June 22, 2020

11a. Jan Stannard: Heal Rewilding, 'Everyone, Together'

1 hour 25 minutes

Hello! Welcome to episode 11 of Prompted by Nature. I hope you enjoyed your Solstice and were able to make the most of the extra long day!

In this episode, I’m speaking to Jan Stannard, founder of new rewinding charity, Heal Rewilding.

Jan Stannard is a co-founder of Heal, the new UK charity which is crowdfunding for rewilding. Jan has a business background and is a resilience specialist and former coach. She still serves on the boards of two businesses she helped to found. Her work with wildlife has been local and very practical. She founded a swift group which has the world record for the most swift boxes installed in under a year; she was a co-founder of Wild Maidenhead and leads the group's Wild About Gardens scheme; and she project managed the largest installation of amphibian rescue ladders in England. Nature is what makes her heart sing, she says.

Heal's mission is to buy land for rewilding in the English lowlands, to help with nature's recovery, to combat climate change and for wellbeing.

In this episode we discuss:

Jan’s background and how she realised she could make a difference

How Heal Rewilding came about and Jan’s desire to create a large scale refilling project that we could all feel a part of

What Heal is and how it works plus a look into their Heal 3x3 initiative

The importance of affordability and accessibility and ‘doing this together’

Definitions of rewilding and some core considerations

The role of semi-wild animals in the project

The role of education, young people and their Heal Future initiative

Creativity and nature and Heal centres as artistic as well as scientific bases

The need to loosen the grip on gendered approaches to nature e.g. women as caring about nature vs. men as the scientists

Her advice for staying creative and what she would like to pass on

And Jan asks me a question

I’m really excited by everything that Heal are up to and the possibilities that it could open up for the UK. If you’d like to donate to the charity, as I did, you can find them at www.healrewilding.org.uk You can also find the team on Twitter and Instagram @healrewilding

As always I’m at www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on Instagram @prompted.by.nature. Remember to stick around until the end of the episode to hear about the meditation dn writing prompt that follows this episode.

Enjoy the episode and I’ll speak to you after!

Helen x

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