Latest / White Fox Talking / E38: Unveiling Nature's Therapeutic Power - A Journey with Iolo Williams

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E38: Unveiling Nature's Therapeutic Power - A Journey with Iolo Williams · White Fox Talking

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the White Fox Talking podcast.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I'm Matt Charlie Valentine, and along with me is Seb.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Hello there.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hello Seb, how are you, mate?
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: I'm very well, thanks, working hard.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm standing.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Hardly working, hardly working, it's definitely working hard.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Working hard, mate.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: We seem to be still working hard, but it's all good.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Podcasts are going well, they are.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Numbers are picking up.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Numbers are picking up.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: It's getting out there.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: We're getting some great guests.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm good, isn't it?
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: We keep getting them little messages thanking us and getting some nice reviews as well.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: If anyone's out there and you want to give us a review because it will help our what's it called when it spreads that one Statistics, Statistics.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I'm just thinking when people can listen to it.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah yeah, Is it the?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know, give us a bump?
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, give it, yeah.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: I've said that before.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: So quickly on.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Do you know what I know we've got?
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Well, I know what we've got.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: You know we've got because you're being edited in it.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: But yeah, this is the fourth part of our nature therapy.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Is it already coming to an end?
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Yes, well, it's fourth part.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: We've got another one to come and then that's us on that part.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: But we've got another series coming up, not nature therapy, another therapy, another thing.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Don't worry, I've got plans.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I can't load you with them all the time, can I?
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, keep them to yourself.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: This is my cross to the cool.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: So yes, mr Yolo Williams, the White Fox Talking podcast is sponsored by Energy Impact.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: So welcome to the podcast, yolo Williams.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not bad at all.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Thanks shall we.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Doing well, doing well.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's great to see you, even though we're technology battles.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I know I struggle with the technology, definitely, and I think we'd all rather be outdoors than indoors, although where I am in West Yorkshire it is hammering it down as usual.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: No, it's alright.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Here in Wales it's getting better in the panic we're going to get a really nice week next week as well.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, looking forward to getting out this afternoon.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, looking nice.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Ah cool, because I'm over at the weekend and into next week.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, up in Snowdonia.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, harry, as we call it now.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: So the reason we've we wanted you on was we are doing this Nature Therapy series.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I was asked over to UCLan University of Central Lancashire and there was a meeting there, a Nature Therapy Summit.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: All surrounding all concerned with mental health.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: We are a mental health podcast.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: We might have people asking why have we got Yolo, who's a naturalist?
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: I know they said natureist.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: then yeah, I've been called a natureist on national news actually once.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: That's yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, really, you were on national news for being a natureist.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: No Well, I was supposed to be there for being a naturalist.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: I did often take my clothes off, but they declined.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Right, okay, what's Yolo doing on the podcast, on a mental health podcast?
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: And basically I've been listening to some of the podcasts that you've done and some of the things looked into, because they do actually do a bit of research and we took, we're scratching on mental health and one of them, which I did write down, was nature's birth to Simon King, when you did actually speak about mental health.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: So what?
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Basically, what I'd like to get into is one I think the connection is there, it's it's there, is science now, there's science.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: It's scientifically proven that being in nature helps, helps us relax, helps us de-stress.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: We can't really say if it stops things happening because they aren't happening, so we can't measure it.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: But yourself, you've already you know, you've said on other podcasts that you've been lucky enough not to really struggle with mental health.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Is that a pointer towards what we should all be doing?
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: So what I'd like to do is get into your background, find out how you've got into nature, how you've got to where you are now, because I know you won't call yourself a broadcaster, you are a naturalist.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: First and foremost, I am a naturalist.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: I just stumbled into broadcasting very much by accident, really.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a bit like us too, really.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely by us too.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: So what was your background as a?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: You know, as in childhood, because I think that's where I I mean this is an opinion, but this is where I think we are going wrong in this day and age, that we are cutting off children from discovering and getting involved in nature and that's leading to other issues mental health problems, behavioral problems and problems for the environment.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree with you 100% there.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: I was very lucky.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I grew up in a little village in midwills called Llanobin it's only maybe 40 minutes north of where I am now and I had I was lucky, you know.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: I know so many kids don't have the opportunity, but I had an idyllic childhood.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Mum and dad were both teachers and we were allowed to wander within reason, me and all the other kids in the village.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: I mean what I remember.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: We were out all day.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: You were told go on out, and you know, you come back for dinner well, what we would call dinner people call lunch now and then you come back for a bit of tea, what used to be a batty, and then we come back again for our supper.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: And that was it.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: We were out all day, literally all day.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: We were either racing on bikes, we were building dens, we were doing a bit of fishing, we were playing rugby, we were playing football, whatever.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: And I was lucky to grow up in a village where there were lots of youngsters as well, lots of lads and girls you know, out and about.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: So there was always somebody to go out and play with.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: And obviously my interest in nature has been there from as far back as I can remember and I couldn't have asked for a better place to grow up.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: The people were fantastic, friendly, welcoming Mum and dad were very encouraging.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: But the one figure I suppose who influenced me to go into Wallach more than anything else was Tide, my granddad.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: He lived up in North Wales, just as I can have, and there we go up and visit them regularly, and he loved having a little lad four, five, six, seven, eight years old hanging on his every word, showing me how to find nests and how to catch fish with my hands and all that kind of thing.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I was very, very lucky and I think if more kids had the opportunity just to grow up as kids, to be kids, then I think mental health issues would be much less of a problem.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I've spoke about before on the podcast.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: It's very sort of similar to myself, although probably not as involved with the nature, apart from picking thorns and looking for dock leaves to get rid of the nettle stings.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: But, you know, going out, being out first thing in the morning until basically the street lights came on, you know, and that was my watch, you know, and I'd be out and discovering, and we were, we were in our pushbacks.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: We're supposed to be playing football in the park, what?
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: 500 meters away?
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: But we were.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: You know, we were off into different counties and all sorts, but that doesn't happen.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: So much now, does it?
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: No, but I'll tell you what.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: No, no, you are right, it doesn't.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: I think as parents, you know, we're a little bit more paranoid now because it's all in the news.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure things are worse than they were then.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: You know the bogeyman and all this kind of stuff.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: I don't think they.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: I think it's more prominent now.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Obviously the roads are busier, that's one issue.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: But I live in a little village in the Sem valley, here between Newton and Welshpool, and I were two boys they're men now but they had a very similar upbringing to what I had At the back of your mind, you think you know where are they.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: You're a little bit worried, but you've got to let that go.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: And they used to play.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: There was a thing on TV called man Tracker, where it was an American series on I don't know which one National Geographic, whatever it was where a tracker and a horse these two had to escape from him.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: They were given a lead different people every week and then he would try and track them.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: And my two boys and a couple lads from the village and be knowns to us were playing that, getting lifts from the village into town and everything you know.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I mean I'm glad I didn't know about it then but I do know about it now.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: But they used to climb trees, they used to go everywhere.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: They said, oh yeah, we were only in the village I mean, they were in another village, four miles away, you know but it's what we did as well.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: So I'm glad that they've had that same upbringing, and I'm well aware it's not something you can do everywhere.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we've gone very sort of.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, you go back to the just mentioned the tree climbing.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: That's something I spent a lot of time doing and when I, when I look at I drive past some of the parks where we used to be getting the conkers and we'd be climbing to the top of these trees and shaking the branches for as much to pick up the conkers, and when I look at them now I'm thinking, no, and I'm a climber now, but I wouldn't be doing it without ropes.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: You know it's ridiculous because of the being a bit risk, aversome and growing up to that, but that's all part of development.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know what your connections are to teaching and obviously I haven't got any apart from the, the mountain leader work.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: What's your, what are your opinions on the way that school curriculums are going, as in we're pushing the lots of academia and obviously we're not scientists, so we can't.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: It's all opinion, but I think there is.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I think I know what you're going to say and I think that his opinions are correct.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Well, I I probably not the best one to ask.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: I wasn't the best at school, you know, because primary school, when I look back, I remember obviously we had to learn stuff maths and Welsh and English and all of that kind of stuff, but I remember just being out on the lawn playing football, on the yard, going for nature walks, that's what I remember.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: But then went to secondary school and we had a lot of maths and physics and chemistry and stuff, stuff that I've never used in my life, stuff that I've never used in my life.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Nobody taught me anything to do with wildlife, the open air, how to see, you know, survival skills, how to identify various things.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: No one did.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, we did biology, but that was about the makeup of the cell, the reproduction and all of that kind of stuff.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: So I would like to see schools with wildlife and the open air, but I'd like to see a natural history curriculum coming, because it's vitally important that we know what's around us, that we value what's around us, that we look after what's around us.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: You know, we're seeing it now with this government, this dreadful government.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I detest this government.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: What it's doing to our rivers and our seas, it's just and I think a lot of people are ignorant as to the effect that it's having not just on the wildlife but on our own health and on our mental health as well.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: You do away with all these green spaces because nobody values them.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Where are you going to go?
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Where are you going to get your half an hour to go and sit on a bench and just listen to the birdsong, watch the bees, watch the butterflies, recharge the battery?
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: If you're going back into your office to work again, where are you going to go?
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: There's going to be nowhere to go in the end.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: So I would like to see natural history, ecology, the environment at the core of education from the start, right through to when you leave school.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Then you have the option if you want to go on to do it further at university or not, but at least it's in there, it's in people to know and to appreciate what is out there and how important it is for all of us.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: If we're not instilling like a love and a respect for the outdoors and for nature and for the landscapes into people, we don't have to force it on them.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: But if they've got no association with it, then this is why it's trekked so badly.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: If young people are seeing crap thrown in our rivers, then you know.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: I see it often where people will just open a car door while the parks and put their, put the McDonald's bags at the side of the road and drive off.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Now, we never used to have that as young people.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: No, no, because it was drummed into you, not to.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: It was drummed into you at home and at school.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Now I mean, I hate to say it, but I think a lot of people need parenting lessons.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: They really do.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: It's all very well berating the kids, the youngsters, the youths, but actually we should be berating the parents, because it's just, you know, hardly anybody did it and especially since lockdown, it's got a lot, lot worse.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: The rubbish on the roadside verges now, and I could go on and on and on.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: You know the councils some of them are obsessive about cutting back the verges, even on straight roads where there are no junctions, but they're doing nothing about picking up the litter.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: I'd rather them leave the verges for the flowers and the bees and go around picking up litter.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Obviously, the answer is not to throw litter in the first place.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: We need to tackle that, but we also need to pick it up.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I've actually seen councils and what is it?
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: The highways agencies, when they've gone around and cut the grass and cut the verges and just cut straight through the litter as well, so actually increasing the amount of litter.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: But that's down to budgets, I suppose.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Now I suppose people listening might think, well, what's this got to do with mental health?
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to have to drop, I'm going to drop a book name straight into this.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: It's a book that I've been listening and it's about awe, the signs of awe, a-w-e, that's by Dr Kelner, I think it is, anyway, and there there's eight chapters and chapter six about wild awe, and it's all about what this sense of belonging, sense of belonging to big landscapes, sense of belonging and the benefits of just being immersed in nature and what it does.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: And there is actually scientific evidence for boosting the immune system, boosting dopamine levels and things like this.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: So it is actually science, it is actually being measured.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: So it's not that we're just going on an environmental rant, just to make that clear to anyone.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: One thing that I might ask you is I've mentioned this before I do quite a lot of work with education, intervention and what we're said to do, and we sort of you mentioned it there.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: You want great at school or you didn't enjoy it.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: So what we do is we take these young people with the growing numbers of people that have got ADHD etc and we take them into the outdoors, and that's because they've been excluded from schools.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: We take them into the outdoors and it's not like a rehabilitation, but it's a connection and they excel at this, and then they find the way and they get back into it.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: You know, they start communicating properly and then we put them back into mainstream schools.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: I tell you what, charlie.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: I remember I was in the first year where we used to go Form 1, they called it Year 7 now and I used to sit next to a lad who was a farmer's boy and we were in history and we had a history teacher quite a nasty piece of work.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: He's a very short man and he used to carry a big silver pen.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: He'd walk around behind you, hit you on the head with it and go bang, bang, bang.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: You know, I remember he came round the back.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: He'd ask the question and the lad next to me had answered it wrongly and he came round the back and he went you're thick boy, thick, thick, thick, like that.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: And I remember looking at him and I thought, hang on now.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Maybe he's nobody good at history, he's got no interest in it, but he'd be the only boy in the whole seven who, if you bought in a tractor, stripped the engine.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: He would put that back together for you.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: And he's now an agricultural engineer and he employs seven other lads, you know.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: So there's something out there for everyone.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: It's just finding it.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: And I accept that you can't teach people individually because there are too many of us.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: You know we've got classes of 30, 25, 30 kids, wherever it is, but there is something out there for everyone and it's all you need is encouragement, either from teachers, from people like yourselves, to say OK, you know what would you like?
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Have you tried this?
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Let's go.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Let's go for a weekend, let's go off, let's get a gang of you, let's go off to put a camp in, put a kayaking, whatever it is.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: There is something out there for everyone.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: A couple of points about that.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: First of all, that story reminds me of telling Kirsten, if you answer, about me, my French teacher stabbing me in the leg with a fork once, and it was quite a rough school.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: But then what happened was, because I'd been playing up, they put me into the other group where I went out tree planting, tree planting and looking after the school's pond and things like that.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: And you're thinking, well, this is brilliant, you know, and it wasn't.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: It's not like a rehabilitation, this was like, well, this is what I want to do, and I think most people that know me, if we're out, I don't mind cuddling a tree.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: But there's actually science about that.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: And one little story I couldn't tell you is we took a guy out in the Peak District with the Education Intervention who had severe autism and he'd been basically at school.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: He was from school, we were in the Peak District and he fell back a little bit and then just a microwave.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: He went oh, I've just got this, and he pulled a small sapling up, a little birch, and I was like I shouldn't really do that in the National Park.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: And then I looked around and obviously it's all devastating anyway by farming and shooting.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I says what are you going to do with that?
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: And he went I'm going to plant him again.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: And I went, all right, you've got big enough.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: And then he started this is a guy that was pretty, pretty quiet and then he just started reeling off all these species, off that.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: He had all these plants, trees, and then he started talking about pollination and left me miles behind, absolutely left me, and that basically brought him out and got into communicate with us and then maybe put him on a direction.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: He went on and did the John Gioro world about nature.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I mean things like that.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: You know, nature with autism.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: And I know we mentioned Chris Packham earlier.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: If you've read his book fingers in the is it sprinkled, sparkled.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: It's brilliant.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: You really need to get into that, you really need to read that.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I mean I don't want to be a totaling sort of bringing a negative vibe to the podcast about what we can't do, but there are lots of things that people can do.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: What would you sort of recommend as a?
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: You know, if people can't get out we've got lots of people in cities based now that way and then when they do go to the Canashal Pats, it's parking and restrictions.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: This is where the towns and the need to protect the green spaces.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: You know, I've lived in Wales all my life, far from three years down in London when I was down there at college and I used to every weekend there was a lovely graveyard just down the road from me, in near parking, and I used to just go there.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: And people just think I was weird, but I go there early morning because there were deer in there.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: It was the only place I knew where I could see deer.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: If I'd lucky I'd see maybe the odd badger and other bits and bobs.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of wildlife in there, lots of wildlife, lots of nice plants in there.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: We just go in there, have a look around.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: I've always been fascinated by old graveyards anyway, not just the wildlife but some of the writings on the old graves.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: You know so and so and old sea captain who died in 1780 and all this kind of stuff.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: And then I used to go into either Hyde Park, St James's Park more people there but still a bit of wildlife there as well.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: And that was my break from just the noise, the people, the cars and everything else.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: So I would urge city planners, mayors, whatever they are, to look after, to enhance their green spaces and we spoke about cutting verges earlier on and lack of money.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Well, if they haven't got any money to pick up litter, don't cut the verges then and don't cut all of your green spaces.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: I know people want to play football, want to play hockey, want to play rugby, whatever.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Great, Mow those, but leave the other areas as meadows.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: People can go there, sit, they can watch the flowers, they can watch the butterflies, watch the bees.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Who knows what else might turn up here.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: So I think we're very disjointed at the moment.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: I attacked my local council here.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: It must be 10 years ago.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: I hammered them in a book about them cutting five times a year the hedgerows and the verges, and they asked for a meeting and said well, listen, we could do you here because you're wrong.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: We don't cut five times a year.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: And I said, yes, you do.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: I named the people that they employed to cut it, an Aussie street based contractors.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: I gave them the dates when they cut them around here and he said no, no, no, no.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: I sent out a memo last year saying to cut only outside the breeding season and then someone came up, whispered in his ear and he said oh, they didn't get the memo, so one department hadn't talked to another department.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: So we need, you know, we really need to educate everybody really, and especially the big decision makers, because people need to have these green spaces within walking distance.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, ideally, everyone ought to have it within 10 minutes.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: I mean I can't see that happening in Playsake, London, of course, but I think it's so valuable and so important and a lot of people don't realise how important it is.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: And again, I suppose we're just talking opinions between the pair of us, but we saw during lockdowns and especially after lockdown, how much people realised that they needed these outdoor spaces.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: And then we look at, we look at we spoke about we spoke to Alex Staniford from Staniforth sorry Mind Over Mountains on this last episode, you know and people with mental health issues going out and going out to these green spaces or going out into the landscapes.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: It's working for them and whether it's just because they're going out and they're feeling relaxed because they're not in the environment, in a city environment or in a somewhere, there might be somebody that gives them, makes them having that anxiety.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: And now we're looking at social prescription and I think you've mentioned that about up on Shetland where people are doing that, where the doctors are absolutely prescribing people to go outdoors.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: You know they're not giving them pills now up there.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: They actually say OK, give that note to the walk leader so you can take it, bring it back to make sure that you've been.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: And that's what they're doing and they find that it actually helps.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: It really does work.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Organised nature walks are people who are struggling with depression, with mental health issues, and it does work.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: It's not the cure all, not by any means but it really does help.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Really does help.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is something that they've been doing in Scandinavia for a while, though, so where are we going, ron?
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, yeah, leadership, I suspect, more than anything else.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: You know, it's all about power, it's all about money, it's all about development, the economy.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: I'll give you a little story.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: I'll trinket it as short as I can, but this really brought home to me just how important wildlife is.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: There was a I was asked to go to a little village further south, but an hour away from here, to open a local reserve.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: There was an old woodland that had been felled and had been given to the village.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: And fair play, the contractors, the farmers.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: They'd put gravel path through, they'd dug out a few ponds, planted a few trees and I'd gone down.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: It was September time.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: I'd gone down just to open it and the whole school, the local school, had come along, 40 odd, okay.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: So the doll came along and I was there saying great, you know, well done, brilliant, great job.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: It's a fantastic place for you to have, right here, right on the edge of the village.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Let's go and have a walk around.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: So we went and had a walk around and, lo and behold, there's some rosebee willow here, this tall pink flower that you find by the roadside.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: And I found an elephant hawk moth.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: It's about the length of my middle finger.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: It's got two false eyes on one end and if you drew it up like an elephant's trunk, like I'd, hence the name elephant hawk moth the adult moth is lovely pink and green colour and by the time about 40 kids had tapped it on the head, it looked tired and I said okay, let's put it back where it was.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: That's vitally important.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Let's put it back.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: It leaked those leaves and I explained the life cycle and then we walked on a bit.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: I looked in this willow tree, didn't see anything.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: I walked on and all of a sudden this little girl, megan, said sir, sir, mr Williams.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: I went back and she found an even bigger caterpillar.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: It was an eyed hawk moth.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Now, it's only the second one I'd ever seen.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: It was young eyes.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: You know, I didn't see it.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Obviously she did and I said well, megan, that's brilliant, well done.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: And all the kids gathered round.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: I'd look at it, beautiful line green with little yellow lines on it, and I said okay, megan, you now take that, put it back exactly where it was.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: And then we walked on.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: We saw one or two other things and then at the end of the day you know, I thank everyone for coming along and then the kids all, two by two, walked along the roadside back up towards the school.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: One of the teachers doubled back and she said this is amazing.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: She said because Megan is the kind of girl who has never fit in in school.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Really, you know, we've got the ex-devils in Wales where we sing and dance and all this.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: And Megan wasn't a good singer.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Some of the girls in school were.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: They were very good singers.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: She wasn't very good at sport the school's a good reputation for rugby but for the first time in her school life she was a cool kid and all the other cool kids wanted to walk back with Megan because she'd found that amazing looking catipala.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: And I just wonder you know that's 10 years ago.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Where is she now?
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: She's going to go on and study ecology, zoology.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: She's going to become, you know, a counsellor.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: She's going to become an MP and an assembly member.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: She's going to become the next Minister of the Environment.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: You never, ever know.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: But it was lovely to see a really uncool girl suddenly become the coolest girl in the whole school.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Inspiring to hear that, isn't it?
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Oh it is.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: I tell you what.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: It wasn't because of anything I'd done, I hadn't found it, she had, you know, but I just thought that is brilliant.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: That's how you know, one instant, one Wall-F encounter can change your life.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: We did actually have Richard Wall off on the podcast.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: He started the Nature Therapy series from you clan, his son, isaac.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: They took him on a trip to Anglesey and Richard was actually saying now where he was going, where he was looking.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: He was actually expecting to, he was looking for yourself.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: So I'd been watching your stuff and I don't even give Isaac a little shout out for us, because he's one for the future as well.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, good man, Isaac, talk man.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Next time you're on Anglesey I'll try and make sure that I'm there.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: I hope you had a great time, man.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you for that.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the you know.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: With the education thing, do you think we've sort of got to write the last two generations off, as in there's very little connection.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we've become disconnected, badly disconnected.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: You know you can never write anyone off.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: The one thing that I've seen, I think we do need to reboot, we definitely need to reboot.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: But the one thing I have seen is I do like everything's always on telly blah, blah, blah.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: I only work on telly about I don't know eight, nine weeks a year, two months, less than two months of the years on my TV days.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Most of the rest of them I do tours, I do guiding, I go to Mal, I go to Spaceside, I read North Wales, that kind of thing, norfolk, and we are now getting more and more and more people who weren't really into their wildlife before lockdown.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden lockdown came and they're saying well, you know, I saw the bird.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: I saw the bird doing some funny.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: I saw bird.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: I hadn't seen the garden before.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: I looked in the bird book I wasn't sure what it was.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Mate of mine said it's this and that and all of a sudden, you know, we're now getting people from the last two generations getting interested in wildlife.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: So you should never write them off.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: But we definitely need to reboot With youngsters.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: We need to reboot our education system, of course, maths and English and Welsh, and physics and chemistry.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: They're all important, of course they are, but equally important, if not more so, is wildlife and ecology learning about your environment and its importance, I think it's still underestimated the connection that it does.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I suppose this is an opinion going from my own story of you know, severe PTSD.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: I remember actually being out in the Yorkshire Dales and I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of Yorkshire Dales now because of what I've done and gone on and the learning and it's very so.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: It's a bit of a monoculture and other our efforts to reintroduce species and woodland and things like this.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: So actually go out and be by myself and doing my walking and actually feeling that I'm part of something, I'm part of nature and feeling it actually working.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: You know, and there's all this, all that's connected with that, as in getting up and planning a walk, you know.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: So I'm planning my day, which means I'm actually putting a plan in place, and this can be for anyone that but I'm putting a plan in place.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: I'm going out in the outdoors, I'm getting exercise.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm getting away from a bad environment which would be going to the pub or something like that, and this is all working and all working towards improving mental health.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, t's I mean you said at the beginning.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: You know I mentioned I'm lucky.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: I haven't suffered from any mental health issues, depression or anything like that, and I'm convinced that it's because of the fact that I'm constantly outside.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: But the one thing I did find, charlie, especially during the last period of lockdown, the last one I found the most difficult.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: We were locked down January to March 2021.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: And those three months I found quite hard.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Not only was it winter, long hours of darkness, but I was seeing some of my work being cancelled right through till October, november of that year and I thought, well, the year before I'd had a whole 12 months virtually cancelled.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: I was getting another year cancelled.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: I was just thinking this goes on for much longer.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Actually, do you know what?
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: I'm just not gonna have any money.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Genuinely I'd have no money because I couldn't tap into government money and if it wasn't for being able to go out and walk and just run as well and run along the local canal here, you sort of I don't know you get like a rhythm, like a rhythm going, walking, running, whatever, and it's very soothing, very, very soothing.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: You know, I'd go out at night.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I'd just hear the snuffling of a badger or a fox barking and that lifts you.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: It really, really, these little encounters lift you.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: So I'm adamant, adamant that we need to incorporate wildlife, the environment, into our lives, into education, especially with the youngsters now.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Can I ask have you ever done anything sort of proactive as in meditation, you know, sort of actively thought of a need to de-stress by taking up some of these modalities that we were talking about?
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Or is it just an edge?
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: It's my work, I mean de-stress, you know, I get one bad day in probably 100 or in 200, genuinely.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: And a bad day for me usually is we've gone out, we try to film something and it's rained.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Well, that's not really a bad day, not really.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: So I'm lucky.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: I mean I know that I'm lucky.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: I fell on my feet.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I used to work for the RSVB, the Royal City for the Protection of Birds.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: My old boss retired, new boss came in as a new regime, a new way of thinking.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: They tried to move me up into middle management, which meant giving up the field work, and I said it's not going to happen.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: So in the end I left with a heavy heart.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: I had a brilliant job and then I had offers from BBC and Welsh Tele-S4C.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: I turned it down if she didn't want to go into it.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: But then I thought, well, I've just got married with a little baby, I actually need a bit of money.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: So then I went into it and one of the best things I've ever done because I've been paid to go out to film Leaping Salmon, to film Adders, to film Red Kites at their nest.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: I get paid to do that and all of this is what I would do anyway in my own time.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: So I know that I'm really lucky because I don't get happy, any stress at all.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: I suspect it's that and the combination of being outside all the time means that I've not got any mental health issues, you know.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: So I've not had to meditate, I've not even given it a go.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: I'm not a good one for sitting down and doing nothing.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, when I came on now I was covered in sweat.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: I now would despair.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: So we've got an exercise bike here, so hammered that for half an hour.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: We did 10 miles, 10.4 miles, and otherwise I'd have gone out and had a walk, the one thing I will do.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: We've got a garden pond here.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: It's about 15 years old now.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: I'll go there with a cup of tea, stare into the pond, watch the Whirly, gig, beatles, the pond skaters.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: We've got nutes in there.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: I just find it fascinating, you know.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: So just anything like that helps to de-stress.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: But I couldn't, I don't think, sit in and meditate and think of nothing.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: So I want to clear my brain.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: I'll go for a walk.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's good that you mentioned the water there actually, because that was in the this science of all book about doing basically taking groups out and I think they were ex-servicemen and they basically took a saliva sample because they could measure the levels of cortisol, the stress release hormone, or the stress hormone there, and then take them out for a couple of days and the kayaking and things like that, and they found that they all, being near water and then being in the environments, they all had these different levels of stress markers but they also are unified.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: So the science again, I'll go back to this it's not just two guys talking about our opinions.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: There is science there to back this, but we seem to be, you know, and then we've got and then it's left to charities like Mind Over Mountains and other charities.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: I know there's Climbing to Recover it and People and Black Dog that seem to be picking up the slack why we're so far behind.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we've got our priorities from the top down completely wrong, haven't we?
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: You know, just completely, completely wrong, and it's my own personal opinion.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: But the party in power now is the worst one of my lifetime by a long mile, by a long mile.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: We're weakening all the environmental laws and we're seeing development everywhere, from HS2 to dumping crap and, I mean, you know, human crap.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: In our rivers, in our seas, people enjoy swimming.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to see now, to be honest with you, because of the amount of SHIT that is in there.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: And I mean SHIT, it's just, it's just diabolical.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: And often, if I let it get to me, if I just sat indoors all day, I think I would, I'd be in despair watching the news.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Watching the news, you know, you think, oh my God, what's going on?
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: And you do get a bit down because you're thinking how can we stop this, how can we stop this?
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Because I've used my vote.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: I'll never vote for the party that's in power.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Now, I'm not saying the others are brilliant, they're not, not by any means but I would never vote for the ones that are in that room for the tour.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: There's no way.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: So I've always voted for someone else.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: But they're in power.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: They're even in power here where I am in mid Wales.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: So I'm thinking what more can I do?
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: So it's yeah, yeah, I can imagine it building up in some people, leading to real mental health issues.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: And the water there.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: You know there has been an explosion in cold water, bathing, cold water therapy, people while swimming and we've had a couple of people on the podcast talking about what it's done for them for anxiety, ptsd etc.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: But if you're going to go out and you're going to be swimming and then you're out, you are swimming in.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: You know shit.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Basically.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you are.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no doubt about that.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean David Williams, doesn't?
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: He swam the length of the Thames in for charity.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Well, he was ill.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: He was seriously ill Because some of the bacteria that he picked up, you know, he had dreadful diarrhea, stomach cramps and all that kind of thing.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: And I'm not surprised.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: That was 10 plus years ago.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: It seemed worse now, even worse now.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there was a triathlon or a swim off the Northeast coast recently, sort of in the Sunderland Newcastle, where 41 people went down afterwards with some infection because of what's been poured in the seas.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: So that is pretty disappointing and, like you said, they could get you down.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, it does annoy me.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: I tried to channel it into getting really annoyed and then getting active, trying to do something about it.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: And that's one place where social media is good.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: You know a lot of bad things about it, I know that.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: But I'll attack, you know, the party in power it doesn't matter who it is If I believe that they're doing the wrong thing for the environment.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: I'll write to my local MP, I'll email him, I'll attack him.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: So there are things people can do.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: So just trying to channel that frustration, I also I get a lot of joy from doing little things.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: You know, I live in a bungalow and we got a little garden here.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: It was a field.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: 25 years ago I boarded the field so I put a hedge in there, put a hedge in behind me, so I've joined up all the hedges around here.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Now the pond's gone in 15 odd years ago.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Whatever it is, I am mowed, mowed a little path through, but most of my lawn is a meadow now I've got grasshoppers in there.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: So and I think if everybody who can not everyone's got a garden, of course everyone who can did these little things, all those little things add up to a big thing.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: And also, not only is it good for the wildlife.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: It's good for your mental health.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: If you can go outside, I can sit outside.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: I can listen to the grasshoppers, I can watch the newts in my pond it is lovely.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: I've got hedgehogs back now as well in the garden here, which is lovely, which is really nice.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I suppose, indirectly, you are actually meditating there.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: I hadn't been mindful.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you are, yes, absolutely.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Well, we call our mindfulness moment, you know, and it is lovely, people love that.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: It's a minute and a half of just natural sounds, whether it's a river, whether it's a wind rusting through the reeds, whether it's just birdsong, whatever it is, you're just natural sounds, and it is.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: It's a form of meditation.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Funnily enough, I put Netflix on last night and I was just flicking through I came across a program called Live to 100.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: And it's about the blue zones you know the blue zones around the world and the guy went out and investigated them and what they actually found, though the people that were living in these blue zones and living past 100, they were all gardening, they were all going out and they usually isolated communities where they were going out and growing their own food, but they were spending a couple of hours each day actually in their garden and with nature and going out and finding these plants that they needed to eat.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: So I suppose that's very, very similar actually.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, when I look back to my childhood, one of the things I used to love was going to my dad into the vegetable garden Everyone had a vegetable garden then, of course and picking potatoes, getting the old fork and lifting potatoes and lovely, the taste was lovely.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: I did try here years ago whatever it is, but I'm away so much I planted nasturtiums around the outside for the caterpillars and the slugs, because I'm not home often enough.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: I used to get to arrive home and it just looked dreadful.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Everything had been eaten.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: So in the end I've given up.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: But I've got a mini orchard here.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: It's about nine apple trees on a little bank at the back there, and that is my pride and joy really, because in April it's in flowers buzzing with all kinds of bees bumble bees, honey bees, solitary bees.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: And now I've got a nice load of apples.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: I'll harvest less than half of them.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: I'll leave the other half of the wasps and everything else to eat and then I'll give them to some neighbors Old, I've got some elderly neighbors.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: I'll give them some, I'll keep some.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's lovely if more people have got time and space to do that.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: And even a communal thing.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: You're finding one or two towns and cities now doing this on roundabouts and all of this kind of thing.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: I think it's lovely and it helps people save, of course, because you're not going to go to the grocers or to your local supermarket and buy vegetables.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: You can actually nip out locally and just get them.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: I mean I don't want to be all doom and gloom about my environmental anger and things and the amount of oh no, no, there's lots of positive things as well.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: You know we're talking mental health, of course, and why.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: You know what, some of the reasons for that and what can help about that.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: But there are good things going on, and one of the things that gives me so much hope is a lot of the changes have been driven now by young people, people like Greta Thunberg.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: You know Extinction Rebellion.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: It's despite the fact that a lot of people detest them and hate them, and you see these idiots on telly saying, oh, you could have held up an ambulance, someone could have died.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Well, yes, that is true, but if they're not doing this and if we carry on as we are, the whole planet's going to go boom.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: You know so, and that does give me hope, seeing these young people very active, full of energy, campaigning, taking action as well, I think the generations like my generation, generation just behind us.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: It seems to be people that have gone through a struggle.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: It seems to be the people that were struggling, jarring lockdowns, that have then come to nature.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: So this is where they, you know, where we're disjointed, where the younger generation are realizing what's going on.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: But then the last two generations are thinking well, actually nature gives me something and benefiting by actually not doing anything, you know, just going out and watching nature.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: But also we've got things like forest schools, which which are instilling this belonging to nature or belonging to being part of nature, in the, in the younger generation.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: The only thing is I reckon with that is that it's not because they can't make.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: How can you measure this?
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: How can we measure the benefits that then people are gaining?
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Because we work with a system that if somebody's ill, we can treat them and look at that, we can quantify that, whereas we can't if people aren't ill, like yourself, you know with.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: How can we know that it's nature that's kept you so fit and healthy?
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Oops, oops, that's not my fault.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Well, no, definitely not your fault, I think.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Who can we blame?
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: I think we can blame the internet provider in Wales.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's not great, but at one point, the internet coverage in Wales was said to be worse than Kazakhstan, and I think it's just proved it.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we certainly lost connection with Yolo, so apologies, apologies, but by the miracles of technology, yeah, we did get him back.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, so thank you.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: It took us a while, though it did.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much for coming back, yolo.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, thank you, yolo.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: I know he's a busy man, but he's obviously is passionate about getting this message out as well.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, shall we jump straight in it Back in?
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: So hello again, yolo.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us and for the listeners.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Yes, we did have a bit of a technical hitch, so we're back inside when none of us well said works inside anyway.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: So you might like it, but I know both myself and Yolo like to be out those.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: I listened to the recording back so that we could see what we'd actually missed.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been pretty dead early in the episode.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: I mean pretty down on the education, and when we get a story like that, don't know where that's going to go, but at least make it at the opportunity.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: What we've been saying is these opportunities are probably not available to everyone.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, do you know what, charlie?
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: I've just been to a conference this weekend, the Welsh Anthropological Society, the annual conference.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: I remember the first time I went was 24 years ago and I was one of the youngest ones then and I remember looking around thinking, oh, it's full of old, dodry, old, this and that.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: Well, I won the dodry ones now.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: But what was good was that over the last five years I've seen an increase in the number of young people, students who come.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: There.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Would have been maybe 20 people there under the age of 35, and a lot of those would be under the age of 25.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: So the people aren't out there.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: It's just it's up to everybody to give them an opportunity.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: It's up to all of us to try and inspire them, kind of just taking five minutes out to show them something or to try and help them, to guide them.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: They are out there and I really feel quite optimistic than I did 10 years ago because a lot of the changes we're seeing now, driven by young people Just stop oil, get a tumble.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: You know, whether you agree with their tactics or not, they are actually starting to take action and I'm not saying we should leave it up to them.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: We shouldn't.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: It's my generation, generation before me, who've made a bloody mess of the earth, so we've need to work hard, but I'm inspired by them far more than they are inspired by me.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: It's just a thought.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I wonder if the younger people, younger generation, are now realising how important that we are as a species.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: We're not looking at nature, we're part of nature.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: So if we destroy nature, then we're destroying ourselves anyway, and I wonder if the evidence that's coming out about our relationship and role that we play is part of this.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: You know, to save their futures, yeah, yeah, what it is.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: I think they realise that far more than we ever did.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: And I think until the people in power, until the government the Welsh government, the UK government, european government, world governments realise that the environment should be the basis at the root of every single decision they make.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: Because if we haven't got a healthy environment, if we haven't got healthy water, healthy air, if we haven't got places we can go to sit, listen to the quiet, peace and quiet river tumbling, the waves, whatever, we're not going to last very long.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: And that's not me being a green tree hugger.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: That is fact.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: That is the truth.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: And some of these people in power you know I heard someone called Therese Coffey the other day, nellie the Affluent, you know, which I thought was a brilliant thing, but she's so out of touch with reality.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: How can someone like that hold the key position she is in?
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: I'm a firm believer that anybody who is an environment minister should be an environmentalist first and a politician second.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Anyone who is a health minister should have an interest and an empathy for the national health, for the health of people first and foremost, rather than it being an aside.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: You know you're the MP for Suffolk, or, by the way, you're also a fund.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Now you're the environment minister, that system has to change, I mean bringing us to that.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: This is a question that I was going to ask you a little bit later on, but we've got so two things there environmental, environment and health.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Well, we've got things like forest bathing and cold water swimming.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Which the science is there, it works.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: This helps bring people's cortisol levels down and controlling or helping to manage symptoms of mental health issues, and people are finding that as a way through, instead of medication, which sometimes just mask.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: So the health system and the environment are that closely related.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: What's going wrong?
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: The wrong people at the top, and I don't mean just politics, but the top of a lot of organizations as well.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: I have to deal with them.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: In Wales, the Welsh government, I have to say they're not doing everything right, not by any means, but they're a lot, lot better to deal with in the UK government but also have to deal with natural resources Wales, which is the government body in Wales, if you like.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: And at the top they've got people who, from an environmental point of view, mental health point of view, they're absolutely clueless.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: You know, too many people now are in key positions where all they're looking at is sort of knocking off at five, six o'clock, taking their money, getting a big pension, moving on to the next job, you know, rather than being committed to what they're doing, rather than being.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: Even if they just had an empathy not much knowledge, but an empathy for their post and the people around them, the advisors we'd be better off than we are now.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: But ideally I'd love to see massive changes.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: It's not going to happen because they're the people in power and they're not going to talk themselves out of a job.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: So I'm not quite sure how we change things.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: One of the questions I had at this conference at the weekend was how on earth do we change things?
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: And I find it really difficult.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: My local MP and I'm not just knocking the Tories, I'm not particularly into any politician, but my local MP is a Tory MP.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: He's just voted as the Tories have told him to vote.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: He's been put in power by the wealthy farmers in the Sem Valley here but he's gone against them.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: He's often gone against them.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: I didn't vote for him, so I've done one of my little bits.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: I voted against him, but he's gone into power and sometimes you feel as if it doesn't matter what I do.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what I do, it doesn't change the whole system.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: I actually think once we persuade the 80% of people who really couldn't give a damn about the environment as long as they get cheap food, so they roof over their heads and I can understand that as long as they might look after their kids once we persuade them that a healthy environment is critical for their children, for generations to come, once we get that message across strongly to those people, then we will start to win the fight.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: But up till that point, I hate to say it, but I think we're banging our heads against the brick wall.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Not that we should give up.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: I know you're committed to the open air, taking people out, helping people with their mental health issues, to the environment.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: So am I.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: So we should never, ever give up and remain optimistic, but we need to get the bulk of the people on side.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: So, following on from that.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: How can the general population get their nature fix without travelling too far or spending too much money?
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it can be done.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: I spent three years in London.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: I had a great time down there when I was down there at college and there were a couple of local graveyards not far away from me.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: One of them had deer in it, the other one had woodpeckers, nuttaches, tree creepers in it and I just used to go there.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: I used to go in the middle of London to James's Park, so there are parks and gardens near everybody.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter where you live.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: I was up in Edinburgh for the last winter watch at the beginning of this year and Edinburgh is fantastic.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: So many green spaces in there.
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: You've got the water and the leaf that goes right through the middle of Edinburgh.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: You can walk for miles along there.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: You can see otters, kingfishers, dippers, greywag tails, all of these things.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: You've got the canal coming into the middle of Edinburgh.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: I ran along there and you've got goose, sanders, mohen, koot.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: You've got various species of fish in there.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: So these green spaces are there.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: You don't need a lot of money.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: You know everyone says oh, you're where.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: You're an environmentalist or are you your white middle class?
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: All this and all that?
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: Well, mum and Dad would.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: Mum and Dad were both teachers.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: Primary school teachers didn't earn very much, and it's thanks to them I have this love for wildlife more than anything else.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't matter where you are I think we don't have to mention it when you're first recording about the canals.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: There's lots of wildlife, lots of flowers, lots of bird life To be seen up and down the sides of the canals, accessing most places as well, fully enough.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: I've been in Maastricht over the weekend visiting a friend, and I was walking to the train station and there was a murmuration going off overhead.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: It was absolutely fantastic People stopping in the street to look at this murmuration of starlings.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: But we don't have to see them around the cities in the UK, do we?
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: No, we don't.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: They've declined beyond.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: They've declined beyond the breeding birds.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: In the UK particularly, it's on the red list.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: So in other words, the population has absolutely crashed in the last 45, 50 odd years or so.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: And for murmurations, people don't like them often.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: Oh well, no, I park my car under those trees.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: We don't want them there.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: So they put scareers up to get rid of them.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: I just think we need to embrace and accommodate nature into our gardens, into our homes, into our parks, doesn't matter where we are.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: You know, for the last five years I've let a lot of my garden go wild.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: I have a meadow now, not a lawn, it's sort of big house, it's a bungalow.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: And I tell you one thing the number of species.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: I have 12 species of butterflies and five of those I didn't see before allowing my lawn to go pretty wild, planting a few trees.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: I've had a pond for about 15 years here and it's fascinating.
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: And that is my go to place now, because to go to the really fairly isolated places I've got to go in the car about 40 minutes away.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: And I still do that.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: If I just need a quick fix, I'll make myself a cup of tea, go outside, sit on the lawn or stare at the pond, watch the water boat mend the whirligig beetles, watch the newts, or I'll watch the field fests now, and the red wings just come down from Scandinavia.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: I've left the apples on the trees.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: The wasps have gorged on those, the hornets have loved them.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: Now it's these Viking invaders from Scandinavia coming down.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: They're eating them now as well, and it brings me so much pleasure.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: And it's not a big house.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: I've got a three bedroom bungalow with a small lawn right around it, but I've converted it into mini orchard.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: It's as I said, it's a meadow, but then over my hedge into the field, it's just Italian ryegrass, it's a green desert.
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: So if everybody could set aside small patches, you know, even if they've paved it over or whatever, whatever you do, do not use this horrible plastic grass, disgusting stuff.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: But even if they've paved it over, dig up a little bit of the pavement.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: Plant a shrub or two.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: That'll bring berries, it'll give you so much better.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Just preempted me a question what I was going to ask about yourself, but obviously you're really passionate about that and do you think that's sort of helped you?
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: If you're, do you get stressed?
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: No, not really.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: But what's weird is that in March this year I had a heart attack out of the blue.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: Never smoked in my life.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: There's no history in the family.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: I was going for a run along the canal, which I do twice a week.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: Four and a half miles into a six mile run I had a heart attack and then that led to an embolism.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: Six weeks later there must have been a clot going around.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: I had a stroke, couldn't move my right arm, my right leg, couldn't speak for about half an hour until they pumped me full of aspirin or whatever.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: It was liquid aspirin and it's all come back.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: I feel 100% fine.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: I'm fine to barrack, save for four weeks I haven't had mental health issues, partly, I think, because I'm constantly outside and my garden really really was an oasis, not just for wildlife but for me as well.
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: I knew that I couldn't go walking for a while.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: I knew I couldn't go for a run, so I just used to sit in the garden and the things that I saw because I hadn't spent that much time in the garden prior to having to Things that I saw were just amazing.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: You know, hobbies going over, hunting, swifts.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: I had two sparrows tumbling out the sky it must have been a territorial dispute landed about five metres away, didn't know.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: I was there and then saw me, and then both of them went their ways.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: You know, if I hadn't been in the garden I wouldn't have seen any of this.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: And I got mates in London who haven't got gardens.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: So what I tell them and what they now do is one of them lives in a big block of flats.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Go up on the roof with you by knocks, scan around.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: He says I've seen peregrines, yet you had a white-tailed eagle go over about 12 months ago, you know.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: So doesn't matter where you are, there are these little places you could escape.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: It's sort of like a mindfulness practice, isn't it really?
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: It's taking that time to see what's there, and I suppose a lot of people just like I keep saying to Seb it never stops working and he needs to take half an hour an hour a day for himself, and that's exactly what you're doing with that practice of being in your garden, especially if you've been ill.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: So yeah, well done on the recovery, mate.
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, honestly, I feel I feel drunk, I'm chomping at the bit really.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: And the only advice I was given by the nurses was listen to your heart.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: And within a week, my heart was saying really, get out of the house.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: Get out of the house, get back to work.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: And after four weeks, fair play, my wife would nurse me.
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: Well, she said isn't it time you went back to work?
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: So she was getting fed up with me.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: Just, you know, chomping at the bit.
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, no, I'm grand, Thank you.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: I just want to ask you on the last recording we did that we sort of didn't get.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: You mentioned two guys who had PTSD or something and they'd got into nature.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, could you just tell the listeners about that?
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: Well, there's one in particular.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: I saw him a couple of weeks ago.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Actually there's one in particular, hugh Rollins I'm sure he won't mind me using his name on here either and he'd been in the army, he'd been in the first Gulf War and he'd seen some dreadful things.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: And he came back and he was in a very, very dark place, really, really dark place.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: And then one day he just went for a walk on Anglesey, nantadilly, which is called the Dingle is the English name for it.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: He went for a walk and found a quiet little place, sat on a log and then started putting a bit of bird food and the birds started to come the great tits, the blue tits, the robins.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: Then all of a sudden he thought, oh right, this is quite good, I'll come back.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: Started putting little bits of suet in holes and trees Woodpeck has started to come, nut touches, tree creepers, started putting out hazelnuts and red squirrels, and then he's developed that now he takes people up there to see red squirrels.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, I do five day tours of North Wales and it doesn't matter what we find.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: We can watch goshawks displaying, we can see hawfins, rare birds.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: And when I asked people at the end of the week.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: What was your highlight?
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: 90% of them say the red squirrels.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: You can go with here where you can sit down.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: The red squirrels are literally around your feet.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: We had ate there a week before last.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: It's phenomenal, and I was talking to Hew about this and he said this.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: He said just being here, the wildlife here, has saved my life, has literally saved my life, and he's so grateful and he's now active helping other people suffering from PTSD in particular, other mental health issues, getting them out there and just getting them to talk as well.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of it is having someone to talk, to Do you know what, although I think that's a suitable and excellent place to sort of wrap it up, and when we add it to the recording that we had before, that brings us up and ending on a positive, after my rants about litter and politics, et cetera, et cetera.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to have to say thank you, yolo, thanks for joining us again and helping us sort this out with the technical issues and keep doing what you're doing.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: It's been an inspiration for people like myself.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: Getting in the mountains, I mean, your knowledge is remarkable and then, being an example of you've not got any mental health problems.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: So it must be the right way.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: That's my thought.
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: It's got to be the way forward.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: Charlie and Seb, it's been absolute pleasure.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: Thank you both very much.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's Yolo.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot to Yolo for coming back in twice.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much, and apologies to our listeners if you had a repeated short few words from Yolo.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean they were valuable.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: They were valuable, it was a great message, the knowledge he's got, and obviously I mean am I just trying to pluck at string, pluck things out of the air and saying Yolo works outdoors all the time he does?
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: It's no history of mental health issues.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: And the message there.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: What a coincidence.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: Yes, the message there to him spending his own time recovering from that heart attack by just sat watching the pond, you know pot watching the flies, birds, insects, whatever and the flowers.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: You know that's I'm going hippy-dippy again.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: It's a bit of meditation and presence in it.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: So, but yes, thank you very much, Yolo.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: That's great to have him on such a legend.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: He is who's next time?
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: Next we have a lady called Stacy McKenna Now Stacy I met at the Nature Therapy Summit in Preston at UCLan.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: So we're going to wrap up the Nature Therapy series with a bit of what actually is sort of outdoor nature, sort of counselling and therapy in the outdoors.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: Can't wait, Cool, See you then, Bye.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: So I'd like to say a big thank you to our sponsor, who are Energy Impact, and also our supporters, Product Agency up there in Newcastle, who are supplying our designs, et cetera, and common sense clothing, who supply us with our very, very nice apparel.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: And if you would like to support us and help us keep the podcast going, then you can go to Buy as a Coffee or you can click that on our website, whitefoxtalkingcom, and look for the little cup.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: Thank you.