake root could make you, could kill you. Adam: And weren't they doing that to stop people, scaring people away from getting their valuable mandrake? Jonathan: That's right. It was such a valuable plant that the ideal thing to do would be to put these superstitions around, these notions around, so people wouldn't pull them out, because it's very valuable. Adam: Hippy dragon sort of thing. Well, look, we are here in London, a park in London, a beautiful park. But you've taken me to one of the few trees that actually appears in the book, because so many of the, well, I think almost all the trees really, you wouldn't find in the UK, is that right? Jonathan: Well, you can certainly find eucalyptus. You can, you know, it's not a native, but you can find them here. And any other trees that are in there, you'd certainly find in botanic gardens. And there are fir trees, Christmas trees in there as well. But here we are by a lovely, lovely beech. And I mean, there are lots of reasons I love beech trees. In the book, one of the reasons that it's in there is because beech wood is made for, is used for veneer and it's used for making furniture and so on in a sustainable way, so it's a very pleasing wood. Adam: And why is it good for furniture then? Jonathan: It's stable, it doesn't shrink too much. Adam: Is it bendable, is it one of those trees that you can... Jonathan: Yeah and you can sort of use steam to bend it into the shapes that you want. And there are these fantastic machines that make veneer by sort of peeling off a kind of onion ring, rotating the trunk and then sort of peeling off the wood underneath to make veneer. As I say, using sustainable beech forests. But one of the things that I love about the beech is the link with superstition because in Germany, and actually in quite a few countries in Europe, there's this saying that lightning never strikes a beech tree. And in actual fact, lightning strikes beech trees just as often as any other trees that are of similar height. But beech trees seem to survive. And the reason they survive is because of this wonderfully smooth bark. The bark continually renews itself, unlike other trees. And so you've got a layer that is sloughing off all the time and leaving this very smooth bark. And that smoothness means that during wet weather, during a storm, the outside of the tree has a continuous film of water on it. It's wet all the way and that can act as a lightning conductor, whereas the craggy old oak, that has dry bits in it and so the electricity from a lightning strike is diverted through the middle of the tree and would blow it asunder. So the beech tree can survive. Adam: Fantastic. Talking about the bark on the tree, one of the other things I spotted in your book was, I think it's cork trees and how the bark of that is special in the way we use it, but also in the way that the tree regenerates, just explain a bit about that. Jonathan: Yes, I mean, most trees, if you sort of cut a whole ring around the tree, it'll die. But cork actually regenerates itself. So you can harvest the cork every 10, 12 years or so. And cork forests in the Iberian Peninsula, in Portugal and in Spain have a fantastic sort of ecosystem around them. The lynx and wild eagles and all sorts of wonderful things that live in and around. And also pigs go rooting for the for the acorns. And that ecosystem is a very important one. And it depends on us all using cork. So don't use plastic cork. Adam: Right. Oh, I was going to say, unfortunately, a lot of wines now have plastic. Jonathan: Try and go to the ones which are made out of proper traditional cork. And you're doing the planet a service by doing that. Another interesting thing about cork is that it's a fantastic insulator and it's actually used in the nose cones of spacecraft. Adam: So why? That is, I did read that and that was extraordinary that something as advanced as a spacecraft would be using cork. It seems unbelievable. Jonathan: Well, you know, millions of years of evolution have given the cork oak this way of resisting fire. So it's got tiny, tiny air pockets, minuscule microscopic air pockets in a non-flammable kind of medium. And that is an amazing insulator. And it's light, it chars on the outside and then flames just can't get through. Adam: And it's soundproofing isn't it? Jonathan: Yes, it's used in recording studios. Adam: Yes. Well, when I was 17, I took a fancy to corking my whole bedroom in cork tiles, which looked terrible to be honest *laughs*. It took my father years to pry it off the wall again. Jonathan: Was that in the seventies perhaps? Adam: Yes exactly. It was trendy then for a short period. Jonathan: Roman women used to wear cork-soled sandals, which you can still get, but so they didn't sort of walk in the poo and whatnot. But they're very good, very light, very insulating. Adam: One of the ones I suppose we should talk about, interesting, is cotton, because it has an interesting background, a natural background, but also one, of course, deeply connected with slavery and everything. Jonathan: So, you know, it was used in... South America among the Aztecs and so on to make armour actually. They made very, very thick cotton twill that they used as armour. And then it became fabulously valuable in the sort of 17th, 18th century especially, as a textile for our clothing. And unfortunately, as you say, it's got this link with slavery along with sugarcane and tobacco, these were the big crops that people grew, slave owners grew, in the Caribbean and in the southern states of North America, and then made the finished products in Britain that were then sold all over the world. Adam: And I mean, you have some nice, lovely illustrations here of actually the cotton on the plant and it's a puffball. It doesn't look real, actually. Jonathan: It's bonkers! It's an absolutely bonkers plant. Adam: Yes but didn't people, when they first saw it, thought they were actually little sheep or something? Jonathan: Yes *laughs* Well, the writers of the time, you know, they were all sort of knew that they would get a big audience if they made up some stuff so I'm not sure whether they really believed it. But certainly there was a textbook of the, I think it was the 17th century or early or late 16th century, where they sort of wrote, had diagrams of, because they thought it must be some kind of wool, they had diagrams showing little tiny sheep at the end of twigs on the plant *laughs* which supposedly would, you know, sort of the twigs would reach the ground in the evening and then the little sheep would, I don't know, wander off or something. Adam: No one actually ever believed this, you're saying? Jonathan: Well, I mean, no, well, I think it was created as a spin, but I think a lot of people did believe it, actually, in the same way that they believed in sea monsters and all those sort of naval stories that were brought back. And it was a very, yes, people believed all sorts of kind of nonsense and about where cotton came from. But the plant itself is very real and quite an odd one because you have these lovely sort of pale creamy flowers. It's sort of quite big, the size of a walnut kind of thing, you know. And then you get the seed pod which is absolutely bursting with all the fibre inside and the fibre's there to help the seeds carry on the wind. That's what the plant wants it for. But these burst open with this sort of great wodge of, I suppose, it looks like cotton wool. And it pretty much is cotton wool. And then the seeds are removed in a process called ginning. And the fibre that's left is then spun into thread. Adam: Amazing story. The last one I suppose I really want to talk about is something you started with saying, you know, engaging younger people in things they know like chocolate. Chocolate doesn't come from Tesco or Sainsbury's, it comes from the cacao plant. Now, tell me a bit about that, but specifically what surprised me, if I remember this correctly, you said the chocolate we know was invented in England, is that right? Jonathan: Well, the chocolate bar was invented by Fry back in the middle of the 19th century. And before that, people would have chocolate drinks, which were quite popular, especially at the time when coffee houses were very sort of blokey places. Adam: This is about the 1800s, is it? Jonathan: Yeah. Coffee houses were places where, you know, men would go. Adam: Yeah, they were they were risky places, they were sort of like pubs almost, you know, like... Jonathan: Yes, whereas families and women would go to chocolate houses. And some of those chocolate houses then became, you know, well-known clubs in London around Pall Mall and so on. They, but chocolate originally from Central America was a drink that would be taken quite bitter, mixed with maize, very, very nourishing, and was sometimes coloured with red dye, sort of symbolizing blood. And it was part of kind of rituals that they had where they, some of them were quite unpleasant rituals actually and then when it came, when chocolate came through the Spanish to Europe in the sort of 16th century, people immediately started adding sugar and milk and things to it, made it a lot more palatable. Adam: Right. So it wasn't just the chocolate bar, so we really made it into the sweet drink that everyone knows. Maybe not England, but Europe. Jonathan: Yes, and the and the chocolate bar was, that started in Britain. That was a British thing, with Fry and I think you can still get Frys chocolate? Adam: Yeah, I was going to say, I do see it every now and then. It's not as popular as Cadbury's and all the others, but one does still see it. Jonathan: You know, if you think about it from the plant's point of view, the reason that it's got this amazing fruit, which is about the size of a junior rugby ball, that grows very peculiarly on the stem of the plant, on the tree trunk, the reason it's got this amazing fruit is so that it can find something to be attracted to it that will disperse the seeds. That's why fruit is sweet. And the original thing that dispersed these fruit were probably sort of large, large mammals, which may not be around anymore. But the fruit is, the seeds are in this sort of sweet mush inside the cocoa pod. But your sort of big mammal would come along and gulp the whole thing down because it's lovely and sweet and then poo out the seeds somewhere else or spit them out because the seeds themselves are very bitter. And with coffee and chocolate and quite a few other things like apples even, the seeds are very bitter but the actual fruit is lovely and sweet. And the reason for that is so that something gobbles it but doesn't chew up the seeds. And then those get either spat out or pooed out together with a bit of fertiliser. Adam: Right, amazing. And also, I mean, we've talked a bit about the social aspects of a lot of these plants. Chocolate itself had a huge social impact, wasn't it? It was seen as sort of an alternative, wasn't it, to alcohol and sort of bringing people into the fold of the righteous living and away from terrible drinks. Jonathan: Yes, yeah, and it's a much gentler drink than coffee, which would have been quite a strong stimulant. Chocolate also has stimulants in it, but it's a bit more gentle. Yeah. Adam: So it's an interesting book. I know this is part of something very important in your life about reconnecting with nature and spreading that message. Are you optimistic that things are looking up in that way, that people are engaging more? Jonathan: I think, you know, I could make an argument for being pessimistic or optimistic, depending on the day, actually. But I do notice that young people have a kind of care for the environment that seems to be growing. And I think that's for obvious reasons, that they see it as their future. I'd say, essentially, I'm an optimist. And when you see plants growing and think about, the fact that they've been growing for zillions of years and will be growing for zillions of years, that is a sort of kind of optimistic thing. I think that young people are much more caring of the environment and sort of interested or I would say open to being interested. So if you kind of open their eyes to things, they're genuinely keen to know more and to do something. So all these schools projects that there are, all these things that the Woodland Trust actually does with schools are very, very valuable because I think with a lot of young people it just needs a little bit of a nudge and they're quite willing to go in a good direction. Adam: That's a great note to end on and we've, I was worried this morning it looked like it would pour down but we've been spared that. So Jon, thank you very much. Jonathan: Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of 5 minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special. Or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk and we look forward to hearing from you.

Tinuke Oyediran is on a mission to explore all of the UK's temperate rainforests, so for our latest episode, we showed her around magical Bovey Valley Woods in Devon. Tinuke is an adventurer and former professional roller skater, and was a contestant on the BBC's Survivor UK show. She's really passionate about nature, pushing boundaries and sharing her experiences to educate and inspire online communities. As we take a riverside ramble through the rainforest, we hear Tinuke on her wild adventures, the healing powers of nature and her efforts to address the lack of representation in the great outdoors. We also hear about her life-changing experience on Survivor UK, how being outdoors helped her to cope with trauma, past and future adventures and the three Guinness World Records she holds! Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. Adam: Well, today I am meeting a professional roller skater, which is a first for me anyway. She was also one of 18 contestants marooned on a deserted location in a BBC reality show which saw people divided into two groups and tasked with competing in a range of challenges in the hope of eventually winning the title of sole survivor. She's meeting me on what I hope to be a less arduous but no less interesting adventure visiting a really, a really very rare sight, a temperate rainforest here in the UK in Devon. Tinuke: Yeah. So my name is Tinuke. I am an adventurer, I'm an online storyteller, triple Guinness World Record holder randomly enough, I'm completely obsessed with being in the outdoors and outside of my comfort zone, so being here in a new temperate rainforest is a great start. Adam: Right. Well, I've I've gotta first of all, you you threw away the line 'a triple Guinness World Record holder'. So I've gotta ask you about that. What what's the three world records you hold? Tinuke: I know. So it's I I used to be a professional roller skater in chapter number one. Adam: Wow. Tinuke: And it's the most cartwheels, the most burpees in a minute on roller skates and then the most spins on the e-roller skates in a minute as well. I did them all in lockdown, so I was just like on a mission. I had time. Adam: OK. And e-roller skates are battery powered are they is that what they are? Tinuke: Yeah, yeah, they're like, they're like a little, like, roller skate segway things that you put on your feet. It's pretty epic. You can go, like, up to 40 miles an hour. It's like proper adrenaline. Adam: Wow. So I mean, I know we're here to talk about forests and the outdoors. Tinuke: We are indeed. Adam: But I have to, I've never met a professional roller skater before, so I just I have to begin with a couple of questions about that. So how how did that come about? Tinuke: So I I used to be in a show called Starlight Express, which is a musical. Adam: Oh yes, of course. Who doesn't know Starlight Express! Tinuke: Literally. Adam: So so but you were a roller skater before that. Tinuke: I wasn't. I was a dancer before that. I I change my mind a lot as you *laughs* Adam: Ah so is that how it works, I often wondered that because they they go through a lot of roller skaters and I thought, that's a limited pool they're fishing in so so they get dancers and teach them how to roller skate. Tinuke: Yeah. Yeah, they train us up and then if you can do the, if you can roller skate by the end of the sort of like training up then you go on to the show. And I did that for two years in Germany and then I came back to the UK and was a professional roller skater for like, 10 years, which was great. Adam: Amazing. Are you still, are you still doing all of that? Tinuke: I do sometimes yeah, I have I have a little cute troop of hula hoop gals who I meet up with every now and then and, like, do some fun jobs with. Yeah. Adam: OK, good. Alright. And I promise not to ask you anymore about roller skating. Right. So you are an adventurer. And I know you are on is that right, a sort of mission to to look at the temperate rainforests and and forests of the UK? Tinuke: I am indeed. Yeah, that among many other missions. So I suppose I could go in how I started, which follows on from the roller skate story, is I went on a show called Survivor on the BBC. Essentially, it's a show where *laughs* they basically just like strip you of all your human rights and desert you on an island and you have to survive in the wilderness out there. So I had a love of the outdoors and forests and woodlands and the wilderness, everything before. But that's what sort of shifted it into making it a bit of a mission to explore. Adam: And how did you how did you do? For those who haven't been following Survivor, which is a massively popular programme, but for those who don't know it, how did you do? Tinuke: I did good. Yeah. Yeah, I did good. It was absolutely brutal in, both physically and emotionally. It's quite it's quite a hard show in terms of like, ohh tactics and things like that. So that was quite tough, but I loved being, living in the wild, building shelters, catching food and yeah, just living out there. That was, that was incredible. Adam: Had you done anything like that before? Tinuke: So I had recently gone and lived out in a a beautiful forest near Stonehenge for a week on my own as you do *laughs* and that was a lot of shelter building and bushcraft skills and all of that, fire making, so I I... Adam: And you just taught yourself this? I mean you just turn up and yeah, I'm gonna sit in the forest now for a week, I better learn how to build a fire or what? *both laugh* Tinuke: Yeah, like some London City babe, just like, where am I? I had done some, like basic skills and and beforehand, so I did know what I was doing. I'd done lots of shelter, building and stuff like that before, but yeah. Adam: And what was, so you said, catching your own food, this is killing animals and eating them, is that? Tinuke: We we, no, we we had, it was I I wasn't, you're not allowed to, I wasn't allowed to catch them and eat them. So I had things with me that I brought in, rabbits and then I forest forage-ed, foraged, foragaged? Foragaged a lot. Adam: Whatever. I know what you mean *both laugh* Very cool. Tinuke: Yeah. Yeah, that was crazy. Adam: And so so that's your background. Lots of different bits to that obviously. And and this latest adventure to sort of travel around the UK an look at forests. Why why that particularly? Tinuke: Yeah. So I first of all, I think it was just online I saw something. This must have been a couple of years ago, something about like UK rainforests and I was just like, what? I had no idea at that point that there were rainforests in the UK and I started off with a rainforest actually not too far from here, which was the first one I went to go visit and and I just started learning all about it. I I do lots of storytelling online and sharing with my community and like educating people about what we can find in the UK. And so that was my first obsession where my rainforest addiction begun and then since then, I've gone up to lots of them in Scotland. Yeah. So yeah, that's where it all kind of began. Adam: So very good. And so it is a, I mean it's it's a surprise I think to most people to be honest that there is a a temperate rainforest in in the UK at all. And it's that in particular which you are looking at on this, you know, adventure, this tour of the UK, not forests in general, it is rainforests. Tinuke: It is rainforests, yeah. Adam: And there's a lot of talk now about the sort of mental wellbeing, and in fact, only a few weeks ago, when the King had some problems with his recurring cancer, he and some other members of royalty I think were talking about the healing powers of being out in nature. So it's sort of a very topical thing. What's your take or experience of that? Tinuke: Yeah. Forest bathing is a thing. I love it. All about sort of bathing your senses and being in the forest, obviously. But my personal journey with nature and healing is a very strong one and is definitely rooted in why I do what I do and why I've chosen this as a career. So when I was about 28, I went through quite a traumatic time where I lost all of my sort of like initial close family. So my cousin, brother, my mum and dad. And I was super young obviously at the time and I started going out into nature as what I thought was like a way to escape my reality. And I went on lots of crazy adventures, hiking, going into the Grand Canyon, going hiking around Iceland. And it was sort of what I thought was a way to get away from everything. But it just became my biggest healing tool ever, and I have recently liked to call it adventure therapy or adventure healing and and it's all about putting yourself out of your comfort zone, being somewhere where you're not normally are, going out into nature forest bathing, hiking, breathing, experiencing aura of nature, looking at an unbelievably tall tree or, you know, a huge beautiful valley like the one that we're in today. Adam: And and it's interesting so you, I mean, you were a dancer and and a roller skater, so you're obviously a physical person anyway, Tinuke: 100% yeah. Adam: So that was so, but there seems to be a distinction you're making between the sort of exercise you might do as part of your dancing and roller skating, and the sort of exercise that is involved in going to a forest or on a hike or something. Why is that different? Because we talk about exercise and the endorphins anyway, so you get that whether you're in a gym or running in a forest. What's different about being in a forest? Tinuke: So I I do like the idea of moving forwards, so I do lots of processing whilst I'm hiking so there's a there's a thing, if I go on on a little bit of a tangent, it's called it's a therapy called EMDR, where Adam: N? Tinuke: EMDR. Adam: M for mother. EMDR yes. Tinuke: Yeah, where it's all about rapid eye movement. So you might follow your end of your finger and you go left, right, left, right. It's all about combining the left and right hemisphere of your brain whilst you're processing something traumatic and you can also do it whilst you're tapping and you can also do it whilst you're walking so that's what I started to do whilst I was hiking out in nature. Adam: And what does that do so why, why is that helpful? Tinuke: The traumatic memory normally gets stuck in the right hemisphere of the brain because that's where emotions and and all of that is governed and so obviously, feelings of anxiety and all the things that can come with going through something traumatic. So by processing whilst you're stimulating the right and left hemisphere of your brain, walking, looking, tapping, side to side, it just helps blend blend it into one and that's what I that's what that's why I've picked hiking and being outdoors. Adam: Very nice. And you, have you found a difference? Tinuke: Completely, 100%. It's like absolutely changed my life, especially especially obviously since I went through all of that. I like doing something, as you said, I'm a physical person, but I like doing something that's quite hard. I like it to be quite challenging, like a challenging hike or a long one, and then at the end of it, it's just building up that resilience that I'm capable of getting over hard things, I'm capable of being a little bit uncomfortable when it's pouring with rain. I've gone camping, there's loads of midges, blah blah, blah and then it's type two fun, you know? Adam: Right. Type two fun? Tinuke: Type two fun. Adam: I can, never heard of that. Right. That's that's fun with a bit of an obstacle? Tinuke: That, that's that's the type of fun that you get in the outdoors a lot where you might be like, why am I camping in this rainforest and it's pouring with rain. But then afterwards, you're like, wow, what an incredible experience. Adam: It was actually fun, oh good alright. Well we're just coming up to a big, let's go, just try and avoid that. So yeah. OK. So so you have found that to be a real benefit to you. Tinuke: Yeah, it's definitely changed my life and my outlook on things. And also it's it's what I've learned about myself is that I'm capable of pushing through uncomfortable moments, and it's like cold, hard evidence for myself that I'm capable of doing that. So it's definitely been a massive like trauma recovery tool for me, yeah. Adam: That's it's interesting. You also talked right at the beginning of this little walk about how, I think you wanted to demonstrate to your community the benefits of nature and the outside. So, so so for what what community are we talking about, to be in, because we want, everyone is part of lots of different types of communities. So so what community are you talking about? Tinuke: So for me like representation of BIPOC people, people of colour, especially in the UK, mainly city dwellers don't have as much experience with the outdoors so, Adam: So you're talking about, you are talking about lots of different, Tinuke: Yeah Adam: You're not talking about an ethnic community or anything, Tinuke: No no no. Adam: You're you're saying young people, people from different, Tinuke: Yeah. People of colour, people of colour, especially like for me obviously like black women doing adventurous stuff is not normally what we get up to *laughs*. Adam: Is it not? Tinuke: Not, not not in comparison to, Adam: So why, why is that then why do you think that is? Tinuke: Lots of different reasons. Lack of representation in the outdoor scene is a huge thing across like the media, and also just when you come to a rainforest like this or a space, it's very different to be here when you're the only person of colour here, lots of people feel like they are a bit out of place, wouldn't know how to get here, wouldn't know that it was a thing that you could do, wouldn't know the benefits of it and and also it's if it if your if your peers and your family don't, don't go and spend much time in nature, you don't have that incentive to or need to know that you can do it. But in recent times it's definitely changing, which is amazing. And there's some incredible groups that are popping up. Black Girls Hike is an incredible one. Adam: Is that the name of the group? Tinuke: That's the name of the group, Black Girls Hike. Yeah. Adam: And that's a a physical group of people, of black girls who go hiking. Tinuke: Yeah, kayaking, camping, all sorts of things. And it's yeah, specifically for people of colour to like understand what it is and how amazing it is to be out here. I went on a camping trip with them last year. It was like 80 women or most of most of them it was all their first camping trip and and that was amazing. Adam: And what about age then as well? Because I was struck by how younger people are very to my mind, very politically engaged with the environment, but less actually engaged, so they, it tends to be older people, in my experience who are part of the environmental charities, I mean, I suppose first of all, do you think that's right or am I wrong in your view or, and so what what do you know about the engagement of of younger people, of all colours and and sex and gender, of of people of your age group. Do they tend to talk about the environment? Is that a a dull subject to them? Tinuke: No no, it's it's not a dull subject. It's a big subject. Obviously this is our reality and it's gonna be the reality of our children and our children's children and much more than it would be for someone older. So it is a big topic of conversation, especially the world that I'm in at the moment, meeting so many people who love the outdoors. It's definitely a subject that is brought up a lot, definitely, and it's it's definitely a thing of why I started the rainforests and going around the temperate rainforest because they're so endangered and it is a massive topic of conversation. Adam: And and are people optimistic about it or are they, is it is it all disaster prone. I I I fear sometimes that the environmental lobby talks so much about the problems it's a bit of a turn off to be honest. But you've been talking very positively about the role of it all. Tinuke: So I suppose I'm trying to put a positive switch on it by talking about it a lot and promoting everything that I do online. For example, I just went to Kilimanjaro two weeks ago and that was the whole reason I went there was because in a couple of years, well in, there won't be a glacier at the top of it anymore. The snow would have melted. So I was on a mission to do it before the glacier had melted and I talk a lot about it whilst I'm doing it. And suffering a lot actually up there. Adam Adam: Suffering from the cold and the, Tinuke: And the altitude and everything. Adam: How how high is Kilimanjaro? Tinuke: It was like three, 3,870 something metres. Adam: Right, and and you walked up. Tinuke: I did, very, very slowly *laughs*. Adam: I was going to say, how long did it take you to get there? Tinuke: It took me seven days to get there and down. Yeah, it was a little bit mad. Adam: With a group, or? Tinuke: With a group, yeah. And I got a chest infection on day two. Adam: Oh wow. Tinuke: It was it was like one of the hardest things I've ever done. And that's when you're like, yeah. Adam: That's type two fun, isn't it? Tinuke: That is type two fun *both laugh* Adam: Sorry I have paused because we are right by a beautiful bridge. Isn't that lovely? Doesn't that look like a a sort of something Tinuke: Like the Hobbit Adam: It does, you know what it does, like a Hobbit right out of Hollywood. Tinuke: Or like there'll be a troll underneath. Adam: Yeah. Who knows? Maybe there is a troll and we need to answer a a riddle before we cross. Yeah, let's take a photo here. But it's a good point because I think you're massive on social media, so we'll take a photo here. Maybe you'll put it on social media, but what are your social media tags? And if people want to follow you? Tinuke: So it's Tinuke, which is T-I-N-U-K-E underscore Oyediran, O-Y-E-D-I-R-A-N. And that's all over the place. Adam: It's all over, on all platforms. Tinuke: On all of them, it's the same. Adam: You're you're you're everywhere. Right. Let's take a photo. Tinuke: Yeah. Adam: OK, right. Well, let's go over the troll bridge. Oops OK there we are. Tinuke: We're not going to go for a wild swim? Adam: Well, I'm very happy to to Tinuke: To not *laughs* Adam: To to try and find a towel for you on your exit, but I won't. Tinuke: You can cheer me, cheer me on but not take part, partake Adam: Yeah, I'm a, I'm a supporter of your wild swim as opposed to a participant. Tinuke: Fair enough. Adam: I would like to stand in the middle of that river. I'm not going to because I don't know what I'm doing. Anyway so you, you've got we talked about the adventures you've done on TV and elsewhere. You've got some other adventures coming up. What are they? Tinuke: I do. I do indeed. I have some lots of UK hikes coming up, which you can always join me on. You can follow me on my Instagram and come, Adam: When you say join you and you mean not just turn up and sort of follow behind you in a sort of creepy manner. This is an organised this is an organised thing. Tinuke: No *laughs* yeah yeah organised hikes Adam: Fine. OK organised. I thought, just go, oh look there she is, just follow her *both laugh* Tinuke: Join me, join me. I'm also going to Iceland, which I'm inviting everyone to come along with me. That's in October, I'm going doing the Annapurna Trail in Nepal, sort of around around Everest. I'm doing that in November, also inviting everyone to join me. And then my big birthday party next year is going to be to Everest Base Camp, which is April next year. So you've got a whole year to train up. Adam: And if people are interested in joining on these adventures, they contact you via all your social media platforms. Tinuke: They do indeed. Adam: Fantastic. How long have you been involved with the Woodland Trust for. Tinuke: Probably about a year now. Adam: So not not long and how did that happen? Tinuke: I think it was I actually I think it was initially when I first saw a reel about temperate rainforest and I contacted and said I'm going off on a mission to visit them all. Can I come to all of yours and do you want to join in in any way? And yeah, it's been it's been really exciting since then. Yeah. Adam: So I mean, you've talked about trying to encourage people from your communities to come along on a similar journey metaphorically as well as I suppose physically. What would your message be to them to to persuade them this is maybe something worth getting involved in? Tinuke: The benefits for me have completely changed my life in an amazing way and I can't help but not share it. So come and try it out. Get outside your comfort zone a little bit if this is something that you're not used to trying, you definitely won't regret it and it's always nice to go with a group, so yeah, make new friends. Adam: From all of us to all of you, thanks for joining us and as ever, happy wandering. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you.

Buckland Wood is no ordinary wood. This is magical temperate rainforest, a rare habitat not just in the UK but in the world. Cloaked in lush lichens and mosses, dotted with stone walls and bridges and with a beautiful river rambling through, it already looks and feels like a special place. But the Trust has big plans for its future. Join us to explore with rainforest guru Sam, who tells us about the bid to restore this globally important site and its huge potential to connect people with nature, store carbon and boost biodiversity. Hear why temperate rainforests are so special, along with pine marten reintroductions, backpacks on beetles and much more! Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. Adam: For today's woodland walk, we are heading into the rainforest, but I am not going very far. Well, I'm going quite far, but not to the Amazon, or South America. I'm going to to the temperate rainforest, which isn't as well known, but is actually even rarer than the tropical rainforest. It's also known as Atlantic or Celtic rainforest. And as I said, exceptionally rare. You do find it on the West Coast of Scotland, North and West Wales, Devon, Cornwall, Cumbria, parts of Northern Ireland, which sounds like a long list, but it really isn't. And what's wonderful actually is that Britain is really the place in the world to find these things. We have a very high proportion of the global area of temperate rainforest. I'm heading to Devon to see some temperate rainforests. Anyway, enough from me. Let's go talk to an expert about Devon's temperate and exciting rainforest. Sam: So I'm Sam Manning. I'm the project officer for the Woodland Trust Rainforest Recovery Project. We are here in Buckland Wood, which is a new Woodland Trust acquisition on Dartmoor in the Dart Valley. Adam: Fantastic. And it's it's super new because the place we came down didn't seem to have a sign on it or anything. So when did the Trust acquire this? Sam: So we've literally just acquired this this month and it's an extension really of two other sites that we own in the Dart Valley, Ausewell Wood, which we bought about five years ago and Grey Park Wood, which we've owned for a couple of decades. Adam: Right. And and what are we gonna do? Where are you taking me today? Sam: So we're going to have a walk around the wood and I'm going to show you some of the aspects of the restoration work that we have planned here, we're going to go down to the Dart River, which is a really special river. It's 26 miles long. Very, very ecologically biodiverse, very important for, in terms of temperate rainforest, and look at how we can restore that through various different natural flood management methods. Adam: Right. Lead on, Sir. So you already mentioned the keyword temperate rainforest. Is that what this is? Sam: Yeah. So this is sort of prime what we call hyper-oceanic temperate rainforest. Adam: You just have to say that slowly. Hypo what? Sam: Hyper-oceanic. Adam: Hyper-oceanic, OK. Sam: Yes. So there's there's two different kinds of temperate rainforest broadly. There's southern oceanic, which is any rainforest woodland that receives over 1.5 metres of rainfall a year. Adam: Right. Sam: Or hyper-oceanic and that is 1.8 metres of rainfall and above, so slightly techy and scientific. But what it means is is that you get two distinctly different communities of lichens or lower plants, which is what makes these woodlands particularly special. Adam: Sorry, I've already forgotten. Are we in the rain type of temperate rainforest that gets more rain or less rain? Sam: More rain. Adam: More rain. Sam: Yeah it rains a lot here. Adam: So that's the the non-oceanic one gets more rain. Sam: The hyper-oceanic gets a lot of rain, yeah. Adam: Hyper-oceanic. OK, so you can see I'm a poor student. OK. So, but luckily extraordinary, I mean, it's a bit there's a chill, but it's it has been lovely weather and it's definitely dry today. Sam: Hmm yeah, this is this is quite strange for Dartmoor really, I think this is sort of the driest March in 60 years or something. So we are we are beginning to experience much, much drier springs and summers, but one of the functions of these rainforests is they are very, very good at producing their own rain and and in 2020, during the COVID lockdown, there was a real blue sky dry sort of drought level day in that March-April period. And I remember walking through this valley in the middle of the day and there was a thunderstorm and that was occurring nowhere else even in Devon or the wider country. And that's because they're effectively these sponges that accumulate a lot of rain in winter, store them, and then produce them more in summer. Adam: Wow. And and I mean also we we think of rainforests as basically Brazil I suppose. But but we have temperate rainforests in the UK and my understanding is, I mean, they're extraordinarily rare on a, not just the UK, a global level. Just give us a sense of how special and unusual these environments are. Sam: Yeah, that's right. So they're they're found only on 1% of the earth's land surface. So they are rarer by area than tropical rainforest. Adam: Right. Do you happen to know? Sorry, are we going down there? Sam: Down there yeah. Adam: OK, so 1% temperate rainforests. Do you know what tropical rainforests are to give us a sense of proportion? Sam: I actually don't know that, but I suspect it's probably around somewhere between 10-15%. Adam: OK, well, I'm not gonna hold you to that *both laugh* but but that gives us a sort of sense of just how rare these are and tropical rainforests are fairly rare anyway, but OK. So these are very, very unusual environments. And what are you trying to do here then? Sam: Well, a lot of these temperate rainforests are ancient woodlands, but they are plantations on ancient woodlands, so they are woodlands that have existed in perpetuity for as long as records go back. But a lot of them, as you can see here, have been coniferised, so they would have been cleared of their native tree species like oak, to be replaced by non-native timber crops from places like the Pacific Northwest, which which that's also ironically a temperate rainforest landscape, but those species are not co-adapted to the species we have here. So you you get these plantations that are very, very unbiodiverse, very dark, very shading and really don't work in tandem with a lot of the light-demanding rainforest species that we have, like rowans, hawthorns, oaks, that kind of thing. Of those sites I've talked about, almost half of it is conifer. Adam: So your your first job, ironically, is to take trees out? Sam: Well there'll be a sort of two-pronged approach really of using natural processes to diversify the forest, make it more structured, diverse. But we will need to intervene at certain times, particularly if we have really, really rare species. So in Ausewell for example, there's a species of lichen called bacidia subturgidula, so it's got a mad Latin name, Adam: Wow, OK I'm definitely not saying that *laughs* Sam: *laughs* But that species, for example, we have a quarter of the entire world's population of that species of lichen in Ausewell. Adam: Right in Ausewell, which is quite a small place. Sam: Yeah, exactly. That's about 100 hectares, so... Adam: And that's a quarter of the global population of this lichen is in that... Sam: Of that species, yeah. So when it comes to that, it's really about almost surgically intervening. Adam: That's interesting. Let's let's carry on, you you better lead on, I've no idea where I'm going. So but that's interesting because I I can see planting trees, I've never heard of people actually planting like them, I didn't think that was even possible. Sam: Yeah. So we call it translocation and and that's really only a last a last sort of nuclear option really when it comes to lichen conservation, if we have a tree where they have a really, really rare form of, a rare population of a species, then moving that to another tree may be the difference between that going extinct or not. But here now we've had this happen, what we're going to be doing is seeding it with those rainforest tree species to start to get that regeneration and there's loads over here. Adam: What I'm still not clear about is why is the rainforest so special? It might be, oh it gets a lot of rain, who cares? A place gets a lot of rain, so does Wales, so does a lot of bits of London. It's clearly something special, it's not the trees, so what, why is having a temperate rainforest actually a good thing, what makes it special? Sam: Well, there's there's there's a few different things. One of them is, and this is the real key one we focus on, is the biodiversity value. So the real bad, Britain in general is quite a wildlife poor place. We have quite a low species diversity, but these rainforests are absolute wells of biodiversity globally. The key ones are these epiphytes, so we're talking about lichens, bryophytes, so those are the mosses, liverworts and hornworts. Britain has over 2,000 species of lichen, it's one of the most biodiverse places on Earth in terms of lichen species, so we're really punching above our weight in terms of biodiversity in that sense, and they're only really found in these temperate rainforest habitats. Adam: And lichen, I love lichen, and it's a real sign of air purity and everything, they're beautiful. How much do they support, like wildlife? I'm not aware of animals feeding off lichen very much, I don't think it has much nutrients in it? Sam: Not too much at a macro level, but if you were to delve into that microscopic world, they are absolute keystone species in terms of forming the bedrock for so many invertebrates for so much sort of microbes. But they're also functionally, and this is something I'm I'm really passionate about, is looking at these forests in terms of what they can give to us functionally and the environment functionally, they are really good at fixing nitrogen. They're very, very good at fixing carbon, but but so in terms, that's what that's what makes temperate rainforest really good in terms of climate change mitigation is they hold that water, but they also are incredible carbon stores far more carbon is stored in these forests than traditional forests in the UK. Adam: And that's lichens playing a big role in this? Sam: A huge part, yeah, because of the pure, like the biomass of those lichens and mosses. Adam: Ohh interesting. OK, so where are we going? Sam: So I would quite like to go down to that river. Adam: I'd love to go down to the river! Can I just ask, we're not going that way, are we?? Sam: No, I think we're gonna, that's one we may drive down, I think. Adam: Drive down there?? No no we're not going to drive down there, that's not possible! *both laugh* Sam: Yeah, we might have to go to a scenic detour around. Adam: OK, well, there let's go down to the river. You have to lead. You look like... Sam: So I think if we head up back to the car, shoot down, yeah. Adam: OK. Ohh I see. OK, OK. But we're not driving down this this hill. Sam: No, no, I think let's go down to the main Dart actually and then you can... Adam: OK. And then get and get back, OK. Brilliant. We have come down to the river, remind me what the river is called? Sam: This is the Webburn. Adam: The Webburn, which leads into the Dart. We are on proper Hobbit territory now. A moss-covered stone bridge over the Webburn. We passed a little a beautiful little cottage, actually there's a number of beautiful cottages here. So explain a bit about where we are. Sam: So we're stood on the Webburn, the Webburn watercourse and just behind us is the confluence of where it enters the Dart River and this kind of where it feeds into our aspirations for the restoration of the site. It's what many people would consider to be quite a natural looking river or natural looking watercourse. But this really as you can see it's very straight, it's very cut down into into the ground. So we call that incision and that's a product of centuries of draining and of artificial domestication of this watercourse to allow the land around it to be drier, which makes it more kind of productive for forestry. Adam: So that's not natural? Sam: No. Adam: Are you gonna do anything about that? I feel like a teacher, 'are you going to do anything about that?'! Sam: *laughs* That that is the plan. Adam: How how do you change, I mean, the river has cut, therefore quite a a deep edge into the land. What would you be able to do to to change that then? Sam: Yeah. So a couple of years ago I went out to the Pacific Northwest, Canada, Vancouver Island to see their temperate rainforest and have a look at how old growth sort of ancient temperate rainforests function, but also how they restore them. And they, I asked them to take me to a river that was their best example of a really healthy rainforest river with really good salmon populations with great biodiversity that would have been unaffected by humans. And they took me to a place called Lost Shoe Creek. And and from the bottom of the watercourse where it entered the sea to the head waters, it was, you couldn't see the water. It was absolutely covered in wood, so huge trees that had fallen in, trees bank to bank, pinned against the bank. And what that does is it creates a much more dynamic river system that doesn't go in a straight line, but also holds back a lot of the gravel with the sediment and the silt that in this kind of river is making its way to the ocean. And causing a lot of damage. Adam: So it's allowing or maybe placing actual dead trees into into the water and we can see one tree's already there, presumably that just naturally fell in. Sam: That's right. Yeah. So if we left this for 1,000 years, it would fill, it would be effectively be a giant log jam, and we'd start to get a lot of that naturalised process happening. And then you get much more biodiversity because there's more invertebrates in the river, there's more shelter for fish and birds, there's more habitat. But what we're effectively planning on doing is is doing something what people call stage zero restoration, so taking, accelerating that that thousand-year process and taking it back to a more naturalised river. Adam: It's such a a spot. I think it's time for a bit of social media video, so I'll film that and you can see that on the Woodland Trust and my sites, and then we'll crack on. Sorry, I know this is really important, but this is an amazing fallen tree over a drystone wall covered in moss, I mean, I just had to stop for a moment. Look, you talked about lichen. I know, I ask you a question then stop you answering it *both laugh*. I love this lichen, it's all on this tree. It is really, really beautiful. Sam: So this is called seastorm lichen which is one of the few lichens that has actually a romantic sort of English name that isn't Latin. Adam: Wow. Well, very cool. Whilst you're talking, I'm gonna take a photo. OK. Yeah, go on, seastorm lichen. Sam: Yeah, and and so a lot of the lichens will, as you can see, grow on the branches where the light is greater. So there's almost a canopy world of biodiversity up there, and what we're doing by increasing the light levels is, is drawing these lichens down to the forest floor by increasing the light levels. But this is a really, really good example of the kind of levels of deadwood we actually want to aspire to. So in, as you can see, in most of the forest, it's completely denuded of deadwood. So we'd be lucky if we get sort of 5 cubic metres of wood per hectare. In the forest of, the temperate rainforests of Canada, they have sort of 600 cubic metres a hectare of deadwood. So you you could barely even move through their forest. Adam: And that's super, because often people want the deadwood cleared cause you go, 'oh well it's untidy', but that's a sort of oasis of of biodiversity. Sam: That's right. It's a whole layer of ecology that we're missing from our forests. And we recently did a study on something called the blue ground beetle, which is a an endemic rare species to temperate rainforests. We didn't know where they went in the day, so we didn't really know anything about them, they're very elusive. They come out at night, walk up the trees, and they reflect the moon off of their blue, kind of shiny carapace. They're our biggest beetle. So we did a study with Exeter University where we put GPS tracking backpacks on them. Adam: On a beetle? Sam: On a beetle, to find out where they went. And lo and behold, we found that they were going into these deadwood habitats and so it just it just shone a light on how important increasing deadwood in these forests is for all of those species. Adam: Amazing. All right. I I do encourage you to follow the Woodland Trust's social media, Insta and all the rest of them and my Bluesky and Twitter or X or whatever it is you wanna do. And I'm now gonna take a photo which hopefully you'll see on any of that social media. So do follow them all. And we're going to take a pause as I pose *laughs*. Right, I'm back from my photographic expedition. Right. So you can answer the question again now about this public debate about access and and what have you. Go on, you lead on whilst we're talking. Sam: So yeah, Dartmoor is really kind of the centre of gravity for a wider story around public, an increasing demand from the public to access land for wellbeing, recreation, connection to nature, that has been kind of growing here, particularly in this area. Adam: Right. Sam: There are, I think we actually sorry, we do need to go that way, I think they've blocked the path. Adam: OK fair enough. Sam: We're not having to scramble. Adam: And I think we're going back to where we came from. Alright. Although that path there looks blocked. Sam: This one looks good. Yeah. Adam: Oh OK. Sam: Go through this end. Adam: Through the little stone wall. OK. Ruby's following doing social media. Ohh OK. Yeah, sorry, carry on. Sam: So, I suppose the concern of some people might be that increasing footfall, public access to these really important fragments of temperate rainforest, it could have a damaging effect on the biodiversity here. But the reality is that in order for people to connect with, understand and care about nature, they need to have access to it. And so we need to bring people into these habitats in a sensitive and considered way to educate people about them, but the other key thing is we need to expand these habitats. So we're part of something called the South West Rainforest Alliance. And our goal collectively is to increase the amount of temperate rainforest in Devon and Cornwall, to triple it by 2050. Adam: OK. I mean that's worth pausing on that for a moment. That's an extraordinary task. I mean it sounds a bit, I have to say I'm a bit sceptical about that, it sounds like you plucked that out the air. How on earth would you get to tripling the cover you've got? Sam: Well, we think we can do that mostly through buffering existing temporate rainforest, so planting around them which can then make those bigger, better, more connected, but also just by introducing trees into farmed landscapes but not in a way that damages the farming. So agroforestry. But also the inclusion of hedgerows that connect up those fragments and there's been a lot of work that's being done currently in partnership with Plymouth University to model how we would do that effectively. Adam: And the other thing that strikes me when we talk about ancient woodland, we're talking about, well, we can't create ancient woodlands, the clue's in the name, it's got to be ancient. It is different for temperate rainforests, isn't it? These things which I've heard about are achievable in a relatively short period of time. Is that right? Sam: That's right. So we think we can create new temperate rainforest within our lifetime. So within a kind of 40-50 year woodland establishment phase and as part of the Rainforest Recovery Project, we have a strand of work that we're calling the temperate rainforest creation trials and that includes long term scientific research to tell us how best we can create rainforest the quickest. So is it doing closed canopy woodlands like this or is it individual trees in farmland? Or is it open space woodlands or maybe even natural regeneration? Adam: Amazing. We're by the river. Let's move on with our tales from the riverbank. One thing I I wanted to ask you, I arrived here last night. And I met well, an old friend of mine called Chris Salisbury, who runs a local sort of adventure, an ecological company, taking people for adventures in the woods and telling stories and all sorts of really interesting things, and he was telling me two things that he's noted. One is the reintroduction of pine martens which I think is talked about, but also he's seen wild boar in these woods and I've never heard of that. Are those, have have you come across those stories? Sam: Yes, so we were actually involved in the reintroduction of pine martens last year and that was a partnership between us and Devon Wildlife Trust and various other charities. And and that was a sort of very controlled planned, strategic reintroduction of a species that's been really successful. We've brought the public along with us, and they're now part of that increasingly biodiverse and resilient temperate rainforest landscape. Adam: Right before we move on to wild boar, just educate me, what is a pine marten? Not sure, not entirely sure I know what one is. Sam: A pine marten is a mustelid, so it's in the same family as sort of the badger, the stoat, the weasel. Adam: Right, what's it look like? Sam: It's it's sort of the size of a small cat, it's brown with a white bib and it looks quite a lot like a weasel, but it's larger, but they're very much arboreal mammals, so they spend most of their time in the trees. Adam: And were they native to this land? Sam: Yes they were. Adam: Hunted out were they? Sam: Hunted to extinction for their pelts and and things like that. Yeah. Adam: So you're reintroducing them. How successful has that been? Sam: That's been really successful. So we've reintroduced 15 animals to Dartmoor last year and we think that that will be enough of a seed population for them to start spreading naturally now. Adam: OK. And I've heard about what, the reintroduction in other parts of the country of pine martens. Wild boar. A a harder issue I would have thought 'cause these are quite big beasts? Sam: Yes. Adam: Did, did any, presumably the Trust didn't introduce them? No. Sam: No. So they haven't been, in the same way as pine martens were, formally introduced. There's been more of a sort of natural creep, or in some cases, so there's a term that people use now called 'beaver bombing', which which people use completely straight faced in a lot of circles now. And that is effectively guerilla reintroduction of species. Adam: Right. OK. So these are just people who feel that they should be rewilded and just did it without any any authority or talking to the local community they just brought them in? Sam: Exactly without going through that sort of more defined process. Adam: And and look, clearly this is not a Woodland Trust policy, so I'm not asking you to defend it, but but the effect of that, I mean, have you noticed anything? Sam: I think, I mean, it's a huge subject, but I think in general, if you don't bring communities along with you by educating them, by mitigating the effect of a species, it it can damage the movement in in the longer term. The other thing I'd say about boar and those larger sort of herbivores, which would have been a really important part of our ecosystem for diversifying them and keeping that process going, they will really struggle unless we have bigger, better, more connected woodlands that are more natural anyway. Adam: Right. I understand. So we're just going through talking about this being the rainforest, but it has been amazingly dry in the spring and now you can hear that in the crunchy undergrowth of very dry leaves. You're gonna, I'm I'm an idiot anyway, but I'm concentrating on too many things so I've forgotten the name of the river for the third time *laughs*. Sam: It's the Webburn. Adam: The Webburn, why can't I remember the Webburn? All right. We've come down to the Webburn, to the riverbank side. It's beautifully clear this water, isn't it? There I mean it, it's it's wonderful clear. I so want to stand in that and then I'll have wet feet for the rest of the day and the journey back to London. So I'm not going to do that. How much of a threat is this sort of environment under? Sam: So temperate rainforest once covered about 20% of the UK and they would have clothed our western seaboard which receives that amazing sort of oceanic rainfall and temperature we've been talking about. That's been reduced now to about 2% in the UK. Adam: OK, from 20 to 2%? Sam: From 20 to 2, so 90% loss. Adam: Over what sort of period? Sam: So we're talking about millennia really. So this is they would have been at their zenith about 5,000, 6,000 years ago during the Bronze Age and that progressive multi-generation story of increasing farming, of draining, of forestry, has led to the fragmentation that we see today. In Devon and Cornwall, we think it would have covered about 75%. That's now been reduced to about 8%. So a similar 90% loss both regionally and nationally. Adam: And are you optimistic that that's about to change? Are we now seeing a different story? Sam: I feel really optimistic, but mostly that's because I think we're facing a lot of these holistic problems at the moment around the biodiversity crisis, around climate change, and I think rainforests are an actually incredibly cheap, scalable way of restoring nature, which will help us with the biodiversity crisis, but also protect communities from climate change. By doing some of this rewetting work, by increasing increasing tree cover, we can massively reduce flooding and massively mitigate the effect of drought on our farming and on our communities as it gets worse. We are hoping to raise £2.8 million to help us achieve the goals we have here and and the site will be open once we've achieved that goal towards the end of the year. And people can go to woodlandtrust.org.uk/southwest to find more about that appeal. Adam: So just repeat that website again so if people want, if they, if you've got your pen or your computer keyboard ready, here is the website to go to. Sam: Thats woodlandtrust.org.uk/southwest Adam: And they can learn learn more about it, but also contribute there can they? Sam: That's right. Yeah. And if they want to learn more about the Rainforest Recovery Project, we are launching a website this week called rainforestrecovery.org.uk. Adam: So by the time you hear this podcast, all of that will be available to you at the moment I can edit it all together. It is an amazing, amazing site. I am really privileged to be here. What a wonderful place. Sam, thank you very much indeed. Sam: You're welcome. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you.

Grab your hot chocolate (or mulled wine!) and get into the festive spirit with our Christmas special as we meet some reindeer, talk Christmas trees and explore a small but mighty wood with huge value for nature in the snowy Cairngorms National Park. We discover fascinating reindeer facts with Tilly and friends at The Cairngorm Reindeer Centre, and step into a winter wonderland at nearby Glencharnoch Wood with site manager Ross. We learn what makes a good Christmas tree, how the wood is helping to recover the old Caledonian pine forest of Scotland, why the site is so important to the community and which wildlife thrive here. You can also find out which tree can effectively clone itself, and is so tasty to insects that it developed the ability to shake them off! Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. Adam: Well, today I'm in the Cairngorms in Scotland. In Scottish Gaelic, the area is called – I'm going to give this a go - Am Monadh Ruadh. Apologies for my pronunciation there, but we are in the midst of a mountain range in the Highlands, of Scotland obviously. Generally we're about 1,000 metres high here but the higher peaks I'm told get to about 1,300 metres odd, which is going on for, I don't know, 4,500 foot or so. So this is a very dramatic landscape. We have rocky outcrops, boulders, steep cliffs. It's home to bird species such as the dotterel, snow bunting, the curlew and red grouse, as well as mammals such as mountain hare. But the reason of course we are here this Christmas is because it is also home to Britain's only herd, I think, of reindeer. Now, the reindeer herder is Tilly. She is the expert here and I've been braving, I am braving the snow and icy winds to be introduced to her and the herd. And from there after that, we're going to take a drive to what I'm told is an amazing wooded landscape of Caledonian pine to talk all things pine, and of course, all things Christmas trees. But first of all, let's meet Tilly, who looks after the reindeer. Adam: OK, we are recording. Tilly: That's good. OK. I'd better not say anything naughty then. Adam: I'll cut out any naughtiness, that's fine. Tilly: This is a bit of a rustly bag. It's more rustly than normal but never mind. Adam: What do the reindeer actually eat? Tilly: Well, so. We're now up in their natural habitat and we're looking across a nice heathery hillside with sedges as well. You can just see them poking through the snow and they'll pick away at the old heather of the year and the sedges. Adam: Right. Tilly: But we manage the herd and we like to feed them. So what I've got in my bag is some food for them, which they love. Adam: Right. And what's in your Santa sack of food now? Tilly: Oh, that's a secret. Adam: Oh, you can't tell me. Oh, God. Tilly: No, no. I can tell you. So it's a cereal mix and there is something similar to what you would feed sheep. Bit of barley, bit of sheep mix. Adam: That's awesome. So not mince pies and carrots? That's only reserved for Christmas Eve. That's probably not very good for them, I would have thought. Tilly: Yeah, no, I hate to say this, but reindeer don't actually eat carrots. Adam: Oh right okay, well, that's good to know. Tilly: But if ever children bring carrots for them, I never turn them away because we're very good at making carrot soup and carrot cake. Adam: Santa's helpers get the carrots. Tilly: And I'm absolutely certain that Santa eats all the mince pies, so all good. So anyway, come on through here. We're going now into a 1000-acre enclosure. It just hooks on there, that's perfect, it goes right across. We could actually once we get close to these visitors are coming off from a hill visit this morning. So you'll be pleased to hear that I am the boss. I'm Mrs. boss man and I've been with the reindeer for 43 years. Now, their lifespan is sort of 12 to 15 years, so I've gone through many generations. I've known many lovely reindeer and there's always a favourite and you would have seen some real characters there today. And you couldn't see them in better conditions. Anyway, do get yourself down and warm yourselves up. Oh, you've done very well to bring a little one like that today. Walker: He did pretty well until now! Tilly: You've done extremely well. Of course they have. He's got very red, a bit like Rudolph. The thing is there's just that wind, and it's the wind that drops the temperature, that chill factor. Adam: Yeah. So where are we going, Tilly? Tilly: So we're heading out towards what we call Silver Mount. They're not in here all year. Different times of year, sometimes they're all free range, some of them are free ranging, some are in here. Adam: When you speak about free range, literally they can go anywhere? Tilly: Yes they can. Adam: And they come back because they know where the food is? Tilly: Yes they do. They know where the food is, they sort of know where the home is, but they do wander out onto the high ground as well, more in the summertime. Adam: Right. And is that, I mean Scotland has different rules. There's a right to roam sort of rule here. Does that apply to reindeer? Is that the issue? Tilly: That is a moot point. Adam: Oh, really? We've hardly started and I've got into trouble. Tilly: No. Well, we lease 6000 acres, right? So we lease everything out to the skyline. Adam: So that's an extraordinary range for them. Tilly: It is an extraordinary range, but they know no bounds. I have to say reindeer sometimes do just pop over the boundary. Adam: And that causes problems with the neighbours? Tilly: Well, some like it, some aren't so keen. And we herd them as well, so we can herd them home. And we herd them by calling them. Adam: I was going to say, do you have a skidoo, or? Tilly: No, no. Absolutely no vehicular access on the hill. It's all by Shanks's pony, everywhere. Adam: Really. So you walk, and then you just ring a bell to herd them, or what do you do? Tilly: And you 'loooooow, come on now!' and they come to us. Adam: Right. And so what was the call again? Tilly: 'Looow, come on now!' Adam: Come on now, is that it? OK, very good. OK, I now move. Tilly: Yes. But hopefully they won't all come rushing from over there. Adam: I was going to say, yes, we've now called out the reindeer. Tilly: We've just joined a cow and calf here, who have just come down to the gate, and you can see just for yourself, they're completely benign. They're so docile and quiet. There's no sort of kicking or pushing or anything. They're very, very gentle creatures. Adam: And is that because they've been acclimatised because tourists come, or would that be their natural behaviour? Tilly: It is their natural behaviour, bearing in mind that reindeer have been domesticated for thousands of years. We're not looking at a wild animal here that's got tame. We're looking at a domesticated animal. Adam: Right. Tilly: It's probably more used to people than some of the reindeer up in the Arctic. So we have domestication embedded in their genetics. Adam: So what we're saying is, genetically, they're actually more docile. It's not because this particular reindeer is used to us. But originally then, if one goes back far enough, they were wilder? Tilly: Yes so, it's a really interesting process of domestication of reindeer, which happened in the Old World, so Russia, Scandinavia, inner Mongolia, outer Mongolia. And that is reindeer and many, many reindeer in these Arctic areas, are domesticated. They're not wild. Adam: And that started happening, do we have an idea when? Tilly: Probably about 10,000 years ago. But if you go to the New World, to Alaska and North Canada, exactly the same animal is called a caribou. Caribou are never domesticated. The indigenous people of these areas never embraced the herding and enclosing of reindeer, which was caribou, whereas in the Old World it became very, very important to the men, the people's survival. Adam: And then the caribou, do they have a different character? Tilly: Yes, they're wilder. And it's a little bit difficult to show today – you see quite strong colour variation in reindeer, which you don't see in caribou, and colour variation is man's influence on selecting for colour. So you'd get very light coloured ones, you'd get white ones in reindeer, you'd get very dark ones, but in caribou they're all the same, brownie-grey colour. Yeah, they felt that the white reindeer were important in the herd for whatever reasons, Germanic reasons or whatever. Interestingly, the Sámi - and I'm not sure if there could be a white one up in the herd here at the moment - describe them as lazy reindeer, the white ones. Adam: Why? Tilly: Well, I didn't know why until I worked out why white reindeer are often deaf. So they sleep, they don't get up when everybody else gets up and moves, and this white reindeer doesn't realise that the herd has left them. So they're not all deaf, but certain white ones are. Adam: Very important question, obvious but I didn't ask it to begin with because I'm a fool. Why are reindeer connected to Christmas? Tilly: Well, that's a really good question, because actually they think it stems from a poet called Clement C Moore, who wrote a poem in America, he had Scandinavian Germanic connections, called The Night Before Christmas, where Donder, Blitzen, Cupid, Comet, fly through the air with Saint Nick in the sleigh, the little Santa. Adam: Yeah. Tilly: But, so that really set the scene of eight reindeer and the sleigh, and that was based on the Norwegian God Odin, who had eight legs and strode through the sky with these eight legs and eight reindeer. Then we have Rudolph, who turns up, but he doesn't turn up until the time of prohibition in America. Adam: So Rudolph isn't in the original poem? Tilly: Absolutely not. Rudolph is an impostor. Adam: I didn't know that! Tilly: He, so he, it was a marketing exercise for a department store during alcohol prohibition. And it was Rudolph with his red nose, and his red nose is because of alcohol. Adam: Because he drank too much? So was it in favour of alcohol or was it going 'what terrible thing happens to you when you drink'? Tilly: I'm not terribly sure. But anyway, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was the song, so that adds to it. And then along comes Coca-Cola who used a red and white Santa to promote Coca-Cola at Christmas time. So the red and white Santa is Coca-Cola. Adam: Right. And the red-nose reindeer is from alcohol and reindeer comes from an actual American poem, of which Rudolph wasn't part of anyway. That's all simple to understand then! Tilly: Exactly. Perfect. Adam: Well, we're moving up to some of the more exposed slopes. Tilly has gone ahead. I'm just going to catch up back with her, and ask how she started as one of UK's first reindeer herders. Well, certainly, one of our few reindeer experts. Tilly: I came up to volunteer and I met the keeper who was looking after the reindeer for Dr Lindgren, who was the lady who brought them in with her husband, Mr Utsi, and he was quite good looking. Adam: Is this a revelation you wish to make to them? Tilly: And the reindeer were endearing, and the mountains were superb, and so I married the keeper. Adam: Right, you did marry him! I thought you were telling me about another man other than your husband. Tilly: So I married Alan. We married in 1983 and I've been here ever since. Adam: And so the purpose of having reindeer here originally was what? Tilly: Ah, good question. Mr Utsi came here and was very taken by the landscape and the environment, the habitat, because it was so similar to his own home country of north Sweden. And he begged the question where are the reindeer? Why are there not reindeer here? And it was on that notion that he and his wife, Dr Lindgren, devoted the latter half of their lives to bringing reindeer back to Scotland. Adam: So that's interesting. So, it raises the difference of ecological or sort of natural question, of whether these are indigenous animals. Tilly: Yes. So it's an interesting idea. Certainly, the habitat's available for them and they live in their natural environment. But when they became extinct, or not extinct, but when they weren't in Scotland, some people say as recently as 600 years ago and some people say as long as 2,000 years ago. If it's 2,000 years ago, they're described as a past native. Adam: So OK, I didn't realise that, but is there any debate around whether they were originally - whatever originally is – Tilly: They were definitely here. Adam: So they are native? They're not sort of imported, they have died out and been brought back here. Tilly: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, they were reintroduced, but how, what that time span is, some people say sooner than later, and Mr Utsi certainly identified this as a very suitable spot for them. Adam: Any idea why they might have died out? Do we know? Tilly: Probably a bit of climate change and also probably hunting. Very easy animal to hunt. Are you OK with this chitter chatter going on? Adam: Yes, it's all good, and a bit of, do you call it mooing? Tilly: Oh no, the reindeer aren't making any noise, they're clicking. Adam: Someone was mooing! Tilly : I think it was the people. Adam: I thought it was the reindeer making that noise. Tilly: Not at all. They're very silent. Adam: They'd have left this podcast thinking reindeer moo. Tilly: They would have. Exactly. No, they are really, really silent animals. Adam: There's a very large reindeer there coming down the road. Tilly: Oh, that's OK, that's Akubra, he'll do nothing to you at all. He's an absolute genuine reindeer. He's lovely. But he listened to the clicking as they walk. You can't hear it because of your headphones. Adam: OK, so I guess later on I'll put a microphone on a reindeer. That will be a first. One other thing I always imagined when you saw a set of antlers on a sort of grand Scottish mansion, I thought, oh well, they've killed that the reindeer. And actually, that's not true, is it? They fall off. Tilly: They do. You're absolutely right. Having it depends how you see the antlers. If the antlers are still on a skull, that animal has been killed and there's nothing wrong with that. There is a, you know, the animals need to be controlled. But you're also right. Antlers are lost every year and regrown again, so they cast their antlers and they regrow their antlers. So in a reindeer's life, if a reindeer is 10 years old, he will have just grown his 11th set of antlers. Adam: And the purpose of antlers is fighting? I'm a big girl, I'm a big boy, whatever. Tilly: Yeah, mainly for fighting, a weapon. So for the big breeding males, it's for claiming harem for females, so in the breeding season. And those big breeding bulls will actually lose their antlers around about now, their antlers will fall off and then they won't regrow their antlers until next spring, right? The females, little females like this, keep those boney antlers all winter and they use them for competing for food, so they can jab another reindeer and push it off and they can get into the food as a result. Adam: The other thing I can notice about some of them, but not the reindeer in front of us, but I think the one walking away, although this looks very bony, the other one has sort of felt on it, and what looks like blood. So what's going on there? Tilly: Yes. So they are the velvet antlers on the Christmas reindeer that have finished growing, but they don't lose the velvet properly and there is still potentially blood in the bone, as it were. Adam: So there's this sort of capillary underneath the felt. Tilly: Yes, exactly, because the antler's a really interesting appendage because it grows from the tip. It doesn't grow from the base, so the blood supply has to go all the way to the tip to grow. And the velvet skin carries that blood supply. Adam: Right. I see. So now the reindeer in front of us has no velvet so that can't grow. Tilly: And no blood supply. Exactly. And the only way she can grow, get more antlers or bigger antlers, is to lose the whole thing and grow it again next year. Yes. Adam: So any other serious facts we should note, to inform ourselves about reindeer? Tilly: Oh, lots of serious facts. So they're the only deer species where the males and the females grow antlers. Every other deer species, it's only the males that grow the antlers. They are the only deer species that's been domesticated by man. All the other species of deer, we're talking about 40 different species, are all truly wild animals. They can survive in the coldest parts of the world, so in the middle of Siberia, the temperature can go down to -72 and reindeer are still living there quite happily. Adam: It's cold today, but it's probably -2 or something. Tilly: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Man cannot live in the Arctic without an animal to live by, and it's reindeer that he lives by. Man would never have gone into these areas. Obviously now they're all digging up, you know, getting the oil and the gas and everything. But indigenous man can only survive in these areas if he has reindeer as his farm animal of the north, so they're really important to the indigenous people of the north. Adam: And in that sort of role, then, you can clearly eat reindeer. Then what else does it provide us? Tilly: Absolutely. So it provides with meat. There are indigenous people that milk them in season. They have these tremendous coats that are used for covering tents and for people's, you know, clothing. And the antlers? Not now, but the antlers would have been used as tools in the past. Adam: And have you ever had reindeer milk? Tilly: I have tried, yes, we have milked the odd reindeer for one reason or another. It's very rich, very rich. Adam: You have! Rich, is that good or quite fatty? Is it drinkable? Tilly: That's good. Yeah, it's totally drinkable. Totally nice. Adam: Yeah, I think yaks or a drink made from yaks, which was disgusting, I found in Mongolia, but I really found it difficult. It wasn't my thing. Tilly: But it wasn't the fermented one, was it? Because in Mongolia they're into fermented mare's milk. Adam: That might be what I had. Tilly: And that is revolting. Adam: Yes, OK, that's maybe what I had. How unusual is reindeer milk then? Tilly: Yeah. It's got a very high fat content. They produce very little milk, because if you had a great big swinging under in in freezing conditions, you'd have ice cream, you wouldn't have milk. Adam: The other thing I noticed that we haven't talked about is their hooves which look quite large and they look, I mean just from a distance, quite mobile. Tilly: Yes. They are very, very, very flexible animals and their feet, their hooves are very big. Of course, for snow. Walking on the snow, spreading the weight, but also great shovels for digging. So they dig. You know, if you're in two feet, three feet of snow in north Sweden, you've got to get to the food underneath and to get to it, they need to dig. So they're great diggers. Adam: And your life now here. It's quite a change from where you grew up, I appreciate. Tilly: Certain years, a very rural life I had then. I have an equally country-wise life now. I will go to my grave with reindeer. They are my complete nutter passion. They are the most wonderful animals to be amongst, they put a smile on your face. They live in a beautiful area. They're just, they're just lovely animals and they give me a lot of pleasure. Yeah, yeah. Adam: Fantastic. And if people are in the Cairngorms and want to have their own trip to see the reindeer, they call the what? Tilly: They call the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre. You could do it on the website, you can ring us up and they need to dress up. I'm sure you appreciate you, are your feet cold yet? Adam: No, look, I stopped off and bought extra thermals on my way. Tilly: Very good. Adam: Well, thank you very much. It's been a real treat, thank you very much. Tilly: Brilliant. Oh, well, thank you for coming. Adam: Well, I'm afraid I'm having to leave the reindeer behind because we're now heading to a little lower ground to see what I'm told is an amazing forest of Caledonian pine. And to learn a bit more about the trees and their relative, the other pine, which we all know as the Christmas tree. And we're off to meet a guy who looks after the Glencharnoch Wood in Carrbridge, near the River Spey and Dulnain. And now, despite it, it's a quite a small forest, I think. But despite that, it's quite well known for being really important, really big on biodiversity. And it's home to a number of species including, but not just them, but including the red squirrel and the crested tit. Ross: My name's Ross Watson. I'm the site manager for North Scotland for the Woodland Trust. Adam: Brilliant. Ross, we have come on an extraordinary day. It has snowed. It looks picturesque, chocolate box, shortbread box maybe, type stuff, so fantastic. So just tell me where we are. Ross: Well, we're in Glencharnoch wood. It's a wood that the Woodland Trust owns and it's part of a series of little woodlands on the back of Carrbridge between Carrbridge and the railway. And the Woodland Trust has had it for a number of years. It's a little site, only 36 acres, but it's a pine wood site and a really important pine wood site at that, in that it's a small part of much bigger Caledonian forests. Adam: OK. Well, I want to talk to you about pine wood, because I think it just sort of gets dismissed – 'oh this pine wood, not important, not interesting'. Apart from Christmas, perhaps, when suddenly it becomes really important, but I want to unpack all of that with you, but just explain to you we're going to go on a little walk. Hopefully you know where you're going. Good. All right, so just explain a bit about where we're going, give me a sense of the pattern of where we're going. Ross: Absolutely. We're going to take a circular walk around the woodlands. The woodlands here, it's all about community. Everything we do here is around that tree. We're going to walk through a piece of land that's owned by the local authority and then go through our own land and onto privately owned land and then come back to our own land. And it really shows the connectivity of all these different habitats, all the different landowners. But really the path network is there for the community that's here and they are involved in practice as well. Adam: So. Pine wood. Yeah, it sort of gets bunched all together, and especially the Scots pine I hear a lot about. But there are there are big, big differences and varieties are there? Tell me a bit about them. Ross: The Scots pine we are walking through are really special species. That's the only native conifer in the UK, right? And that's why they're so special here. Really these Scots pine provide their own habitat all of their own. They're incredibly threatened. As a habitat in Scotland, we've got just a number of Caledonian pine inventory sites. We've got ancient woodlands, designated sites. Adam: Sorry, just to stop you - Caledonian pine, Scots pine, interchangeable words? Ross: Yeah, good point. The Great Wood of Caledon was the reference of the name of the forest that was here, the old, the original boreal forest that gradually reduced in size. Partly through climate change as the country became cooler and wetter, but also through human intervention through felling, fires, grazing, all that kind of thing. So now we tend to talk about Scots pine and Cally pine which can be fairly interchangeable, but the Cally pine tends to be the bigger, grander kind of granny pines, these really lovely old things you see in some of the landscapes. Adam: But that's sort of just the way people use the word. Technically, they're the same thing, but we refer to the Caledonian pine as the big grand ones, and it comes from… so I just want to make sure I understood what you said. The word Caledonian pine then comes from a Caledonian, a forest called Caledonia? Ross: Yeah, the Great Wood of Caledon. Adam: Isn't that a brilliant name? So mystical and it sort of talks of Tolkien and other worlds. Wow, wow. OK. So we have the great Scots pine, the Caledonian pine. If people have a general thing in their mind about pine trees, what is special about Caledonian pine? How that distinguishes from pines in other parts of the world. Ross: Well, Scots pine, as we're walking through this woodland, just now as you look up the trunks of the trees, as you look up the bark tends to go from a kind of grey-brown to a real kind of russety red, like a red squirrel colour. And that's a lot of the red squirrel camouflage comes from that, that rusty colour. So they're skittering around these treetops and they can be jumping around and they're nice and camouflaged because of that colour. So is that redness that you really see? But what we can see in here, a lot of these trees are very even age, it has been quite heavily thinned in the past, but then you come across a tree like this that's got a very deep crown. So you see there's live branches more than halfway down that tree, whereas there's a lot of these other trees - Adam: Yes, I was going to say it's weird that they've got no foliage until very high. Ross: Yeah, so this tree here, and foresters may call this a wolf tree, a tree that has occupied a space and it's just sat there and doesn't allow anything around it. Adam: It's called a wolf tree? Ross: Some people would refer to it as a wolf tree. What we would refer to that is it's a deep crown tree, not very imaginatively named, but a deep crown tree is really important here because of capercaillie. Now, capercaillie, you imagine a capercaillie's a big bird, a turkey-sized bird, almost waist height, a male capercaillie. And in the winter it will walk out across these branches and it will nibble away at some of the needles, and it will sit there and it will rely on that during deep snow for shelter, security, food. So without these deep crown trees, there isn't anywhere for them to go. So if you imagine a plantation, a very dense pine that are much denser than this and they don't have the chance for any deep crown trees. Then the opportunity for capercaillie here is much reduced. Adam: Right. So there's sort of, I mean, look the elephant in the room. Well, it's Christmas around the corner. People have Christmas trees. Sort of most people know anything about pine, it's because they have it in their house at Christmas. That's not a Scots pine. Ross: No, your traditional Christmas tree is a Nordmann fir. A fir tree tends to hold onto needles a little longer than a pine tree. And if you look after the pine, it will retain its needles, but quite often the pine trees will grow slightly too quickly, so it'll be a bit bare as a Christmas tree, whereas a fir tree is kind of hairy enough to be a good Christmas tree. Adam: Right. And do we have, do we have them planted in the UK as well? I mean just for commercial cropping? Ross: Yes, as a Christmas tree. Adam: Right. So the other thing, look, we're in a really lovely forest at the moment. We're the only ones here. But Scotland, the iconic pictures of Scotland, are bare, bare mountains, aren't they? They're not wooded, and yet I've always read that that's not how it used to be. It used to be a wooded part of the country. Why did it lose so much of its woodland? Ross: Well, it's looking back to, what, centuries ago as the climate became cooler and wetter, the tree line reduced in height. But more recently in the 1800s the Cultural Revolution created huge periods of felling where they needed this timber for industrialization. Trees from the woodlands near here were cut down, they were floated down to the river Spey and then out to Spey Bay and the Moray coast. They were used for underground water piping for ship's masts. Because these trees are, as you can feel today it's a cold place to be, they've grown very slowly. So because they're nice and straight as we can see, they are, the rings are very close together, so they're very sturdy. They're an ideal timber source. But then we start to look at deer numbers increasing and sheep numbers increasing. The more mouths on the hill meant that once you cut these trees down, it was much harder for the trees to come away again. And really, that's the landscape we're in now really. And when we're talking about those very large, deep crowned trees on open hillsides, these kind of granny pines are so picturesque, and really a lot of these trees, there was no timber value in them because they were already so crooked and they were left, and this is almost a remnant that's showcasing the old forest that once was standing there. Adam: A lot of times, site managers, they're trying to keep things steady in a way, I suppose. Just trying to maintain what's going, keep that going, that's hard enough. Is that the job here or do you have bigger plans? Are there, you know, times are changing? Ross: Well, this is one of eight woodlands I look after across the north of Scotland. Whenever we're doing anything, no matter what the scale of it, it's not just how do we keep the site going and kind of steady. It's about when we are doing work, how do we add value to that to make it better for the people that are living here? And how do we use that to continue to showcase these sites as the shop window for the Woodland Trust? Adam: And is the idea here to try and remove the non-Scots pine, so you'd have a pure Scots pine forest? Ross: Well, the Woodland Trust works on a on a threat basis really. So any tree is better than no tree, right? But if you have got a lot of spruce regeneration that's threatening this ancient wood then we need to begin to remove that. And that's been the case here. Adam: Sorry I'm pausing because there's a lovely spaniel who I can see wants me to throw a stick, but I won't throw the stick. Very cool dog. There we are. Sorry, we were saying yes, so any tree is better than no tree. But are the other trees a threat then or not? Ross: Well, the Norway spruce here has been seeding regeneration into the woodland areas and over the last few years we've cleared a lot of that and in some of these nice young spruce, we've been able to provide to the community for Christmas trees, which has been really handy. But all of that is gone now and we're left with this core of, of mature Norway spruce, that a number of them have started to snap so are becoming a safety issue for members of the public using footpaths next to it. But also there's an opportunity there where before that timber dies, we can extract it and it can be useful for the community. Adam: And you'd replace it with Scots pines. Ross: No, we're going to replace it predominantly with hazel and aspen. Because one of the slight concerns in having a single species stand, like we have here, where it's all Scots pine, is that there's only one species for the likes of red squirrels or the crossbills. And on a day like today we might hear crossbows coming over. There's only one species here for them, whereas if we're planting hazel, which is under-represented species here, that provides a different food for red squirrels in a different part of the woodland. And aspen is one of the most biodiverse species that we would have in this part of the world. And there are very, very few aspen. Adam: When you say it's the most biodiverse species, you mean it attracts biodiversity? Ross: Absolutely yes. In terms of the lower plant assemblage that's on there specifically and insects. And aspen, their Latin name is Populus tremula and the tremula comes from the oval shape on the leaf. Just in the slightest breeze, it's adapted that to try and shake off the insect burden because the leaves are so palatable for insects. Adam: So the shape of the leaf in wind - Ross: The shape of this stock of the leaf is oval. Adam: And that helps shift any insects. Ross: Yeah, yeah. Adam: It's interesting because aspen, in my ignorance, I associate with aspen in America, but it's a native UK tree. Ross: It is, yeah. And it will be one of the first colonisers after the Ice Age. That's, an aspen will have, the seed will have blown down as the ice is receding. But some of the aspen that are here now will be some of the oldest trees that exist in the UK and aspen generally now grows rhizomatously, so you'll see the roots through the forest and all of the suckers will pop out. And the aspen that we can see in the woodland today, they could have been here for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, and they've just, as the clone has marched through the landscape, it's just it's moved and colonised these different areas. They're fascinating trees. So when you look at some of the images in North America, you might see entire hillsides of aspen and that could all be the same tree essentially, they're amazing organisms. Adam: That's amazing. So it's sort of cloning really. Ross: Yeah, absolutely. Adam: That's amazing. And also I can see right on the Scots pine behind you, beautiful lichen, which is just a real sign of the air quality here, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't grow and it's just often further south. We do see lichen, obviously, but often I see a bit. This is everywhere. It's a real sign this is good land. Ross: Absolutely, yeah. Adam: Good land, good air. Wonderful. Well, I'm going to take another shot of our colleague down below. Hello. Wearing a lovely red hat, almost looks like Santa. And then we'll move on. So we're going uphill a bit, you might just hear the snow crunching under my boots. So this is amazing. A wolf peeking out from the woods, which adds to the fairy tale quality of all of this forest walk. This is not a real wolf. This is carved in wood. It looks really beautiful and it's covered in snow at the moment, which maybe is why I didn't spot it at first. So what's the story here? Ross: Well, the story here is that Carrbridge hosts the Scottish chainsaw carving competition every year at the end of August, and there are chainsaw artists coming from all over the world to compete here to do some incredibly elaborate carvings. They do benches and three-to-four-metre statues and it's absolutely incredible. Adam: This is very delicate that I'm surprised this would be done with a chainsaw. Ross: Yeah, it's a very specialist skill as you can see, and people have to be very artistic. You have to be very good with the saw, but also the bar of the saw is a specialist carving tool. But then they also can use all sorts of other implements to try and refine the artwork itself. And this is just one part of that much larger chainsaw carving trail that's in Carrbridge that really commemorates this annual event. Adam: Amazing. Well, we'll leave the wolf. It's got even a little dark nose. Amazing. A little dog, a real dog this time. Well, yes, just to prove it. We've just seen some reindeer. Obviously they're a type of deer. Are they as much of a problem as the normal red deer that we know about? So what's your view on them? Ross: Well, red deer, the numbers are extremely high in some places and in the Cairngorms, they're generally much better managed. But in other places where there just isn't that, that integration or the objectives are yet to be aligned with protected areas, the numbers in those places need to come down, but recognising that there are different objectives, there are different landowners who want to do different things with land. So in recognising and respecting those objectives, but generally, ideal numbers need to come down and they need to come down a lot in order for trees and woodland to recover. Adam: But that's deer in general, just because it's Christmas, I just have reindeer on the mind. You don't see many reindeer here. Or any reindeer here? Ross: No, you see them up in the Cairngorms, right? Adam: Right. Another pitstop. I see some lichen with some snow on it. I should turn them into Christmas cards. I won't, but that's what I should do. So if there was a sort of a final thought you wanted people to take away about this forest or about Caledonian pines you're trying to protect and grow here, what might that be? Ross: Well, for this woodland, and as I say, it's only 36 acres in size, it's a fairly small wood. But it's not to discount that, and we talk about the hundreds of ants nests, the crossbills, the crested tits, it's woodlands like this can punch way above their weight. But also woodlands like this connected together provide a much larger, integrated robust habitat. And it's just thinking along these lines that this, this woodland, although it has the A9 on one side, it's got roads on two other sides, it's got a forest adventure park there and to the other side, it feels like a woodland that could be squeezed, but it can also feel like a woodland that is a part of this much larger landscape and contributing to that. And I suppose in part it depends on how you view that, yeah. But the woodland is connected to its woodlands round about, so it's definitely playing its part and part of that recovery of the old Caledonian pine forest of Scotland, as small as it is. Adam: It's been a real treat for you to guide us through it on such a special snowy Christmas-y day. So thank you very much indeed. Ross: No problem. Adam: Well, it's been a fantastic day. Which leaves me just say from the land of reindeer and Caledonian pine, can I wish you a very happy, peaceful and joyous Christmas and New Year? And I do hope that wherever you are, you are able to share the joy of this season and that you'll join us in the New Year for lots more podcasts and tree adventures. Until then, from all of us in the Woodland Trust podcast team, to all of you, can we wish you a happy Christmas and a great New Year and of course, happy wanderings. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you.

Step into the heart of an ancient woodland as we explore Ashenbank Wood, a Site of Special Scientific Interest rich in history and teeming with wildlife. Woodland has stood here for centuries, but this haven is under threat. A proposed tunnel project, the Lower Thames Crossing, could harm the irreplaceable ecosystem and ancient trees here. Jack, leader of our woods under threat team, explains what's at stake and the challenges and strategies involved in trying to maintain a delicate balance between development and nature. A decision on whether the project goes ahead is due from Government in May 2025. We also meet estate manager Clive, who delves into Ashenbank Wood's history, tells us more about why ancient woodland is so important and shows us the unusual approach of strapping deadwood to trees. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. Adam: Today I am at a site of Special Scientific Interest in the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which is teeming with extraordinary wildlife, and I'm told you can stand in the shadows of gnarled veteran trees and even spot some shy dormice, rare bats, and woodland wildflowers if you're there at the right time of year. But it is also a site under threat. National Highways propose to build a new tunnel linking Essex and Kent under the River Thames, and many feel that that will create a threat to the trees and wildlife here. So I've come not just for a walk, but to chat to experts and the first is the man responsible for coordinating the Woodland Trust response to big infrastructure projects and to chat to him about how infrastructure and nature can live hand in hand. Jack: So I'm Jack Taylor, I'm the programme lead for the woods under threat team at the Woodland Trust. Adam: Brilliant. And we're at Ashenbank Woods? Jack: We are indeed. Adam: Good, OK, sorry, yeah *laughs* I know I should sound more sure, we are at Ashenbank Woods. Jack: I think its full title might be Ashenbank Woods SSSI, site of special scientific interest. Adam: Oh right yes, yes. And we're going to see a bit later a colleague of yours, Clive, who will tell us more about the details of this woodland. But the reason why I wanted to talk to you first as we walk through, what is a lovely, actually dappled, dappled bit of woodland here is about your role in protecting places like this from development because, so what, what is your job? Jack: Yeah, it's beautiful. That's a good question *laughs* what is my job? I I suppose the the base of it, the basis of it, the foundation really is about trying to protect ancient woods and ancient and veteran trees from forms of development, but also from other threats outside of that as well. So non-development threats like air pollution, pests and diseases, deer overbrowsing. Most of my work does focus on working within the development sector and trying to protect against those development threats. Adam: Right, and you're the project lead. Jack: Yeah. Adam: When I first saw that, I thought you meant you're the project lead for this woodland, but you are not. You are the project lead for all development threatening woodlands throughout the UK. This is an extraordinary, I mean that's quite a job. Jack: Yeah, it's it's a lot. There are a lot of threats to have to deal with across the UK because we're always building always sort of growing as a nation. We always need sort of new forms of infrastructure and new sort of housing. We recognise that. But all of that does come with the added impact of having threats on our ancient woods and ancient and veteran trees, so we have a team of myself and my my wonderful team of four as well. Adam: Alright. Yeah, it's not big. Jack: No, it's not big, but they they are enthusiastic and they're great at what they do. Adam: So this is quite a political area because we've got a new government which has promised to improve lots of things, get the country working, build lots of homes. I think, I think the Prime Minister only recently talked about, you know, we're going to get spades in the ground, we're going to be doing stuff. Well, is it your job to stop all of that, I mean, or how do you balance what needs to be done for the country and what needs to be done to protect woodlands? Jack: Yeah. So it's so none of this is really about stopping development from from happening and we we have to be sort of quite clear that that's not what we're set out to do as an organisation. It's about trying to ensure that where development is happening. It's not going to impact on our most important and our most valuable woods and trees and that's why we do have a focus specifically on ancient woodland, but and then also on ancient and veteran trees as well, because we know that for the most part, there are lots of really valuable woods and wooded and wooded habitats and trees that are plenty sort of valuable and important. But we know that ancient words and ancient and veteran trees are likely to be our most important sites. We have to focus on protecting those. So we do have to object to some developments where we think the harm is gonna be too great, but we're never really looking to stop them from happening, unless the harm is too great. Adam: OK. Which way? Jack: Umm, I think right. Adam: OK. So one of the things I've noticed before, I mean, when I was following the HS2 debate, was politicians were going 'it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. We'll cut this down, we're going to replace them. I tell you what, we'll do you a deal, we'll plant two for every one we cut down.' On the face of it that sounds reasonable? Jack: OK. Yeah, not to us. Adam: Why not? Jack: Well, I think if you're, if you're looking at ancient woodlands and ancient and veteran trees, you're looking at something that is an irreplaceable habitat. There is no sort of recreating that habitat in in one space again, once it's been lost and the reason for that is these things take centuries to evolve and develop to create those sort of vital links between animals, plants, fungi, the soils as well. So ancient woodlands are especially important for their soils. So you can't really just take those soils and put them elsewhere because once that happens you completely disturb the relationships that have built up over centuries within them. And ancient and veteran trees, so you're talking about trees that for the most part are going to be centuries years old. How do you how do you replace centuries of development creating these wonderful sort of niche habitats for different parts of our ecosystems? Adam: And is it, you said quite clearly that it's not your job or the Trust's job just to stop development, just to sort of blanket go, 'hey, stop building' so is it about going, 'don't build here' or is it about saying, 'if you're gonna build here, this is how to do it with the least amount of impact'? What's the sort of your approach? Jack: Yeah. In some cases it is about saying not, not building here. It depends what we're dealing with, I suppose so it's different if you're dealing with, say, housing developments or leisure facilities as opposed to something like rail infrastructure or road infrastructure, which is quite linear in nature, so they can only really go in one place to deliver its purpose, whereas housing is not as locationally dependent. Adam: I see. So you feel you've got a better argument if it's a housing project, cause you can go, 'put it somewhere else', but the train journey from A to B has to sort of go through this area. You're you're on a loser there are you? Jack: Well, sometimes, but there are there are ways of of getting around sort of kind of impact. I mean it doesn't have to go absolutely sort of A to B in one way. You can think very carefully about the design to try and minimise impact on ancient woods. You can also look at alternative solutions, engineering solutions like tunnelling for example, so HS2 is a good example of that. The Phase One section which is going ahead between London and Birmingham, they actually put in a tunnel under the Chilterns, which saved about 14 hectares of woodland saved these three really good prime areas of ancient wood. And of course the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty came into that in a way, and they were trying to protect that also. But that was one solution to stop wildlife and nature being harmed. Adam: Right. So that's, was this, were you involved with that? Jack: Yeah, yeah. Adam: Amazing. So how difficult was that to get that that project through and try to avoid the destruction of all that woodland? Jack: Well, a lot a lot of destruction still is happening from High Speed 2. So about 20 hectares of ancient woodland has been destroyed at this stage now. A lot of the sort of preparation works for the Phase One section, that London to Birmingham bit, are now complete. So it it was difficult, but it it the way in which we were involved is we really brought ancient woodland to the table and put it at the forefront of considerations and and gave it a voice I suppose. It's not that it wasn't being looked at at all, but not nearly to the degree that we thought it needed to be looked at. And so we sort of kind of introduced that idea of well look, there's ancient woodland here, you need to be thinking carefully about the design and, you know, you think you're talking about halving the impacts on ancient woodlands from from our sort of kind of involvement and involvement of other conservation organisations in there as well. Adam: So a lot of it is trying to say, to make the argument, but also to raise the profile of that argument, Jack: Sure. Adam: To bring, population and say this is actually a loss. You know, cutting it down is is a loss. So how much harder or easier has it got for you to make that argument? Jack: Well, do you know, interestingly, I I would probably say that projects like High Speed 2, where there is such a big argument around the ancient woodland has raised the profile of ancient woodland itself. That's one of the sort of silver linings of that project for us, it's put sort of ancient woodland on the map in terms of habitat that needs to and is worthy of protection. So I think a lot of people now understand ancient woodland a bit better and what it is. There's still lots of awareness to do, you know, people just think of ancient woodlands as bluebells, big large oaks and it's not quite there. I mean, they're all so kind of varied in their nature and geographically across the country, but it's got people thinking about them. Adam: So that was something of a success, although I know more complicated than just 'yes, we won that'. Jack: Sure, yeah. Adam: Any areas you feel you really lost that, you know, keep you up at night, you go, that was that was a failure and you know, we've lost that woodland? Jack: Yeah. I mean, there've been, there've been some over the years. Back in 2012 a a large quarry was built on an area of woodland called Oaken Wood in Kent, probably taking about out about 30 to 35 hectares of ancient woodland which is massive, massive amounts, I mean, you're talking about in the region it's like 40 to 50 football fields and and and we're actually dealing with another threat to that woodland from an expansion of that same quarry. So yeah, you know that that one is one that gnaws gnaws at us, is that, you know, we don't want to see that happening anymore. Adam: Are you getting more optimistic that you know the public are more on your side that this is at least something that plays in policymakers' decisions now? Jack: I I actually think the public have always really been on our side. I think if you ask the the general public, they would probably say to you, we do not want to see ancient woodlands subject to any loss or deterioration, whatever the cause. Adam: Yeah, I think you're right. But they also say, yeah, but we like cheaper housing and want better transport links so. Jack: Yeah. Well, I mean the Lower Thames Crossing, which is going to be affecting this site that we're in now, Ashenbank Wood is sort of a prime example of that the the intention of that project is to relieve traffic congestion on the existing Dartford Crossing. Adam: Which I think actually I can hear in my headphones this, although we are, I mean it looks beautiful, there's quite a lot of background traffic noise. So we can't be that far away actually from from transport, from big roads. So explain to me you say this this particular site, Ashenbank Woods which is a site of Special Scientific Interest, so it's not just any old woods, this is a really special place, is under threat. What is the threat here? Jack: So the threat here is partially there will be some loss to the wider SSSI ancient woodland in the area when you're losing sort of kind of, Ashenbank Wood itself is not going to be subject to much loss, although there is a cycle route diversion going through the woods that might impact on some of its special features. Adam: Oh one second just, we've we've just turned off the path, we're just, oops crawling under some trees. I don't quite know why we've come, we we seem to have chosen the most difficult route. Well, it is beautiful because we've come off the path right into a magic dell. Jack: There we go. Adam: Oh, look, there's obviously some, I think, probably some kids have built a sort of camp, tent out of fallen branches. OK, so sorry so I understand that this is under threat from development, the the development plan though is what? What are they trying to do here? Jack: So so what they're doing is they're building a new crossing further to the east of Dartford Crossing, but that's going to involve connecting... Adam: A river crossing, a tunnel? Jack: Yes a river crossing. Adam: But it's a tunnel. Jack: Yeah, it's a tunnel. Adam: Why would that? That's that's great, surely? Jack: Well, the tunnel goes under the Thames. But in order to connect the A2/M2 to the to the sort of tunnel portal, they're going to be going through a lot of ancient woodlands as a result. So just down the way Clay Lane Wood is one that's going to be heavily impacted by by the proposals, you know several hectares of ancient woodland loss there, but in terms of our wood itself, you're you're gonna have impacts on some of the veteran trees from some of the works that are required in here. But you're also sort of increasing the traffic around the area on A2/M2. And as you can hear, there's already quite loud background noise from the traffic. If that becomes louder, it further reduces the suitability of this habitat for a lot of species. Adam: Right. So what are your, what are you doing? Jack: Well we're campaigning against it for one thing. So we've been campaigning against it since 2016, trying to bring those bring those sort of impacts down as far as possible. At this point in time, I would probably say that it's unfeasible, that it could go ahead without causing loss or damage to ancient woodland and veteran trees, and that's something that we have to oppose as an organisation. So we're working with other environmental NGOs, conservation orgs like RSPB, Buglife, Wildlife Trust, CPRE to to oppose this scheme. Adam: So, and if people want to keep an eye on the sort of campaigns you're running, and the sort of live issues around the country, where can they get that information? Jack: They can go along to woodlandtrust.org.uk/campaigns and they'll be able to find out about what we're doing in terms of campaigning for protection of ancient woods and veteran trees. We've got a really great campaign at the moment, all about protecting ancient and veteran trees and we're stood in in front of one of these at the moment, we call them Living Legends. Adam: Right OK, what a lovely link, because I I was gonna say you've brought me to a stand. It looks like a sculpture this, so what, so let me just briefly describe this. I mean, it's a hollowed out tree. There's, it almost looks like there's 3 or 4 bits of different trees supporting each other, and you can go hide in the middle. I mean, there's, I'd, I couldn't spread my arms in the middle, but I mean almost, you know, there's probably, I don't know, 4 or 5 foot wide in the middle. It's most extraordinary. What is this? What's going on here? Jack: So I would probably say this is an ancient ash tree. As trees sort of grow older, they they have to sort of kind of allow their heartwood to to rot away because that's what keeps them sort of stable and secure and in doing so that creates really important habitat for wildlife. And so this is what has happened to this ash tree effectively, its heartwood has sort of rotted away, it's still got this kind of all important surrounding ripewood to be able to support the rest of the tree. Adam: That's extraordinary. So the the, the, the wood at the centre of the tree, the heartwood has gone? Jack: Yes, yeah, yeah, cause it it's not it's not really useful for for trees at that sort of point. It's it's no longer the part of the wood that's carrying the sort of the water and nutrients up the tree. That's what the sort of outer ripewood does. So the heartwood decays away as they as they grow older. Adam: And that's just ash trees is it? Jack: No, that's that's pretty much all. Yeah. Adam: How ignorant am I? OK, fine. OK. I didn't realise that that happens to all trees. And it looks like that would cause an instability problem, but this looks actually fairly fairly stable, it's fine. Jack: It it's it's actually it's actually the other way they do it because it allows them to remain as stable as possible. And I I mean this one it doesn't, it doesn't look in the best sort of structural condition does it, but they need to do that for their sort of physiological condition because if they have if they're trying to support too much sort of heartwood then it affects the trees energy balances. And I mean that there's actual sort of scientific things here between the kinetic and the potential energy in a tree and why why they do this but all old trees do it and in turn it creates this amazing habitat, so you can see all these little holes in the in the sort of kind of inside wood and the decaying wood as well, where insects have sort of burrowed into it, where birds would be, woodpeckers, you know would be would be accessing that as well. Adam: Yeah. Amazing Jack: Amazing structures, aren't they? Adam: And so I'm going to meet now, one of the people responsible for actually managing woods such as Ashenbank, and he's waiting for me a bit further into the woods. Clive: OK, I'm Clive, Clive Steward, I'm one of the estate managers for the Woodland Trust working in the South East. Adam: So what is important about this site? What makes this wood special? Clive: What makes this site special is that it's ancient woodland or partly ancient woodland, but it's also managed as a wood pasture or has been managed as a wood pasture in the past, and because of that habitat it has lots and lots of old trees and old trees is very important in terms of what they support in terms of dead and decaying habitats. Adam: Right, so well we're standing by this extraordinary ash tree, I mean, it's extraordinary that there's an ash tree at all, given ash dieback, but it's extraordinary for all sorts of other reasons. But is ash a big part of this woodland? Clive: In terms of its name, Ashenbank, you you think it should be but but it's it is a component of the site but it's not, the majority species is not ash. Adam: What is this site then? Clive: So mostly sycamore and we're in the northern part of Ashenbank where we've got a lot of sycamore and we've got some really big old sweet chestnuts, but there are lovely old oak trees and hornbeam trees. Adam: Right. And so when we talk about ancient woodland, it's always worth, I suppose, explaining a bit about what we mean because clearly will go, well, that's old. But old for trees can be a whole different sort of thing. So how, what, what, what do you mean when you're talking about ancient woodlands? Clive: Well, when we say ancient woodland ancient woodland is defined as areas which have been permanently wooded since 1600AD. That's the sort of the the the date. Adam: Oh right, I didn't realise it was that precise. Clive: Well, it well, yes, it's roughly when big old estates used to produce maps, so they discovered paper and started drawing maps of what they owned but prior so before this this, the assumption is that if it's wooded then it would have been wooded ever since the Ice Age retreated but managed by mankind for for thousands of years. Adam: So we're, we're assuming actually that ancient woodland is all it's probably been here since the Ice Age? Clive: Yes. Yeah. Adam: So that's why I mean that's it's worth I think pausing on that because it's why when we're talking about 'oh, we'll have to destroy a bit of woodland for a tree, for a road' sorry, we're talking about taking away a bit of the landscape, which has been there since the Ice Age probably. So that's quite a big deal to have done that. Clive: Yeah, yeah. It is. It is. Yeah. The the other part of Ashenbank, which is the bit we're in is a more recently wooded area, probably about 200 years old. I have a a map here which is not good for a podcast, but I can show you a map. Adam: Go on go on, we can describe this. Hold on. I'll hold the microphone and you can describe what we're seeing. So go on, yes. Clive: So we have a a map here of Ashenbank Wood dating from 1797, which shows the woodland it used to be. I have another map showing the wood as it is today. So here's a map from a couple of years ago, but we're we're actually up here, which in the 1797 map shows fields. And now, now, now it's woods. So so basically, what's happened this Ashenbank used to be owned by Cobham Hall, which is a big estate to the east of Halfpence Lane, so this used to be partly of Cobham Hall Estate and in 1790, as many of these big old estates houses used to do, they used used they they employed a landscape architect to make their their grounds nicer as it were. So it wasn't Capability Brown, but it was a chap called Humphrey Repton who worked on this site from 1790 to about 1880, when he died 1818 when he died. And he landscaped the estate and the view from the house over to here looking west to what is now Ashenbank Wood was obviously important to him. So they actually planted a lot of these big old chestnuts which we walked past, which date from 200 years ago. Adam: Which is very nice and we often hear about cutting trees down and looking at old maps going 'oh, we've lost all that wood', here's an example of the reverse to actually that's a good nature story. Clive: Yeah, yeah, definitely it is. Yes. As you get older, as they get older, these trees there are microhabitats which develop rot pockets, branches fall off, they they rot, big holes develop and that that's these microhabitats which are home to what's called saproxylic species. Adam: OK, that's a new word, saproxylic? Clive: Saproxylic. So saproxylics are are basically insects and beetles and flies which only exist in dead and decaying wood. So if these big old trees weren't around, they've got nowhere to live. Adam: Right, which is why it's useful to have deadwood on the ground. It's not so, it looks untidy, but actually that's often the richest place. Clive: Indeed. Yeah, yes, but often, but often these insects and beetles are actually in the living tree, not in the in the horizontal, dead and dying stuff. And it's the living trees, which are are why this habitat is so important. Adam: But I thought you said you said they're living in the living trees, but but saproxylic means they're living in the dead trees? Clive: But within these big old trees, there are these rot holes and pockets and little microhabitats within the tree... Adam: Yes, which are dead and that's where they live? Clive: Where they live yeah that's right. Adam: Right OK. Yeah, very interesting. OK, very interesting. Now, there's also, I knew I was told, but I'm completely confused by, an idea that I'm told that goes on here of strapping deadwood to live trees. Did I did I misunderstand that? Clive: No, no, you you didn't misunderstand it. No. Adam: OK and you're going to show me where this is ? Clive: Yep. Shall we shall we go, we'll we'll walk there, have a look. Adam: Alright. Brilliant. So you've taken me to this tree, a very substantial tree, but next to it, this is the a bit of, what, you better explain, because this is really odd and I don't really understand what I'm looking at. Clive: Right. Well, going back to 1999 when High Speed One was being built, they took out three hectares of Ashenbank Wood along with lots of other woodland in the area. And fortunately, somebody had the idea of of suggesting that we could save some of those big trees they felled and reerecting them against living trees to help them degrade and and become part of the habitat. Adam: So I mean to describe this, we've got a very big tree. What sort of tree is this? Clive: So you've got a big, big oak tree. Adam: That's a big oak, and next to it is 6, 12, I don't know, 30 foot, 40 foot high dead tree, bit of bark. But it's it's not like a small, it's a 40 foot bit of bark which you have propped onto the living tree. Why is it better to have done that than just to leave it on the ground? Clive: Well, it's about these microhabitats. So I mean, it's not just propped up it's actually strapped to it, so it's actually quite secure. Adam: It is secure, that's y your health and safety hat on. Clive: We had to make sure it was strapped up, but vertical dead or decaying wood is equally as important as horizontal, dead and decaying wood. Adam: OK. Is it different? What, does it do different things? Clive: The wood doesn't but it attracts different insects and species so that that that's why so. But in most in most woodlands you'll see deadwood as being felled trees which are lying or windblown. You don't often see dead vertical trees. Adam: I've never seen that. Clive: Well, they're often well, they're often felled and taken out for firewood or something but they are important as as a sort of microhabitat for these saproxylics. That that's purely why. Adam: So the saproxylics which are insects which live on deadwood prefer, some prefer the high rise living of the vertical tree rather than the low level bungalow type living. But what what sort of, do you do, don't worry if you don't know, but do you know which insects prefer living vertically? Clive: I I don't know that. Adam: You don't. Somebody will, somebody will. Clive: Yeah somebody will. But if you look at that tree, you'll see that it's a there's a there's a U-shaped crook 2/3 way up and in that there's there's a there's a hole which has probably got water in it. So water gathers from rain and that's that that little microhabitat will be, something will live in it. And if that was horizontal, it wouldn't be there. Adam: Right, yes, yes. Well that I think this must be, I mean, we've been doing this for a few years. I've never seen that. So that is amazing. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. So I know that the history of this site goes back quite a long way, not just the natural history, but the human history as well, and am I right in saying there's quite quite a lot of sort of Bronze Age heritage here? Clive: Well, we've got a Scheduled Ancient Monument which has been dated to between 2000 and 1500 BC, which is a big burial mount and it is scheduled and it's, you know, English Heritage monitor it and we have to make sure it's free of trees and it's there to see. Adam: Right. Wow. And it's interesting you talk about it's there to see because we came and parked in the Woodland Trust car park. Free parking, as is normal in Woodland Trust places, first time though a full car park. We are here midweek during the day. I was surprised to see it's full so talking about visitors, this is clearly a, I mean have I just come at a weird time, have they all come to see the Woodland Trust podcast being made, it's right, it's a popular site. That always feels like contention to me because I know you want to encourage people to come, on the other hand, coming in a sort of, destroys a bit of what we see. How much of a problem are the level of visitors? Clive: Well, we basically have a path network through Ashenbank Wood which we maintain, we mow, we make sure it's open and safe. So most people walk on those those paths which steers people around the the wood, as it were, so and we we don't stop people from walking off the path but most people don't cause it's, you know, nettles or brambles or whatever. It's difficult to do. Adam: Right, yes. And keeping dogs on the lead and everything. You've been with the Trust for a long time, haven't you, really. What sort of change have you seen in the the the debate around the natural world in your time here? Clive: That's a big question. Adam: Have you, I mean, sort of, it assumes you have seen a change, you might not have seen a change. I mean I the reason I ask it is because it feels to me it's gone up the political agenda, that it's not just, you know, people dismissively talking about crazy tree huggers and let them onto their own thing. It's become more mainstream. Do you think that that's it's become more optimistic, do you think it's become more pessimistic, do you think, you you know, it's become more informed, I suppose? Clive: Well, I think there's a growing recognition that ancient woodland is a special habitat, but it hasn't quite gone far enough to get total protection. But I think there's a growing realisation that ancient woodland is special and we need to look after it. And I think the politicians probably do understand it, but maybe can't quite make that move to legislate against total protection. Adam: Yeah. And I think that's part of the Living Legend campaign that the Woodland Trust is organising, isn't it? Clive: Definitely is. Yeah. Yeah, very much so. Adam: Well, there were two websites we talked about today. So if you want to get involved in a local campaign, search for 'Woodland Trust campaigns' and you can find out more about the attempts to get better legal protection for ancient and veteran trees by searching for the Living Legends campaign and of course I hope you get a chance to visit Ashenbank Woods yourself. So until next time, happy wandering. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the visiting woods pages. Thank you.

Accompanied by experts Adam and Louise and a 100-year-old-book, our latest episode takes us to Nottinghamshire's Sherwood Forest to visit two astonishing trees. The Parliament Oak and Major Oak have each stood through several centuries and have fascinating stories attached to them. Equally astonishing is the fact that magnificent oaks like these don't have legal protection like our built heritage. Join us as we learn the magical lifesaving strategy of ancient oaks that could make them immortal, how penny coins can tell us about the health of a tree, whether Robin Hood really lived in Sherwood Forest and what you can do to help earn living legends like these the protection they deserve. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. Adam Shaw: Today I'm off to Sherwood Forest, home, famously, of course, of Robin Hood. The name Sherwood Forest actually comes from its status as a shire and the word shire was turned into sher...wood of Nottinghamshire, therefore Sherwood. Anyway, I've come to visit two trees, in particular: the Parliament Oak and the Major Oak. But before we get to that a lot more details on why those trees are so important later on, but first of all, of course I have to meet my two guides for the day. Louise Hackett: I'm Louise Hackett. I'm the treescape lead for Sherwood. I manage essentially a partnership project across the landscape of what was the historic Sherwood Forest. So that extends from Nottingham up to Worksop and Retford. Adam Shaw: Fantastic. So huge portfolio and I'm also joined by another Adam. So you are? Adam Cormack: Adam Cormack and I head up the campaigning team at the Woodland Trust. Adam Shaw: Fantastic. And we are standing in a beautiful field. I've forgotten to bring my suntan lotion so I could have a red bald head by the end of today, which is very naughty, but we are standing by, well, I'm going to start with, it's called a palace, it may not be what you quite imagine this to be. I'll try and put this on my social media and the Woodland Trust social media so you know what this looks like, but who just wants to explain to me a bit about where we are? Adam's being thrust towards the microphone. Adam Cormack: So we're in a field in the middle of Nottinghamshire in a place called Clipstone and we're by King John's Palace, which is a few remaining walls from an old royal hunting lodge that's about 900 years old. So this dates back to that time when Sherwood was a royal hunting forest. So it's called King John's Palace. But you have to kind of remove that idea of a palace from your mind as you're saying, Adam, it's basically a few remaining walls. Adam Shaw: Yeah. Adam Cormack: Which I you know, I can still still find it interesting. Kind of imagine what life was like here years ago. Adam Shaw: Yeah. No, it is. I mean, yes, I mean look, it is a few remaining walls, but it is beautiful. It's you know it's it's it's not like a a breeze block or anything like that. OK. So we've we've talked about history already a couple of times and the only thing I know about Sherwood Forest and I think I'll be joined by lots of people here is Robin Hood. So Robin Hood was here. Apart from Robin Hood, what else is the historical context of this place? Louise Hackett: So yes, as as Adam was just saying with the area subject to forest law, which is what made this area a royal hunting forest, the vert and the venison was protected for virtue of the king and that resulted in an incredible landscape that was a a rich mosaic of oak birch woodland, lowland heathland, acid grassland and it covered a huge swathe and it was incredibly dynamic landscape with a long history as as a hunting forest that would have looked very different through the years. Adam Shaw: So this, it was protected because the king wanted to ride around and catch wild boar and all of that sort of stuff. Louise Hackett: Absolutely. Adam Shaw: And what sort of period are we talking about? Louise Hackett: So we're talking from roughly the 1100s onwards or or earlier than that even, it has a long history. Adam Shaw: Now also on the car journey here from, you were very kind you picked me up from the station we're quite a way from the station, but you were, I was surprised you also said oh look we've been we've been in the forest all this time. So I often think of oh, we get to a forest and there's a bit of woodland, but we've been driving half an hour, I don't know, 40 minutes or so, and throughout that time we've been in Sherwood Forest. Louise Hackett: Absolutely. And I think this is one of the things that I think when people say the word forest, people think of wall to wall trees. But as we were just saying that actually what a forest refers to is an area subject to forest law. And these would have been complex mosaics of lots of different habitats, primarily open habitat. That's what would have made it such an enjoyable environment for the king to ride through. Adam Shaw: Yeah, cause you can't ride through the actual trees too much. Louise Hackett: Absolutely, no. Adam Shaw: OK. And a couple of times, you've already mentioned a new phrase to me. Woodland law? Louise Hackett: Forest law. Adam Shaw: Forest law. Never heard of that. What is forest law? Louise Hackett: So so this was essentially the the a separate law system that applied to hunting forests, and there were numerous hunting forests across England. So this was a separate law system, as I say, that protected the vert and the venison. So anything green and growing and the the animals, primarily those that you'd hunt. Adam Shaw: Right. Protected it for the king. Louise Hackett: For the king. And his friends. Adam Shaw: OK, but it has so, right. OK, fair enough. But it's interesting, isn't it? Because you know, that's really part of the aristocracy and all, you know, quite problematic in lots of social ways. But actually it has an environmental benefit - because it was saved for the king, it happens to be safe for everyone else and nature itself. Louise Hackett: Absolutely. So so there will have been small communities that lived in these areas, but they would have had very strict rules as to what access they had to certain areas of the land and and what they had access to and and but but all of that defined really what this looked like as a natural landscape and it it really protected quite a special wood pasture habitat. Adam Shaw: Wonderful. Now also Adam, you are clutching a very exciting looking book, proper old big bound book called Sherwood Forest by Joseph Rodgers. So how old is this book for a start? Adam Cormack: So this book is just over a century old. Adam Shaw: Wow. OK, proper old book. And this is all about Sherwood Forest. So how how's it split out this book? I mean, it's a it's a huge tome. So was it by tree or by person or what? Adam Cormack: Yeah, it's it's a hefty tome, isn't it? It's it's so it's a kind of miscellany of Sherwood Forest really, so it covers the important old trees of Sherwood Forest. There's a little chapter on the Major Oak, which is a tree that we'll see today, a chapter on the Parliament Oak. And there's a chapter on where we're standing now, King John's Palace. So I thought I might just actually read out the first sentence because I think it's a good kind of encapsulation. So remember, this is written sort of 100 years ago, so 'Such a feeling of quiet dwells in this little sleepy village consisting of a few labourers' cottages and farmhouses with straight canals along the meadows in place of the pleasant river, with the golden ragwort flourishing on its banks. That, from its appearance, a stranger would gather no idea of its ancient importance, for there is nothing to indicate the rude state which must have at one time here been maintained.' Adam Shaw: Well, look, it's a nice day we're standing by this palace. That's not why we've come here though. So just give me an idea of the trip we're going to take today. Adam Cormack: So we're going to go and look at two really important trees of Sherwood Forest now. We're gonna go and look at the Parliament Oak, which is just five minutes up the road from here and there is links to King John's Palace. So we'll talk about that when we're at the tree. And then we're going to go to the Major Oak and let Lou just talk about the Major Oak. Adam Shaw: OK, that's all to come. Bit of walking involved first though. So as we walk towards our first big tree of the day, the so-called Parliament Oak, I'm going to read from the other Adam's 100-year-old book about this oak. I'm going to be very careful so I don't trip over and ruin this book which has been looked after for over a century. 'It has been stated with some probability of truth that King John, while hunting in the forest, was informed by a messenger of a revolt of the Welsh and of an insurrection in the north of England that he hastily summoned a parliament to meet under this tree, and that it owes its name to that incident. On another account, it connects it with Edward I, who, when on his way to Scotland in 1290, summoned a parliament to meet at Clipton, at Clipstone, sorry, so it has no idea why it's called the Parliament Oak, so it could be to do with King John or it could be to do with Edward I. But it is called the Parliament Oak. And here it is in this beautiful book with a drawing or engraving of it, it looks like a sort of split oak. I'm just trying to see how accurate it is. Ohh, there it is. I'm being, I'm looking at the wrong blooming thing. There we are. So we can see it in the book and I can see it in real life. And what a wonderful, what a wonderful book. And what a wonderful place to read out that paragraph. Alright, we're resting, I just feel this is so apt, we're resting our book about the Parliament Oak on the Parliament Oak and and Lou it's I've lost the place. Louise Hackett: Which page? Adam Cormack: 197. Adam Shaw: If you're following along at home on the few versions of this 100-year-old book that might be out there, it's page 197 *laughs*. I feel like I'm leading a congregation. If you turn now, that's in your prayer books, past the Shambles Oak. There we are, the Parliament Oak. So Lou. Did I miss out something important you wanted to read about this? Louise Hackett: I just wanted to point out on the illustration, because I think on on some of the old illustrations you can see that there's two, what we call functional units, so one of the incredible things ancient oak trees do is they can separate themselves into functional units, which is a fantastic lifesaving strategy, which I I'll happily talk about more later. But on a lot of the old illustrations you you see what essentially are two functional units remaining of the tree. Adam Shaw: So just to be explained, a functional unit is what looks like two trees, but you're actually saying this is one tree which looks like two trees, but you're calling them functional units. Louise Hackett: Absolutely. So as it's aged, the tree has essentially segmented itself. And these these segments are what was once one tree starts to split out into multiple segments, which generally is associated with a large limb, but it means that if you have, if you lose one of your limbs and it's quite a catastrophic loss, you could lose that functional unit at no risk to your other sections, so it's quite a good lifesaving strategy. So we so in a lot of the old images you see these two sections and because we've got two trees still standing here today, people think that they are those two fragments. But but in fact it's only one remaining and the way we can identify that is you can see on the left-hand side of this illustration, you can see a small burr forming. That's what I'm resting th b book on, so it has grown quite considerably this burr since since the illustration. Adam Shaw: Right. Wow. It's a little bump 100 years ago, it's now a proper table. Louise Hackett: Absolutely. Yeah. So this is what's still standing and the piece of deadwood on the ground next to us... Adam Shaw: OK, let's have a look. Oh, OK. Yes, that was that whole tree. Louise Hackett: It was the section that joined those two functional units, so it was... Adam Shaw: Right. And what's happened to that other functional unit then, that's gone? Louise Hackett: So that's been lost. Yes, absolutely. So so what, what you can't see in this image is essentially it was, it was a huge tree at at its kind of height at its kind when it was at its kind of fullest, 9.5 metres in circumference, so it was a large tree and it would have been completely hollow at that at that point. And and that's when basically the the as the deadwood decayed and just those two functional units remained and and now just one. But what's magical with this tree is that you'd never know that to look at it. Today without these kind of past illustrations and photographs because what's actually happened is it's precluded fully around this this remaining fragment, so it looks like a 100-year-old oak. But actually it's potentially 900 years old. Adam Shaw: Wow. That's extraordinary, isn't it? So, yeah, well, that is extraordinary. I was going to say, how old is it, so we're looking at a 900-year-old oak here. Louise Hackett: But it's it's done this magical thing of having gone back to a younger stage of its life, we we quite often think of trees of of being young, mature, old and then dying. But actually what they have the capability of, which is what makes ancient trees so special is, they can go back to an earlier life stage. So this is now a mature tree and there is nothing preventing this tree going through that full lifespan all over again and becoming a huge hollow ancient of the future. It was already in ancient but... Adam Shaw: Yeah, well that's extraordinary. So really, it might never die because it just rejuvenates, really. Louise Hackett: Absolutely. Adam Shaw: An amazing thing. Well, that is brilliant. And Adam is also standing here and we're talking about history, Adam. And we're talking about the history of this tree, but that feeds into quite an important bit of work you're doing about history in general. Adam Cormack: Yes, so the Woodland Trust has been running a campaign called Living Legends for the past couple of years, which is about improving protection for trees like Parliament Oak, but other very old and very special trees. So we're calling them heritage trees. So people have been campaigning for protection of these trees for a very long time, for decades. But the last couple of years is where we've pulled that all together into a campaign called Living Legends. We've got a petition that's been supported by over 85,000 people calling for legal protection for very old and special trees. Adam Shaw: So don't they have, I mean I always thought trees were protected anyway and you're not allowed to cut down a tree even in your own garden, because the local council object? Adam Cormack: Well, I think it's just I think there's a sort of I think what you're talking about there is the sort of day-to-day protection that trees have from our feelings and attitudes towards them, which is the sort of social contract that we have that you don't just cut down trees. And that's the thing that protects trees sort of day in day out. There are policies and a few legal instruments, felling licences, tree preservation orders, that sort of together, provide trees with a basic level of protection, but there's nothing to recognise the value of this tree, the Parliament Oak, so 900 years or maybe even a bit older than that, in the way that we were just at King John's Palace, so we were there we were looking at a kind of heritage asset that was sort of similar sort of age, really, grade listed has legal protection. It's recognised for its value and for what it can tell us about the past and tell us about ourselves and what we think should happen is that trees should just have the same level of protection. Not all of them, just the oldest and most special. Adam Shaw: So this 900-year-old tree doesn't have any historical protection compared to the 900-year-old odd palace, which does have historical protection. Is that fair? Adam Cormack: You just said it Adam, no it doesn't. But that's the case for all of our really old and special trees. Sorry we've just got a tractor going past. So you can, we're here, I mean, the tree is just, you can probably hear the cars going past, it's on the corner of a road, the corner of a farm track. And I think that just shows you that these trees aren't all in really safe, secluded places, they're they're there in day-to-day life, on road verges, parks, gardens, sometimes in woodlands and farms. Adam Shaw: Yeah. It's odd, isn't it? Because it is a part of the British history, not just natural history. But, you know, history of parliament, of democracy, of kings and queens. And yet it it doesn't have any legal protection that if it was made of bricks, it would have. But because it's actually not made of bricks, it doesn't have. Adam Cormack: That that's it really. So I think we, you know, we protect the things that we've made as human beings. So we protect the buildings, the artworks, the things that we've created but so these old trees should just have a similar level of protection. It's great that we protect all those other important things scheduled ancient monuments, battlefields, works of art. Trees just fit into the same category. Adam Shaw: And if listeners to our podcast believe in what you're saying and want to support that, how do they do that? Adam Cormack: So listeners can go to the Woodland Trust website or just go to Google and type Living Legends campaign and they'll go straight to our petition and they could be the 85,001 person to sign our petition although hopefully it will have gone up a bit by the time people listen to this. Adam Shaw: So, Living Legends, that's what you're looking for. The Woodland Trust's Living Legends campaign, and you can add your name to that. Adam Cormack: That's right. And and I think there's one other thing to add to that, which is that over the last six months, we've been successful in securing a private members' bill for heritage trees. So we're actually on that journey now towards legislative protection for some of these trees. Baroness Young has introduced a private members' bill, so this is a heritage trees bill and it introduces this designation of heritage trees, so it's not law yet. It's got quite a long way to go before it does become law, but you can go online you can Google that too, and you can read it for yourself. It's only five pages long it's quite short, it just talks about bringing in legal protection for very old and special trees. Adam Shaw: Of course, and and that needs government support, we've got a new government, so who knows what will happen to that. But I I know you'll be hoping that actually gets pushed forward. Adam Cormack: We will yeah. Adam Shaw: OK, well, while everyone is going to that petition to sign their names, we can walk on to another tree you wanted to show me. Where's that? Adam Cormack: So we're gonna go to the Major Oak now, which is probably the tree that most people know or think about when they think about Sherwood Forest. You know, it's legendarily the place where Robin Hood lived. You know, you can make that decision for yourself when you get there and you see the tree. Adam Shaw: OK, brilliant. Alright. Well, we're gonna walk on, you go sign a petition if if you fancy or just sip your cup of tea. Now one thing, I was keen not to do too much about Robin Hood cause I thought there would be loads much there'd be loads more to talk about. But in fact, I've hardly mentioned Robin Hood. I feel that's a bit of a miss. So Sherwood Forest, most famous, the home of Robin Hood. He's a real character, isn't he for a start? Louise Hackett: Absolutely. Adam Shaw: OK good. Right. Robbed from the rich and gave to the poor? I know you're a tree expert not really a Robin Hood expert and this is a bit unfair, but from your understanding is that a good reflection of what happened? Or is it more complex than that? Louise Hackett: Well, I think I think you can easily understand how Sherwood Forest would be a landscape someone like Robin Hood would be able to hide and and for for hundreds of years you would have had to have hired a guide to take you through this landscape. It was considered so dangerous. Adam Shaw: Really, you get mugged? Louise Hackett: Absolutely. Adam Shaw: And it was the king's hunting ground. So this was a good place for someone who wants to, you know, pick on the rich, this is would be a place to do it. Louise Hackett: It had an entirely different law system, so it prevented us, the commoners from from taking the vert or the venison from this landscape. So you can understand how local people would be slightly annoyed at the fact that the king was holding all of all of that for himself. Adam Shaw: Yes, slightly annoyed. I think that'd be a great description of Robin Hood. He was slightly annoyed as he set up his band of merry men to take back the venison *both laugh*. Anyway, and it's still today, I mean, that's what draws a lot of the tourists in we're standing up by this huge oak, but of course around us, lots of signage about Robin Hood and lots of young people dressed in green running around with lovely hats on. So yeah, still still a draw. Louise Hackett: Absolutely and internationally as well, which I think is really exciting for the Major Oak specifically. It hosted many guests from from across the world, and not many trees can say that. Adam Shaw: We've arrived at the Major Oak, which is a major tree. It is not called the Major Oak because it is big is it? Louise Hackett: No. Adam Shaw: OK so let's first of all explain why it's called the Major Oak. Louise Hackett: So it's named after Major Hayman Rooke, who famously illustrated a lot of named trees across this landscape and and in Derbyshire also. But a lot of trees that were incredibly significant in this landscape but have since been lost. The irony is he didn't actually illustrate this tree *both laugh*. Adam Shaw: So, so so it's called after him, but it's nothing to do with him at all. Louise Hackett: Well, well, he, he, he, he he was certainly in this area and will have will have absolutely seen this tree but and there is an illustration that quite often gets labelled as the Queen Oak or which was its name before it was known as the Major Oak but actually when you study that illustration, it bears no resemblance to this tree. Adam Shaw: OK. So it's like in honour of a man who chronicled the trees of this region. Louise Hackett: Absolutely. Adam Shaw: Fair enough. Now let's describe it because it is an oak. To me, those familiar with the Harry Potter Potter novels might think of it more as the Whomping Willow. It's it's very sprawling, not particularly high. It doesn't really have an obvious crown. It's spreading out, and it's supported by lots of metal supports, which probably because the limbs are so old, they might fall off or fall down, and it's got a fence around it to stop you going up to it now. Is that a fair description? Louise Hackett: Absolutely. So, so those props, kind of the the the the history of this tree is quite complex, so actually measures were taken since the Victorian era to hold this tree together essentially. There were some fantastic pictures of the blacksmith posing in front of this tree with all the metalwork that we can actually still see in the crown, you can see all of that metalwork holding the branches together. Adam Shaw: Ohh right I thought yeah now because it's all brown I missed it. I thought it was ropes. That's metalwork. Louise Hackett: Yeah. No, that's all metalwork and and that's been there for a very long time. Adam Shaw: This is really pulled together. This tree is being held together. But it still limps on. Louise Hackett: It does, it does. It is struggling. Adam Shaw: Right. How old is it? Louise Hackett: So that's a fantastic question. *both laugh* Adam Shaw: OK, I can I can tell from the moment I asked that you didn't want to be asked that question. OK, well, is it not clear how old this tree is? Louise Hackett: There is no way to definitively say how old this tree is. Adam Shaw: But you're an expert, give us your best guess. Louise Hackett: There, there are are are lots of guesses, some say 800, some say 1,300. Adam Shaw: Which would make it very old for an oak, isn't it, 1,000 years is... Louise Hackett: No matter what it is a very old tree. Adam Shaw: Right. And I mean, I rather unkindly described it as limping on. It's it's clearly having help here. It's nothing particularly wrong with it, it's just old, is it? Louise Hackett: No. So it's not its age that is causing it issues. So as I was saying the the Victorians did a lot of work in in terms of trying to keep the tree together. It was an incredibly popular tourist attraction through the for the Victorians. Adam Shaw: Still is, there's a picnic area right by here. Louise Hackett: And it it still is, it has 200 years of people visiting this tree and unfortunately that has compromised the tree as a result. Adam Shaw: Why, what, why would that, people coming along and standing by the tree, why, what harm does that do? Louise Hackett: So the first thing you want to do when you're visiting an ancient tree is you want to walk right up to it, don't you? And put your hands on it and and and and kind of make that connection. And for a long time you could do that. At the moment it's fenced off, and it's been fenced off for for 30-odd years and that's because the compaction around this tree is considerable. Adam Shaw: And that makes it hard for its roots to actually function. Louise Hackett: It means that they can't access, the roots can't access the water and nutrients needed. And and it's now struggling unfortunately as a as a result of that. Adam Shaw: Now also we passed just we're sort of one side of the of the tree, as we passed it, I could see sort of round I don't know metal thing attached to it, looked like a scientific instrument. What's that? Louise Hackett: Yes. So a lot of work is happening on this site at the moment to hopefully remedy some of the issues that the Major Oak is happening. So RSPB have employed a whole range of experts from from many different fields. And I've been working with them and Myerscough College to fit dendrometers to the tree. Adam Shaw: Say that word again? Louise Hackett: Dendrometers. Adam Shaw: Dendrometers. What's that? Louise Hackett: So these measure the the growth and shrinkage of the of the sapwood, so they're fitted... Adam Shaw: And the sapwood is that the internal bit? Louise Hackett: Yes, so so this is the, the, the the part that transports all of those water and nutrients. Adam Shaw: Right. So it's got a sort of it it's got something buried inside the tree, which is measuring internal movement. Louise Hackett: So so it's it's fixed to the tree, but it actually sits on the bark. So we've used one penny coins, which because they're magnetic. Adam Shaw: Literally one penny coins? Louise Hackett: Yeah, there are there are multiple penny coins glued to the Major Oak right now. And the dendrometer just sits on on that magnet. It has a magnet and it just sits on there. And it measures to the micrometre any growth or shrinkage every half hour. Adam Shaw: Right. Right. Whether, it's like it's breathing, whether it's breathing out or whether it's breathing in and why, that's extraordinary. That's a normal process is it? Louise Hackett: Yes. Adam Shaw: And that's as the water's coming up it sort of expands a bit and because that's how it pushes the water up anyway, isn't it sort of like a like a snake sort of pushing it up and down? Louise Hackett: Absolutely. And it will be responding to its environment. So what we're seeing is after a really dry spell, it shrinks. And after a wet spell it it it expands so the cells are always dividing but the the kind of quantity of water in those cells depends on on the environment and and what's happening. Adam Shaw: Right. And what you'd want to see in a healthy tree is a lot of movement or not a lot of movement? Louise Hackett: It's not so much about the the movement, it's more about the trajectory. So over time we want to see the, the, the average going up, that it's constantly growing. Obviously the tree's struggling at the moment and it's so it's a fascinating time to be observing what different sections of the tree are doing and because as we were talking before about functional units, the Major Oak will have separate functional units. Adam Shaw: Right, so this is what I was going to come on to that, we talked about how actually trees could be immortal in a way, because it's not that an acorn comes off and grows another tree, but they split so the same tree, sort of starts its life again, genetically the same tree that, you're going to correct me here, but that hasn't happened here, has it? Louise Hackett: So so so. In what way do you mean sorry? Adam Shaw: Well, yeah, that's alright I because I'm an idiot, aren't I? What I mean is that it, wouldn't it be lovely if, like we saw with the Parliament Oak, that if a bit of it sort of split off you went OK, maybe the first bit might die back but genetically, the same tree that that continuous sort of lineage just starts afresh next to it, not as an acorn but as a part of its own tree. But we don't seem to be seeing that. Louise Hackett: It has done that. Adam Shaw: In the past or, I just can't see it now? Louise Hackett: So it is you just can't see it. So yeah. Adam Shaw: OK, I told you I'm an idiot! Show, show me what's going on. Show me. Louise Hackett: No, no, no, no, no. So so so we were just, so the the the Parliament Oak just makes it incredibly obvious because we have images of two very obvious separate functional units because the the area in between has has died away over time, but we can't see that so obviously with the Major Oak until you really know what you're looking for. So if you think... Adam Shaw: Right. That's why I've brought you along! Go on. Show me what I should be looking for. Louise Hackett: So the large if you see that large limb to to the right, you can you can almost see a line going down the bark. Adam Shaw: Yes. I definitely can see a line. It looks like someones lain something over that. Louise Hackett: Yeah. So basically what it's done is it's formed this this separate functional unit associated with that large limb. And what you generally see when you when you've got strong functional units in, in my eyes, you you often see this almost like a wound wood response to the separate unit. They're starting to understand that they're separate and behave so they're healing against each other. Adam Shaw: Right. So that tree that, that part of the tree really reaching out into the picnic area if you like, is part of a sort of a new a new development. Louise Hackett: Not new. Adam Shaw: I was going to say it's all, new is relative because this thing is maybe 1,000 years old. Louise Hackett: It's. Yeah, I think it's hard. It's hard for us to understand, but it's essentially, you know, my arm, my right arm connected to my right leg is functioning completely separately and if I if that was to be completely removed, would continue happily. Adam Shaw: Yes. Yeah, fine. So even if the main bit of the tree died back or something terrible happened to it, we might have that maintaining itself. It's a separate entity. Louise Hackett: Potentially. We've we've definitely got some functional units doing better than others. And what that means is perhaps may, you know worst case scenario one of those functional units are going to die. Worst case scenario, hopefully that's not going to happen. But if it did, that doesn't compromise the other units, so they could carry on and and... Adam Shaw: Yeah. So you're saying even though it actually it hasn't got a huge amount of leaves on it, it's rather bald actually that baldness is a sign of hope, which is a good... I'm just taking it, trying to take a good message for bald men like me, the world over there is hope in your baldness. Men and trees unite. *both laugh* You're not so sure, I get that. Louise Hackett: It's kind of the opposite but... Adam Shaw: Oh, it's the opposite of that! Oh, you were saying there was hope though? Louise Hackett: It's the, it's there's hope where where you've got more leaves. Yeah, sorry. Adam Shaw: Ohh, there's hope they're, so I'm trying to find a good message in being bald. No, there's never a good... right scrub that. It's always bad. Louise Hackett: It's not, it's I so so I quite often describe ancient trees the the process of retrenchment is they're quite like people is they they they come become a bit more rotund, they shrink and and they lose their hair. And this is what trees do. And that is a really positive process. Adam Shaw: She's not describing me, just so you know. This sort of I mean it's an amazing it's an amazing, bit of nature of this, it's also a bit of history, which neatly ties in to this Living Legend's campaign, isn't it? It's an it's an important part of British history. Louise Hackett: It is when you think about this tree alone. Let's say it's 1,300 years old, which is the upper estimate. The the the history that this tree has witnessed in its lifetime is immense, in a way that we would certainly look to protect a a building that has that, that, that history connection to it. Adam Shaw: Yeah. I mean, during, so 1,000 years ago, what are we talking about? What were we saying before? It's like is it 1066. So it's, yeah, I don't know Edward the Confessor. It's I don't know if this was a man built thing we'd all be buying tickets to see it and there'd be an ice cream van outside and, you know, it'd be on a tourist trail. This is free. A part of British history. A witness to British history. And yet, trees like this don't have the same sort of legal protection that if it was made of bricks, it would have. So do you, do you think this is a good ambassador or how good an ambassador is this for the sort of campaign you're trying to to rally around? Louise Hackett: Absolutely. I think this is why people love to visit ancient trees. I I don't think you can help but be in awe for its age and and what it's witnessed in a way that I think it's quite hard for us to comprehend and and you know, comparing to our own lifespans. Adam Shaw: Yeah. Louise Hackett: It's inspiring. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special. Or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk. We look forward to hearing from you.

Our setting for this episode, Sheffield's Endcliffe Park seems like many other popular green spaces, but it has a hidden history: its waterways once helped fuel the Industrial Revolution in the 'Steel City'. We discover how Sheffield's past intertwines with trees as local urban forester, Catherine Nuttgens, explains how nature and the city have shaped each other through the centuries, and why people here are so passionate about trees. We also meet Stella Bolam who works with community groups and schools to plant trees, and learn about the nearby Grey to Green project that's transformed tarmac into a tranquil haven for people and wildlife and tackles climate change too. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife. Adam: Well, today I am in Sheffield, known of course as the Steel City renowned for steel production during the 19th century Industrial Revolution. But despite that historical heritage, woodland and green spaces were, and still are, the lungs of the city and seen as vitally important. In fact, it is now, according to Sheffield University, the UK's greenest city, with 250 public parks and over four and a half million trees. That's more trees per person than any other city in Europe and in 2022, Sheffield was named as a Tree City of the World. And I'm meeting Catherine Nuttgens at Endcliffe Park. That's a 15 hectare open space opened in 1887 to commemorate the Jubilee of Queen Victoria. And interestingly, it isn't in the middle of the countryside; it is two miles from the city centre, the first in a series of connected green spaces, known collectively as Porter Valley Parks, all of which lie along the course of the Porter Brook. Well, although it really is coming to spring, we've been hit with some rather unseasonable snow, and I thought we were going to start with some snow sound effects, but actually this is a very fast-moving river that I'm standing by and I am meeting Catherine. Hello. So, Catherine, just explain a bit about who you are first of all. Catherine: OK. Yes, I'm Catherine Nuttgens. I used to be the urban lead for the Woodland Trust, but I've just moved into independent work as an urban forester, an independent urban forester. Adam: Fantastic. And you have. We've arranged to meet by this. I was gonna say babbling brook. It's really much more than that, isn't it? So is this the river? The local river. Catherine: This is the River Porter, so this is one of five rivers in Sheffield. And it runs all the way up the Porter Valley, which is where we're going to be walking today. Adam: Let's head off. So I have no idea where I'm going. Catherine: Going that way. OK, yes, let's go. Let's go this way. Adam: OK. You sound already confused. Catherine: I was going to look at that. I was going to look at that tree over there. Cause we planted it. Is it still alive? Adam: We can go have a look at that. It's still alive. Catherine: Which tree? This tree? Here it's just so a total aside for everything that we're doing. Adam: We're already getting sidetracked. You see, if a tree was planted. Catherine: So yeah, I mean, this was one of... my old role at Sheffield Council was being community forestry manager and our role was to plant trees around the city. So one of the things that we planted were these War Memorial trees and it's very hard if you plant a tree to not go back to it and say, how's it doing? Is it OK? This is it, it's looking OK. Adam: This looks more than OK and also it's still got three poppy wreaths on it from Remembrance Sunday. And a dedication, lest we forget: to all the brave men and women of Sheffield who gave their lives and those who hereafter continue to give in pursuit of freedom and peace. 2018 it was planted. Catherine: One of the reasons I want to check it: it's quite a challenging place to plant a tree as there's an awful lot of football here. So the ground is really compacted, I think it's a red oak. Adam: A red oak. Catherine: That should be the right tree for this place. When they go in, they need so much water and it's 60 litres of water a week when it's dry, so keeping them alive, especially when the ground is so compacted is quite a challenge. It's something that happens all around the country is that people think 'I've planted a tree and now I can walk away'. But actually the real work goes into sort of making sure trees have got enough water. So that they can, you know, for at least the first sort of two or three years of planting. So that they can survive to the good. Adam: Brilliant. Alright. Well, look, we've already got distracted. We we've, we haven't even started. We've gone the wrong direction. But anyway, your oak is doing very well indeed. Catherine: I'm sorry. It's it's, it's good. Adam: So tell me a little bit about where we're going and why, why you've taken me on this particular trip. Catherine: Sheffield is actually the most wooded, well, it's the most treed and wooded city in Europe. There are more trees per head in Sheffield than there are in any other city in Europe. So I thought the Porter Valley is quite good because there's quite a lot of cafés on the way. So that's quite good. But also it was a great way of describing about how the, how the landscape of Sheffield has kind of shaped the city and how how kind of people are shaped by the landscape also. The landscape is, you know, is is shaped by the people and, and here's a real case in point, because although it all looks very beautiful now and as we go up the valley you'll see, you know it, it gets more rural. Actually it's all artificial. This is a post-industrial landscape. Adam: So I mean when you say that, I mean this is this is a creative landscape this, so that I don't really understand what you mean. I mean they didn't knock, you didn't knock down factories. This must have been natural ground. Catherine: Well, it was natural, but basically Sheffield started Sheffield famous for iron and steel, and it's also on the edge of the Peak District. So there's there's these five very fast flowing rivers that actually provided the power for the grinding holes are places where they made blades and scissors and scythes and all these different things. And so along rivers like this one, there were what were called the like, grinding hulls, the little factories where they they use the the power of the water to sharpen those blades and to you know, to forge them and things. As we go further up, we'll start to see how the Porter kind of has been sort of sectioned off. It's been chopped up and made into ponds. There's what we call goits that go off and they would have been the little streams that go off and power each, each grinding hull along here. Adam: I mean you you say Sheffield is the most wooded city in the UK per head, and yet it hit the headlines a few years ago when the council started chopping down trees. And it wasn't entirely clear why, but the the local population were up in arms. So why was that? Is was that an aberration, or was that a change in policy? Catherine No, I mean people call Sheffield, the outdoor city. People in Sheffield have always been really connected to their trees. But I think when we got to the, you know, for the street tree protest, you know, the vision was beautiful, flat pavements and there were just these annoying trees in the way that were lifting all the paving slabs and everything. We thought what we need is lovely flat pavements, all the people that are complaining about trees all the time, they'll be really happy. But obviously that wasn't the case because people actually do quite like the trees. So what happened here was that the the council decided to send to send a crew to fell in the middle of the night, and then so they knocked on. Yeah. It was, yeah, honestly. Yeah, it was mad so. The the policemen came, knocked on people's doors, said 'sorry, can you move your cars? Because we want to cut down the trees.' And now obviously if a policeman knocks on your door in the middle of the night, you know, it's it's pretty scary. So the ladies that they did that to said no, I think I'm going to sit under this tree instead. And it was just mad. Just think, what are they doing? Because it was in the Guardian, like the morning, it got international by the sort of lunchtime. And it was if, if you wanted a way to create an international protest movement about trees, so that's the way to do it. So. But I mean, that was the thing Sheffield is, so it's not an affluent city, but people do stuff in Sheffield, you know, something's happened, someone's doing a thing about it, and they're really good at organising. And in the end, thank goodness the council stopped. If there are things going on in your city, dialogue is always the best way, and consulting and co-designing with the public is so important because it's that's what these trees are for. They're here to benefit people. So if you're not discussing kind of the plans with the people then you know, it's not it's you're not properly doing your job, really. Adam: And you said there's lots of choice of places to go with trees in and around Sheffield. And the reason you've chosen this particular place is why? Why does this stand out? Catherine: Well, I think I mean, first of all, it's quite it it, it is a beautiful valley that's kind of very accessible. We've got, I mean here the kind of manufactured you know the Porter has been Victorianised, it's all got these lovely little rills and things. Little rills. You know where little rills kind of maybe that's the wrong word, but the kind of. Adam: No, but I do. Teaching me so many new words. So what is the rill? Catherine: So you know, just kind of little bits in the the stream where they've made it, you know, kind of little rocks and things. Adam: Like rocks. Yeah, that is beautiful. They're like tiny little waterfalls. It's wonderful. I love it. Catherine: So here for example, I mean looks lovely like these ponds that we have. I mean there's always there's things like the, the kingfishers and and there's the kind of Endcliffe Park Heron that everyone takes pictures of. And there are often Mandarin ducks. I think we passed some Mandarin ducks earlier on, didn't we? But this is actually. This is a holding pool for what would have sort of, how would the grinding hull that now has gone. So it's actually a piece of industrial heritage. Yeah, it looks, I mean, it has now all been kind of made nice. In the '30s some of these pools were were kind of put over to and probably in Victorian times as well. They're actually swimming areas. They converted them into swimming. Adam: I mean the water, I mean, you can't see this if you're listening, but water's super muddy or or brown. It's not appealing to swim in, I'll just say, but OK, no, no one does that these days. Catherine: No. Well, they they do up at Crookes, actually. There are people going swimming that that's a, that's a fishing lake. So it's much deeper, but it's a little bit. Adam: Are you a wild swimmer? Catherine: Yeah. Yeah. Let's go out into the peak a bit more and out into the the lovely bit. Adam: Ohh wow, you said that's the way to. I mean, I can't get into a swimming pool unless it's bath temperature, let alone. Catherine: It's lovely in the summer. I'm not a cold swimmer, right? But I do love it in in the summer. It's not. I mean, that's what's great about Sheffield, really. And that, like, there's so much nature just within sort of 20 minutes' walk. I mean, some people just get on their bike and go out into the peak and whether it's you're a climber or a wild swimmer or a runner or just a walker, or you just like beautiful things. You know? It's it's it's kind of here. Adam: And there is an extraordinary amount of water, I mean. It's, I mean, you probably can hear this, but there seems to be river on all sides of us. It's so we've been walking up the Porter Brook, which you can hear in the background and we've come across Shepherd Wheel a water powered grinding hull last worked in the 1930s. Catherine: Come this way a little bit. You can see the there's the wheel that they've put together. So inside. I'm just wondering whether we can through a window we can look in. But so so Sheffield say a very independent sort of a place. The what used to happen is the the little mesters there were they hired. They were men. Adam: Sorry that's another word. What was a mester? Catherine: That is another word. A mester. That is. I mean. So I think it was like a little master, so like a master cutler or whatever. A little master. But but in in there there were there were individual grinding grindstones right with the benches, the grinding benches on and they hired a bench to do their own piece work. So so it was very independent, everyone was self-employed and you know they they. So the wheel actually sort of was important for probably quite a few livelihoods. Adam: We've come up to a big sign 'Shepherd's Wheel in the Porter Valley'. Well, look at this. Turn the wheel to find out more. Select. Oh, no idea what's going. You hold on a sec. Absolutely nothing. It's it's it's, it's, it's, it's a local joke to make tourists look idiotic. Look, there's another nutter just turning a wheel. That does nothing. Catherine: And actually an interesting well timber fact is that up in North Sheffield there's a wood called Woolley Wood there and all the trees were a lot of the trees are hornbeam trees. Now hornbeam is really good, as its name might suggest, because it it was used to make make the cogs for for for kind of structures like this, because the the wood was so very hard and also it was quite waterproof. There's actually when the wheel bits were replaced here they used oak. But one of the I think one of the problems with oak is that it's got lots of tannins in that can actually rot the iron work. So so actually. There's kind of knowledge that's been lost about how to use timber in an industrial way and and. Adam: So if you happen to be building a water wheel, hornbeam is, your go-to wood. I'm sure there's not many people out there building water wheels, but you know very useful information if you are. All right, you better lead on. Catherine: I think we can head unless you want to go, won't go down that way or go along along here much. There we go. We'll cross. We'll go this way. I think. Probably go down here. Yeah, this has got a great name, this road. It's Hanging Water Road, which I'm not sure I would think. It must be a big waterfall somewhere. I'm not sure whether there is one right so. It's just a a good name. So yeah, so this is more I think going into more kind of established woodland. Still see we've got the two rivers here. Adam: So tell me about where we're heading off to now. Catherine: We're going up into. I think there's a certainly Whitley Woods is up this way and there's one called Bluebell Woods, which would indicate you know, ancient... bluebells are an ancient woodland indicator, and so that would suggest that actually these are the bits where the trees have been here for much a much longer time. I think there's still kind of one of the things that they try and do in Sheffield, is kind of bring the woods back into traditional woodland management, where you would have had something with called coppice with standards. So the coppice wood was cut down for charcoal burning cause. So the charcoal, these woods, all these many, many woods across Sheffield fuelled all this steel work. You know they need. That was the the heat that they needed. So charcoal burning was quite a big industry. And and the other thing is that's good for us is that actually having kind of areas of open woodlands, you know, open glades and things, it's really, really good for biodiversity because you have that edge effect and you know, opens up to woodland butterflies and things like that. Adam: We're just passing an amazing house built on stilts on the side side of this hill, which has got this great view of the river. Catherine: There's. Yeah, there's some incredible houses around here. Adam: Where? Where so which where are we heading? Catherine: We'll go back down that way. Adam: OK. All right. You may be able to hear it's not just the river, it is now raining. And actually it's all making the snow a bit slushy, but we're on our way back. We're going to meet a colleague of yours. Is that right? Catherine: That's right. Yeah. So Stella Bolam, who. She's a community forestry officer who works for Sheffield City Council. She's going to be joining us. And yeah, she worked with me when I was working for the council and is in charge of planting trees with communities across Sheffield. Adam: OK, so Stella, hi. So, yeah, so. Well, thank you very much for joining me on this rather wet day on the outskirts of Sheffield. So just tell me a little bit about what you do. Stella: Yeah, of course. So our team, community forestry, we basically plant trees with people. It's our tagline, I suppose, and so we we work with community groups and schools to plant those trees and provide aftercare in the first three years, two-three years. Adam: Aftercare for the trees. Yeah, yeah. Stella: Yes. Ohh obviously for the people as well I mean. Adam: What sort of? Give me an example of the type of people you're working with and what you're actually achieving. Stella: Yeah, yeah. So I can tell you about a couple of projects I did. When I first joined a couple of years ago. So one was in an area called Lowedges, which is quite a deprived area of Sheffield. In the south of Sheffield. And we worked with a couple of local groups that were already formed to build, to plant a hedge line through the park. It's quite long. It's about 2000 whips we planted, and we also worked with a group called Kids Plant Trees, who advocate nature-based activities for children, which obviously includes planting trees, and we work with a couple of local schools. So we map all the trees that we plant and so for our records. Adam: And how did you get involved in all of this? Stella: I a couple of years ago I changed careers. Adam: You were a journalist. Is that right? Stella: I was a journalist. Yeah. Adam: What sort of journalist? Stella: I did print journalism and that. Adam: Local through the local newspapers? Stella: No, I worked in London for at least 10 years. I worked in London. I moved up to Sheffield and I was a copywriter. Adam: Right. So a very different world. So it wasn't wasn't about nature. You weren't. You weren't the environment correspondent or anything. Stella: It was very different. No, no, not at all. It's human interest stories, though. So I've always been interested in in people and communities, and that that's the thing that I've tried to embed in my work in forestry as well and trying to sort of help people connect to nature and understand that that connection a bit more. Adam: You've moved around the country and we've been talking about how important trees are to people in Sheffield in particular. Is that true? Is that your experience, that it is different here? Stella: Yes, they're very passionate about trees and that can go either way. So you know there's people that love them and people that are actually quite scared of them. Adam: Scared? Why? Why scared? Stella: Yeah, I think because a lot of people don't understand trees and they think they're going to fall over. They say things like, oh, look at, it's moving in the wind. And I sort of say, well, that's natural, that's how they grow, right? But obviously I wasn't taught that at school. So people don't have that general understanding about trees. So I try to sort of, I suppose, gently educate people if they do say negative things. Because I obviously do love trees and you know, I think they give us so much, Adam: And you said you work with a lot of schools. Stella: Yeah. Adam: Do you feel young people have a particularly different view of nature and trees than older generations? Do you see any distinction there at all? Stella: Yes, I think though, because of the climate emergency we're in, I think kids now are much more attuned with what's going on with you know, are the changes that are happening in our climate. So we do incorporate a little bit of education in our work with schools. So we talk to them about trees, why they're important, and we'll often let them answer. We won't tell them they'll put up their hands and say, well, because they give us oxygen or, you know, the animals need them. So I didn't know anything about that when I was at school. So I think that's probably quite a major change. Adam: You must know the area quite well, and there's lots of different parts of woodlands in and around Sheffield, so for those who are visiting, apart from this bit, where would you recommend? What's your favourite bits? Stella: Ohh well I I like the woods near me actually. So I I live in an area called Gleadless and Heely and there's there's Gleadless have have got various woodlands there. They're ancient woodlands and they're not very well known, but they're absolutely amazing. But the other famous one in Sheffield is Ecclesall Woods. Yes, it's very famous here. It's kind of the flagship ancient woodland. It's the biggest one in South Yorkshire. Adam: And you talked about getting into this industry in this career, you're both our our experts, both women that that is unusual. Most of the people I I meet working in this industry are men. Is that first of all is that true and is that changing? Stella: It is true. Yeah, I think it's currently about I'm. I'm also a board member and trustee of the Arboricultural Association, so I know some of these statistics around the membership of that organisation and I think there's. It's between about 11 and 15% of their members are women. So yes, it is male and it's also not very ethnically diverse either. I think it is changing and I think I can see that sometimes even when I'm working with kids. And you know, young girls who are you can see they're like really interested. And I sort of always say to them, you know, you can do, you can work with trees when you when you're grown up, you can have a job working with trees. And like a lot of sectors, I think traditionally men have dominated. And I think a lot of women sort of self-select themselves, edit them out of their options, really, cause you you're not told about these things. I mean, I'd never heard of arboriculture five years ago. Adam: We've we've just rejoined the riverbank. It's quite wide. So this is the Porters River? Porter Brook been told that so many times today I keep forgetting that the Porter River, no didn't quite get it right. Porter Brook. Is it normally this high? I mean it's properly going fast, isn't it? Think that's amazing. Stella: Yeah. So I was going to just have a chat with you a little bit about a project called Eat Trees Sheffield. Adam: Yes, OK. Stella: Yeah. So this is a project that was initiated by an organisation called Regather Cooperative, but they also are massive advocates of supporting a local sustainable food system and as part of that, it's harvesting apples. And they make a beautiful pasteurised apple juice from apples locally. Adam: From an actual planted orchard? Stella: No so well, they actually have just planted an orchard, but no, they basically accept donations from the community. Adam: So if someone's got an apple tree in their garden. They they pull off the apples and send it in. Stella: Yeah, well, they have to bring them in. Yeah. And they have to be in a certain condition that they're good for juicing, but yes. And then they get a proportion of the juice back the the people that have donated get some juice back. Adam: A fantastic idea. Fantastic. Stella: Yeah. And then they obviously sell the juice as part of their more commercial offering. But yeah. Adam: That's wonderful. So if you, if you've got a couple of apple trees in your garden, and you live around the Sheffield area, what's the the name of the charity? Stella: It's called Regather Cooperative. So, we're trying to create a network of people that, basically, can be connected to each other and build skills to look after these orchards because they do need looking after and valuing. They're very important, so yeah. Adam: Yeah, sort of connects people to their very local trees. It's interesting. I have a a very good friend of mine in London. Who does sort of guerilla gardening. And on the the street trees has just planted runner beans and things coming up so so you know it just grows up. You can see people walking down and going oh, are those beans hanging off the trees? and you she you know, just pops out and grabs some and goes and cooks with them. And you know I'm not. I always think. I'm not sure I'd want to eat some some stuff from this street tree because God knows how. What happens there? But I I love the idea. I think it's a really fun idea. Stella: So it's just it's been nice meeting you. Adam: Well, same here. So we're back, we're back by the river. Catherine: By the river all along the river. Adam: All along, so yes. Final thoughts? Catherine: Yeah. So I mean, it's been so great to have, you know, have you visit Sheffield today, Adam. Like, it's always such a privilege to to show people around kind of the bits of our city that are so beautiful. Well, I think, you know, just this walk today in the Porter Valley and the fact that there's so many trees where there used to be industry is something that Sheffield's had going for it I think throughout the whole of its history. The the woodlands were originally so important to be the green lungs of the city - that was really recognised at the turn of the 20th century. But now if you go into the city centre, there's projects like Grey to Green, which is basically where they used to be a very, rather ugly road running round the back of the city centre, which has now been converted into 1.5 kilometres of active travel routes, and there the space has been made for trees. So instead of roads now there's kind of special soil and trees and plants and grasses and things like that. They're like, they look amazing, but also they help to combat climate change. So when the rains fall like they have done at the moment, the trees slow down all the flow of the water going into the River Don, it stops Rotherham from flooding further down. But it also helps well it also encourages people to visit the city centre and enjoy the shade of the trees and, you know, takes up some of the pollution that's in the city. And I think it's, you know, this kind of new kind of thinking where we're actually not just looking after the woods we've already got and letting it grow. Actually making new spaces for trees, which I find really exciting and you know, hopefully that's going to be the future of not just Sheffield, but lots of cities around the country. Adam: That's a brilliant thought to end on. Thank you very much for a fantastic day out and I was worried that it would be really wet and horrible and actually, yet again it's been quite pretty, the snow and it's only rained a little bit on us. Look, a squirrel. Adam: Well, I hope you enjoyed that visit to one of Sheffield's open wooded spaces, and if you want to find a wood near you, you can do so by going to the Woodland Trust website woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. Until next time, happy wanderings. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special. Or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sheltering from the rain under a yew tree in a Shrewsbury churchyard, we chat to 'Tree Pilgrim' Martin Hügi, the Trust's outreach manager in the South East. He's taken a four-month sabbatical to walk from Land's End to John O'Groats and visit thousands of incredible trees along the way. Hear Martin on awe-inspiring trees that have rendered him speechless, the vital Ancient Tree Inventory that helped plan the route, the value of 'plugging in' to nature and what's in his kit bag! We also hear from Adele, who explains that old trees like those on Martin's pilgrimage are not protected or prioritised like our built heritage. Find out what you can do to help. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife. Adam: Today I am off to meet the Tree Pilgrim, which is the moniker of Martin Hugi, who is doing a proper marathon pilgrimage from Land's End to John O'Groats using the Woodland Trust's Ancient Tree Inventory, so you're gonna visit a huge number of ancient and veteran trees, something like 6,500 of them he's expecting along his walk and I caught up with him in Shrewsbury in Shropshire, which is just on the River Severn about 150 miles or thereabouts, north, north west of London, and I caught up with him at a rather rainy churchyard. This is very unusual because normally I join people on walks, but actually you've been walking for what, what day is it? Martin: I'm on day... 79 today Adam: You had to think about that! Martin: I had to think about that. Adam: Yeah. So this is so you've actually taken a break and you've come into Shrewsbury and we're, we're we are in a green space in a churchyard where, now we're we're here for a special reason. Why? Martin: So last night I was giving a talk, talking about ancient trees and the the need for greater protection and just telling my story of what I've been up to. Adam: Right, well, first of all tell me a bit about this pilgrimage you're going on. Martin: Yeah. So I'm calling it an ancient tree pilgrimage and it is a walk from Land's End to John O'Groats and I spent 12 months planning meticulously a route between some of the most amazing trees that I could fit into a north-south route and working out the detail of how I wassgoing to get to those trees via other trees on the Ancient Tree Inventory. Adam: So the Land's End to John O'Groats, which that walk, famous sort of trip which is called LEGO for short, is it? Martin: LEJOG, or JOGLE if you go the other way. Adam: LEJOG, right OK, LEJOG. Martin: Land's End to John O'Groats. Adam: OK. It's long if you do it straight, but you've gone, gone a sort of wiggly woggly way, haven't you? Because you're going actually via interesting trees. So how many miles is that gonna be? Martin: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Well, it's if you're going to go a sort of more classic route, it would be something like 1,080 or 1,100 sort of miles. The route that I've planned is 2,077 miles. Adam: Wow. Martin: So it's double. Adam: 2,077 mile walk. Martin: Yeah, I had estimated doing 18 miles a day. That would be, that was my average. I'd sort of planned rough stops where I thought I might be able to get to. I'm more doing about 13 miles a day, which is not a lot less, but it's, I'm spending more time with the trees. And I, we also we lost our our dog on the day that I was setting off. We went down to Penzance to start and we took our our old family dog with us and he was very old and and elderly and he actually died on the morning that I was going to set off. So we just drove back home and didn't fancy starting again for another couple of weeks. So if you can be behind on a pilgrimage, I was already 2 weeks behind, but actually, I'm on a pilgrimage, so it's it's it's about the journey. Adam: Would you say you're a religious person? Martin: Not in the classic sense of an organised religion, but I, I do have a spiritual side to me for sure. Yeah. Adam: And what difference then, you you talk about this tree pilgrimage and it not being about the distance, it's about the journey, which, you know, one often hears. What, if anything, have you learnt about your feelings for the natural world, or what you think it can offer you, or what you can offer it during this journey so far? Martin: Yeah, I think I'm learning about my connection with nature and ancient trees and the sites that they sit in as being good places to access that connection. So one of the stories that I tell is about meeting the Majesty Oak in Fredville Park in Kent. And we went with a conservation trip with work and it's just such an incredible tree at it's 12.5 metre girth and a maiden oak. And it just goes straight up and it's just it's, it's, it's bulk, it's sheer dominance and size literally blew my mind to the point where I was speechless for a couple of minutes and I wasn't the only one, and because I think it it just it takes you out of the ordinary state of 'this is what a tree is' and it put me into a state of, this is something different, and it was a a real feeling of awe and I get that from ancient trees, I sometimes I will feel awe and that's a a rare feeling in my life and potentially a lot of people's lives. And I think that's well, that's what I'm seeking, I suppose, but it's almost like a gateway feeling for other potential feelings that you can cultivate around nature and trees. Just things like respect and gratitude, and I've actually found myself thanking some of the trees because of, they're just full, so full of life and and they're persisting and the resilience and feeling actual gratitude that they persist and doing what they do. Adam: And you must meet a lot of people on your walk. 70 odd days in so far, they must ask you what on Earth you're doing and must give you some sort of response. What, have people been surprised, shocked, do they think you're nuts? Do they go 'can I join you'? What's been the response? Martin: All of those things, I suppose. Yeah, I'll, I'll sort of tell them what I'm doing and and as soon as I get to Ancient Tree Inventory, I get a blank look. Adam: OK. Well, you say lots of people don't know about this, let's talk about this. First of all, what is it, and then how do people get involved? Martin: Yes. So it is a citizen science project, it's an open publicly accessible data set of ancient trees across the UK. Adam: And so I could, I mean, for instance, today if we think we found this ancient tree, we would go on the register and go, here it is, we think it's a, you know, a an ancient oak or what whatever it is and we measure its girth, its its width at about do you do it about 3 metres high? Is that what you meant to do? Martin: It's 1.5 metres. Adam: So only twice wrong *laughs* there we are, well a good margin of error. Yeah, 3 metres is too high. No, I'm short as it is, overblown idea of how tall I am. So 1.5 metres high you sort of take a tape measure and you measure it and you say you you think you you know what it is, you give it a good go and there's lots of online apps you can help you. And you sort of make comments about the tree. You sort of say it's in this sort of condition, but you don't have to be an expert, it is just fine to give it give it a go. Martin: Absolutely and and actually you don't need a tape measure, you can you can make an estimate and if you don't know what the tree is exactly or don't know what it is at all, you can still add it to the inventory and it will, it won't appear as a public facing record at that point, but it will show up to an ancient tree verifier, a volunteer ancient tree verifier. It will show up as an unverified tree and and I I am an ancient tree verifier, since 2008, and I'll be able to see that there's an unverified tree here and I can go along, I can say, well, it is an oak and I can measure it if I can measure it, if it's possible. And I can record other details about the tree like its veteran characteristics. Adam: So already, I mean I don't get too bogged down into all of this, but I get notable trees like an event has happened under them, and there's lots of amazing trees where the Magna Carta was signed under one the Tolpuddle Martyr, the first ever union was created under a tree, so there's lots of historically important trees like that. But the the difference between veteran and ancient, is there a clear distinction between those? Martin: No, in a way it's a subjective thing, but there is guidelines. There are, for different species, there are graphs saying if it's over this sort of girth you you would, it would be erring into an ancient tree. And and different species and different growth rates so there'll be different sizes. My, so a sort of colloquial definition is it's a tree that makes you go wow, would be an ancient tree and be that awe inspiring sort of feeling. But then also an ancient tree is one where you can see that it's been through multiple stages of growth, and what you'd say as a development phase for a tree, so an oak tree for example, you'd be able to see that it's it's, it's gone up and it's done it's mature oak, it's lost limbs and then it's shrunk back down again and then it's gone back up again and then it's come back down again and it's gone back up again and you can see that history in the shape and form of an ancient tree. So an ancient tree is a veteran tree. It's just that it's been a veteran multiple times and it's gone through them. Adam: And presumably it's different for different species, because I mean, we're looking at a couple of yews, I mean, a yew tree can last 2,000 years. So what might be old for a yew tree is very different, might be old for a cherry tree, for instance. So you you can't apply the same rule for all trees, presumably. Martin: You can apply that same thinking and principle to all trees that, has it been through multiple stages of life and development. Yew trees for sure are some of the oldest living trees. Something that's really stood out to me in Powys, in Wales and, is how they will put roots down into the inside of their decaying stems. Roots go down, they're called adventitious roots, and it's literally feeding off of the decaying body of itself and then those adventitious roots become stems, and I've seen this over and over, and again in some of the oldest yews that, the internal stems are adventitious roots and the outside of the tree is decayed and and hollow and and so in theory a yew tree is potentially immortal. You know, they just go on and on because you you can see some of these big stems that will have adventitious roots inside them, but that big stem might have been an adventitious route originally, so they're just incredible trees and and all trees will do that. Adam: And so why is it important that this thing exists? I mean, why why make a register of ancient trees, apart from the fact you might want like quite like an excuse to go around the country listing them, which I I get that might be fun, but why is it important? Martin: I think there are, there's there's several reasons, really. I mean, apart from, I mean a simple one would be cultural and social history and the heritage as part of our our common collective heritage. But then there's also from a some more sort of biological view, they are old genetics, they're old genes that have persisted, so they're adapted to their conditions, who knows how many offspring they've generated and the genetics that that tree came from, you know, going back into millennia, so I think they're an important reserve of genetic history. They're also nodes of undisturbed soils, so they obviously clearly have been there such a long time that the roots and the mycorrhizal associations under the ground and the complexity of life that is in that area, it's like a node of of life and of part of our landscape that hasn't changed and that is an incredibly important place, akin to ancient woodland soils. Adam: And the whole the whole idea about ancient woodland itself is that you can't replace tree for tree, you can't knock down an ancient tree and and put in a new tree and it be as environmentally beneficial, so it's surely it's important because if we know about how to modify our landscape, if we're, whether where we should build new homes or or or anything, then actually it's important to know what we're disturbing, you can only do that if you know what's there. Martin: Absolutely, yeah and I mean *church bells ring* sorry that's just distracted me *laughs*. Adam: That's fine, distracted, distracted, slightly by the the ominous bells of the church in whose yard we are sitting in at the moment. So, you know, we're we're under a beech, you might hear the rain. We're cowering from sort of fairly light rain and in this churchyard and just listening to those those bells, anyway, they've they've gone, they've gone so. Martin: It's where Charles Darwin was baptised. Adam: In this church? Charles Darwin? Well, that, that raises a really interesting point, because also I know the local community were trying to protect an oak. And they called it the Charles Darwin Oak. You know, it's always good to have a name, isn't it? And they called it that because they think, well, you know, Charles Darwin could legitimately have played under this oak. It's old enough, and it's where he was baptised and everything. And it raises this issue, doesn't it, about people's connections to trees and local communities' connections to trees and it, I mean, I, from, as an outsider, it feels that that is becoming more a thing more a thing that people talk about, just regular people do feel it's important to have this connection. Martin: I I think it's it's it really is yeah. I think people are now realising much more how the trees and the ecosystems around them actually provide us with the atmosphere and the our ability to live on this planet. It really is such a fundamental part of being human and survival to look after these green spaces that it's it's, you know, people are, people do realise that I think people do recognise that. Adam: It it brings us on to the debate about the environment and protection. It was interesting, on the way here, I was reading an article by Jonathan Friedland, the great writer, who was talking about the ecological debate, saying they've said the the ecological sort of lobby group have the argument right, but they're using the wrong words and and he was saying that you know that that their argument isn't framed in the right way, but it feels like this is a super important moment, maybe a flex point, one doesn't want to overemphasise these things, sort of, but does feel that, I mean, right this week we are seeing heatwaves, I mean sort of properly dangerous heatwaves in southern Europe. Flooding, there was flooding on the motorway as I came here, so we have extremes of weather which feel very unusual for this sort of early summery type period. How worried are you about the environment and our ability to actually do something to protect it and our place in it? Martin: I am confident that we have the know-how and the ability as humans to change our ways to a more sustainable way of living in harmony. I think that is changing. I think the economics has got to be part of this debate and the conversation, I I read a fantastic book in 2008 by Eric Beinhocker, The Origin of Wealth. I don't know if you've heard of this and looking at the environment as complex adaptive systems, but he was also saying how the economy is a complex adaptive system and evolution of economy, evolution is a, you you can't predict a thing what's going to happen sometimes and Adam: No, I understand. And that's interesting to the, that the economy is itself an ecology and it adapts to the environment that it's facing. And I agree, I used to do a series for the BBC called Horizons when we travelled the world looking at technology. And I tend to the panicky, I have to say, and I thought this wouldn't be good for me when I'm looking at big challenges facing the world. And actually, I was really drawn to the fact that there are tech solutions to all sorts of issues, and it's often the money that's preventing, you go, 'we can fix it, it's just not commercially viable'. No one wants to pay to do this at the moment, but if oil prices went through the roof, suddenly this alternative would be commercially viable. So it was, we talk a lot about technology, sometimes it is the economics of it which are preventing us from doing things and the economics change, don't they? So that that might be. Martin: They do and it's something that is not predictable because there's so many moving components, there's so many interactions, there's so many feedback loops that, I mean, that's something that intrigues me about complex systems is that, the more complexity you have, the more feedback loops, the more agents that are interacting with each other in a system, the more resilient it is to change, but it can shift if if you if you get some events that are just too too much or you you degrade the amount of complexity then that system becomes less stable and that's the, that's the danger with, potentially what we're doing with trees and our environment, our, if you like a tree is an emergent property of the soil, it's it's an expression of of of what, of plant life and it's it started as algae coming out of warm freshwater, sea, freshwater in, 600 million years ago and and partnering with fungi to make, to have lichens. And then you get soil and then other things, other more complex plants evolve and then we've ended up with trees and they're like the, an emergent property of complex systems of the soil. Adam: So we're talking about people's interaction with the environment. I should explain some of the symphony of sound we're hearing. So we we had the church bells, we had the rain above us. And I think there is a charity Race for Life with, thousands of people have emerged, in in a bit of green land we were going to actually walk through. And I think there's a sort of charity run going on, which is why you might hear, some big blaring music in the background, which is not as quiet a spot as we thought we might have ended up with, but does show the amenity value of these open green spaces. It's just rather a lot of people have chosen to use it on, on this particular day. One of the other things I just want to talk to you about as well while we're talking about this debate, and I know you talk on on behalf of yourself, not the Trust, and you're taking a sabbatical so these are your views, but given the debate we're all having, it feels to me that we talk a lot about armageddon. And I know from talking to people, you know, my family, they they sort of just disengage with after a while it just becomes background noise. And I wonder if you have an idea or an insight into how to talk about these issues to explain that they are potentially the difference between humans surviving and not surviving and yet not just sound like, some crazy guy screaming into the wind and also to stop people going 'well, if that's the way it is then you know what am I gonna do I, I just better carry on because I can't do anything about it'. Is there a key that we're missing you feel, or an emphasis that we have wrong in engaging with this topic? Martin: I don't know if I would say I have an answer to whether it's wrong or not, or the way we engage with it, but I think for me the the key is connection to nature and encouraging people and you've got to start young, I think, getting children through forest school perhaps, getting them out outside and experiencing nature because that's where nature connection comes from. And you don't need a, you don't need an ancient tree to to give you a sense of awe. I mean you I I can and ppeople can find awe in a tiny flower, but it's just a case of looking and spending time plugging in if you like. Adam: You're right. I mean, I'm not sure I'd quite describe it as awe, but I often have in my car like a a little bit of a berry or an acorn and and you know, sometimes, it's going to sound weird now I'm describing it *laughs* but if I'm in a traffic jam or something and I look at those things and go actually, do you know what, if that was a piece of jewellery that was designed almost identical, we'd pay a lot of money for it and we'd go, 'isn't that beautiful?' And you'd hang it around your neck in a way that you probably wouldn't hang an acorn around your neck or most people wouldn't. And yet you look at it and you go, it's quite extraordinary when you take time to look at these things a leaf or something, and I don't want to sound, you know, too Mother Earthy about it and people to, turn people off about that. But taking the time just to look, sometimes, you go, the wonder is in the detail. It is there actually it's quite fun and it's free. Martin: Yeah and and I think when we when we go into a potentially, you know an undisturbed habitat like an ancient woodland where there is complexity and and you you immerse yourself in those areas, that's that's where you you you you can see, you can feel life. Adam: Let me take you back to your walk, because, from which I have dragged you. A hundred odd days planned on the road, carrying all your own stuff. That means you have to find a place to sleep. Wash every now and then. I mean you you smell beautiful so I'm I'm assuming you've found some magic trick or you are washing and carrying clothes. What, just what is the trick for doing that? Because sometimes I go away for the weekend and I feel I'm already carrying far too much. How are you doing a hundred odd day walk carrying everything. What's the trick, what's your sort of kit list? Martin: Yeah, I I did spend about two years actually building up different kits and trying different things to be as lightweight as possible. But that's in a way that, the whole having to find somewhere to camp, having to find water, these are basic simple things that take you away from all the other stuff that is going on you know, in my life sort of thing so I can actually immerse myself into the flow of of that journey. Adam: So, but just because you, look, you're wearing a lightweight top, it's it's raining. No coat at the moment, I mean, but sort of how much clothes are you taking? And you know, yeah, how many, how, how many shirts? How many socks? How many pairs of pants? I've never asked this of another man before *laughs* How many pairs of pants do you have? Martin: Right. Well, I can answer that *laughs* I have five pairs of pants, five pairs of socks, three pairs, three shirts, three T-shirts and just one top that I'm wearing now, a rainjacket and some waterproof trousers and some walking trousers and a pair of shorts. That is actually my clothing list. The the socks, the pants and the T-shirts are all merino wool essentially so they're very lightweight, they're very thin, very lightweight. Don't, merino wool or wool doesn't pick up smells and odours readily. The socks have got silver woven into them, so they're antifungal, antibacterial, and they're pretty amazing socks, actually. And they they dry as well. So the T-shirts are very thin merino wool T-shirts. I can wash them and they'll be dry in a few hours, especially with the hot weather that I was having in May and June. Adam: Not, not the rain, nothing's gonna dry in this rain, although this tree is providing some amazing cover for us. So look, you've come into Shrewsbury to to to meet me to have a look at this ancient tree, which I I might leave you to measure yourself given the the increasing amount of rain that is pouring down on us. And I stupidly did not bring a coat because I just thought it was such nice weather when I left. Anyway, what is, when I leave you, where are you off to? Where is the next sort of part of this walk taking you? Martin: Well, I am, will be taken back to my tent, which I've left at a campsite in, near Brecon and and then I am heading north to some yew trees and then to, up to Welshpool and Oswestry and then across into, towards in between Liverpool and Manchester and then north, Cumbria, Scotland. We'll see how, how, how far we get. Adam: I know you thought the first bit of the trip you've you've not been on pace to actually complete it, but you never know, it, you might pick up, it might might get easier going. Martin: I've actually slowed down and I thought I would speed up as I went along and as I got fitter and stronger I thought I would speed up but actually I've started to slow down and go at the pace, at a pace that my body wants to go at as well as the time and mental space that I wanted to to have from this trip. Yeah. Adam: That's the difference in us. You're you're going to go off and measure a tree, and I'm going to find a coffee *laughs* some, somewhere dry. Look, best of luck, an amazing journey. Thank you very much. Thank you. And if you've been inspired by Martin's journey and want to help protect veteran and ancient trees but don't want to take a marathon walk the length of the country, there is still something you can do from the comfort of your armchair. Adele: So, I'm Adele Benson, I'm a campaigner at the Woodland Trust. Adam: So what can people do to actually help? Adele: We're running currently the Living Legends campaign to secure better legal protection for our oldest and most special trees. Because ultimately we are seeing some of our oldest trees with, you know, immense ecological wildlife and historic value being felled, or the value of them is not being fully appreciated in law. We've got a petition with almost 50,000 signatures and and we're trying to ultimately get to 100,000. Adam: So if anyone is interested, they can search the Woodland Trust's Living Legends campaign on their computer and you can sign that online. Great, great stuff. I I think people might be surprised to learn that buildings often, or perhaps most of the time, get better legal protection than trees, even if the trees are older and actually more significant than the built structure next to it. Adele: Yeah. So in Hampstead Heath, there's a, it's approximately 300 year old beech tree. And and it was planted next to a fence that had just been erected so think back 300 years ago. Now this fence has a Grade II listing on it, but the beech tree doesn't have any legal protection at all. So when they were found that the roots of the beech tree and the trunk was sort of impacting quite heavily on the fence, they were very, they wanted to essentially cut down this tree and remove it. However, that's not now happened luckily, but it's essentially having that equivalent of protection that is so desperately needed because we're valuing this this built heritage but we're not valuing this natural heritage that we have such a wealth of in the UK. The Woodland Trust celebrated its 50th anniversary last year and in that time, it's been working considerably to protect some of our oldest and most special trees and woodland, and ultimately I think it's now a time for action. Adam: So let's just remind everyone that is the Living Legends campaign, which you can search for online if you want to sign that petition. And if you just want to find a woodland near you to walk in, just go to the Woodland Trust website, type in, find a wood that will come up with a whole range of places near you that you can visit. Until next time, happy wandering. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk. We look forward to hearing from you.

Join us as presenter, author and farmer Kate Humble guides us through magical ancient woodland near her remote Wales home in the Wye Valley. With infectious enthusiasm and occasional impressions, she tells us about the plants and animals along our route as well as the story of her accidental career, becoming host of nation's favourite Springwatch having never wanted to be a TV presenter! Kate also talks worldwide travels, access to nature and planting trees with the Woodland Trust on her smallholding. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife. Adam: Well, in early spring I went on a woodland walk in Wales with presenter, author and farmer Kate Humble, who was taking me around what promised to be some amazing woodland with her dogs. But as is increasingly common in these podcasts we of course had to begin with me getting absolutely and entirely lost. This is an absolute disaster. Although I am bad at directions, this is not my fault *laughs* So Kate sent me a pin, she said look this is going to be hard to find my place, she sent me a map pin. I followed the map pin. Look I'm here I don't know if you can hear this you probably can't hear this. This is the gate that's locked, which is across some woodland path. So I can't get there. And of course there is no phone signal, so I'm going to have to drive all the way back to some town to find a phone signal. And I'm already late. OK. I have managed to find a village where there is a phone signal. I've managed to call Kate and Kate *laughs* Kate has clearly got the measure of me and told me to give up and she is now going to get in her car and find me in this village and I will follow her back. In the meantime, we have passed Google map pins back and forwards, which apparently tell her that I'm sitting outside her house. But I really am nowhere near her house, so I seem to have broken Google which well, that's a first. Anyway I've got a banana here, so if she's a long time, I have dinner and I'll just wait. This will never happen. This will actually never happen. Well we've found Kate. We've found a whirly country drive lane. Feels a bit like rally driving. It's like, I mean, I don't understand why my map wouldn't find it, but this is certainly a bit of rally driving we're doing here getting to her house. My goodness. We found her house. OK. Well, we're here. Which I never thought I I really thought it was really lovely. The idea was nice, and next time I'm in Wales, I'll give you a call so really, it's it's better than I thought better than I thought. Anyway, so you're leading me off with your two dogs. Kate: I am. I am. I'm leading you off into one of the most beautiful I think I mean, obviously I'm a little bit biased but it is one of the most important areas of ancient woodland in Britain. This is the Wye Valley. We're the lower Wye valley, so we are the the the the bit really where the River Wye is in its sort of last bit of its journey. It's risen in mid Wales, about 136 miles from here. I know that cause I've walked the whole route. Adam: Really, we're not doing that today, are we? Kate: No we're not no I promise. I promise Adam. So yes and we are basically about 5 or 6 miles from where it flows into the River Severn and then out into the Bristol Channel and the woods around here are a lovely mix of broadleaf, so we're walking through broadleaf woodland now and this is literally this is what I walk out of my front door. Aren't I lucky? Adam: You are lucky. Kate: I'm so lucky. So we've got a lovely mix of broadleaf woodland now and we're just coming into that time of year. Which is the time of year that makes everybody's spirits lift, because we are coming into spring, and if we actually just stop just for a second. You can hear that's a blue tit calling *imitates sound* and I mean, this isn't the perfect day for birdsong, but the birdsong was really picking up. And that's the lovely thing about living alongside woodland. So even in the winter, even when you don't think there are any birds at all, what you hear in these words is *imitates sound* that's a very, very bad impression of a great spotted woodpecker. Adam: OK, I'm glad you. I I was guessing it might be a woodpecker, but I didn't want to. Kate: So they start to drum around about sort of late January, they'll be drumming. And and then as the and we also have tawny owls, lots of tawny owls in these woods. We've got an owl box and we used to have an owl that we called Percy who we have no idea whether it was a boy or girl. Adam: I was gonna say it was, a reason it was called Percy? Kate: Don't know, just it just it looked like a Percy. Adam: Just fancied the name. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. Kate: But we have lovely tawny owls here. So, you know, at dusk and and when when I take the dogs out sort of last thing at night round about 10 o'clock 11:00 o'clock at night we walk down this track and and you stand here and you hear this wonderful and everyone thinks you know, tawny owls go toowit toowoo. They're the classic toowit toowoo owls, but actually you've got 2 owls calling, so you've got the male going *imitates noise* and then you have the females going *imitates noise*. And they're calling each other, establishing territories or going ooh I like the sound of you, there's a bit of flirting going on. So these are, as I say really it's it's just the biggest treat to live with this on my doorstep. Adam: Right, so fantastic. You you clearly I mean, you've launched into a sort of fantastic description and detailed knowledge, but you are not a country girl by birth are you? Kate: No, I am a country girl by birth. Adam: Oh you are? I though you were born in London? Kate: I am. No. Well, I was you're right, I was I was Adam: Sorry, do I know where you were born and you don't. Kate: Well, being born and where you were brought up is different. Adam: Yeah, OK. OK, fair enough. Kate: So I was, you're absolutely right, I was born in London. I was born in well, I was born in Wimbledon in fact. This is my neighbour by the way. Adam: Right. Right. Wow. I didn't, we're in the middle of nowhere I didn't know there'd be a neighbour. Kate: I know, but I know. But there are other people mad enough to live in these woods, and he's particularly mad. Adam: OK. Does he mind you saying that? Kate: Not at all. Not at all. No. He's absolutely used to it. Hello. Come and say hello to the Woodland Trust podcast. Adam: No. OK, I'm just checking. OK. Hi, I'm Adam. Hi. Nice to see you. Yeah, I hear you're her neighbour. Kate: This is this is this is writer Mark Mccrum and his dog Jabba. Yes. So I'm just dragging Adam down to take a look at the ponds and talking about the ponds down there. Mark: Oh lovely. Which ponds? Kate: The ponds down there. Mark: Oh those ones? Yeah, very good. I might see you on the reverse cause I'm gonna go all the way round. Kate: Oh you're gonna go round. OK, fine. Lovely. Mark: These are lovely woods cause you never see anybody here. *all laugh* Adam: I'm sorry. Kate: Apart from you Adam: I was gonna say, and me, I've ruined it. Kate: Yeah we're the only people who see each other aren't we. Adam: So you were telling me you are you are born in Wimbledon, but you you grew up in the country then? Kate: Yeah. So I was I was born in Wimbledon and yes. So after about, I think I was about six months old, my mother always says that she realised that London was clearly not the place for me and Adam: From six months? Outward bound baby were you? Kate: Yes! She said she said there basically wasn't enough space in London for me. So so yes, so I was brought up in Berkshire, right? And I was brought up next to a farm. So I was always a sort of vicariously farming kid. Even though my parents weren't farmers and and spent my childhood looking after various animals of various descriptions, and I think the wonderful thing about being the age I am, so everyone bemoans being old, but I think I just I I am so thankful that I was born in the sixties. Adam: Why? Kate: Because no one had invented health and safety, climbing trees, no one had climbing frames, you climbed trees. And I think the trees enjoyed it, and so did you. And if you hadn't fallen out of quite a lot of trees by the time you were 10 and had various, you know, scars or broken bits as proof of a proper childhood, it wasn't a proper childhood. Adam: Right. OK. Kate: So I had a lovely proper childhood of, you know, not being plonked in front of a screen of some description or another. We're going to cut off piste a little bit and head down here. Adam: OK, I'm is this a precursor warning that I'm about to get bumps and scrapes and? Kate: This is a precursor warning that you might yes, you might. It's quite a steep descent. Adam: OK just as long as my, my face is my fortune though, as long as that's safeguarded throughout this, that'll be fine. OK. Well, that's good. Yeah. Lots of leaves around. Yeah. Kate: Of course it will be a soft landing whatever you say. Lots of leaves. One of the nice things again about broadleaf woodland. And as you can see, I'm sure your leaf identification is brilliant, but we've got a lovely mix of oak here and beech, as well as the evergreen so the hollies and lovely, lovely mosses. But yes, what you're walking on is is a sort of glorious mulchy carpet, but we have a profusion of bluebells. Adam: Already they've come up? Kate: Well the bluebells, the the plants themselves have come up so the leaves are up and there are one or two I'm going to show you, is it, will it be your first bluebell of the year? Adam: It, almost, almost we we can pretend it is for dramatic purposes. Let's let's go along. Kate: OK, OK. They are, they're just, they're just starting to come here now and and you get that lovely moment. It'll be about probably about three weeks or a month's time, slightly depending on on what the weather does, where you get the, the unfurling of the beech trees. So that glorious kind of neon green which when the light goes through you get that sort of wonderful, almost disco light effect show. Adam: And aren't they in Welsh, aren't they called cuckoos? The Welsh translation for bluebells is cuckoo clock. I think it's because it's like it's a harbinger of spring along with the cuckoo. Kate: Oh, I didn't know that. Adam: Oh my God, I found something you didn't know. Kate: You know, you know, you'll know lots, I don't know, but Adam: No, no, let's hope that's true that's that's I'll have to go check that. Do check that before you tell anybody. Kate: Well, I'll just blame you. Adam: But no, I do think in Welsh the translation for Bluebell is is cuckoo clock or something like that because it is this harbinger of spring and I think that's it's a really nice I I won't even try the Welsh but in Welsh it sounds very so I mean, I thought we were going to chat about your conversion to nature and everything, but actually that's a lot of nonsense. This is this has been a constant in your life? Kate: Well, it's been, I mean, coming to Wales, so I did live in London, you know, after I left home. Adam: Except, I mean, you didn't choose a a nature career, did you? I mean, you you're involved now we can talk about that. But first, what was your first career? Kate: Well, I mean. Career always seems such a grand word and that you've planned it. Adam: Yeah. OK, so your accidental career. Kate: So my accidental career, well, I had this idea that that I that I wanted to work in television, although again I don't really know where that came from. We're going just down here. Part of me also wanted to be a a safari guide. Adam: Good. I can see the appeal of that. Kate: I went to I when I was 19 having never really been abroad at all, because again, our generation didn't really go abroad as a matter of course. So I went to Africa when I was 19 and. Adam: Sorry we're not talking on a holiday? Kate: No it was a well it was a it was probably a rebellion. Adam: Right. You went as far away as your your parents as you could. I'm not going out for the evening I'm popping off to Africa? Kate: Yes, yes. I'm popping off to Africa and I don't know when I'll be back. One of those. Adam: Right. Yeah, good. Good exit line. So where, where, where in Africa were you and what were you doing there? Kate: So I I started in South Africa. I ended up in Egypt. Adam: Right, just bumming around doing sort of bar work or doing something more serious? Kate: I did I did I was a waitress for a little bit, but I was very, very bad and was sacked. I I was a model for a little bit, also very bad, very bad at that too. Adam: Why were you so bad at that? Kate: Because because I really don't like having my photograph taken and I really like food. Adam: Yes, OK well I would I would have guessed I could have advised you that wasn't the career for you. Kate: So so the two things, yeah, didn't really weren't terribly compatible to that. But I then got a job as a cook and a driver on a safari, and I drove a truck aged 19, having never really been out of Berkshire, from Cape Town, through Botswana and into Zimbabwe. And and then I hitched back to Cape Town. So I had a a real adventure. But what I what it really did for me was, having had this very sort of unconsciously wild childhood, I don't mean you know lots of parties and taking drugs I mean, a natural wild childhood, I then went to a place where the natural world was was so extraordinary and so mindblowing, and on a scale, you know, everything was was was like technicolour. You know, the birds were amazing. The the you know the the the size of the animals, the proliferation of the wildlife, the size of the landscapes, the emptiness and I think it was that journey that turned my mind to really re-look and re-examine the natural world and think it's, you know, it's extraordinary, it's it's mind blowing in every way and so even though I then came back and thought I want to have this sort of career in telly what I really wanted to do in my career in telly was work for the natural history unit. Adam: Right. And is that what you did? Kate: No. Not initially anyway. Adam: OK, but you have done, I mean you've done nature programmes, lots of nature programmes. What did you first start doing? Kate: We're going down here. I have. So I first started sweeping streets in the East End. Adam: In EastEnders? Kate: No, in the East End, no. I was a runner so I basically got jobs wherever I could get jobs and I got a job on a commercial that happened to be shooting in the East End and they needed the streets swept and so that was one of my jobs. But had no plans to be on the telly that that really did happen by mistake. Adam: I think you know my first job in telly. I don't know if you remember That's Life with Esther Rantzen. Do you remember they she always had rude, funny vegetables? Kate: I do, yes Adam: That was my job to find them, yeah so only only marginally above the street sweeping. Kate: Oh my goodness! Adam: So you got how did you get picked there? I mean, we gotta get back to the natural world. But you've had such such a fantastic life. So I mean, I think people will be fascinated to know you have not much of even a vague plan about what you're doing. You're fumbling about a bit. Kate: None, yeah. Living in a squat. Eating crisps. Adam: So yeah, right. So not many models will be will be living like that and eating crisps, I get that You're sweeping streets as your way into telly, all of a sudden you're on telly. How did that happen, was that more of a plan or did someone just turn around and go, hey, you, street sweeper, you'll do? Kate: No, it wasn't. So I had I had graduated from street sweeper, so it took about probably four four or five years I have become by now a sort of senior researcher. And I got a job at the BBC. My first job at the BBC on a programme called Animal Hospital. Adam: Right. Yes. And you were still a researcher there or presenter? Kate: Yeah, as a researcher. And and I think the reason that I got the job was actually my childhood. Because I think it was the first series, in fact, I think the only series that they did of Animal Hospital in a rural practice. So we went to a practice that didn't just do small animals, pets type animals, but also bigger animals like farm animals and horses and I think the only reason I got the job was that I was the only person they interviewed who knew what to do with something bigger than a hamster. Adam: Right ok great. Kate: And I had my own wellies. Adam: Oh good. Always important for a career in telly, your own wellies, see these are the secrets people wanna know. Good. So you've got your wellies? Kate: Always really, really important. They are. So I got that job I got that researcher job. And at the end of it, the BBC do this appraisal thing. And they said we thought you were alright, you did OK, will you come back and do the next series and I said I'd absolutely love to. I'd really loved it, absolutely loved it. Can we just pause here a minute because this, Adam: A sea of wild garlic? Kate: No, these are bluebells. Adam: These are bluebells? Oh, sorry. Look at the ignorance here. Kate: These are bluebells. Well, those white flowers let me show you these because they're beautiful. Adam: I thought like I I think that's what I thought was wild garlic shows you *unintelligible* OK, we've got a proper safari expert. Kate: No. So look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, first bluebell starting to unfurl except my dog's just walked all over it. Come on you're not supposed to walk on there. Adam: So this is, all of this is bluebells? Kate: So all of this will be bluebells and in about 3 weeks time you get this absolutely, it's so blue it's like the colour actually detaches itself from the flowers and floats above it in this sort of glorious mist, it's beautiful. But this these flowers here I love. And these are these are one of the flowers along with celandines which are the kind of waxy yellow flowers that people will see in woodlands and even in their gardens at this time of year, these are wood anemones. And they are lovely, very delicate white flowers with these slightly sort of hand-like leaves and the lovely thing about these, they're not looking at their best at the moment because it's been quite a wet day. But when the sun's out, they open to the sun like these brilliant white stars. And sometimes there are areas around here where you'll see carpets of wood anemones and they're one of the first I've seen these as early as January, although not this year because we had lots of frosts. Adam: It's funny you, you, you, you use the word magical I'm just looking at this tree with covered in moss and everything, there is something magical about these sorts of places, a sort of sense of, sense of, a Tolkien type moment isnt there?. Kate: Absolutely. Absolutely. I've I I don't think it is a coincidence that lots of fairytales are set in woodlands because there is something otherworldly about them. We're going to head keep heading down just so that you have a really good climb on the way up. Adam: Yeah, I was gonna say I'm fine going down, I'm assuming you're sending a car to pick me up? It's well a little, a little Uber will just I'm sure, Kate: Nice try, Adam! Lots of Ubers around here. Look, look, look. Adam: Oh look now that is OK that's a proper bluebell. Kate: That is a, a, a bluebell that's a proper bluebell. Adam: Yeah, that is my first proper bluebell of the year. Kate: And you can see all the others are just starting to come. Adam: And that's and it is lovely because clearly so few people come here that's the problem often with bluebells is when people trample all over them. And we've got just one clean path down here and it's completely undisturbed for as far as the eye can see. So yes, we OK, we we did a little pit stop for bluebells. We're back on and the what was the programme, animal? Kate: Animal Animal Hospital. Adam: Animal Hospital. So they wanted you back as a researcher. I'm interested in the jump from behind the screen to on screen. Kate: So so they basically said lovely we'll see you in four months and I said oh well, I've got a landlord and rent to pay, I can't not work for four months. I'm going to have to get another job and it may mean that I'm not available. And they said ohh well, maybe we can find you something else within the BBC as a stopgap. And I had also at that point, so this is the mid 90s now, started writing. I was writing travel. And I'd spent at the the a end of a a, the second Africa trip that I did between 94 and 95, I'd spent the last two months of that in Madagascar. Adam: Right. Kate: Madagascar was a place that I was obsessed with because of its wildlife because it has unique flora and fauna. I came back and got an article commissioned to write about it, and it was the first, Adam: Your first commission? Kate: Yes, my first commission and my first article, and it was in a broad a broadsheet newspaper, and I was very excited and very proud about that. And so when I was asked by the series producer of the BBC Holiday programme, whether I would consider coming to work for them because I was a travel writer, Adam: Right OK, yeah, you're now a travel writer because of your one article. Kate: I am I am now a I am now a travel writer on the strength of one of one article. Adam: Whoa oh Kate, I'm so glad you were the first person to sort of go over *Kate laughs* That was before me I just want that on record. Kate: Yeah. Adam: OK so I haven't gone over yet. Kate: You haven't got over yet. Adam: OK. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Kate: Yes. So I got a job on the BBC Holiday programme. Anyway the next day I got called into the big boss's office. And I assumed that my short lived career at the BBC Holiday programme was about to be ended because I wasn't quite sure why, but perhaps because I hadn't been taking the producers guidelines as seriously as I might and that also I had smoked on a fire escape, which probably wasn't a good idea. And instead I was asked to do a screen test and I assumed that this was the sort of common test that the Holiday programme did and I tried to say I really don't want to be a presenter thank you, I love doing, I love making the programmes, I love the research, I love talking to people, I love putting things together. I'm quite, I like logistics. I'm quite, you know, I like all that stuff I don't want to be a presenter. And they went well do a do a screen test. So at this point I just thought I've just got to get out of this office because I feel very embarrassed by the whole situation. So I will just nod smile say yes, do it, it'll be a disaster, and then everything can go back to normal. So that's what I did. Three weeks later, the boss came into the office, Adam: Sorry, we have to stop. This is a story that's gonna last all day, cause I keep stopping because your dog is posing or it was posing beautifully by this river. Kate: Well, so this river is an important, one of the sort of parallel streams that run into the River Wye for this is the Angidy, we are in the Angidy Valley, surrounded by amazing woodland on both sides, it's a very steep sided valley. This river is particularly good for dippers, which are those lovely chocolate brown and white birds, they look like little waiters. Adam: Right *laughs* Kate: And they and they, they're called dippers because that's exactly what they do. So we'll keep an eye out because we might see some, but they'll sit on a stone like that exposed stone within the waterfall there and they will jump into the water and literally completely submerge. They'll disappear completely and they're looking for things like caddisfly larva, which is what they feed on, and then they'll bob up and come back up and they're they're just these wonderful, perky, very smart little birds. Adam: Brilliant, OK. Kate: They're the only British songbird that is also a water bird. Adam: Wow, OK, good. All right. Kate: There you are, little bit of, little bit of, Adam: No, I like these these these sorts of diversions we take, it's it's almost like doing a stand up routine, so we're gonna go gonna go back to the story now. So you thought everybody in the world gets a screen test. So I'm just doing this and then they'll leave me alone. Kate: Yes, yes. And and then the boss came into the office about 3 weeks later. And she said, can you go to France tomorrow? And I said yes, of course, assuming that they needed somebody to carry the heavy stuff. Bhcause carrying heavy stuff is the other thing that I am good at. I can whistle very loudly and I can carry very heavy things and those are really the only two things that I can offer the world. Adam: OK, I I you, you have set yourself up for a big whistle at the end, so we'll we'll wait for that then let's hold out. Kate: It it will blow your ears well, that's all I'm saying. So she said, we want you to present a film on a barge in Normandy, could you please do something about my hair, she said. My own hair. Adam: I see she didn't ask you to be a hairdresser? Also could you cut my hair? Kate: Yes could you cut my hair *laughs*. No, could you do something about your hair, she said. I thought she's been talking to my mum, who constantly despairs of my lack of my lack of grooming. Adam: Right, also right at this point of hair hair disasters, we have to pause because we've come across as you may hear an extraordinary small waterfall, it's a weir, really, isn't it? Kate: It is really. Adam: I'm gonna take another photo of this before we get back to the life and misadventures of Kate Humble. So I'm just gonna take a photo. You'll find that, no doubt on one of our Twitter feeds. Oh, I know beautiful, oh no the dogs disappeared, the dog doesn't like posing for me. But all right, so now, you're off to France. You need a haircut and, Kate: So I'm off to France. I need I need I need to basically smarten myself up. Off I went to France and presented my first film. Adam: Right. And that was, I mean, we could talk about this forever, but that was the beginning of that was the beginning of this, the story. OK, well, amazing. Kate: Yes. My first job for the natural history unit came in 2000. And I was asked to do a programme, which was a sort of, was made in response to Blue Planet. So the very first series of the Blue Planet, which I think everybody watched with their mouths open because we had never seen the oceans in that way before, particularly the deep ocean. And there was a phrase used which I have used many, many times since, which was that more people have been to the moon than there have been to the deep ocean. And people were fascinated by these, they were they were creatures that looked like they might have been designed for Star Wars. They were so extraordinary. Adam: These sort of angler fish which have which have this light don't they. Kate: That sort of thing, and these these, you know, these astonishing, you know, plankton with flashing lights, there were Dumbo octopus with, you know, little octopus with these sort of literally did look like Dumbo the elephant, you know, deep water sharks that people had never seen before that were really slow moving and and, you know astonishingly well-adapted to live at depths and in in at water pressure that no one thought anything could exist in and come on dogs we're gonna keep, do you wanna have a, Adam: And so yours was a response, in what way? Kate: So we did a live, Adam: The dogs keep looking at me like they want me to throw something for them is that what's going on? Kate: They do, and I'm going to just try and find a, here let's try let's try this, here we are. Adam: Look, they're very, oh you've thrown it into the river? Kate: Go on, in you go. Adam: Oh, look at that go! Kate: Come on Teg, do you wanna go in as well? Here you are. This one's going to sink, go on. Ready? Go. Good girl. Where's it gone? Teggy, it's just there. That's it. Well done, well done, dogs. Adam: Oh they like that. Kate: Well, I can't go and get it, you have to bring it here, that's the deal with sticks *laughs* So we did a live programme from a boat in Monterey Bay. I made some films to play into that live show. So I went to the Cayman Islands, which is a rotten thing to ask anybody to do, can you imagine? Adam: Terrible, terrible. You wanted to be back in the East End really. Kate: I did really, sweeping streets and instead there I was, doing films about coral reefs and this is the one of, this is the wonderful thing about the natural history unit or just about making films with animals is the lengths that you have to go to to be able to capture the natural world in all its wonder. And so I was asked to go and film a shark called a six gill shark that lives very deep and only about 10 people in the world had ever seen. And I was sent to go and find this creature. You know, I can't I can't even now I can't really believe that I was asked to do that. Adam: And did you find it? Kate: Eventually. We had to do two, we did one trip we failed to find it, Adam: How how long was that? Kate: So that was, we did 6 dives. It was an amazing trip. We didn't get the shark on the first trip. We went back for another trip. We didn't get it. We didn't get it. We finally got it and it was incredible. Incredible moment. And that was the first job that I did for the natural history unit and there was then somebody who came up with the idea of doing British wildlife life live at kind of springtime, like kind of now. Adam: And this was Springwatch was it? Kate: This was the precursor to Springwatch. Adam: Oh I didn't know there was one. Kate: There were two! Adam: What were they called? Kate: So the first one was called Wild In Your Garden. So I'm just going to put the dogs on a lead here. Hold on, poppet. Just hold on my poppet. That's it. We've got to take Adam up the hill now. So yes, so the first one was called Wild In Your Garden and it was Bill Oddie and Simon King and me. And we did two shows a night, from gardens in Bristol, and it sort of worked as an idea. Adam: Right. OK. Kate: It worked well enough or it wasn't so much of a disaster that there wasn't a thought of let's try it slightly differently, maybe on a farm instead of in the garden, and we went to this wonderful organic farm in Devon and basically made camp for three weeks. And made a series called Britain Goes Wild. And Britain went a tiny bit wild. And so the following year we thought, well, we'll do it again, but maybe we'll just call it something different. Adam: Right. Kate: And someone came up with the idea of calling it spring watch and everyone said, and it always went out at the same time as it does now, sort of end of May and people go, it's not really spring though is it? And we're like, well spring enough, still spring things happening and Springwatch seemed to capture everybody's imaginations and and I presented that for 10 years. Adam: And you presented that for how many, how many years? Kate: Ten. Adam: Blimey! That's a long, Kate: Yeah, I know. I've just grown old on telly and then Autumnwatch came into being and then Winterwatch and I did Seawatch. So I did a series about British Britain's seas and and marine life. Yeah. So I did eventually get my wish of working for the natural history unit. Adam: Oh, that's very good. The fairy godmother in the form of the BBC descended and granted your wish. And now from all of those adventures abroad and on TV and everything you then said, I'm gonna move to this really quite, there's another car coming, quite quite remote parts of Wales. Why that? Kate: We're going to head up here. Hold on, dogs. There we are. Adam: Oh there's some steps. Hallelujah. Kate: OK, only for this little bit. Adam: Look, stop stop taking away the hope. Kate: *laughs* So so I we moved, Adam: Yes so you you picked up sticks and then moved to Wales. Perhaps it's not such a big move because the natural world has seemed to be always the centre of things for you. So but why Wales in particular? Kate: Well, that is a curious question. I had no connection with Wales as far as I was aware. I honestly honestly can't tell you why I felt this extraordinary pull to live here. But it really was it was like a magnetic pull. There is actually a a Welsh word and I'm not sure I'm really allowed to use it in my context, but I can't think of a better word to use for the feeling that I had. And it's hiraeth and is a word that it's sort of more than home sickness. It's like a deep longing for the place that you belong. A yearning, a pit of the stomach emptiness for your home. Adam: You felt this was a spiritual home, did you? Kate: I don't know I really don't know, Adam. I, as I say I just had this extraordinary pull to live here. And yeah, I would look at the, there are these old fashioned things called maps, and I would look at the A to Z of Great Britain. And you know, there I was in the South East and if you look at a thing called a map, Adam: Yes, sorry is this a point about me getting lost on the way to you. Kate: No no not even remotely. No, it's the fact that no one uses them anymore, and yet, they're the greatest treasures we have. So if you look at a map, the South East of England is just this chaos of colour and roads and towns and names. And it's just, you know, there's not a square millimetre that hasn't got a name in it or something in. The further west you go, the browner the map becomes, and when you go over the border into Wales, it's mainly brown and green and it's got beautiful lyrical names like Abergavenny and and it's got mountains and mountains, when you've been brought up in Berkshire mountains are the height of exoticism. To live in a in a country that had mountains all of its own just struck me as being remarkable. I still, 15 years on, find it remarkable that I can I can get up at breakfast, not go terribly far, and climb a bona fide mountain. I love that. And that's what I love about Wales. Adam: And and you've done more than, I mean, people might feel that and move to a beautiful part of the country and live there and more or less carry on with their ordinary life. But you've not done that. I mean, you're not just you don't just go for walks, the natural world is something you've created a a new career out of as well. Is that fair? Kate: I wouldn't call it a career. Adam: OK but you're very much well, but you make money from it and it fills your days. Kate: Well, no, no, I don't think I don't know I don't I don't think that's I don't think that's true at all. I think you know I my working life is peculiar. I've I still am involved making television programmes, some of which involve the natural world. I still write, some of that's about the natural world, but not all of it. The natural world for me is nothing to do with making a living. Making a living. But it is about living. And it was one of the things that I was acutely aware of when I lived in London was I felt cut off from the seasons. This year you know, I know I can tell you that I didn't hear a skylark until the middle of March last year it was Valentine's Day. I can tell you that because that's what I'm experiencing. And I love feeling that instead of the natural world being something I watch on the television or I read about in a book that I am able to be part of it. And that's one of the big problems I think that we face now with trying to engage people with the importance of things like biodiversity, species loss, habitat loss. None of those things sound very sexy, and none of those things appear to matter to us because we as a species so weirdly and inexplicably view ourselves as a species separate from the natural world and the natural world has become something that we just watch for our entertainment. But we are just another mammal in this amazingly complex, beautiful, brilliant web that is the biodiversity web, where everything fits in and everything works together, and one thing feeds another thing and you know, until we feel properly part of that, immersed in it and and wrapped up in it, why are we ever going to worry about the fact that it is now a biodiversity net that's full of holes, and those holes mean that the net becomes less and less effective and the less effective that net becomes, the more it affects us, but we see ourselves as somehow immune from that process and we're not. And what I love about living here, what I love about walking in this area every day, twice a day, is the fact that I feel that I can, I'm I'm more in tune with our natural world and that is sadly, it shouldn't feel a it shouldn't be a privilege, but it is. Adam: And do you feel, I mean, you're you feel passionate about it. Do you feel evangelical about it? Kate: Yes. Adam: So what do you, do you have a prescription to help to bring others on side? Kate: I wish it didn't, I wish you didn't have to ask me that question. I wish it didn't have to be an on side. Adam: Do you do you feel that's an unfair question? Or do you think there's? Kate: No, I don't. I think it's a very fair question because lots of people don't feel or don't perhaps don't experience it experience the advantages of the natural world, or they haven't been they haven't been given the opportunities to properly understand the impact that it can have on us and all those impacts are positive. I mean, there's loads of science. And you know, it was talked about endlessly during the pandemic about how green spaces are good for our mental health, blue spaces are good for our mental health, being outdoors, being in nature, listening to birdsong, sing plants grow, all those things are good for us. But we've got to a place where we've been so divorced from it, where we look for our pleasures in shopping malls and online and and we forget that actually all we need is right here. And, you know, it's a hard sell for some to to somebody who's never experienced this, who hasn't had the privileges I've undoubtedly had, you know who have not grown up in the countryside, who find it fearful or boring or inexplicable, don't understand where they fit in. Adam: And I think one of the perhaps growing debates, I think or interesting ones anyway for me is is the balance between trying to either scare people or make them aware of the environmental challenges and potential for disaster. And then so to sort of go engage with the subject it's really it's really newsworthy, it's it's it's imperative people do things and actually turning people off going well we're we're all going to literally burn, enjoy the party whilst it lasts. So what what do you feel about that? Kate: Yeah, yeah. I mean, all all, all you have to do, all you have to do is watch Don't Look Up. Have you seen that film? Adam: Yes. Kate: And and and that, you know, absolutely embodies what you have just said. Adam: So what do you think about that? Because I think there's a balance between going, offering hope, the power or audacity of hope is a phrase one hears as opposed to the sort of potential to frighten people into action. Actually the opposite, don't frighten them into action. Offer them hope of change. And I wonder where you feel that, if we've got that balance right, or whether, Kate: No, we haven't got it right and I, but I don't know what the balance is because I think there's a real, I think that a lot of programmes that are made about natural history now have become so glossy and so beautiful and and so almost otherworldly that they don't actually reflect the reality of the natural world. And a lot of them again show the natural world without the context of people. And of course, that's sort of how we want to see it, we don't want people muddying those pictures. We don't want, as you say, the kind of the awful stories of the litter and the, you know, the the, the, the negative impact that human have humans have had on the natural environment. So we kind of don't want to see it, but equally if we don't see it, we don't engage with it and we kind of can watch one of those documentaries and even if David Attenborough is telling you that, you know, this is a habitat that's in peril or this is the last animal of its type that you will ever see, you don't really take that in because you're looking at these really stunning pictures and you think it's kind of OK. But I don't know what the answer is because I also know that as you say, if all you peddle is hopelessness and helplessness, no one's going to engage, they're going to stick their heads in the sand and just hope that it all goes away and pass it on to the next generation. So somehow we as communicators need to find a way that really does cut through. That really does make people feel, genuinely feel part of the natural world, that it isn't just another thing. I had the great joy of interviewing Tim Peake not that long ago, and I was interviewing him for a book that I'm writing about the concept of home. And I thought he would have, of anybody, a really unique idea of home having not just left home but left the planet. And he told me that he did a spacewalk, he was out in space for over four hours, and he said the blackness is like a blackness you cannot imagine. But he said, you know, you see Mars and Jupiter and Venus and you see Earth. And he said, when you're there, amongst the planets in that way you see that Earth is, as far as anyone's experience, and any telescope has been able to tell us, unique. You look at it and he said there it is, this colour, this blue and green planet, whereas everything else is, you know silver and and ghostly, ours is a living planet and he said he had this, he had this sort of feeling when he was there looking at Earth and imagining somebody, some other being coming up and tapping him on the shoulder and saying hey, hi, who are you? I'm Tim. And he'd say oh hello so where are you from then? And Tim said I felt this enormous swell of pride to be able to point to our planet and say I'm from that planet there. I'm from Earth. I'm an earthling and I thought if all of us had that experience, could understand what it was like, how special our planet is in a universe that is infinite as far as we know and that we have, we have no idea what's out there, but what we do know at the moment is that our planet is unique and I think we would treasure it that much more and have moments like this of just standing amongst the trees and midges coming out, the drizzle, the mud and go, this is our home, this is where we live. It's really special. Aren't we lucky? Adam: You're taking me uphill again aren't you. Kate: I am taking uphill, but you've done the worst bit and you and and actually you marched. I was impressed! Adam: Oh OK good. You know I'll fall apart after, I'm just doing it so I don't embarrass myself too badly. Kate: *laughs* I'm afraid it is going to get very, very muddy, so you're going to have wet socks, mud up to your knees, you know, that's why I spend six months of the year in wellies. Adam: Right OK. But you know, that is the privilege of being an earthling, isn't it? Kate: It is it is. Adam: So you've been you've got involved with the Woodland Trust. Kate: I've been involved with the Woodland Trust for quite a long time, but it really started when we took on a farm near here. Adam: What's this an arable farm? Kate: No, it was a small council farm. It belonged to the council and people are not really aware that there are such a thing. Adam: I've never heard this one. Kate: No, but there used to be about 16,000 council farms throughout Britain and they were set up as part of the 1906 Smallholdings and Allotments Act and they were there, low rent, small areas, usually 30, 40 acres that sort of size and they would be available to rent for farmers who for whatever reason, didn't have a farm of their own. And over the years, as farming practices have changed as economic models have driven farmers to need to to produce things on a bigger scale, small farms have been basically relegated to either hobby farms or they've been broken up and sold to land that's been added to bigger farms. So we've lost an enormous number of these small farms and with them an enormous opportunity for people with farming skills to stay on the land and produce as food. And that's what was going to happen to this farm. And for whatever reason, I just felt this was not the thing to do and to cut a very, very, very long story short, we ended up taking over the farm and setting up a rural skills centre o prove that a small farm, ours is just over 100 acres, could still be viable. It supports itself and that's really important. But one of the things that we wanted to do, we were really interested to do when we took it over was to add more trees. It's it's got some wonderful ancient trees. There's an oak tree on the farm that we call Old Man Oak, as did the tenants before us. They introduced us to him and we think he's about 600 years old. And but we wanted to plant more trees. But we had this conundrum of how do we increase the tree cover on the farm without taking away the pasture because obviously we needed the pasture for the livestock and it was the Woodland Trust that helped us with that conundrum. So they looked, together we walked round the farm and we identified either areas where there were small copses or where there was a bit of a hedge. So what we did with the Woodland Trust's advice and input was to put in trees as shelter breaks, so not actually impinging on the pasture, just or very much, but adding a kind of a thicker bit of hedge if you like, or making a copse a little bit bigger and in that way we've planted over 1,000 trees on the farm in the last decade that we've had it. And then at home we have a four acre small holding and and so at the beginning of last year I started thinking maybe it's an age thing, you start thinking about legacy and when you when you take over a piece of land, what you start to understand actually very quickly is that you will never own it, that you are simply the caretaker of it for the time that you are around. And I think we've got cleverer now. Our knowledge has become greater. We understand that just planting trees isn't the answer. We need to think about we need to think of landscape as a mosaic and so what we wanted to do was to create a little mosaic. Plant trees, create water or make a space for water, make sure that there was going to be areas that had glade that was good for insects, that was good for wild flowers. And so I talked to the Woodland Trust and said, are you going to be into this idea, because it's not just planting trees and they went, that's exactly what we're into. That's exactly what we want to do. We want to create habitat. It's not about blanketing a landscape with trees. It's about planting the right trees in the right places at the right density to create something that you know, in a generation's time will have real lasting value, and that's what's been so wonderful about working with, you know, an organisation like that that sees big picture, sees longevity as as an advantage rather than as a disadvantage. And and that's what's been so lovely is that, you know, I can go to them and say so I've got this plan. I mean, I'm not even going to be alive to see it kind of come to fruition but do you care? And they went, we don't care, do you care? No. Let's do it. And that's wonderful. Adam: Wonderful. OK sorry, this is a bit, this is the bit where I'm going ohh well, I'm swimming effectively swimming now. Kate: Sorry. This is a very wet bit. Adam: Hold on a second. OK. Right. That's a very Norman Wisdom walk I seem to have. OK. Yeah. OK, so ohh sorry, hold on. Kate: It gets, that's the that's the wettest bit now, now we're now we're more or less home and dry. Adam: Oh well you know what we we might be home, but we are not dry. That would be inaccurate at this point. So well, that's a neat story to bring us back to home with isn't it. So you know things are looking good. It's all hopeful. A a long journey and a long one ahead, you know, not just for you, but for that natural world you're creating. Kate: Well, I hope that you know the the I I think going back to to what you said about how we can, we can help us all feel that we are actually, you know part and parcel of the natural world rather than observers of it or visitors of it and things like planting trees or being aware of the seasonal joys of the bluebells coming through, or, you know the leaf fall in the autumn and the colour, all those things if if i you know if we can build that awareness that brings with it huge joy and reward, then maybe we'll start to cut through again and people will start to feel more like the natural world is their world and not just another part of the planet that they live on. Adam: Well having arrived back at Kate's home, let me just say there are lots more woodland walk podcasts for you to enjoy wherever you get your podcasts from. And indeed, if you want to find an actual wood near you well, you can go to the Woodland Trust website www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. Until next time, happy wandering. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk. We look forward to hearing from you.

You'll never look at a tree in the same way again after this episode. Our guest, Tristan Gooley, is known as the natural navigator and gives us fascinating insight into the stories nature is telling us and how they can help us find our way. At Eartham Wood, West Sussex, he teaches us how each part of a tree can tell us about the land, water and animals around us. I put his skills to the test as we read the captivating clues of brown leaves, leaning trunks, lichens, yew, blackthorn and more. Find out how to determine which way is south, why thorny branches could indicate small animals and if he ever gets lost! Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife. Adam: Well, today I'm off to meet a writer, navigator and explorer who has led expeditions in five continents and I'm told is the only living person to have both flown solo and sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic. He's known as the natural navigator because he has learned how to find your way through the natural world really by looking at the clues that nature provides us and although he has travelled the world doing some extraordinary adventures, I'm meeting him much closer to home in a forest near Chichester. And that's important because he says, actually, the globetrotting is, in a sense a diversion. And, and the lessons about the natural world and practical things we can take from that can be found actually so much closer to home. His book, How to read a tree, has just come out, which tells you a lot about how to read the natural world around you, and I'll definitely be talking to him about that. Anyway, I'm off to meet him, which is a bit of a joke because I am the world's worst navigator and my first problem, as ever, is of course he is not where I think he is, but I've called him and he's going to come out of the forest and wave, so I'm off to look for a man who's waving. Tristan: My name is Tristan Gooley, also known as the natural navigator, because of my lifelong passion in the the wonderful art of natural navigation, finding our way using nature and I'm gonna lead you into my local woods, Eartham Woods to have a look at some of the clues and signs we can find in trees. Adam: And how did you get into all of this? Tristan: Well, I I loved, I was pretty restless as as a youngster and I loved putting little journeys together. And then the the little journeys became bigger journeys and and through that I I developed, it started as a practical thing. I needed to know how to find my way. And then what happened was as the journeys became bigger and bigger, I had to become a proficient navigator. And there came a point quite a few years ago now, where I realised the scale of the journeys wasn't wasn't making them more interesting. So I turned everything on its head and learned to to find my way using nature and it, and it started with very, very small journeys. Just, you know, using the the sun, the the flowers, the trees and the weather generally as as my guide and just trying to cross a a mile or two of English countryside. Adam: I mean, I know, you're concentrating on the UK at the moment. But you have done some amazing foreign trips as well? Tristan: Yes, and that was that was the the my school, if you like. And it was very much a a self-imposed thing. I loved learning about how to shape these journeys. But as I say it it got to the point where I was staring at kit the whole time I was I was literally staring at screens which had robbed all of the fun. I'd, it I I wasn't a I wasn't the sort of fidgety, 10 year old feeling the wind on my face and crossing, crossing little lakes or or scrambling up hills. I was, I was effectively managing systems and so that's when I when I decided to turn it on its head and and go for much smaller journeys. But try and understand how how nature is making a map and quite often a compass for us. Adam: That itself surely has its own contradictions, because it seems to me what you're talking about is relearning some lost arts. The very nature of the fact that they are lost arts makes them hard to relearn. So how did you do that? Tristan: Yes, it's it's a really interesting area because the, the, we we lost our connection with land based natural navigation in in a time when there was no writing. So there are very, very few written records. But the good news is navigation is something, and I feel really passionate about this, it is, it is one of the few fundamental skills. If I'm if I'm talking to a group or leading a group, I sometimes say to them, I don't know you, but I'm pretty confident in the last 24 hours you've eaten something, you've drunk something, you've slept, and you've navigated. Those are some of the things that all human beings do by and large. And so what we find is with fundamental things they pop up in in stories. So another another thing is if if you or anyone listening thinks of their favourite story in the world, it can be a blockbuster movie that came out a week ago or it can be an ancient myth, it really doesn't matter, you'll find navigation features in it, so the clues the clues are there. So I combined that with looking at all sorts of accounts of journeys, combined that with my own observations and combined it with research into some quite recent botanical research, for example, and and piecing all those bits together that allow me to to rediscover the art. Adam: Do you bemoan the fact that we're now so dependent on satnavs? We don't use any of those skills and perhaps don't even see the need for them. Tristan: No, I see it as a potential win win, but I think it's about an awareness of how the I have this weird thought experiment, I imagine that we each day we wake up with 1,000 units of attention and then it's it's up to us how we spend them. Now work might take 600 or 700 of them and sometimes we have no choice about that. But the question then is what do we do with the ones leftover. There's, there's lots of options there and understanding the clues and signs in nature is not something I expect to, you know, fill fill the available units for everyone. But it is something where we can, we can say, well, actually I'm just going to, I'm just going to give 10 minutes of this day to trying to understand, you know what that insect is telling me, what is that butterfly telling me about what the weather has just done, for example. And then through that it becomes quite a moreish subject because our brain has evolved to do it. Adam: Yes, I mean, I agree. I mean, I think you know, wandering through the forest as we are now, it's it's not a lesson, it's not like I'll get extra points for knowing this tree is X tree, but it helps you engage with it, it's quite interesting to go, oh, there's a there's another narrative being told to me that I'm I'm not listening to, I'm not tuned to, but I could tune into that story actually makes the walk a richer walk, doesn't it? Tristan: Yeah. I I really agree with that and I I'm I'm a bit of a poacher turned gamekeeper in the sense that I wasn't one of those kids crawling around with a magnifying glass looking for beetles, I I discovered it through what started as a fairly pragmatic practical need through through the natural navigation journeys. But what what I have discovered since for myself and others is that there's a there's a very widespread feeling that we ought to connect with nature, that we should feel something, that if we just go and stand in a in a wood that it should somehow magically make us feel something. But actually, our brains have evolved to to be doing things and to be understanding things. And if we think about the animal kingdom, which which we're obviously part of, we're we're not the fastest by a long way. We're not the strongest by a long way. We we don't have the best senses. But the one thing we do really, really well, our one trump card is an ability to to take in a landscape and and understand the patterns and build a more interesting and meaningful picture from what we see than any other creature can. So whether you're talking about a dolphin, a chimpanzee, any any creature you want to name it can probably beat us in some areas, but it can't do what we can do, which is look at look at a, a, a picture or a tree or or or any organism and and derive a more interesting picture and more meaning from it. Adam: So look, I I feel like I'm aimlessly wandering through the wood here. Are we heading off somewhere specific or we just, we're just rambling? Tristan: We're we're going for a bit of a a a bit of a wander there's no no sort of fixed destination but that again is quite I I think it's quite nice I I often like to go for walk and just the sole aim instead of, you know, many, many years ago, the aim would have been perhaps to cross, you know, 30, 30 kilometres of woodland. But now the aim is to perhaps notice a a clue or a sign that that that is is new to me or that I can share. I mean the the view I often take is every single thing we see outdoors is a clue or a sign. And when we take that that perspective instead of sort of thinking, well, maybe there's something interesting out there and if I'm lucky, I'll spot it, if we if we just pause, let's let's pause by this yew tree for example... Adam: OK. Tristan: So every every single organism, including every single tree, is is full of meaning, which is another way of saying nothing is random. And if we just come round the side of this one, I'll be able to show you, hopefully this one will be a good one to, so a nice a nice introduction to the idea that that nothing is random is that if you ask anybody to draw a tree, you'll get a symmetrical tree. Symmetrical trees, of course, don't exist when we think about it, we know that. Every single tree appears as a unique individual, and that means that there's a reason for all the the asymmetries and the differences we find, I mean, as we look at this one here, we can see it's not symmetrical. There's more tree on the left side as we look at it, pretty, pretty sort of pretty clear asymmetry. So noticing that it's not symmetrical on its own is not is not fascinating, but knowing that we get most of our light from the southern side, and that that every tree is harvesting light, we put those two pieces together and and that tree is clearly showing us that south is out this way. Adam: Is that true? Tristan: *laughs* It is, it is. Yeah, I'm I'm pretty confident on that one. Adam: OK, I tell you what. It's not, we've only just met, it's not that I don't believe you, but I'm just going to, let me just go get my, my, yes and I I can confirm, I can confirm the tree is correct. That is the south. OK, very good. *Both laugh* Tristan: And and actually there there are lots and lots of other clues within that individual tree. The the angle of the branches, they're closer to vertical on the the right northern side and close to horizontal on the left southern side. And this is something I call the tick effect from this perspective, it's a reverse tick. But again, it's just a reflection of of the fact that it is it is, it is reflecting back to us, its little patch of the world. So if you get more light out to that side on the southern side, the branches are going to grow out towards the southern sky. On the north side, fewer branches and they're growing up towards the only light they can get up in the sky there. Adam: Very good. So and that's, I mean it tells its story, but it's also if you were lost and needed to go south you have a ready made compass. Tristan: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think that I was talking about how we're sometimes we feel we ought to feel something and actually natural navigation is is a sort of fun, simple way of turning on its head and saying instead of nature magically sort of plugging me into a different sensation, let me come at this a different way and say I'm going to ask this tree to to make a compass for me or I'm going to ask this tree to make a map for me. Or I'm going to try and discover the story of this tree. What has it been through? And if we we wander on our our, you know, I mean I mean you at any point you want, you can pick any tree you like and sort of say let's let's find the story in that and I will I will, have fun. Adam: No, it's it's alright, I'm not testing you, I I believe you. No, I mean that's that's amazing. I mean I was, I know your book is only just coming out April this year, so just hitting the bookshelves. But I've sort of had a sneak peek at some some of the elements in it and I think one of the things I saw quite quickly was about knowing when water is close by. Well today that's not a problem because water is everywhere but it, you know, it might be a problem and then and indeed, with climate change, that might be a very significant thing. What tell tell me about that, how do you, what are the clues from looking at a tree to know that water is close or where water is? Tristan: Yes, every every tree is is reflecting back to us through through its niche. So every single organism has a niche. Nature's ultra competitive, there is, there are no organisms that can kind of survive by waking up in the morning saying, well, I'll just kind of do a bit of everything. So what we find is it doesn't matter whether we're talking about animals or plants, they all have a a niche they they all have a habitat that they are better suited to so that they can outcompete other, in this case, trees. So for example, you'll notice if you if you walk by a river, for example, you'll start to notice willows, perhaps alder trees, and then if you walk up a hill nearby, all the trees will change. Here, although it feels very wet at the moment, we're actually in dry country, we're on chalk here and the the water tends to disappear quite quickly, which is why we see many more beech trees. Beech trees thrive on relatively dry soil on on chalk in particular. Adam: But also I think you were you were talking about the the leaf structure and that when you look at a leaf which is near water, it has this sort of white vein in it? But I think that's really a neat trick if I was out with my family to go, I'm looking at this leaf, there is a river nearby and that's gonna get me huge nature points. So explain that. Tristan: Yes. Yeah, and that's that's taking a a visual cue in the case of the willow trees. One of the one of the sort of telltales for willows, I mean willows, a hugely diverse family with with you know, tens of thousands of species, conceivably and and I don't think we'll ever exactly know how many species, which is why going down to species level isn't isn't super helpful, but a lot of the willows that thrive right next to water have long, relatively thin leaves. and they have a a pale rib down the middle. And what I've learned over the years is there's so many clues and signs and there's so much so many sort of things that nature is trying to whisper to us that having the odd visual cue can really help us remember it. So if if I, you know, just wrote that willows are next to water, that's quite an easy thing to sort of forget. But when you think there's what looks like a stream down the middle of the leaf is telling you that you might be near a stream, the brain quite likes that pairing, it makes it more memorable, and that's that's how a lot of lore, as in folk lore survives is because it's memorable, either in an oral or a visual sense. It's entirely up to us whether we want to do the the stepping stone of thinking well that white vein and the shape of that leaf is telling me it's a willow tree and the willow tree is telling me I'm probably near water, or if we just want to skip that like I'm convinced our ancestors, quite often they weren't doing the the identification they were, they were just they just knew, for example, from the sense of a tree shape or or its leaves, that was telling them that there was water nearby because we we still find that in indigenous communities. Adam: Well, you you just you said I should test you at some point. So look this is a really interesting shape tree, tell tell me a bit about describe it for us first of all and then, does it, does it tell us a story? Tristan: Yes. So one of the first, the first things I'm noticing on here are the these thorns here and we're looking looking at a blackthorn and it's it's giving me two messages, quite, quite sort of quickly. The first, the first one is thorns make me look for animals. It's it's a tiny bit counterintuitive, but because because thorns are not the sort of things you want to fly through very quickly, you don't, you don't find the the the fast birds of prey zooming in and out of this, which means that small animals actually are quite comfortable in here. So this is the sort of place where if for any reason you wanted to get closer to to small small animals quite often little birds, in there, they've, they've they've learned over the years that that's a pretty friendly place to sort of go. You're not going to find a a raptor zooming in out of nowhere and making life uncomfortable because it's just too dangerous to come in here sort of 50 miles an hour. The other thing is that it's its size is is telling me it's quite likely that we're not in the heart of a mature woodland. So what what we find is that there are, generally speaking, there are large trees and small trees, and the reason is because being a medium tree is not a great strategy. The reason for that is that if you grow up to be a medium tree, you've needed all the water and all the minerals and all the energy to get halfway towards loads of light. But you don't get loads of light cause the tall trees steal it all. So the reason we mainly have is, we look around here we can see there are mainly small trees and then there are tall trees. We've got, we've got spruces and we've got, we've got back back in that direction we've got beeches and an oak there. And then we've got the thorns here, a mixture of blackthorn and and hawthorn and and this is this is the smaller trees are much more common at the edges of woodland or in clearings. You know, if we were trying to find our way out of these woods, you'd generally go from tall trees to small trees on the way out. Adam: We'd be near home. We'd go, this is the right way, this is going. And that's, I mean, that's a fascinating story, this, is it, I'm just trying to make this understand the logic of it, is that can you not be put off track by the fact that it's not a mature small tree, it's just a small tree, cause it hasn't got big yet. I mean, so all large trees were small once, so doesn't that rather make it rather confusing? Tristan: Yes, yes. No, it's it's a, it's a valid point and I do I do put that in in the book that, you know, the the there is a look to to a mature tree. So you can generally tell when a tree is young and the the bark is quite a good clue. I mean, if we if we look at this bark on the on the thorn here, it's that's quite gnarly and you can just tell that that's that's not been you know that's not a 10 year old is it, that's that's something that's that's seen a few seasons. We're we're always building a jigsaw here. If if a place looks like it's it's established and there hasn't been much disturbance, recently, we're going to find mature species. If if you're surrounded by a load of young trees, that's telling you a totally different story, it's telling you that something major has happened. Now, there may have been a there could have been a landslide, there could have been a fire, there could have been human clearance or something like that. It's pretty rare we're going to look at a single branch of a single tree and say that tells me the whole story. But but here we can see the combination of human activity, the size of the tree that this is this is a fairly classic, the trees trying to reclaim the land, so what, what happens is that these pioneer species get in here, I'd expect us to be able to see some birches. Yeah, there are a couple just there. Can you see just the the silvery bark on there. So birches are another pioneer species. So the story here is humans have done their best to clear a track that we're walking along and the trees through the pioneer species are saying we're going to have that back. You know, if you drop your guard, this this land will be ours again. And that's that's part of the map. Adam: And one of the things I always love about trees is the, well, we've got lots of little bits of mosses and lichens growing on them. Is there anything that that tells us a story? I mean on on that on that branch, there's a lot more moss on one side of the branch than the other. Is that just because just is that random or is there a story there? Tristan: When when people are new to natural navigation, they often often sort of they're they're familiar with the idea that moss grows on the north side of trees. But moss is really hard to use. It's it's not one of my top 20 techniques for the simple reason that it's it's not fussy enough. Moss will grow anywhere there's moisture, so all moss is telling you is that there's a surface that stays moist. The reason we're seeing moss on the on the side of that tree is nothing to do with aspect. It's nothing to do with north or south. It's because that tree has has come off the vertical, but it's what whatever we notice is a key and a and a way into into noticing other things. So if you hadn't noticed that moss, we might not be standing here noticing that that tree has come off vertical, so why does has it come off vertical? Well, this this tree to one side of it is bigger, therefore most likely older, which means this one has had to grow in the shade of it, which was why its trunks leaning away. So the trunks leaning away to get more light that leads to a gradient in the trunk. That means one side is is is not vertical, so the water is slowing down there and the moss is thriving. I I find lichens on trees much more much more instructive and the more the more filamentous, more hair like they are the the stronger the sign that you're in an area with fresh air. Adam: Yes, they're they're generally a sign of of good air quality, is that right? Tristan: Yes. Yeah, yeah. The more lichen species you see, it's it's a fairly strong sort of correlation. Adam: So, but these aren't so so fine are they? Tristan: No, no, we've got they're not they're not the Usnea family, which, which is the the ones who are most fussy about fresh air. But we have got a good mix here. I mean I would say it's a very specialist area, but if we had a lichenologist here with their magnifying glass and their way of testing pHs and all sorts of other wonderful things, I wouldn't be surprised if they found dozens just there. Whereas if we were much closer to a town centre that that number would come right down. I say here we've got a a hawthorn and as as we've sort of seen, one of the the smaller trees, but what's rather wonderful is this is very clearly bursting into leaf right now. And one of the most fun things to look for in in spring is small means early. And it doesn't actually matter whether it's a slightly taller tree with low branches or a small tree as we've got here. The lower down we look the earlier spring comes. And it's a simple race, because once the canopy leaves are out and it's sealed out the light there is there is no light here. So, so so bluebells will will be out here in a few weeks, and they're just trying to beat the the canopy. So. So what we find is that spring at head level comes you know, typically a couple of weeks before spring higher up in the trees. We've got a slightly different thing which is quite fun here as well. Which is we're just seeing a few few brown leaves low down on on this oak here and I don't know if you've come across that before, but that's it's a it's an odd word to write and say, it's marcescence is is the word, but it all it all it means is that quite a few broadleaf trees, but notably beeches, oaks, hornbeams do it, and and a few others will hold on to a few of their lower leaves all through winter, and then they start to typically lose quite a few of them just before spring. And the fascinating thing is, there's no agreement amongst the scientific community about why it happens, which I find, you know, such it is such when you when you know to look for it. And it's one of the reasons, for example, beech hedges are very popular because they hold on to that brown leaf covering all through winter. But it only happens in the in the low parts of the trees, which when you find things that only happen in the lowest parts of trees, it sometimes has a relationship with with animals and and the idea there is that you know the the grazing animals that could otherwise nibble off the buds, which which the tree obviously doesn't want find the the brown leaves from the last season less palatable and another theory is that if they're, if they're shedding them about now, it's a way of adding those nutrients as a as a fertiliser for the roots when the growing season's about to start. So instead of dropping all the leaves in autumn when when the minerals aren't going to be needed for quite a while, the trees wait until this time of year and and then drop some more leaves like like sort of putting feed on the ground because it's it's very near the the the edge of the canopy, the area that's known as the the drip line, where where water and minerals are taken up. But yeah, I I like the fact that the, you know, there are still, there are still mysteries, the scientists need to, yeah. Adam: So, I mean, you're known as the natural navigator, have you, have you ever been lost terribly, I mean on your travels? I mean it's there's a limit to the amount of danger we're going to get in today even if we did get lost, but in some of the more wilder places you've been? Tristan: I certainly overrated my abilities and and underplanned and underprepared when I was when I was a young man, I when I was nineteen, I led a friend up a an active volcano in Indonesia and got us horribly lost and we we had to walk for three days without food, which was, yeah, I mean, I really thought it was the end. I thought that was a a mistake too far I didn't I didn't think we'd get out of that, but in the end it was a it was just trying to hold a hold a straight line, and then we saw these trails that we thought were animal trails and then we noticed there were parallel and it was the very end of a four by four track and it was it was it was a pretty harrowing experience. Adam: My goodness. It's, you talk about this, it reminds me I was doing some filming many years ago with the Surui tribe in the Amazon and we got lost and were abandoned a bit and at the, initially we did think oh this is quite funny because it's a good story and then it, you go, we're very close to this being exceptionally serious. And there's this odd, sort of emotions are partly going, well this is all a big adventure and quite interesting, and yet I was also thinking one more thing goes wrong and we are never getting out of here. And that's a sort of curious sort of tension, isn't there when those things happen. And you get lost. Tristan: It is interesting with the, when I when I've met indigenous people and walked with them in in remote areas, there's a a western view of being lost, which is quite a binary view. The idea is that we either know exactly where we are or we're 100% lost. The the indigenous view of navigating in in wild regions is is a little bit more, what we might almost call sort of fuzzy logic in the sense that they don't necessarily always know exactly where they are, but they know where they are relative to landscape features, landmarks and and things like rivers and ridgelines, so, and this is one of the things that I, one of the ways I sort of teach people to not feel, natural navigation is not about, you know, knowing how to get from A to B absolutely perfectly and efficiently. It's about exploring, taking in signs and if needs be keeping things unbelievably simple. So we we I could sort of show you show you an example now we could do which which might work quite well with the, if we pick up the sounds. If we come off the track just here just head into a little bit of, in amongst the trees here. Now, if we just stop and have a listen. Are you picking up that we're getting slightly more birdsong behind us and the sound of some wind out this way? It's quite faint. A buzzard in the distance, I think there, but we could just take a very sort of simple idea, which is that if I if I held out a an Ordnance Survey map and said to you point to exactly where we are, you might find that exercise quite tricky. But, but if I said to you, can you find the track we've just been on, you'd look back and you'd find it. But if having tuned into where the bird song is coming from, we took a few more steps over there, you can you can, I'm sure imagine a situation where you could neither point to exactly where you are on a map, nor see the track, and yet you've picked up just enough awareness to get back to the track. And having found the track, you could then work out how to get home. So if you'd noticed that we'd walked very slightly uphill, then we could bring start to bring all the pieces together. If we headed into the more mature trees over there, away from the shorter trees, you could you could have a map in front of you and think I'm completely lost, I have no idea where I am. But then if you just bring those pieces back from your memory, you say to yourself, well, I think if I head towards the birdsong, there tends to be more birdsong nearer, nearer the opening of of the track. And I'm going to put the sound of the wind, which is catching the taller canopy trees behind me. And then ooh, I'm just starting to lose confidence, ahh but the the taller trees have got smaller now, and I know that means I'm getting near the edge. I'm getting near the clearing. Then you found the the linear feature, the track, and you just remember you just go downhill from there and then you start to recognise where you are again. So it's this, as I say the the sort of developed world way of thinking navigation is you know exactly where you are and you know exactly the right track or path to take to where you want to get to. The the more indigenous natural navigation way of thinking of it is absolutely everything is a clue, and if I've tuned into enough of them, you'd have to tune into everything, but if I've tuned into the fact that I'll head towards the birdsong, I'll keep the wind on the top of the canopy behind me, I'll notice how the the tall trees become smaller trees just before I hit the linear feature and I I remember from there how to get back. You can see how you're you're not you're no longer feeling 100% loss, but at the same time you couldn't say exactly where you are. Adam: Yes. Yeah. No. How interesting. That's amazing. And I mean, we've gone through a very interesting year or two. I mean, there's been chaos and tragedy around covid. There's been cost of living crises, there's been all sorts of political upheaval. It feels more tumultuous than normal. Has that you think changed peoples reaction to the natural world, desire to get something from it and desire to engage with it. Or am I reading too much into that? Tristan: I definitely saw in in the lockdowns I saw what started as a necessary, you know, we were literally forced to find the same short walks interesting because we had no other legal choice. And so what started as a a a negative requirement, I think I I'm I'm a bit biased, but I think it was sincere. I I detected people actually starting to have quite a lot of fun saying well I, this 10 minute walk that I've done perhaps 100 times before I'm suddenly realising that there are perhaps 1000 things I've never noticed and that that I think is philosophically, I sometimes think of it like a a pension in the sense that the early, earlier any of us start to realise that there is this richness of meaning in everything around us, that the more we develop it and it, and it really is moreish, the brain loves doing it, it's, it's what we've evolved to do and so the earlier we we start doing it, it it sort of nurtures itself and then you find it's actually quite hard to go on really long walks because there's too many fun things to notice *both laugh* I'm I'm an optimist at heart. I'm of the view that if there's, if there are positive ways to get people to care about things we should, we should we should throw everything at those because it comes back to the the sort of psychologists, as far as I'm aware have have done quite a lot of research in this area, and it doesn't matter what area you look at if you if you try and change behaviour purely by alarmism, it doesn't actually have the same effect as if you give the brain a genuine reward for for for changing. But a good example is we we only we can only care about things we see and notice. And even the word sort of trees can seem very abstract. Whereas if we get to know individual trees and woodland better, then we start to start to take a real interest in in what people are doing to them and around them. And that's why I do sort of feel positive is that, our ancestors and indigenous people, you, you can barely you know, you can barely bend a leaf without them sort of noticing because they've, they've, you know, invested in this practical awareness of what things are telling us. Adam: I think Obama called one of his books the audacity of hope, I I agree, I think, hope is often underplayed. The power of hope. And it is audacious. It is bold to go, there is hope, but I think it's also powerful. It is powerful. Tristan: Yes. Yeah. Adam: Well, I met Tristan at Eartham Woods in West Sussex which is a fantastic place which I'd highly recommend, but if you want to find any wood near you do go to the Woodland Trust website which is woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. Until next time, happy wandering. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk. We look forward to hearing from you.

Londonthorpe Wood has been a haven for wildlife and people for 30 years. Colourful meadows and lush grassland open out amidst trees both old and new, where butterflies, grass snakes, wildflowers and woodpeckers all live. Now the Woodland Trust and National Trust are working together to make it even more appealing and accessible. Project manager Heather Cook tells us all about it, including what's been achieved so far, how local people have been involved, prioritising nature, history and visitors' wellbeing, and plans for the future. We also hear from Edd, a volunteer wildlife monitor, on what surveying involves, which species he's spotted and the excitement of seeing hundreds of butterflies in a single day. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust, presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. Adam: Well today I'm going off to Londonthorpe Wood. And the clue is in the name, it is a hop skip and a jump from London. In fact, well it's very close to Grantham. In fact, I think it's the closest woodland to the Woodland Trust headquarters in Grantham. Now the woodland is about 190 acres big. It's got wildflower meadows, broadleaf and mature woodland. It's got a whole bunch of wildlife and lush open grassland as well. So, it's a very mixed site indeed. And part of the purpose of this site is that the Woodland Trust has been working with the National Trust, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to link Londonthorpe Wood and a place called Bellmount, which is the eastern part of the Belton House estate, which is rather grand and very nice. And it really gives a lot more accessible green space on the edge of Grantham to help people experience nature right on their doorstep. And what I'm really looking forward to – look – the place is filled with an abundance of butterflies. There's grassland areas, you might even see a grass snake. There's the great spotted woodpecker and even, you might see, a kestrel. Interestingly, also cattle are also put to work on the site as part of a program of conservation grazing. Of course, you don't see all of that at this time of year, but you never know what I might find. There's ash, there's oak, there's horse chestnut, there's beech, there's rowan, there's… oh I don't know!... sycamore, there's a whole bunch of stuff and I'm going to meet one of the Woodland Trust staff who's responsible for really bringing the site together. Heather: So, my name is Heather Cook and I am the project manager on this, reconnecting Grantham to its historic landscape project. Adam: Right, so, Heather I have to say, I left London, it was pouring down, I'm wearing my warmest clothes and get to Grantham and the weather is lovely. So, I apologise if I'm going to be very sweaty during this walk [Laughter], I've come overly dressed, overly dressed. Anyway, we are in Grantham very near the Woodland Trust headquarters, so this must be the nearest woodland to the Woodland Trust. Heather: It is. Adam: Why is this so important? Heather: So, well, because Londonthorpe Wood, as you say, is closest to our head office, but it's also situated right next to a beautiful historic landscape at Belton House. And erm so, the project that we're working on here is really about reconnecting the landscape. So… Adam: So, what does reconnecting the landscape actually mean? Heather: So, Londonthorpe Wood, Londonthorpe the site was originally part of the original Brownlow estate. I mean it was sold off years ago, Woodland Trust planted it up as a woodland, but it was very separate then from the Belton Estate. Adam: Right. Heather: So, we are now working in partnership with the National Trust on this project and opening up access for the people of Grantham. So, they've now got access to the entire landscape to the east of Belton House and Londonthorpe Wood. Adam: And when you talk about reconnecting the landscape then, is that reconnecting pockets of ecology so that nature has a bigger place to thrive? Or is it about sort of connecting a lovely house with a lovely bit of greenery so people can wander around? Heather: It's a bit of both. So, it's mostly to do with the physically reconnecting the two sites, so it's not actually connecting to the Belton House park, it's a section of Belton House that sits to the east of their estate where the Bellmount Tower is. It's freely accessible, there's no paved area. People can come in. So, it's a physical connection – we've opened up kissing gates and put in a bridge and all of that between the two sites. But then also very much around improving biodiversity, opening access from a wildlife point of view as well. Adam: And how long has that project been going on for then? Heather: So, the development phase was a few years, but the actual delivery of the project started just over two years ago. Adam: And what have you managed to achieve then? Heather: [Laughter] Adam: Sorry, that wasn't my inner Jeremy Paxman [laughter] 'come on and justify what you've done!' No, no, so what has actually happened there? Heather: So, I think one of the biggest things you can see physically on the site is that we have majorly upgraded the car park. It was a small, very wobbly, difficult-to-get-around, little car park and we have upgraded that with a beautiful, big overflow space for when we have events. But I think the most exciting part for me is that we've been able to put the surface path in. So that has opened up the site to a much bigger group of people. It used to be that people would drive in, park their car, 20 minutes around the park with their dogs, back in the car and off they went. Whereas now we've got people in mobility scooters, baby buggies, wheelchairs coming to the site because it's surfaced and relatively level. It makes, that obviously makes it a lot easier. And also, in the winter this section that we're in now, it can get incredibly muddy and that puts off a lot of new users who aren't used to that. So, it makes it very much more accessible. Adam: I mean, it's interesting. I mean, this is a very, you know, well-kept path, a lovely path which we don't often see or don't always see in woodlands and you've clearly gone to a lot of effort to improve access. Is there a sort of tension between your duty to safeguard the natural world and your duty to allow access, to encourage people to engage with it? Heather: Absolutely. It's, one of our big sort of priorities for the project is to create, to find that balance. Adam: Is there a trade-off? I mean, I mean, I just wonder whether that's an easy balance to achieve or do you have to lose on one side to gain on the other? Heather: I don't think so. You know, Londonthorpe is not an ancient woodland, it's… this we're walking through now was planted in the early 1990s, so it's about 30 years old. So, it hasn't, you know, we weren't doing any damage necessarily to anything. I can't say it wasn't of value, it is of value, but it's not, we weren't losing anything dramatic. It was… we were quite careful when we put the paths in, they were all… these, you know, through the woodland sections were no dig, so, it's not disturbing any of the tree roots, you can see them right up against the path. So no, I don't think it has been too much of a battle. Adam: and encouraging people to engage in woodlands and places like this – what is your hope? I mean, I mean, it's a very nice sort of thing for people to do to wander around. There's no charge, especially in these days – that's a lovely free thing for the family to do… go in, you know, investigate a Woodland Trust wood. But do you think there's a greater purpose in trying to encourage that engagement? Heather: I think so, I think one of the things that we found so interesting was that, you know, our project actually got off the ground right as the pandemic started. But during the development phase we had done some number count… you know, some people counters on the site counting how many people are coming through and during the pandemic, those numbers more than doubled. And I think that what we have found… you hear it all over the show… the value and the benefit of wildlife to people's mental health and I think that that has, that's a very big deal for us, is that, there's not a lot of green space available in Grantham and it's, a big part of our project is trying to tell people that we're here, that it's free to visit and that it's a huge benefit to them in so many ways. Adam: Well, we've just come out of this woodland area very densely packed woodland area to a lovely sort of open, open bit, which is fantastic. I mean, tell me a bit about the landscape here and the sort of different varieties we're seeing. Heather: So, it's one of the things that I love so much about the site is that every 10 minutes you walk into a different landscape [laughter] it changes all the time. But just to our right on that side of the site is where the Belton estate is and when we get around the corner, you'll see that this landscape is very similar to that and it was actually planted, as I mentioned in the 1990s, to reflect that landscape. So that's why we've got these big open grassland areas, some more densely packed woodland. Further on in the south, there's a lot of scrubland. So very much trying to keep it in keeping with the Belton estate. Adam: And how important, you talked about trying to offer this as a facility for the local community. How, how engaged are they? Heather: Very much more since we've done the… made the changes to the site. As I said, we've seen the numbers go up a lot. We've had a really, really positive response to the changes. And our project is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, so we've got two full-time staff on the project, me being one of them. And we've got a community development officer on the site as well. And a large part of his job is to promote the project in the town, engage with community groups, invite them out to show them what we've got and so that, that's making a big difference, that people, more people know about it. Adam: And in terms of local volunteers, is there a sort of army of people willing to come and help or is that is that just a hope at the moment? Heather: No, we've got a group, a couple of groups are really, really engaged fantastic volunteers. So, we've got a group that do guided walks for us. So, they do different themed walks. We do walk from the Belton House to Bellmount Tower on a regular basis and we do military history walks. And then we've also got a really active group of wildlife monitor volunteers. So, they've been monitoring birds, butterflies, doing transects all over the site. Adam: And are we meeting someone who's one of those volunteers? Heather: Yes, that's Edd! Edd Cullen. He's been with us now, I think he'll probably have to tell you, but about a few months now. Adam: Right. So early start. [laughter] Early start. Fresh blood, fresh blood. Well, look and to the left, well, that looks like a golf course or something. It's a very well-manicured bit of land… maybe not a golf course, is that just someone's private garden? Heather: No, that's also part of the Belton House estate. It is a golf course. They're on a long-term lease. Adam: Right, okay. Fantastic. Well, I'm gonna go off and meet Edd who is just lurching. He's not lurching. He's lurking. That was the word I was looking for. He's lurking. He's lurking by a tree down the path here. Edd, who is one of the volunteers. I'm going to talk to him about the work that they do here. Pause Hi. So, you're one of the volunteers. Is that right? Edd: I am yeah. Adam: So, what do you volunteer with? What, what do you do? Edd: Well so, currently this year we've been doing weekly butterfly surveys and monthly bird surveys. So, each, each week we come to do a butterfly survey. It's just the end of the season now that's finished. But we carry on with the monthly bird surveys throughout the year. Hopefully in the future when we get more volunteers, we'll look to expand that to dragonfly surveys or nesting birds, breeding territories, and that sort of thing. Adam: And how do you do those surveys? I mean, is it literally just wandering around going oh that's a nice butterfly? [Laughter] Edd: For the butterfly survey we follow a set route around the… transect around the site, made up of several legs, and we walk along, and we observe 2.5 metres either side of us and monitor and note any butterflies we see as we go along the, along, along the transect. We walk at a steady pace and go all the way around and see what we find in each leg. Adam: Butterflies are quite small. I mean, how difficult is it [Laughter] I mean I do see a butterfly, but I think if I went out looking for one, I probably wouldn't find one. How hard is it actually? Edd: It's quite tricky to begin with. But then you sort of after a while, you know what to look for certain flowers they like to be around and certain movements you see near the vegetation. So, after a while, you do sort of get the hang of it. Adam: And did you know this site before the Woodland Trust sort of got heavily involved. Edd: I've been here quite a lot before, before I became a volunteer, and I really liked to, enjoyed walking around it. So now I'm a volunteer here. It's quite good to be able to have a reason to visit every week. And even if we don't see many butterflies, it's still a nice walk. Adam: Have you noticed much of a change in the landscape here in the past few years or indeed how many butterflies and birds you've managed to see? Edd: Well, I've just been doing it, this is my first year volunteering. Volunteers tell me this year butterfly numbers were lower than they had been in previous years. So, I'm not quite sure if that's due to the climate or, or something like that, but in peak season, when we were doing the surveys, I think the most we saw was a couple of hundred on the transect, but it can be much more than that. Adam: Wow, sorry, I thought you were going to go, oh I saw ten! Over a couple of hundred butterflies! Edd: Yeah, we can do on the busiest days. Yeah. Adam: Okay. That's very cool. Why did you get involved as a volunteer? What attracted you to that? Edd: Well, my goal is to work in the conservation sector, and I recently graduated from doing a master's degree in biodiversity conservation. So, I was looking to get some more experience doing some sort of hands-on survey work. Adam: What would you say to other people who are listening to this and say oh I quite fancy spotting butterflies? I mean, what would you say about the joys of doing that or whether that's something you'd recommend? Edd: Oh yeah, I definitely recommend it! It's really, really enjoyable, and it's always exciting when you see a species you haven't seen before. There's quite a few different ones. Yeah, it's always really exciting. Adam: And how did you apply then? You just went to the website, or you stood outside headquarters? Edd: Well, I saw information about the reconnecting project on social media. So, I emailed to find out more, see if there's any volunteering going on. And I got an email back saying that there's a wildlife monitoring team and I thought that sounds great. It sounds just like I want to do. So yeah, I got, I got involved. Adam: So, if you're interested, have a look at the website and follow them on Twitter and… Edd: Yeah, absolutely Adam: Brilliant. But in terms of butterflies then are there any, any special to this site, or do you have favourites? Edd: I'm not sure there's any that's special to this site, but my favourite I've seen is the painted lady. I've seen quite a few of those this year. They're really really, really vibrant. Really really nice to see. I saw quite a few species though… about… I think about a dozen species I've seen so far. We've had small and Essex skippers and common butterflies, red admiral, common blue. So, lots of different kinds. Adam: Did you have to learn what those butterflies were? Did you come fully armed with butterfly knowledge? Edd: Well, my butterfly knowledge… didn't have… wasn't extensive when I started. But luckily I'm paired up with a more experienced volunteer and was able to learn a lot from them and learn more as I go as I spot them, and doing it every week you see the same butterflies every week, and you sort of pick up what species they are. Adam: Brilliant. Well Edd, thank you very much. I'm gonna leave Edd there and go back to Heather for, sort of, a final word really on what she hopes the future for this site will hold. Heather: So, the project runs for four… is gonna run for four years. We've got another two years left on the project and we hope that by the time we get to the end of the National Lottery Heritage Fund funding that that will, we will have engaged really successfully with a number of community groups in the town. So, my hope really is that that will continue indefinitely after the life of the project and that this will become a really special valued place for the people of Grantham. Adam: Well, it's lovely, lovely. And lovely weather as ever on these walks. I'm always blessed with good weather… shouldn't jinx it. But thank you Heather, that's brilliant. Thank you Heather, thank you very much. Heather: Thank you. Adam: Do remember you can find a wood near you by looking at the Woodland Trust website, which is woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood, or indeed you can just type in find a wood into your search engine of choice and it will direct you to that Woodland Trust page. But until next time and another wood somewhere in the country I look forward to walking with you then. Until then, happy wandering. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners, and volunteers and don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes, or wherever you're listening to us, and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walks special. Or send an email with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk and we look forward to hearing from you.