Tree Amble
After 30 years working to restore nature in forests and on farms, Pete Leeson takes time out to revisit the people he’s met along the way. Throughout the series, Pete discovers how land managers are adapting and responding to the nature crisis we all face, while navigating the economic challenges within farming today. People are at the heart of this podcast, holding the potential to do some incredible things. We meet farmers, ecologists, rewilders and more to find out how communities are building a future together which respects and supports nature.
Episodes
As a younger man Peter got involved with remediating derelict land in Scotland's central belt. His work eventually exposed him to using trees to aid restoration and before long he discovered that aspen was used all over Europe for restoration but not at home. Research and grant aid later finds him collecting and growing aspen clones for planting on remediation sites and then a journey into trees.....
Mention Phil's name in West Cumbria and many folks will know him. He has created a wonderful community of people around him through his work as a basket maker and willow weaver. Phil grows willow and makes baskets but he also shares his knowledge widely and engages in many other willow related things - including river restoration! Phil is a complete gem and is great spend time with.
Rose, Anwen and I met at a farming conference and very quickly hit it off. We were all wondering why a tree lover and two archaeologists would spend a weekend talking about mob grazing and soils. Yet it is obvious really - learning about how we manage land reflects on where we have come from and how we might restore nature to farming once more. Rose and Anwen have such life and energy for their chosen subject!
Neil and Leigh Heseltine farm in the North Yorkshire village of Malham - famous for its amazing geology and beautiful setting. Neil's journey into farming with nature, in fact farming nature, is fascinating. He has moved from farming sheep to farming cattle. He loves the landscape he has farmed all his life and it comes across in this episode.
In this episode of Tree Amble we head up to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park in Central Scotland to meet Hamish Thompson the Estate Manager of the Woodland Trust's largest single site Glen Finglas. Hamish and his team are responsible for managing over 4000 ha / 10,000 acres of ancient woodland, wood pasture, peat bog and mountain. This is tree management on an epic scale and a day's walk around the tracks or up one of t...
Have you ever thought about beef or dairy from the cow's perspective? In this episode of Tree Amble we meet Dr Lindsay Whistance who has a life long passion for cows and is deeply concerned about our relationship with them. She works as the senior livestock researcher at the Organic Research Centre and has 4 themes to her work:
* Farm animal behaviour
* Participatory research and facilitation
* Health and welfare planning and ass...
We met Kate Hanley down at Dovestones just east of Oldham on a very wet day in 2024. Kate works for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and manages a brilliant project on land above Dovestones which is owned by water company United Utilities but leased to the RSPB for nature recovery. Kates work here is really drilling down into how we restore very degraded peat bogs - essential for carbon storage, water management...
In this Tree Amble Special we went back to Torpenhow [pronounced Tre'pen'ah] - Mark and Jenny's Farm - and joined the Specialist Cheesemakers Association at their annual gathering. We had a ball with these amazing cheese makers eating and talking about the best of the best cheeses in the UK. These folks are brilliant food producers and all concerned with nature on land they manage or where their milk comes from and what it can do f...
In this episode we talk to the brilliant Chantal Lyons about her book "Groundbreakers" which is all about Wild Boar. For us in the UK this is a challenging species which we hunted from our shores many years ago but for which there is an ecological argument for restoration. It is challenging this one though, they make a huge mess and are difficult to control at any level. But we should have a discussion about all and any species tha...
We took some time out last spring to head out to Lismore - a wee island a short ferry ride from Oban - to meet Claire and Mike on their beautiful productive and, as it turned out, biodiverse croft. Crofting is a very old tradition in Scotland with small areas of land managed for food production in often remote communities. Claire and Mike have created an oasis of life within their which produces lots of vegetables and fruits - but ...
Matson Ground is a traditional Lake District Estate with house, gardens and cottages (some available as holiday accommodation) a few small offices and about 500 ha of organic farmland situated just south and East of Windermere in the Lake District. In this Tree Amble episode we meet Madelaine who is the current owner of the estate which came into her family 100 years ago. We also meet Pete Webster - farm manager - and Luke Steer - ...
Hedgerows / People's Trust For Endangered Species / Habitats / Conservation
In this episode we meet Megan Gimber from the People's Trust for Endangered Species where she has worked since 2015. She is a self confessed hedgerow geek and has developed and manages two hedgerow survey for PTES. The Great British Hedgerow and Healthy Hedges. We meet and walk on a Cumbrian farm in July 2024.
Urban Gardening / Scouse Flower House / Postcode Gardener / Liverpool
Tree Amble was invited to attend a conference hosted by the Chartered Institute of Ecological and Environmental Management in Liverpool in 2024. The idea behind the conference was to ask questions about how we engage people and landscape to restore both elements - how do we connect people with their environment and how do we restore biodiversity in tandem. This e...
Wellbeing / Community / Vegetables
We met with Paul Cambre at the Growing Well plant nursery at Tebay Services to discuss the work of Growing Well and their recent move to create more projects at Tebay and Egremont in Cumbria. This fabulous charity works with people to improve their mental health and wellbeing through programmes based in cultivation of vegetables. Paul's experience and enthusiasm runs through this thoroughly enjoy...
Beavers / Re-introduction / Farming with Nature
We had a lovely meeting with Chris on our Oxford Real Farming podcast and decided then to have a longer follow up chat with him - and here it is. Because we are geographically about as far apart as we can be in England this chat was over TEAMS... the joys of modern comms! Chris is very much the farmer but as you'll hear in this conversation he absolutely sees the value in and of farm...
Lentils / Dal / Protein / Legumes / Climate positive Agriculture
Welcome to a delicious edition of Tree Amble! In July we headed off to the second annual Dal festival on Wakelyns Farm in Suffolk. David and his team, with support from Hodmedods, started growing lentils in their agroforestry system in 2023 and held their first Dal celebration in 2023. We joined them to celebrate the second festival and on the way got to talk Dal with...
Rivers / River Restoration / Habitat Creation / Fish / Climate Change
In this episode of Tree Amble, the first of Series 4, we meet George Heritage who has made a career out of understanding rivers and now works to restore them for biodiversity and water management and we go out to the riverside with a team from West Cumbria Rivers Trust and volunteers to monitor a stretch of river for its fish population. Jonny and Ruth use a met...
Landscape Scale Restoration / Community Projects / Upland Scotland / Rural Community
In this Tree Amble episode we hear from a range of great people engaged on landscape scale restoration in North West Scotland - notably on the Assynt Foundation land and the Woodland Trusts Loch Arkaig woodland restoration project.
We hear about community engagement, tree planting and woodland management, specialist kit removing timber across loch...
Organic Dairy / Milk / Manging Organic Land / Bore Place
In this Tree Amble we meet Dan Burdett who is the farm manger on the 500-acre regeneratively managed historic estate of Bore Place, an hour south London. Dan is an experienced organic dairy man with his feet in two farms - we meet him at work at Bore Place.
The farm's focus is on organic farming and regenerative land management whilst supporting people to live happy, fulfil...
Trees / Veteran Trees / Ancient Trees / journey on foot
Martin Hügi took a four-month sabbatical to walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats. Dubbed the ‘Tree Pilgrim’ he set out to meet thousands of incredible trees on his special journey. He wanted to spend time connecting with some of our oldest living things in the countryside - to learn more about them and the people and landscape around them and ...
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