Episode 2: Rewild

The concept of Rewilding is restoring a piece of land to its natural, uncultivated state - often by allowing native species to regrow there, namely flora and fauna. This podcast will explore the topic of physical Rewilding; but also the concept of Rewilding our minds. Has working from home allowed us to reconnect with our local spaces? Can we rewild our relationship with our local communities to be stronger and more caring? How can we better use the spaces we have available to us in our local areas?

Speakers 

Alice Vincent is a journalist, gardener and author. The founder of urban gardening Instagram account Noughticulture, she has always championed accessible organic gardening for beginners. In 2020 she released her nature memoir, Rootbound, Rewilding A Life. She is a gardening columnist for The Telegraph, and is working on her third book, Why Women Grow.

 
Giles Hutchins is a pioneering Regenerative Leadership practitioner and senior adviser at the fore-front of the [r]evolution in organizational and leadership consciousness and developmental approaches that enhance personal, organizational and systemic agility and vitality. He runs a 60 acre leadership centre at Springwood Farm, an area of outstanding natural beauty near London, UK.

Ian Solomon-Kawall leads positive social change and raises awareness for a multitude of social issues through Hip Hop and a non-exhaustive passion for the environment and conservation. Ian founded the community-led food growing space May Project Gardens which he designed using permaculture principles. Here he mentors young people, nurturing ideas through music and a connection to the environment, through the award winning programme,Hip Hop Gardens

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:03

London National Park City is a large-scale and long-term movement to make London greener, healthier and wilder through a range of projects which, when combined, are impactful, inspirational and have potential to drive huge change across the capital. These projects are driven by a growing and diverse collaborative network of individuals, groups, organisations, partners, communities, businesses, and so much more. In July of this year, 2021, we'll be celebrating two years since the London Mayor awarded London its status as a National Park City, the first in the world. London National Park City is a way to rethink our relationship with nature and the expectations we share for our urban habitats. Most importantly, it's about taking actions that result in a better quality of life for people and for wildlife. My name is Emily Langston, and as well as working at Facebook, I am a volunteer ranger for London National Park City. The rangers are a network of passionate people with a wide range of experiences and talents. Together, we'll help make London greener, healthier and wilder, contributing to our shared vision to make London a city where people, places and nature are better connected. Rangers work in their local communities and across the capital on projects to tackle the climate and ecological crises, scaling greening initiatives and conservation activities. We've just onboarded our second cohort of Rangers, meaning there are 110 of us volunteering across London. Hi everyone, so this is the second episode of the Regrowth Project. The Regrowth Project is a three-part podcast series hosted by London National Park City for Earth Week. The aim of the series is to inspire ideas and thinking about regrowth as we come out of lockdown. Looking back to the year that we've had, thinking about shifts in behaviour and perceptions and ideally inspiring action and how we approach the future. So I'm going to welcome our speakers. Thank you so much for joining. It's really wonderful to have you all here. Before I explain what this specific episode is about, can you tell us a little bit about yourselves and your work to start us off? So I'm going to go in alphabetical order, starting with Alice.

SPEAKER_02: 2:38

So my name is Alice Vincent. I'm a gardener and author. And about six years ago, I started to teach myself how to garden on a balcony. Since then, I've written about gardening for various places, various newspapers and magazines and I've also published several books. Last year I released Rootbound Rewilding a Life which is a nature memoir about connecting with urban gardening and growth in the city and I also document my exploits through an Instagram account called Nauticulture.

SPEAKER_00: 3:14

Hello, I'm a specialist in regenerative leadership, which is essentially a way of leading that helps us work with life, with the grain of nature. So it applies insights from living systems to the way in which we lead in our organizations and the way in which our organizations function. so that we can become ready for a more volatile future and unlock brilliance inside ourselves and our systems. So that's my passion. How do we learn from nature and apply that to leadership?

SPEAKER_03: 3:46

And I am Ian Solomon-Kawal, aka KMT, the Freedom Teacher. I think people know me more for Maple Deck Gardens, which is my home where I'm sitting in at the moment, which is also my garden and project. But what I've ultimately created is a community grassroots ecosystem, which consists of Maple Deck Gardens, which is a community hub. People learn about growing, making it accessible and creative. I have an event called Come We Grow, which is a platform basically to promote anybody who's doing growing all those kind of associated activities around that. I have a youth program called Hip Hop Garden. I am an artist and all my artistry or my music is about nature and environmental issues. And then the last one more recently is I'm a consultant and a consultancy basically uses all the community knowledge to inform businesses and companies as well.

SPEAKER_01: 4:43

Wonderful. Thank you so much, everyone. So in this session, what we're going to be doing is exploring the concept of rewilding, which I think you're all involved in in some way, shape or form. So practically speaking, rewilding means restoring a piece of land to its natural, uncultivated state, often by allowing native species to regrow there, namely flora and fauna. So this podcast is going to explore the topic of physical rewilding, but also the concept of rewilding our minds, particularly in terms of how the last year has impacted us. So things like how has work from home allowed us to reconnect with our local spaces? Can we rewild our relationship with our local communities to be stronger and more caring? And how can we better use the spaces we have available to us in our local areas? So I'll hand it over to you three to lead the discussion.

SPEAKER_03: 5:37

Alex has got to go first, isn't it? It's only right. Only polite.

SPEAKER_02: 5:44

Ian, I was looking at you and I was like, well, I feel like Ian can best answer these questions. But OK, I'll kick it off. I'll kick it off. It's been well, it's been a really interesting year because I spent first lockdown without access to a garden. The area where I lived at the time was surrounded by beautiful open areas of greenery. land that was accessible to the public so we had the woods uh we had horniman gardens which were closed for a bit but then reopened and uh dulwich park as well and what was interesting to me is someone who um has always believed that even though we're in a city there is so much more green space than people realize um was to kind of see other people waking up to this and also to see people who have always had gardens wake up to the inherent privilege of having access to that space as well it felt like there was a whole new layer of have and have not emerged last spring as to do you have access to private land do you have access even to a park and do you have a job that allows you to go on a lunch break to your local park or not and I think actually bringing those conversations to light was long overdue and really interesting as well

SPEAKER_03: 7:12

yeah I mean just building upon what Alice was saying in terms of my work and my lifestyle I think I very much was promoting the celebration or the reconnection for nature for the last 15 years in the various entities as well um if we specifically look at work i mean now for example i'm having this interview in my garden you know like um it's so embedded in every element of the work i do and the way i work and um the reason for that is because i feel like it's one of the most healing and transformative um ways we can exist especially in urban environments i think that's what my focus is i think you You know, there's a space for people that live in the country. But I think what I'm very interested in is how do we, with the population growing in urban environments, you know, this is an unparalleled time where more people are living in cities than actually in natural environments. How do we really engage with nature? At the moment, it's mainly from a consumer base. It's mainly from extraction base. And actually, it's about just as you were saying, Alex, it's about retuning people's minds to having a real appreciation for nature. the beauty of nature which is not just economic as well um so you know um i've been lucky enough to have a garden for many years but it was never um as pristine as it was now um it took someone else to come and show me the the value of the garden and actually returning it back to its natural state was done by using permaculture um so using a permaculture design system and since that since that day, which started in 2006, we've just been trying to make the space accessible. There still is an issue where people don't feel comfortable, particularly non, I think it's a report, it's predominantly non-white people, BAME, whatever you want to call them, I don't like the term, but we use it for this purpose of the conversation, not feeling comfortable in green spaces and also young women, young teenage women not feeling comfortable because of the notion of being safe. So this space has been a safe space for people to actually just really engage with nature in a safe way, in a kind of supportive way and an engaging way. So that's kind of what I would do. And I'll hand over to Giles because I forgot the rest of the questions.

SPEAKER_00: 9:34

Well, thank you, Ian. Yeah, I mean, there's lots to this. And what you just said there about some people feeling kind of unsafe in nature, you know, it's fascinating the world we live in. And it's interesting how as we've become more digital and in a way we're kind of closing off from nature, but what, I think one of the things that Alice was mentioning that what's happened with COVID is in a funny kind of way, you know, we've become, we've gone onto digital more and that's sort of invited in two things. One that we're, showing up more in our own homes or in different environments, you know, doing, for instance, a recording whilst outside like you are, Ian. And that is opening up more of ourselves into work, which is an integration of nature, of course, because we are nature. And it's also inviting in this opportunity to go outside more. I mean, I was just speaking to someone who was in London last night and she was saying how it was fascinating how lots of places are now put put tables outside bars and shops that wouldn't have had outside space before are putting tables outside and everybody's gathering around them, sharing more, engaging more. So that's really kind of a wholesome evolution. And part of that has been enabled through technology for people to be able to work remotely. And yet, So how can we use technology in a positive way that helps us connect more to nature? And to Ian's point around sense of safety, I get that all the time. So I take people out into nature, often on solos or group work when people sleep overnight. And often I have, so these are leaders, so senior women in positions of great influence in society, often realize that being in nature, in the woods, has been seen as a threat for them. And sometimes it perhaps triggers underlying wounds that they have from earlier in life. And so we have to recognize that in connecting with nature, there is a kind of process of us integrating into more of ourselves and opening up some of the judgments and compartmentalizations that we have with inside ourselves so it's a as we connect to nature we also open up to more of our own nature.

SPEAKER_02: 11:58

Yeah I mean much of much of that really echoes with my own experience and I think it's not even necessarily you know the word plant blindness is known amongst people familiar with horticultural practice or witnessing kind of who are open to nature, et cetera. And it's a scientific phenomenon, one in which, because people do not recognize the certain plants and trees that surround them, they're unable to connect with them. And a lot of that comes down to education and access. But even as someone who holds a lot of privilege and who grew up in the countryside, When I moved to London, I still think I was really deeply plant blind. And I think a lot of people who live in cities do think that they're not green spaces because, you know, they see maybe weeds growing between the cracks in the pavements or they see trees. And they also see plants as maybe as other. Don't realise that there are lots of edible plants around us growing among the pavements. I mean, whether you'd want to eat them is another matter, but they are technically edible. And I think that's something that's happened in the last year. And it's also something that is one of those fundamental blockers to people's enjoyment and and appreciation of the outdoor world. I have, you know, I really think it's worth unpicking that word nature. As you said, Giles, like we are part of nature, like to other it is part of the problem, but until there's another word or using the word outside instead. And I do think that like, how do we crack into that? How do we crack into that lack of understanding? I mean, I feel like projects like Ian's are doing loads to open up and present gardening in a different way. I'm a gardener, so gardening is kind of my focus, but it taps into outdoor spaces and green spaces and the work that you both do. And I do think it's how do we wrench it away from that kind of very Wellingtons and foam rollers and like nice trowels and make it seem vital because it is. And part of the problem with plant blindness and this lack of understanding with ecology is it's inherently keying into climate catastrophe because if we don't know what we're losing, it's impossible to grieve it and it's therefore impossible to protect it as well.

SPEAKER_03: 14:32

Yeah, there's some gems in here today. I think we're going to need more than an hour, but never mind. Yeah, so I think this, what Giles was saying about nature, this whole notion of that, you know, we're extract, we're not, we're not, as we're not nature, basically our whole, you know, actually we're something separate from it is a really important point. You know, for me, I never started off, you know, having this appreciation for the environment that I do now, 15 years ago, it took someone else to kind of come into my world and show me, oh, wow, there's a whole world. And this world is, as you said, can survive without us. we can't survive without nature, you know, like the planet will flourish. We saw that with COVID and lockdown, we saw how, you know, the, the, the, the oceans were regenerating more species were coming back. You know, you saw basically animals reclaiming their environments, you know, emerging unity animals that you'd never seen before. So I think it's really interesting. And I think the flip side of what Alex was saying is that the work we do is really demystifying that. And I'm, I think there's also an interesting point about safety, which is the cultural legacy of safety. So coming from a Black Caribbean's perspective, there's a whole association with violence with the land and the connection with nature as well. You know, being removed, whether you're being, you know, an ancestor of the triangular trade route or your refugee more present, there's actually that trauma that exists with the land as well. And how we try to combat that is actually by making it fun. making it accessible making it creative like not putting pressure on people like for example one cohort the young people we work with specifically with hip-hop garden our youth program they're very much into the whole entrepreneurship you know like how can we cook food and grow like you know organic food to basically make it a premium but the other group that we work with who uh choose love cohort are young refugees and there's an association with um poverty with garden and farming so what we do we don't we don't enforce that on them we just put them in spaces where they're constantly in natural environments so most of the workshops most activities we do are outside as well so that's kind of my angle there

SPEAKER_00: 16:54

yeah well thanks ian um just to build on that this playfulness you know it's it's it's an it's opening us up isn't it and that's kind of what one of the powerful things that nature does is just sort of open us up, allow us to feel more playful and more empathic, you know, and more open to listen and be with the other. And whether the other is actually other parts of ourselves, insiders, or whether that be other forms of human being, which we're choosing to judge or other. So this opening up in nature and playing more, I mean, you know, the science is there, it shows us we integrate our left and right brain hemispheres, our head and our heart and our gut more, we become more alive, we become more human. And in so doing, we actually, I think, see beyond some of the limitations that we've been conditioned by. So one of the things we talk about in regenerative leadership, and to your point around trauma, in is that, you know, those we've been, all of us, through an immense journey of separation. It's in all of our histories, this immense trauma, and it comes about through various reasons. And it manifests today as a split between left and right hemisphere, more prioritization on left hemisphere, which is narrowing down, focusing in. Masculine and feminine ways of attending, not gender or sexual orientation, but masculine attentiveness is more competitive. It's more out focused it's more objectified feminine is more connective and metamorphic and then you also have a split around inner and outer focusing more on outer Getting things done, what gets measured gets done, seeing the tangibility of things and impoverishing the inner, the imaginal, the emotional, and also this split between human and nature. So a lot of this today, some of this is around what we call environmental psychology. How can we as human beings kind of learn about nature to improve us? But there's then also ecological psychology, which is actually how do we deepen our relationship relationship with nature and with ourselves so that we realize we are just part of nature and that the whole of ecology, of course, is going through an evolutionary dance all the time with us as expressions within it. And so this trauma, I think, and dealing with trauma is a very important point because it manifests in how we're showing up today as splits in our psyche. And nature is a powerful way to help heal trauma. those shifts so yeah it's any way that we can find to bring in people who feel marginalized or you know anyone really because we're all in this together I think you know nature is a very important way to do that so I condone both of the work that you're doing and Alice I pass back over to you

SPEAKER_02: 19:51

thank you and for your kind words I think When you were sort of saying, you know, the role of nature, healing trauma, both of you, and my thoughts went to what happens next, because we're in this very unusual situation in general, but more specifically, that This has been a year of huge upheaval and upset. And I think actually what will end up being a huge, a long time, it will have a long tail to recover from. But also a year when people have spent more time outside than they possibly ever have before, perhaps, depending on your job and your circumstances. And, you know, we are at the moment on the cusp of the UK reopening. And I'm curious to know what happens next. So will the outside still be as important when we can go into a restaurant or a bar or a shop? We don't have to socialise in the park, essentially. What will the legacy be of this year in terms of appreciating the outdoors? as a kind of gardening writer and someone who sort of documents that side of things, I've had a lot of people both anecdotally getting in touch with me, like I'm building a garden or I'm community garden, you know, the community garden that I work with is inundated with volunteers. And I'm, you know, is that just the lockdown thing? I really hope not. And what happens next and how can that help us move on from what we've been through?

SPEAKER_03: 21:29

Yeah, I think, you know, I wouldn't say I'm a pessimist. I think I'm a realist in terms of what I'm seeing because I've written a song. So this is the artist side of me, which uses art to raise awareness of issues concerning nature in a very kind of fun way. And the track I've created is called Litter. And it's interesting because exactly what you're saying, I'm seeing already the lack of appreciation for those spaces just by the littering. Certain parks have already shut down because of actually people are just coming to the spaces. And again, it's that mindset where it's not, it's not the appreciation for nature, the kind of thing, everything Java was talking about, the thing you were talking about earlier, Alice, it's actually getting that kind of consumer, what it can do for us. Like, oh, actually it's for the benefit so we can feel better, we can escape lockdown, we can have refuge. But actually we still haven't got to the point where that's integrated into our daily practices. But with that said, I think there is definitely a shift with a lot more people I think it's about margins, isn't it, or percentages, that there's a lot more people now who are definitely going to take on board gardening, growing, plant-based food, being outdoor mowers. I think there's definitely going to be a shift with companies to recognise the importance of this way of working because of the impact of having to work at home as well. You know, like even with my new role in the council, Bristol Council, I'm encouraging my staff, don't forget, go out for a walk. You know, they see me on the Zooms and I'm outside and they're like, oh, wow, like, you know, And it's just reminding people that actually this is not, as we're describing, this is not something that's separate from us. It's us. It's everything that we are. We talk about food, nature. We talk about, you know, drawing even minerals for our computers. Again, nature. It comes from a natural environment. And it's just really important that we kind of, I suppose, we just keep advocating for this relationship to keep happening where we kind of just... get people to kind of you know just become much more connected to nature in some in some ways or somehow

SPEAKER_00: 23:49

Yeah, Ian, and I love that. You know, it really is us. What is this all about? It's about opening up to life. It's about opening up to reality. You know, we've got ourselves caught up in something here, which is now prevalent in society, and it's creating all sorts of problems, where we project it onto different people, we project it onto nature, and when we throw litter, we're actually also littering our own internal selves. And so it's this inner and outer is happening all the time. And how do we open up to life? How do we open up to more of ourselves internally how do we open up to more of life out there there's no real difference the two are interconnected the stress that we see in all systems today whether ecological social um economic are all related to each other and that's what's going on and i think this point um about how much are we sort of patching up um how much are we kind of just sort of making quick fixes um to sort of satisfy an immediate pain well that is a natural response And that's OK. I don't wish to judge that too much, except that what it's doing is just transferring the issue, i.e. throwing litter or whatever. But the deeper work of transformation, which is where we integrate, we actually heal. We don't just patch up a wound. We deal with the underlying issue is transformation. And I think if we look at the bigger picture, yes, okay, there's a lot of sort of simple transference going on and sort of using nature or whatever. But I think there's a deeper shift going on of which COVID is just part. Climate change is just part. Black Lives Matter is just part. They're all parts of a deeper shift that I believe is happening. And I would call myself a realist, not an optimist. So I wish to bring that to the table that something is shifting And I would like to think that is a wider and deeper level of consciousness about who we are as human beings and what on earth are we doing here on this planet?

SPEAKER_02: 25:50

I really hope, yeah, I really hope that is the case. I mean, the kind of what we haven't mentioned here, but I'm sure we all know, is that one of the impacts of climate catastrophe is a rising zootropic illness. You know that the pandemic is a direct result of a breakdown in relationship between humans and animals and the way that we treat the environment. And what I have noticed in the last year is a greater volume of discussion about subjects such as how indigenous cultures work on the land and treat the land and respect the land and how we can reflect that and learn from that in Western culture. It is a connection of how we decolonize the land and how that can connect to a greater recovery as you know I am on board with so many of these ideas and fascinated by them but I'm also really conscious that maybe I just occupy a tiny bubble where good ideas and invigorating conversation is thrown around and and is that possible in uh the world and the structures in which we live and what is the work to do not only on a personal level which um I think is maybe what you're talking about, Giles, but also on a structural level, like we can do all the work inwards, like how can we build that up to change the kind of the fundamental structures that are keeping so many of them in place?

SPEAKER_03: 27:25

I think that's kind of what I was referring to, wasn't making a judgment about people dropping litter. It was just an observation of actually people in society, because actually my track actually works with people and actually does it in a fun way to actually pick up litter in a very kind of participatory way. That's how I always work. So I'm definitely in an environment where, you know, actually we're talking about decolonization as there definitely is a growth in consciousness, but I think the consciousness comes with power, privilege and accessibility. So for example, there is definitely a consciousness shift, but yet I'm always thinking, well, if like, for example, if there's such a consciousness shift, why are we getting more support in terms of the work we're doing as a grassroots organization as well and not just support but also the support on our terms as autonomous as an autonomous organization that does phenomenal work that engages not just bma people but people with mental health we engage corporates, you know, we engage with a whole broad spectrum of people, but yet coming back to your point about the systems, we have to constantly fight within the system. For example, with funding, it was one example. I've set up this project, took nine years without no money whatsoever. There was no money whatsoever to get this product off the ground. So, you know, It's really interesting that we... I see this sense of consciousness, but I don't feel it. Do you know what I mean? I don't feel that kind of... transfer or that kind of I definitely I see it and I hear it and I see it but ultimately it's about redistribution isn't it of equity and wealth and until I see probably where I see homeless people that are housed in natural buildings or till I see people food banks being removed or till I see basically redistribution of land or till I see a real acknowledgement of the history of Britain as the birthplace of colonial and all these kind of manifestations, neocolonialism, et cetera, until there's a real knowledgement of the food that comes 40% from across the globe, which is never grown here, I don't really feel that consciousness. And it's not to dismiss it. I think there's definitely a shift. But I suppose how is that transferred into some kind of action that engages with those that are most affected by these problems, I think, is... kind of where I'm at with this, where we're at at the moment with the conversation.

SPEAKER_00: 30:15

Yeah, it's definitely a challenging time to be alive. It was Donella Meadows, the systems thinker from a couple of decades ago. She said, if we want to change the system, which is what you're talking about now, system change, the most important way to intervene in the system is at the worldview level, the consciousness level, hence the work I'm doing with leaders. That's because of the position of power that they have in nonprofits, in social structures, in communities, in corporates. And that was the reason why I went into business in the first place, actually, over 25 years ago, is because I was aware of the the massive problems that were going on in the world back then in the 80s. And I could see that everybody was constantly saying, oh, it's because that's how business is, and that's how we do things, and that's because of the economy. And, well, okay, things have not got any better. They've got a lot worse, actually, over that time. And yet... Business is... These discussions are being had. They were just... There was no space for them 10, 15 years ago when I was starting to talk about, for instance, sustainability in business. That was really... People just didn't even understand the word. Now, that's matured a lot. I'm not saying it's the answer. It's not. It deals with symptoms often rather than underlying causes. But the wider issues that Ian is referring to... are attended to in a worldview shift, when we shift out of sort of separateness, seeing ourselves as essentially the whole of nature being sort of competitive and us being separate species struggling in a scarce world. And it's that that creates the kind of dynamic that leads to patriarchy, that leads to colonialism, that leads to capitalist markets and so forth. If you attend to what's underneath that, And this is the beauty of indigenous communities that Anne mentioned is that we've still got examples of, thank God, we've got examples of human communities that are living in a sense without having gone through that whole journey of separation but for the large part certainly the western world and in China and India populations have gone through this journey of separation and therefore it's a case of reconnecting and that requires a healing because the separation has created all sorts of fractures so it's a shift if you like from a domesticated fractured psyche which is not just in ourselves but in our whole system into a more reconnect integrated psyche collective consciousness and an individual consciousness and for me the power of nature is actually in helping that shift from fractured sense of separateness competition control domination into opening up and becoming more human in a more than human world

SPEAKER_02: 33:11

I kind of feel like

SPEAKER_00: 33:12

I

SPEAKER_02: 33:14

I don't know really where to take it from there apart from that I feel like you know there is a whiff of positivity about what you're saying and I suppose I was interested in where we can take like hope and excitement and positivity from in light of this I mean I feel you know the fact that there is amazing grassroots work happening there are these conversations being had it's all um good stuff but i suppose you know we are on a cusp of um of starting certain things again and how can rewilding come into that because you know personally speaking it is um rewilding that's the term we're using on a personal level is hard work and it's a journey and it's really rewarding but it isn't just like I think so many people think you just go for a walk in a forest and feel things and so rarely does that happen and I think actually sometimes some of the codification and what Ian was talking about the kind of the commodification and the expense involved and in how we package up nature sometimes as a society. It's like, oh, go on a mini break to Scotland and experience nature. I think often actually a lot of the work needs to be done in recognising the greenery and the nature and the wildness of our daily lives, even if that's clocking that the sun's coming up a little earlier every day.

SPEAKER_03: 34:52

Yeah, I definitely would, you know, just... you know, not getting too technical, but, you know, just bring it back to the zone one, like, you know, our media environments, you know, like what's happening in our front door, you know, like, um, you know, I, I work in areas like, for example, I'm working late one in Brixton. You've got a massive, this, this notion of massive, um, divide between wealthy and poor. But again, what Giles was saying about this notion of scarcity doesn't exist. There actually is enough wealth, there's enough resources for everyone to actually live nice live especially because nature is it doesn't charge us anything you know it's purely abundant in terms of its giving you know it has no bounds in terms of actually the the bounty that it produces for us as human species it doesn't stop giving you know prime example is my forest garden you know uh started off with this this you know um couple of plum trees and now i can't stop i can't keep up with the amount of plums that this thing produces i'm like it's just it's crazy so definitely And I suppose I'm using that comparison to our relationship to us as human beings. And I suppose what I'm looking here is just this kind of like, the rewilding is almost, again, is also the humanization. of people that are seen to be wild as well. So I'm here, I'm referencing, for example, here, young people, like, you know, young people that I specifically work with in urban areas that people can't believe that these young people would ever create plant-based food that would never make a crime song about nature that would never make hip-hop you know all of this they've done and achieved because actually you know if we really want to do this work it's about the inversion so yes definitely indigenous cultures but indigenous cultures live in our communities you know like they live in our communities actually they have our own ecosystem they have our own way of being They don't maybe express it in that way, but they live it through how they are. And because of the way they live it and maybe don't live it in a kind of, as we see as a kind of normal way or kind of very British way, they're demonized as a result. And so it's very important for us to basically just, a part of this rewilding is actually rewilding our brains to actually just bring it back to zone ones and how do we engage with our local communities? Who's not at the dinner table? Who's not eating, basically? Who's not? And that, for me, is probably the crux of this worldview. Once we start doing that, once we start saying hello to my neighbors, invite them around to dinner, okay, you get to know and learn about their cultures and you engage with them, that opens up. that the thing that Giles was talking about, that open up, that's part of that as well. It's very much what I'm into with Maple, the gardens and all the work I do. It's about a vulnerability. It's about an uncomfortability. And the more we do that, it shows us, well, if nature can do that abundantly and, you know, even if you cut like, you know, you make a mistake, you chop a branch off and it regrows after two years, then we are capable of much more in terms of how we engage with communities and people in this process of rewilding.

SPEAKER_01: 38:16

I was just going to touch upon the, that imperfection because I feel like in previous decades, parks have always been quite manicured when you look at some of the central parks of London. Sometimes with gardening and planting, I feel like there's an element of, oh, got to get it right, can't make mistakes, got to know what we're doing going into it. But actually, it's about trial and error and it's about opening yourselves up to that trial and error, knowing you're not going to get it right. And I guess that's almost the same with how we kind of work and understand each other in communities. It's like, we don't know everything, so we have to try and we have to just go for it. And I think sometimes breaking down those barriers to entry is sometimes quite important and getting away from that concept of perfection in all walks of life.

SPEAKER_00: 39:03

Yeah. Thank you. I love this idea of bringing the wildness into the everyday and how to make it, you know, just live it, really. This idea of playfulness and trial and error through working in nature and recognising that the more, I think it was Ian who was saying, you know, opening up, being more sensitive and receptive, all of that comes by just being in nature and noticing nature. So wherever we are, you know, this is the beauty of the day, this is the beauty of life, is that we have the sunrise, we have the sunset, we have the seasonality of spring, summer, autumn, winter, which we can experience in London, in Sao Paulo, in Scotland. The the moon rhythms as well, being aware of them. How do we sense them? How do we sense that waxing and waning and that full moon? And to this point of that we are all indigenous in various forms, how can we own that indigeneity? I mean, Matt McCartney talks very well about this and how actually, unfortunately, the trauma of colonialism happened even here way, way before what is mainly talked about with the oppression of the Romans coming in and wiping out what was a very attuned culture with nature, the the druids and the iceni was massively traumatized and perhaps that traumatized was then exported around the world through various imperial activities so this opening up this playfulness that we can have in local communities how can we encourage that more and through nature you know just through growing food through playing through trial and error through picking up litter through you know it's so so much easier to have a informal chat in the park or across the pavement or sitting out on a table next to a shop now with COVID, then it is on Zoom or over social media. So in a way, bringing it back to the role of technology, I'm hoping, but maybe I'm being a wishful thinker here, but I think it's part of wishing to create the futures that we desire through our own activities. I'm hoping that by people getting more caught up in social media bubbles and technology, that in a way they notice and value going outside, getting their hands dirty and playing. And that actually there might be a pendulum swinging back the other way, which helps these communities come alive more. And so we celebrate that locality that Ian and Alice were talking about.

SPEAKER_02: 41:29

Yeah, and I feel like actually that notion of locality is... is a really pertinent place for me personally to maybe round off that like over COVID, I was familiar with my neighbors anyway, but over COVID we all, we lived, you know, properly cheek by jowl 24 hours a day. And a really beautiful thing started happening, which was that across the back of the estate, there was some scrub land and my neighbors came together and we turned it into a usable space to sit and convene a shared space. built and created by the people for everyone, which was a really wonderful thing. And I'd like to think that even if that maybe, and over the course of that spring, the estate got greened, people brought in plants, people, you know, things in containers, in communal spaces. And for a time when we were spending so much time in our homes and so conscious of what we had and what space we had, people started to share. And to pick up on your point, Emily, of perfection, none of it was perfect. I'm not sure any of those people would have said, oh, I've got loads of horticultural skills, or you're doing it wrong, or you're not holding that hoe right. They didn't even really necessarily have the right tools. And yet... we got up and we did it and and i think um if there's two takeaways from from uh an hour of a lot of different takeaways it's that yeah sometimes the hardest thing to do is try and um because because there's a lot of pressure on getting it right but it doesn't need to be because that effort in itself is it can be a really powerful thing

SPEAKER_03: 43:21

Yeah, that's beautiful from both of you. I'm really enjoying this conversation. I definitely, this notion of imperfection, there's a phrase, nature abhors a straight line. This obsession with building straight, everything's hierarchical, linear, everything's, that's not natural. That's not a natural system. That's a man-made system. So we are living in very hyper, hyper city environments, hyper masculine environments, hyper violent environments because of the way in which our environments are designed. So again, if we can bring in the awareness, you know, and one of the things that we do a lot of through all the entities is using, as you mentioned about fun, is using creativity. you know, bringing creativity, whether it's music, whether, and you know, like we, we're not into this whole thing. And this is why for us, this project and all the work takes such a long time because we're not perfect. We are very rough. We are very messy. We are, you know, like actually that's one of our strengths because actually what that does, you're galvanizing relationships with people. Now, one of the crucial things, it's great to rewild the land, but if people are not going to appreciate it and understand why we're doing it, we're going to end up back where we were. So taking people on this journey, having relationships, building trust, vulnerability, all this stuff that creates great relationships is equivalent of like a micro system. or ecosystem where you're building that strength in your communities or with your neighbours or wherever it may be. And if we can just continue to do that, I like this notion of the imperfection. I love it. I've seen it happen so many times in the garden. I remember this story with two young boys who came and I told them to trim– I think it was a herb garden or I think I told them to trim– And down by one third, of course, they turned it back by two thirds and they panicked. And I said, don't worry, don't worry, don't worry. They came back a couple of months later and I was like, look at the plant. They were like, wow, amazing. And I think, again, when we look at nature as the teacher, the laboratory, whatever you want to call it, whatever you want to, it's us and them, whatever you want to phrase it, it's the best example of how we should be living. the best example of how we are as human species as well and that's been proven by as Giles was saying about indigenous cultures all across the globe not just specific people like this was definitely the way in which the majority of the world lived in it's only more recently become more accustomed to the the way we live inside our houses and cities but prior to this every single part of the world lived much more connected with nature and it was part of their everyday existence

SPEAKER_00: 46:16

Yeah, just to add to that, Ian, for 95% of our human history, we were in deep connection with nature. So it's part of our psyche. It's there in the unconscious. And I love this idea of just flowing as nature flows. Nature as a teacher really is just showing that messy is beautiful. And actually by us being more authentic and more vulnerable in our relationships, we open up more. And nature is full of relationships. Yes, there is competition in nature, but the overriding force is collaboration. That's what creates evolution. And if there's one thing that us human beings are meant to be good at, because it's what helped us evolve as Homo sapiens, is playfulness and also our ability to feel. our heart. And I think perhaps the challenge that we have today is we need to just get out of the heads a bit more and into the hearts and the hands. And I think nature showing us how to flow, showing us that it's all right to be messy is a really good way to bring us into that vulnerability.

SPEAKER_01: 47:16

That's amazing. I feel like that's kind of a natural coming together of the ideas. But certainly, I mean, to talk from my own point of view on this I mean I so I live in the borough of Merton which is an incredibly green borough and it's really exciting and that's kind of how Ian and I know each other we've bumped into each other a few times um and in the last year I've got involved in in my kind of green out community I'm in two different park whatsapp groups where we talk about what we've seen if there's rubbish here everything's going on a tree plant or what have you and I planted my first tree in November had absolutely no idea what I was doing still don't really I've done it a couple more times but It's just everyone coming together and everyone learning and no one really getting it right. And I think it's so important for us all to just roll up our sleeves and be part of it and break down those barriers. So thank you so much for your time today. This has been a wonderful discussion. I've really enjoyed it and particularly appreciated being almost in the outdoors through Ian's background. So that's lovely. So thank you so much. And I hope we can continue the conversation some other time.