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.
For 30 years, Pete has been at the Woodland Trust, working with partners and landowners to plant trees.
While his work has focussed on sites across Cumbria, he has built partnerships and supported projects across the UK with a focus on restoring nature.
In this podcast, Pete has in-depth conversations with land managers, ecologists and rewilders to hear how they support nature on farmland and beyond.
For more about Pete, here's a 2 minute film about his work and motivations:
Episodes
6 days ago
6 days ago
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 - woodland adviser. We talk about managing the estate and the new wood pasture project emerging under Luke's guidance.
Thursday Oct 31, 2024
Series 4 Episode 4 Hedges with Megan Gimber
Thursday Oct 31, 2024
Thursday Oct 31, 2024
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.
Wednesday Oct 16, 2024
Urban Gardening, Trees, Flowers and People Restoration
Wednesday Oct 16, 2024
Wednesday Oct 16, 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 episode is full of urban voices with experience thrown in from gardeners, foresters and ecologists. We also take a tour around Liverpool looking at the amazing wildflower sites which Scouse Flower House have promoted.
Monday Sep 30, 2024
Series 4 Episode 3 Growing Well
Monday Sep 30, 2024
Monday Sep 30, 2024
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 enjoyable and uplifting chat. Please listen and enjoy!
Sunday Sep 15, 2024
Series 4 Episode 2 Chris Jones Farming with Beavers
Sunday Sep 15, 2024
Sunday Sep 15, 2024
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 farming with nature. He has brought back those amazing eco engineers, beavers, to his Cornwall farm and clearly loves it! Please take a listen.
Thursday Aug 29, 2024
Dal Festival with Wakelyns Suffolk Lentils
Thursday Aug 29, 2024
Thursday Aug 29, 2024
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 5 chefs creating dishes fom India, Africa and Afghanistan as well and climate and diet with some of the 150 people attending. We hope this edition gets the taste buds going!
Wednesday Aug 07, 2024
Series 4 River Restoration with George Heritage
Wednesday Aug 07, 2024
Wednesday Aug 07, 2024
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 method call "eclectro fishing" to count fish of all sizes in a stretch of river and then, through repeat surveys see how fish populations change over time and over the catchment. They can easily see the effect of poor habitat or pollution incidents and then work to change it with farmers and land owners.
In other words this one is all about rivers and what we can do to help restore and revitalise them. Have a listen!
Wednesday Jul 24, 2024
Series 3 Episode 10 Working in North Scotland at Scale
Wednesday Jul 24, 2024
Wednesday Jul 24, 2024
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 lochs, living and working in remote communities and wild life management.
We hope you enjoy this Tree Amble into the far north west!