speaker-1: Today we have a very special guest with us. Someone whose father has been on this podcast previously, Robin Hanbury Tennyson. And today we have the privilege of having his son, Merlin Hanbury Tennyson, with us. Merlin, welcome to the show.
speaker-0: Delighted to be here.
speaker-1: So, Merlin, you started off with your time in the military, and you say in the book that you've written called Our Oak Bones, that trees arrived very late into your life at a time of crisis.
speaker-0: I think trees were always there in my life and had always been very much the the backdrop to my life. I was hugely lucky to grow up in the heart of Bodman Moor in the middle of what we latterly discovered was a very rare and ancient Atlantic temperate rainforest. I spent my childhood playing in trees and around trees and swimming in the river and but I don't think I ever really thought about them in the same way that a fish in water doesn't know that it's in water. Just after I left school I joined the British Army and ended up serving for about eight years and doing three tours in Afghanistan. I think it was during that time, especially in Helmand and Kandahar province, it's quite a barren landscape, that when I came home I realized how lucky we are in the UK to have these beautiful areas of the natural world. And then after I left the military, I then worked for a while in in London for a a a large management consultancy. And and I found that equally as in many ways as challenging and and brings its own trauma working in some of these large corporates that can be very live with people's health and well being. And and of course when you're sitting in the middle of somewhere like Canary Wharf, you can't see much nature either. It's it's similar to Hellman Province in some ways. So I think a mixture between working in the heart of London and and also working out in places like Afghanistan brought me later on in life to realising quite how special and important our natural spaces and for me our temperate rainforests really are.
speaker-1: Thank you. And there was something quite sinister that happened in your time in Afghanistan, wasn't there?
speaker-0: Well, yes, on my first tour, my crew and I were blown up in a Taliban laid roadside bomb and we're hugely lucky that the three of us survived that incident. I use that incident in my book as an explanation for why a few years after that I was then diagnosed with complex PTSD and had a a mental health breakdown when I was living and work in London. The reality is I I spent almost two years in Afghanistan and throughout that time was involved in in many unpleasant incidents, many of which would have contributed to that. And then also living and working in the heart of London in a very, very fast paced corporate environment, yeah, there's a reason that we are currently living through a mental health pandemic. And I think it's because many of our young people at the moment are being expected to live these deeply unnatural and in some ways quite traumatic or or sort of sympathetic nervous state inducing states with high cortisol and adrenaline levels. And then we're seeing them break as a result and we haven't got the structures in place to try and build them back up again. And I think the natural world is is the best structure that's been provided for us by And
speaker-1: Absolutely. I'm sorry you had to experience that. But it sounds as though you took a step from having your sympathetic nervous system activated to having a parasympathetic nervous system reset when you inherited the two hundred and fifty acre farm from your father.
speaker-0: I I felt very lucky to have a family and most importantly my wife to be people who I could turn to for support and and I remember the exact moment when I really felt like I'd fall off a cliff psychologically and realizing that I had a clear choice in front of me, which was to to bury my feelings and to hide it in alcohol or or in in just in my own head or to be very open about this and go and seek help. I kind of identified that for myself very early on and and went okay, why I'm gonna try to receive the help I need as quickly as I can. And I was also very lucky to have this family farm that I was in the process of taking over from my father. And just coming back to the land, beginning to work the land, beginning to pay attention to what was happening within the rainforest, beginning to try and restore it in in the limited ways that I understood it needed restoring, began to help me return to myself. And that led me and Lizzie, my wife, to kind of deciding that you wanted it to become a place where many people could heal. Because we do have an issue in this country with awareness and access to wild spaces. Not enough people know that they can access nature and the wilderness. And we wanted to be a part of a solution, not a part of problem. So I decided to turn the farm over into a a rainforest reserve from the the traditional upland farming site that it had been, which was like most traditional upland hill farms, losing huge amounts of money year on year. And so it's still a farmed landscape, but it's one within a rainforest nature reserve. And then in the heart of it we built a a wellness retreat center called Kabullah Cornwall, which we're very much designed around being somewhere that veterans from the military or NHS nurses suffering from stress and burnout or corporate professionals could come and spend a few days really beginning to understand and reconnect with what it is about nature that makes us well and fundamentally reminding everybody that we are a part of nature, not apart from it, and that we are at our most homeostatic or our most equilibrious when we are within natural settings, not separate from.
speaker-1: Fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. Most people don't associate a farm with something that has the potential to contribute towards healing complex PTST. What makes the 250 acres at Bodminmo in Cornwall so special? Is there something magical about it?
speaker-0: There actually is. We've fallen into this slight trap where you know we see these slogans, you know, no no farms, no food, no future, and and we think that actually the most important thing that we can support farmers to do is food production or timber production as the two clear ways that people can try and make a living from land that they own or steward. And the reality is we also require farmers and landowners to give us clean water, clean air, clean soil, flood prevention, drought prevention, places to build homes and beautiful amenity spaces. For our both mental and physical health. And yet they're not paid for most of those things. So I think when it comes to what we should be doing with our land, it's a much larger question around the multiple responsibilities upon people who are stewarding land and how we make sure that they're all of equal importance and that we don't just focus on one of those pillars, which has been happening for the last forty or fifty years. and I started to think how could we use this land in a way that was benefiting all of those different pillars? And we began to identify quite quickly based on the scientific research that has been done in other temperate rainforests in places like Japan and British Columbia, that this habitat is really hugely important for a number of different ecosystem services. A large part of the Kabila Valley is already in Atlantic temperate rainforest. So about eighty acres of temperate rainforests, a habitat that we didn't really recognise or know until quite recently. And then about two thirds of it, about a hundred and sixty acres, is grade for agricultural grazing land, which is only really good for sheep and maybe a few cattle. I began to focus our energies and insights and research on the rainforest element and we began to establish quite quickly that this is a pinnacle habitat in the United Kingdom, the western seaboard of Europe for carbon sequestration and climate mitigation. So almost nothing sucks CO two out of the atmosphere more effectively than temperate rainforest. and at a time of climate crisis, that's obviously very important. We also identified that it's a pinnacle habitat for biodiversity abundance. So at a time when we in the UK are The second most nature depleted country in Europe, after Malta, which is a terrible statistic for a formerly rainforest that I live to hold. Nothing brings back all the wealth of biodiversity and life better than these rainforests. But to your original question, the most exciting point was also identifying that these habitats are a pinnacle ecosystem for the mental health and well being of the humans who spend time amongst them. So when these oaks covered in lichens and mosses and polypody ferns, when they photosynthesize in a temperate rainforest, they suck in CO two, they pump out oxygen, but they lace this oxygen with these volatile organic compounds called terpenes and phytonsytes that as we humans breat in have a remarkable impact on our physiology. So spending just thirty minutes in a temperate rainforest and your cortisol level, your main stress hormone drops to a point that can still be measured up to two weeks later. It boosts kidney function, it improves our immune system response. They put us from our this sympathetic nervous state to our fight or flight and they help to move us. into our parasympathetic, our rest to digest. So as we're working through how to mitigate these mental health pandemics, the obesity pandemic, a lot of that is attached to a lack of access to wild spaces. We only have about 0.4, 0.5% of the UK is still remaining as rainforest. It used to be 20% of the UK, as we have these little fragments left, when it comes to looking at through the lens of the climate emergency, the biodiversity emergency, the mental health emergency and the obesity emergency, I think they are a a useful tool against all four.
speaker-1: What is it about the terpenes that actually resets the nervous system? I mean, is there scientific evidence actually to back the fact that it does actually deliver those mental health benefits?
speaker-0: So not enough at the moment. I imagine if you spoke to a Brazilian politician, there wouldn't be a single one who didn't understand the importance and the relevance of tropical rainforests to a country like Brazil and also to global systems. Whereas I doubt there are more than half a dozen British politicians who even know that Britain is a rainforest island and that we are a rainforest people who live amongst them. and that's because we've almost entirely wiped them out. So we need more data. But when you look at similar habitats, because you also get temperate rainforests in places like New Zealand. Tasmania, Patagonia, Cierra del Fuego, British Columbia, Labrador and Newfoundland, Japan and South Korea. These all have slightly different but representative habitats, but often more research has been done. and in Japan, where they have this great culture of Shinon Yoku or forest bathing, they bring people into native woodland habitats for their mental health and physical health. We can see what these impacts are. We need to do more research in our temporal rainforest, and that is the work we're committed to.
speaker-1: I see. So two questions on the back of that. One, is a temperate rainforest as powerful as a tropical rainforest in sequestering carbon? And second, what's with the name, the thousand year trust? I'd love to know some of the inspiration behind that.
speaker-0: So on your first question, I I always shy away from making comparisons between tropical and temperate rainforests. We've cut down fifty percent of the world's tropical rainforests. We need to stop and not cut down anymore, but we've cut down over 99% of Britain's temperate rainforest. So there's only these tiny fragments left. So comparisons often fall slightly flat. There are places in the world where tropical rainforest still runs from horizon to horizon, whereas in our temperate zone it's hard to find more than a ten acre patch. But they are highly important for Carbon sequestration. You go into a temporal rainforest, you canopy at every level. You have the top canopy, you have a ruderal level of mid canopy, you then have an incredibly abundant ground flora. All of that is sequestering. You then have the epiphytic load that is so important. You can have up to six hundred creatures living on an oak tree at a single time. These are not trees, they are cities. Many of the species living on them are also photosynthesizing. You then have the dense, dense, thick mycelial network beneath the soil, which is working as a carbon store and and unlocking that carbon. So that's one of the reasons why they are so effective at carbon sequestration. Your second question was why the Thousand Year Trust? I thought long and hard about what we would call our charity. I think in the UK we look at all trees in sort of the same category. They have a brown trunk and green leaves and they are a good thing. But we are very bad at identifying what is non-native and has been introduced from a a flora perspective, which can be very damaging to trophic systems. The fact that an oak can live for a thousand years gives us, I think, perspective. And I want to encourage people to try and spend five minutes of their day putting themselves in the mindset of an oak tree and thinking actually, if we want to fix climate change, if we want to be optimistic and hopeful, then we can't think over five-year timelines. I I read articles that ask, can we fix climate change by 2030? No, absolutely we can't. This is a slow-moving catastrophe that we've created. Can we fix it by thirty twenty, we absolutely can. We won't be around to see it. And our great great great great great grandchildren won't be around to see it. But we can be a part of a a multi-generational relay race where we pass the baton of nature's health to each generation in a slightly healthier and more robust state than we received it in. And then by thirty twenty, it'll be all right. I think that expanding our thinking from short term human mindsets into long term open mindsets is a way to not only view these problems from the perspective we should view them from, but also to feel optimistic and hopeful about the future.
speaker-1: I reading your book where your daughter says that my daddy carries a rainforest on his back. So can you tell us a little bit more about the twenty-two hour long tattoo?
speaker-0: Yeah. Well, I it for me it was when I finished the book actually. I feel such a connection to this land and I and I appreciate how lucky I am to have a specific place that I can focus all of my my life and my energy and my attention upon and so I wanted to mark that in a in a way when I finished the book that would be quite permanent. And much to the chagrin of my wife and certainly my mother, I I have had one of the very special old oak trees at Kibilla. tattooed across my back over about twenty two hours, which was painful, long and very permanent. But I still think it's a beautiful, beautiful work of art.
speaker-1: So is this the mother tree, the almost three hundred and seventy year old mother tree? And
speaker-0: It is, yes.
speaker-1: why does it mean so much to you?
speaker-0: Well, it was a tree that was there for me at a very difficult time. It's the tree that I feel most drawn to. And everybody who comes to stay at Kibala, and we've had about four and a half thousand guests over the last five years coming on these three day long retreats. I say to all of them, that tree is is the one I choose to be my closest friend in this valley.
speaker-1: Four and a half thousand people is a lot of visitors over the last five years and apparently they have a sixty percent tear rate. And you said your favorite people are the ones who don't love nature.
speaker-0: Yeah, I think people are often drawn here who, already love it. And you feel like you're preaching to the choir. I want everybody to come here. But at the same time, I want the people to come here who really need the rainforest, even if they don't know that they do. So when we get the veteran groups in, especially the military groups come in and people go, This isn't really for me, this is all a bit kind of hippy dippy. That's for me the perfect community. I want someone to come in who has no appreciation or understanding of this happened. And even if only a few of them leave with a greater understanding, I think that's the real work and that's the exciting work.
speaker-1: And you spoke about this very powerful habitat on Bodmin Moor at Kabila. What would it take to actually expand the Atlantic temperate rainforests? Is there a way to do it in a scalable manner?
speaker-0: So about twenty percent of the UK was temporate rainforest. We think that might be about maybe three hundred thousand acres left. About n point four, northern five percent. So so a very, very small amount. So we've lost nearly everything, mainly because of the pressure of things like deer and sheep and rhododendron, some of these species that come in and are really damaging and tricky. And so the work of the Thousand Year Trust, along with some of our great environmental NGOs in the UK, like the National Trust, the Woodland Trust, the Wildlife Trust, the RSPB, big landowning organizations and people like DEFRA. Forestry Commission, BMOD, you know, other big landowning government organizations is to begin to restore this habitat. And Guy Shropsall wrote in his great book, The Lost Rainforest of Bristol, but if we just put a 50 meter buffer around every fragment of rainforest that we have left, that would double the size of them. Now I don't think that's the right approach. I think we should be looking at connectivity. It's all about connecting them along Lawton principles of bigger, better, and more joined up. If we can connect them along riverine corridors, often areas that have been cleared for farming. which are very, very poor for farming, kind of steep-sided hills that run straight down into rivers, but very important for flood prevention. So if we could just do fifty meter strips along our rivers of temperate rainforest species that connect these little fragments, tiny little bits of rainforest all across the the west of the UK, from the Western Highlands through Western Wales and the southwest, which are all like many island habitats that we see in places like the Galapagos or in Southeast Asia. They end up with their species diversity reducing and the genetic diversity and the biosecurity becomes under threat. It's exactly the same with our rainforests. If we can connect them with these little riverine strips, then that will already double the size, even triple the size. What we've done here at Kabila, we're still farming the land with animals on it, but we have turned 160 acres of very degraded land back into a rainforest, which has tripled the size of the rainforest at Kabila. And that's a blueprint for how it could be done across the UK.
speaker-1: Amazing. That's a really optimistic note to segue with our local landowners, with apparently six thousand five hundred acres between them, have joined the farming cluster. That's about restoring rainforests along the lines that you mentioned. So have you been leading the charge on that?
speaker-0: Well, these are always slow projects and when you're doing a thousand year project, it's okay for it to take a bit of time. Currently we have about sixteen different farmers and landowners across Bob and Moor signed up to a larger restoration project which is focused on three core areas, which are peat protection because peat is such an important carbon store, rainforest regeneration where appropriate and applicable, and conservation grazing models. So trying to help people to transition away from things like sheep. across to cattle, ponies and pigs, native breeds at a lower density in a silver pasture model.
speaker-1: How easy or difficult has it been to get the farmers to join? What's in it for them? How would you convince a farmer who's like, How much money can I make out of this pivot?
speaker-0: Well, I mean I think if a farmer has grade one or grade two, either grazing or arable land, then they shouldn't be doing this kind of work. They should be our breadbasket. And that should be absolutely clear. I don't ever advocate for turning profitable, productive farmland in a healthy condition over to nature restoration. And it's also not a binary choice. You know, we should be restoring our hedgerows, planting more woodland strips on river line areas, bringing in more native breed livestock, profitable activities. Sheep farming on the uplands is i rarely a profitable activity. Whereas when you plant woodland, there are other financial mechanisms. There's natural capital through carbon and biodiversity net gain. There's new subsidy pots that you open up. There are opportunities for ecotourism for those who choose to do it. And I appreciate it's not something that many farmers want to do, and that's fine. But there is a large list of farm diversification opportunities that come with nature restoration programs that can make them more financially resilient and ecologically resilient than the status quo.
speaker-1: Sounds like a total win win.
speaker-0: It should be. People often ask what do your neighbours think? And I said, Well, like in any community, when we started talking about this, probably ten to twenty percent of our neighbours were immediately saying, We're in, we get it, we're on side, this is brilliant. Ten to twenty percent said, This is the devil's work. Planting trees on farmland should never be done and that's fine. They're not in and they will continue farming in the way that they choose to, and I support them and would like to see that continue. and then sixty, seventy, eighty percent don't care. They're just trying to make a living in a really difficult time in the uplands for farming communities. And they're the group who, as the subsidy regime gets harder, as the price of various inputs increases and outputs reduces, more and more of them come to us and say, Look, is there another way? A way that we might be able to make our farms more profitable and farm in a way that is better for the natural world? To which my answer is always, yes, let's let's sit around a table and see how we can bring you into this project.
speaker-1: You touched on something when you were recovering, you know, in the woods and you said that meditation didn't work for you, but you know, hunting roe and red deer did. How I understand it is then you immersed yourself in the forests, you developed your own techniques, you understood what worked for you. You want the listeners to appreciate that it's not about a passive state that you go in these woods and then something magically happens to you, but you figure out your own ways of healing.
speaker-0: absolutely. And to the principle that we are a part of nature, not a part from nature, which I believe to my core. And I think we have forgotten this. I was very lucky growing up. My my father is an explorer who spent his life with indigenous tribes around the world. And I was lucky to spend a lot of time with indigenous peoples who have no doubt about the fact that they are a part of nature, not apart from nature. They know they're a part of the natural world. And I think we need to remember that in in the West in Europe. We need to remember that we are an ecosystem engineer. We are a keystone species. And most importantly, we are an apex predator. And I think our increasingly urbanized population has come to forget that we see the natural world as as other, as alien, as out there. And it needs to be protected by leaving it alone. And especially on an island like the UK, that doesn't work. Yeah, we have four non-native deer species in the UK. We have gray squirrels, we have all kinds of things that we've brought in which can be quite damaging to the natural environment. we need to be a part of fixing those problems and then integrate better with the natural world, not just see it as a as a problem that nature has, not humans, because humans aren't a part of nature. And so for me, I think humans need to be an integral part of the conversation and the story at every stage.
speaker-1: Would be fair to say that, you know, your father helped influence that side of your thinking?
speaker-0: He's a huge inspiration to me and I'm feel so lucky that he's such a close friend and lives with us. You know, h my parents live sixty five yards away across the yard, which comes with its wonders and the challenges of having your parents very close by. I see his work as hugely inspiring and but most importantly his approach to life and his optimism because some of the challenges that he's faced are ones that people may have just turned their backs to and yet he has always smiled and always run at it. I try and do the same.
speaker-1: It's very rare to come across a combination of a father and son being equally passionate about a shared passion. So I think it's beautiful. You're really blessed and it's been a real privilege to talk to you. I just want to end with one question, which is what's a message you'd give to people about the three things perhaps that they could do to help the environment? And I know you've got thoughts on this.
speaker-0: Well, and I'm nervous about giving you my thoughts 'cause they're slightly controversial. I think for a start, you know, people often ask what you can do if you don't have a two hundred and forty acre upland hill farm and then you have maybe a window box or a small garden. And I say, look, there are three really simple principles to hold with all nature, which is that nature should be messy, it should be wet and it should be native in in an island environment. So it where you can, don't mow it throughout the year, don't put down astroturf, my God. You know, let let it be as messy as possible. Because that's what nature needs. Let it be wet, like put in a wet feature, even in a window box, have some open water because all the invertebrates and everything needs that. and in urban environments especially it can be very hard for creatures to find. and where possible, plant creatures that evolved in that landscape. So don't bring in exotics and tropical plants. You know, put in things that that that are from there. And that goes to one of my three points I said to you earlier, which is that we should be viewing golf courses in a slightly skeptical way. We have 3,000 golf courses across the UK. most of them are treated heavily with things like glyphosate and roundup and strimmed down so that the grass is is is a millimeter high. we have more golf course than we have orchard. And I think that's a terrible statistic. And also golf club memberships are plummeting. So I think the more golf courses we could turn back into nature reserves would be a real step in the right direction. Then another one is around what we're doing to the natural world in our natural behaviors. I often talk to people about domestic cat ownership. I I can't remember the exact statistic, but it's many tens of millions of songbirds are killed each year by domestic cats. we are a nature of pet lovers, both dog and cat. And we have too many dogs and we have too many cats and they create a very unnatural impact upon the natural world. If we are going to be ecosystem engineers and keystone species, then we need to start bringing the right things in and I think having lots and lots of cats, especially throughout suburban environments, that kill any songbird or small mammal they can find is a challenge that we need to to face into. And
speaker-1: Definitely were controversial.
speaker-0: But and the the third one, which is less controversial, is we should eat more venison. You know, we are a nation, we have potentially as many as four million deer roaming across our our uplands, our lowlands, our woodlands, and we will never get our rainforest or any woodland to naturally restore with this high density of deer. And it it's the meat the bodybuilders choose. It is lean, it is healthy, it has no antibiotics, no steroids. Wild caught venison is amazing. And yet, if your local pub decides it wants to stock venison burgers, it will probably buy New Zealand venison. It is cheaper. to buy venison from New Zealand than it is to buy venison from the farm down the road. and that is a travesty that we need to change. We should be eating more venison, eating more locally sourced meat, being more involved in that process. So golf cats and venison are my three three things.
speaker-1: You did say venison was going to be the least controversial, but to the average person who hears that the plant based diet, you know, is the most sustainable way of going about it. I mean, it it might be controversial to them, but I think the way you've laid it out and explained it about us having an overpopulation of deer and, you know, that kind of paradoxical situation where it's easier, cheaper to buy venison from New Zealand than it is to buy it locally. what's broken in that supply chain? Why don't we get local venison in, say, our Sainsbury's and Tesco's?
speaker-0: And in the same way, I when it comes to plant based diets, I have huge respect for anyone who lives on a plant based diet. And the clearest and easiest thing is we should all be eating less meat. I don't see us as having a food security issue in this country. We have a choice security issue. We like to be able to go to Asta and eat a chicken corn of one night, a pizza the next night, a roast dinner the third night, and sushi on the fourth night. We think that's a right that we have and that it should all be really cheap and really fresh and available twelve months of the year. And that is our challenge. The reality is if we wanted to provide everyone in this country with a calorifically healthy diet that had less choice in it and less meat in it. You could still eat meat, but maybe once or twice a week, maybe not once or twice a day, then that would solve a lot of the the issues that we face from a food security and a supply chain perspective. when it comes to the price of of venison, I I think that's a much larger that's another hour long conversation around subsidies and trade barriers and tariffs and all of this stuff, which Which means that we have this system where if something can be harvested a little bit more cheaply the other end of the world, we don't factor in the additional cost that the transport should be putting on that because it's all become so cheap and easy these days.
speaker-1: Interesting. So you've put a positive spin on playing less golf, right? By saying we could look to have rough golf. you've really provided a compelling case for eating more venison. of course, while acknowledging that all of us need to eat less meat in our diets in general. I'm just wondering, is there anything you could say to cat lovers?
speaker-0: I know a lot of people w think they put yeah, you you can put bells on cats. It's a pet ownership thing, which is that if we choose to have pets, then we need to make sure that they're not impacting the natural world in a negative way. And that goes for whatever pet you have. Everyone loves their pets and they should be encouraged to do so.
speaker-1: Excellent. Bell the cat, bell the dog, play less golf and eat more venison. Thank you so much for your time. I think you've really helped shift my perspective to look at this island that we live on as a rainforested island. I've never, you know, thought of it like that before. And I think I read somewhere that you'd said that people feel more rested when they go and immerse themselves, you know, in in a temperate rainforest than they do if they go and buy a coffee on a busy high street road.
speaker-0: Some hope so.
speaker-1: Yes. So it's all about I guess awakening that ancient knowing in us. And something will awaken, right? But thank you so much for your time, your inspiration and all the incredible work that you and your father Robin are doing. It's very inspirational and I wish you all
speaker-0: Yes. That was lovely to speak to you today. Thank you so much.
speaker-1: If something you've heard on the podcast has made you pause and rethink how you would partner with nature, follow Rewiggle on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, and YouTube. And if you know someone who is actively rewiggling how they work with nature, building solutions, shifting systems, or turning ideas into action, we'd love to hear from you. Write to us at rewiggle at gmail.com because the best conversations don't really end when the episode does. They stay with us and sometimes they change what we do next.
speaker-0: Delighted to be here.
speaker-1: So, Merlin, you started off with your time in the military, and you say in the book that you've written called Our Oak Bones, that trees arrived very late into your life at a time of crisis.
speaker-0: I think trees were always there in my life and had always been very much the the backdrop to my life. I was hugely lucky to grow up in the heart of Bodman Moor in the middle of what we latterly discovered was a very rare and ancient Atlantic temperate rainforest. I spent my childhood playing in trees and around trees and swimming in the river and but I don't think I ever really thought about them in the same way that a fish in water doesn't know that it's in water. Just after I left school I joined the British Army and ended up serving for about eight years and doing three tours in Afghanistan. I think it was during that time, especially in Helmand and Kandahar province, it's quite a barren landscape, that when I came home I realized how lucky we are in the UK to have these beautiful areas of the natural world. And then after I left the military, I then worked for a while in in London for a a a large management consultancy. And and I found that equally as in many ways as challenging and and brings its own trauma working in some of these large corporates that can be very live with people's health and well being. And and of course when you're sitting in the middle of somewhere like Canary Wharf, you can't see much nature either. It's it's similar to Hellman Province in some ways. So I think a mixture between working in the heart of London and and also working out in places like Afghanistan brought me later on in life to realising quite how special and important our natural spaces and for me our temperate rainforests really are.
speaker-1: Thank you. And there was something quite sinister that happened in your time in Afghanistan, wasn't there?
speaker-0: Well, yes, on my first tour, my crew and I were blown up in a Taliban laid roadside bomb and we're hugely lucky that the three of us survived that incident. I use that incident in my book as an explanation for why a few years after that I was then diagnosed with complex PTSD and had a a mental health breakdown when I was living and work in London. The reality is I I spent almost two years in Afghanistan and throughout that time was involved in in many unpleasant incidents, many of which would have contributed to that. And then also living and working in the heart of London in a very, very fast paced corporate environment, yeah, there's a reason that we are currently living through a mental health pandemic. And I think it's because many of our young people at the moment are being expected to live these deeply unnatural and in some ways quite traumatic or or sort of sympathetic nervous state inducing states with high cortisol and adrenaline levels. And then we're seeing them break as a result and we haven't got the structures in place to try and build them back up again. And I think the natural world is is the best structure that's been provided for us by And
speaker-1: Absolutely. I'm sorry you had to experience that. But it sounds as though you took a step from having your sympathetic nervous system activated to having a parasympathetic nervous system reset when you inherited the two hundred and fifty acre farm from your father.
speaker-0: I I felt very lucky to have a family and most importantly my wife to be people who I could turn to for support and and I remember the exact moment when I really felt like I'd fall off a cliff psychologically and realizing that I had a clear choice in front of me, which was to to bury my feelings and to hide it in alcohol or or in in just in my own head or to be very open about this and go and seek help. I kind of identified that for myself very early on and and went okay, why I'm gonna try to receive the help I need as quickly as I can. And I was also very lucky to have this family farm that I was in the process of taking over from my father. And just coming back to the land, beginning to work the land, beginning to pay attention to what was happening within the rainforest, beginning to try and restore it in in the limited ways that I understood it needed restoring, began to help me return to myself. And that led me and Lizzie, my wife, to kind of deciding that you wanted it to become a place where many people could heal. Because we do have an issue in this country with awareness and access to wild spaces. Not enough people know that they can access nature and the wilderness. And we wanted to be a part of a solution, not a part of problem. So I decided to turn the farm over into a a rainforest reserve from the the traditional upland farming site that it had been, which was like most traditional upland hill farms, losing huge amounts of money year on year. And so it's still a farmed landscape, but it's one within a rainforest nature reserve. And then in the heart of it we built a a wellness retreat center called Kabullah Cornwall, which we're very much designed around being somewhere that veterans from the military or NHS nurses suffering from stress and burnout or corporate professionals could come and spend a few days really beginning to understand and reconnect with what it is about nature that makes us well and fundamentally reminding everybody that we are a part of nature, not apart from it, and that we are at our most homeostatic or our most equilibrious when we are within natural settings, not separate from.
speaker-1: Fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. Most people don't associate a farm with something that has the potential to contribute towards healing complex PTST. What makes the 250 acres at Bodminmo in Cornwall so special? Is there something magical about it?
speaker-0: There actually is. We've fallen into this slight trap where you know we see these slogans, you know, no no farms, no food, no future, and and we think that actually the most important thing that we can support farmers to do is food production or timber production as the two clear ways that people can try and make a living from land that they own or steward. And the reality is we also require farmers and landowners to give us clean water, clean air, clean soil, flood prevention, drought prevention, places to build homes and beautiful amenity spaces. For our both mental and physical health. And yet they're not paid for most of those things. So I think when it comes to what we should be doing with our land, it's a much larger question around the multiple responsibilities upon people who are stewarding land and how we make sure that they're all of equal importance and that we don't just focus on one of those pillars, which has been happening for the last forty or fifty years. and I started to think how could we use this land in a way that was benefiting all of those different pillars? And we began to identify quite quickly based on the scientific research that has been done in other temperate rainforests in places like Japan and British Columbia, that this habitat is really hugely important for a number of different ecosystem services. A large part of the Kabila Valley is already in Atlantic temperate rainforest. So about eighty acres of temperate rainforests, a habitat that we didn't really recognise or know until quite recently. And then about two thirds of it, about a hundred and sixty acres, is grade for agricultural grazing land, which is only really good for sheep and maybe a few cattle. I began to focus our energies and insights and research on the rainforest element and we began to establish quite quickly that this is a pinnacle habitat in the United Kingdom, the western seaboard of Europe for carbon sequestration and climate mitigation. So almost nothing sucks CO two out of the atmosphere more effectively than temperate rainforest. and at a time of climate crisis, that's obviously very important. We also identified that it's a pinnacle habitat for biodiversity abundance. So at a time when we in the UK are The second most nature depleted country in Europe, after Malta, which is a terrible statistic for a formerly rainforest that I live to hold. Nothing brings back all the wealth of biodiversity and life better than these rainforests. But to your original question, the most exciting point was also identifying that these habitats are a pinnacle ecosystem for the mental health and well being of the humans who spend time amongst them. So when these oaks covered in lichens and mosses and polypody ferns, when they photosynthesize in a temperate rainforest, they suck in CO two, they pump out oxygen, but they lace this oxygen with these volatile organic compounds called terpenes and phytonsytes that as we humans breat in have a remarkable impact on our physiology. So spending just thirty minutes in a temperate rainforest and your cortisol level, your main stress hormone drops to a point that can still be measured up to two weeks later. It boosts kidney function, it improves our immune system response. They put us from our this sympathetic nervous state to our fight or flight and they help to move us. into our parasympathetic, our rest to digest. So as we're working through how to mitigate these mental health pandemics, the obesity pandemic, a lot of that is attached to a lack of access to wild spaces. We only have about 0.4, 0.5% of the UK is still remaining as rainforest. It used to be 20% of the UK, as we have these little fragments left, when it comes to looking at through the lens of the climate emergency, the biodiversity emergency, the mental health emergency and the obesity emergency, I think they are a a useful tool against all four.
speaker-1: What is it about the terpenes that actually resets the nervous system? I mean, is there scientific evidence actually to back the fact that it does actually deliver those mental health benefits?
speaker-0: So not enough at the moment. I imagine if you spoke to a Brazilian politician, there wouldn't be a single one who didn't understand the importance and the relevance of tropical rainforests to a country like Brazil and also to global systems. Whereas I doubt there are more than half a dozen British politicians who even know that Britain is a rainforest island and that we are a rainforest people who live amongst them. and that's because we've almost entirely wiped them out. So we need more data. But when you look at similar habitats, because you also get temperate rainforests in places like New Zealand. Tasmania, Patagonia, Cierra del Fuego, British Columbia, Labrador and Newfoundland, Japan and South Korea. These all have slightly different but representative habitats, but often more research has been done. and in Japan, where they have this great culture of Shinon Yoku or forest bathing, they bring people into native woodland habitats for their mental health and physical health. We can see what these impacts are. We need to do more research in our temporal rainforest, and that is the work we're committed to.
speaker-1: I see. So two questions on the back of that. One, is a temperate rainforest as powerful as a tropical rainforest in sequestering carbon? And second, what's with the name, the thousand year trust? I'd love to know some of the inspiration behind that.
speaker-0: So on your first question, I I always shy away from making comparisons between tropical and temperate rainforests. We've cut down fifty percent of the world's tropical rainforests. We need to stop and not cut down anymore, but we've cut down over 99% of Britain's temperate rainforest. So there's only these tiny fragments left. So comparisons often fall slightly flat. There are places in the world where tropical rainforest still runs from horizon to horizon, whereas in our temperate zone it's hard to find more than a ten acre patch. But they are highly important for Carbon sequestration. You go into a temporal rainforest, you canopy at every level. You have the top canopy, you have a ruderal level of mid canopy, you then have an incredibly abundant ground flora. All of that is sequestering. You then have the epiphytic load that is so important. You can have up to six hundred creatures living on an oak tree at a single time. These are not trees, they are cities. Many of the species living on them are also photosynthesizing. You then have the dense, dense, thick mycelial network beneath the soil, which is working as a carbon store and and unlocking that carbon. So that's one of the reasons why they are so effective at carbon sequestration. Your second question was why the Thousand Year Trust? I thought long and hard about what we would call our charity. I think in the UK we look at all trees in sort of the same category. They have a brown trunk and green leaves and they are a good thing. But we are very bad at identifying what is non-native and has been introduced from a a flora perspective, which can be very damaging to trophic systems. The fact that an oak can live for a thousand years gives us, I think, perspective. And I want to encourage people to try and spend five minutes of their day putting themselves in the mindset of an oak tree and thinking actually, if we want to fix climate change, if we want to be optimistic and hopeful, then we can't think over five-year timelines. I I read articles that ask, can we fix climate change by 2030? No, absolutely we can't. This is a slow-moving catastrophe that we've created. Can we fix it by thirty twenty, we absolutely can. We won't be around to see it. And our great great great great great grandchildren won't be around to see it. But we can be a part of a a multi-generational relay race where we pass the baton of nature's health to each generation in a slightly healthier and more robust state than we received it in. And then by thirty twenty, it'll be all right. I think that expanding our thinking from short term human mindsets into long term open mindsets is a way to not only view these problems from the perspective we should view them from, but also to feel optimistic and hopeful about the future.
speaker-1: I reading your book where your daughter says that my daddy carries a rainforest on his back. So can you tell us a little bit more about the twenty-two hour long tattoo?
speaker-0: Yeah. Well, I it for me it was when I finished the book actually. I feel such a connection to this land and I and I appreciate how lucky I am to have a specific place that I can focus all of my my life and my energy and my attention upon and so I wanted to mark that in a in a way when I finished the book that would be quite permanent. And much to the chagrin of my wife and certainly my mother, I I have had one of the very special old oak trees at Kibilla. tattooed across my back over about twenty two hours, which was painful, long and very permanent. But I still think it's a beautiful, beautiful work of art.
speaker-1: So is this the mother tree, the almost three hundred and seventy year old mother tree? And
speaker-0: It is, yes.
speaker-1: why does it mean so much to you?
speaker-0: Well, it was a tree that was there for me at a very difficult time. It's the tree that I feel most drawn to. And everybody who comes to stay at Kibala, and we've had about four and a half thousand guests over the last five years coming on these three day long retreats. I say to all of them, that tree is is the one I choose to be my closest friend in this valley.
speaker-1: Four and a half thousand people is a lot of visitors over the last five years and apparently they have a sixty percent tear rate. And you said your favorite people are the ones who don't love nature.
speaker-0: Yeah, I think people are often drawn here who, already love it. And you feel like you're preaching to the choir. I want everybody to come here. But at the same time, I want the people to come here who really need the rainforest, even if they don't know that they do. So when we get the veteran groups in, especially the military groups come in and people go, This isn't really for me, this is all a bit kind of hippy dippy. That's for me the perfect community. I want someone to come in who has no appreciation or understanding of this happened. And even if only a few of them leave with a greater understanding, I think that's the real work and that's the exciting work.
speaker-1: And you spoke about this very powerful habitat on Bodmin Moor at Kabila. What would it take to actually expand the Atlantic temperate rainforests? Is there a way to do it in a scalable manner?
speaker-0: So about twenty percent of the UK was temporate rainforest. We think that might be about maybe three hundred thousand acres left. About n point four, northern five percent. So so a very, very small amount. So we've lost nearly everything, mainly because of the pressure of things like deer and sheep and rhododendron, some of these species that come in and are really damaging and tricky. And so the work of the Thousand Year Trust, along with some of our great environmental NGOs in the UK, like the National Trust, the Woodland Trust, the Wildlife Trust, the RSPB, big landowning organizations and people like DEFRA. Forestry Commission, BMOD, you know, other big landowning government organizations is to begin to restore this habitat. And Guy Shropsall wrote in his great book, The Lost Rainforest of Bristol, but if we just put a 50 meter buffer around every fragment of rainforest that we have left, that would double the size of them. Now I don't think that's the right approach. I think we should be looking at connectivity. It's all about connecting them along Lawton principles of bigger, better, and more joined up. If we can connect them along riverine corridors, often areas that have been cleared for farming. which are very, very poor for farming, kind of steep-sided hills that run straight down into rivers, but very important for flood prevention. So if we could just do fifty meter strips along our rivers of temperate rainforest species that connect these little fragments, tiny little bits of rainforest all across the the west of the UK, from the Western Highlands through Western Wales and the southwest, which are all like many island habitats that we see in places like the Galapagos or in Southeast Asia. They end up with their species diversity reducing and the genetic diversity and the biosecurity becomes under threat. It's exactly the same with our rainforests. If we can connect them with these little riverine strips, then that will already double the size, even triple the size. What we've done here at Kabila, we're still farming the land with animals on it, but we have turned 160 acres of very degraded land back into a rainforest, which has tripled the size of the rainforest at Kabila. And that's a blueprint for how it could be done across the UK.
speaker-1: Amazing. That's a really optimistic note to segue with our local landowners, with apparently six thousand five hundred acres between them, have joined the farming cluster. That's about restoring rainforests along the lines that you mentioned. So have you been leading the charge on that?
speaker-0: Well, these are always slow projects and when you're doing a thousand year project, it's okay for it to take a bit of time. Currently we have about sixteen different farmers and landowners across Bob and Moor signed up to a larger restoration project which is focused on three core areas, which are peat protection because peat is such an important carbon store, rainforest regeneration where appropriate and applicable, and conservation grazing models. So trying to help people to transition away from things like sheep. across to cattle, ponies and pigs, native breeds at a lower density in a silver pasture model.
speaker-1: How easy or difficult has it been to get the farmers to join? What's in it for them? How would you convince a farmer who's like, How much money can I make out of this pivot?
speaker-0: Well, I mean I think if a farmer has grade one or grade two, either grazing or arable land, then they shouldn't be doing this kind of work. They should be our breadbasket. And that should be absolutely clear. I don't ever advocate for turning profitable, productive farmland in a healthy condition over to nature restoration. And it's also not a binary choice. You know, we should be restoring our hedgerows, planting more woodland strips on river line areas, bringing in more native breed livestock, profitable activities. Sheep farming on the uplands is i rarely a profitable activity. Whereas when you plant woodland, there are other financial mechanisms. There's natural capital through carbon and biodiversity net gain. There's new subsidy pots that you open up. There are opportunities for ecotourism for those who choose to do it. And I appreciate it's not something that many farmers want to do, and that's fine. But there is a large list of farm diversification opportunities that come with nature restoration programs that can make them more financially resilient and ecologically resilient than the status quo.
speaker-1: Sounds like a total win win.
speaker-0: It should be. People often ask what do your neighbours think? And I said, Well, like in any community, when we started talking about this, probably ten to twenty percent of our neighbours were immediately saying, We're in, we get it, we're on side, this is brilliant. Ten to twenty percent said, This is the devil's work. Planting trees on farmland should never be done and that's fine. They're not in and they will continue farming in the way that they choose to, and I support them and would like to see that continue. and then sixty, seventy, eighty percent don't care. They're just trying to make a living in a really difficult time in the uplands for farming communities. And they're the group who, as the subsidy regime gets harder, as the price of various inputs increases and outputs reduces, more and more of them come to us and say, Look, is there another way? A way that we might be able to make our farms more profitable and farm in a way that is better for the natural world? To which my answer is always, yes, let's let's sit around a table and see how we can bring you into this project.
speaker-1: You touched on something when you were recovering, you know, in the woods and you said that meditation didn't work for you, but you know, hunting roe and red deer did. How I understand it is then you immersed yourself in the forests, you developed your own techniques, you understood what worked for you. You want the listeners to appreciate that it's not about a passive state that you go in these woods and then something magically happens to you, but you figure out your own ways of healing.
speaker-0: absolutely. And to the principle that we are a part of nature, not a part from nature, which I believe to my core. And I think we have forgotten this. I was very lucky growing up. My my father is an explorer who spent his life with indigenous tribes around the world. And I was lucky to spend a lot of time with indigenous peoples who have no doubt about the fact that they are a part of nature, not apart from nature. They know they're a part of the natural world. And I think we need to remember that in in the West in Europe. We need to remember that we are an ecosystem engineer. We are a keystone species. And most importantly, we are an apex predator. And I think our increasingly urbanized population has come to forget that we see the natural world as as other, as alien, as out there. And it needs to be protected by leaving it alone. And especially on an island like the UK, that doesn't work. Yeah, we have four non-native deer species in the UK. We have gray squirrels, we have all kinds of things that we've brought in which can be quite damaging to the natural environment. we need to be a part of fixing those problems and then integrate better with the natural world, not just see it as a as a problem that nature has, not humans, because humans aren't a part of nature. And so for me, I think humans need to be an integral part of the conversation and the story at every stage.
speaker-1: Would be fair to say that, you know, your father helped influence that side of your thinking?
speaker-0: He's a huge inspiration to me and I'm feel so lucky that he's such a close friend and lives with us. You know, h my parents live sixty five yards away across the yard, which comes with its wonders and the challenges of having your parents very close by. I see his work as hugely inspiring and but most importantly his approach to life and his optimism because some of the challenges that he's faced are ones that people may have just turned their backs to and yet he has always smiled and always run at it. I try and do the same.
speaker-1: It's very rare to come across a combination of a father and son being equally passionate about a shared passion. So I think it's beautiful. You're really blessed and it's been a real privilege to talk to you. I just want to end with one question, which is what's a message you'd give to people about the three things perhaps that they could do to help the environment? And I know you've got thoughts on this.
speaker-0: Well, and I'm nervous about giving you my thoughts 'cause they're slightly controversial. I think for a start, you know, people often ask what you can do if you don't have a two hundred and forty acre upland hill farm and then you have maybe a window box or a small garden. And I say, look, there are three really simple principles to hold with all nature, which is that nature should be messy, it should be wet and it should be native in in an island environment. So it where you can, don't mow it throughout the year, don't put down astroturf, my God. You know, let let it be as messy as possible. Because that's what nature needs. Let it be wet, like put in a wet feature, even in a window box, have some open water because all the invertebrates and everything needs that. and in urban environments especially it can be very hard for creatures to find. and where possible, plant creatures that evolved in that landscape. So don't bring in exotics and tropical plants. You know, put in things that that that are from there. And that goes to one of my three points I said to you earlier, which is that we should be viewing golf courses in a slightly skeptical way. We have 3,000 golf courses across the UK. most of them are treated heavily with things like glyphosate and roundup and strimmed down so that the grass is is is a millimeter high. we have more golf course than we have orchard. And I think that's a terrible statistic. And also golf club memberships are plummeting. So I think the more golf courses we could turn back into nature reserves would be a real step in the right direction. Then another one is around what we're doing to the natural world in our natural behaviors. I often talk to people about domestic cat ownership. I I can't remember the exact statistic, but it's many tens of millions of songbirds are killed each year by domestic cats. we are a nature of pet lovers, both dog and cat. And we have too many dogs and we have too many cats and they create a very unnatural impact upon the natural world. If we are going to be ecosystem engineers and keystone species, then we need to start bringing the right things in and I think having lots and lots of cats, especially throughout suburban environments, that kill any songbird or small mammal they can find is a challenge that we need to to face into. And
speaker-1: Definitely were controversial.
speaker-0: But and the the third one, which is less controversial, is we should eat more venison. You know, we are a nation, we have potentially as many as four million deer roaming across our our uplands, our lowlands, our woodlands, and we will never get our rainforest or any woodland to naturally restore with this high density of deer. And it it's the meat the bodybuilders choose. It is lean, it is healthy, it has no antibiotics, no steroids. Wild caught venison is amazing. And yet, if your local pub decides it wants to stock venison burgers, it will probably buy New Zealand venison. It is cheaper. to buy venison from New Zealand than it is to buy venison from the farm down the road. and that is a travesty that we need to change. We should be eating more venison, eating more locally sourced meat, being more involved in that process. So golf cats and venison are my three three things.
speaker-1: You did say venison was going to be the least controversial, but to the average person who hears that the plant based diet, you know, is the most sustainable way of going about it. I mean, it it might be controversial to them, but I think the way you've laid it out and explained it about us having an overpopulation of deer and, you know, that kind of paradoxical situation where it's easier, cheaper to buy venison from New Zealand than it is to buy it locally. what's broken in that supply chain? Why don't we get local venison in, say, our Sainsbury's and Tesco's?
speaker-0: And in the same way, I when it comes to plant based diets, I have huge respect for anyone who lives on a plant based diet. And the clearest and easiest thing is we should all be eating less meat. I don't see us as having a food security issue in this country. We have a choice security issue. We like to be able to go to Asta and eat a chicken corn of one night, a pizza the next night, a roast dinner the third night, and sushi on the fourth night. We think that's a right that we have and that it should all be really cheap and really fresh and available twelve months of the year. And that is our challenge. The reality is if we wanted to provide everyone in this country with a calorifically healthy diet that had less choice in it and less meat in it. You could still eat meat, but maybe once or twice a week, maybe not once or twice a day, then that would solve a lot of the the issues that we face from a food security and a supply chain perspective. when it comes to the price of of venison, I I think that's a much larger that's another hour long conversation around subsidies and trade barriers and tariffs and all of this stuff, which Which means that we have this system where if something can be harvested a little bit more cheaply the other end of the world, we don't factor in the additional cost that the transport should be putting on that because it's all become so cheap and easy these days.
speaker-1: Interesting. So you've put a positive spin on playing less golf, right? By saying we could look to have rough golf. you've really provided a compelling case for eating more venison. of course, while acknowledging that all of us need to eat less meat in our diets in general. I'm just wondering, is there anything you could say to cat lovers?
speaker-0: I know a lot of people w think they put yeah, you you can put bells on cats. It's a pet ownership thing, which is that if we choose to have pets, then we need to make sure that they're not impacting the natural world in a negative way. And that goes for whatever pet you have. Everyone loves their pets and they should be encouraged to do so.
speaker-1: Excellent. Bell the cat, bell the dog, play less golf and eat more venison. Thank you so much for your time. I think you've really helped shift my perspective to look at this island that we live on as a rainforested island. I've never, you know, thought of it like that before. And I think I read somewhere that you'd said that people feel more rested when they go and immerse themselves, you know, in in a temperate rainforest than they do if they go and buy a coffee on a busy high street road.
speaker-0: Some hope so.
speaker-1: Yes. So it's all about I guess awakening that ancient knowing in us. And something will awaken, right? But thank you so much for your time, your inspiration and all the incredible work that you and your father Robin are doing. It's very inspirational and I wish you all
speaker-0: Yes. That was lovely to speak to you today. Thank you so much.
speaker-1: If something you've heard on the podcast has made you pause and rethink how you would partner with nature, follow Rewiggle on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, and YouTube. And if you know someone who is actively rewiggling how they work with nature, building solutions, shifting systems, or turning ideas into action, we'd love to hear from you. Write to us at rewiggle at gmail.com because the best conversations don't really end when the episode does. They stay with us and sometimes they change what we do next.
