TAKE ACTION, NOW!
LUKE FUNNELL – Founder and Director of Project Rewild – echoes David Attenborough’s view that no one will protect what they don’t care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced
Luke Funnell on BBC South East Today
We recognise now that mass industrialisation of food production has caused this huge problem. Some species have disappeared, soil has become depleted and pollution is having devastating consequences. The effects of climate change are becoming tangible all around us.
What has happened to the land, the species, and the soil, acts as a mirror for us. According to OFCOM UK, children aged 5-16 spend 6-7 hours a day on screens and 4 -7 minutes a day playing in nature. What’s happened to adults is similarly devastating. Our disconnection from nature is damaging our own health and allowing us to damage our environment. We must step back, reconnect with the land, with one another,and with our own true wild nature.
Rewilding: “The planned reintroduction of a species into a habitat from which it has disappeared in an effort to increase biodiversity and restore the health of an ecosystem” Merriam – Webster dictionary definition
Rewilding is a way of supporting the land and sea to return to a better sense of balance; it gives space for the land to recover by standing back and letting nature heal itself. Rewilding is a way of relinquishing human control, of repositioning humans so that we are a part of – and not apart from – nature. Rewilding is a way to help nature to thrive.
Rewilders understand how ecosystems have been damaged and are proactive in finding ways to help nature thrive again. Their actions are sometimes controversial, but they have been shown to have dramatic impacts. Simply learning about the state of our planet from the internet or in books can only go so far. We want to help people remember their own deep connection with nature firsthand.
At Project Rewild we aim to help children, adults, and families back into the wild, into a habitat from which we have almost completely disappeared: nature, the great outdoors! We aim to create deep emotional connections with the natural world around us.
Rewild Hastings, free children's groups
“Time in nature is not leisure time; it’s an essential investment in our children’s health and also, by the way, in our own ”
We want children to play free and be wild. To do this we want to help everyone break down some of the barriers that stop children from playing outside. We want to support parents, families, and communities to work together, so we can all be outside more. We need to rewild, for us and for the future sustainability of our planet. For me, there is nothing more pressing, nothing more important than remembering that we are part of nature and not separate from it. Our very survival as a species depends on it.
According to the government’s ‘People and Nature’ survey we are spending less time in nature than at any time in human history. The spike in time spent outside during and after the pandemic, has now dropped back to pre-pandemic levels.
Project Rewild is a Hastings- based nonprofit community organisation, aiming to reconnect and rewild us all. We have worked with thousands of local children in the last 6 years. Our work is free and accessible. Throughout the year, there are free school holiday groups in the woods, on the beach, and over the hills, available for local children
Our work is not just for children. We offer an array of adult groups to improve our health and wellbeing whilst spending more time in nature. We recently premiered the ‘Take Action Man’ documentary film made by Mark Hutchinson. Filmed over two years, it followed our local men’s group. Hastings has been identified as a key risk area for major mental and physical health inequalities in men. It is the most socially and economically deprived town in the South East of England yet enriched and surrounded by accessible natural spaces.
‘Take Action Man’ highlights the increasing need of men to have a safe space; to find themselves again and how to show up in this society with integrity. The work that Project Rewild is doing is phenomenal and will be life changing for many.” – Judith Coleman
This film looks at why this kind of project is needed for every man and how nature and ‘tribesmanship’ can help improve the health and wellbeing of men and the wider community.
Take Action Man, men's group.
Alongside the men’s work, our popular nature-based women’s group has just received funding for the next two years. We also manage two permaculture allotments and supply free food to children during our summer groups. We hope to expand our food growing and land connection work in the near future allowing us to support even more of our communities.
“The way in which the project was presented was both humbling and awe-inspiring. I found it truly invigorating and heartening to see that such a community-focussed project exists within our small town.” – Travis Mains Marten, Mental Health Advocate
You can join us fishing on the beach or in the woods for fire circles, foraging, bushcraft, seasonal celebrations, storytelling and sharing music and song. I was born in Hollington where I still live to this day.I care passionately about my home town, its people, and magnificent natural spaces. I grew up playing over in Church Wood and it has been one of my proudest achievements to help hundreds of children enjoy those woods again, hopefully creating the same emotional connection with it that I had growing up.
Along with the team at Project Rewild, I always strive for accessibility. We never want money to be a barrier to what is our birthright, spending time in nature. We are all becoming increasingly time and money poor. That is why we want to help. We are not offering another kids club, we are offering an opportunity to transform the way we relate to the natural world, to others and to ourselves.
projectrewild.co.uk naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2023/09/29/state-of-nature/ gov.uk/government/collections/people-and-nature-survey-for-england