In this episode, Nadina meets Mark Cridge just off Oxford Circus, inside a quiet, plant-filled HQ that serves as the visitor centre for something radical: a city that calls itself a park. London was the first place in the world to become a National Park City—but what does that actually mean when you’re standing in the middle of one of the busiest urban intersections on Earth?

Mark shares the story behind the National Park City idea, from the map that rewired how London sees itself to the moment the city formally embraced a new identity as a living landscape. We talk about how over 50% of London is already green and blue space, why perception matters as much as policy, and how reframing a city can unlock entirely new conversations about health, belonging, biodiversity, and the future of urban life.

At the heart of the movement are the community Rangers—ordinary people running extraordinary local projects, from tracing hidden fruit trees across neighbourhoods to turning allotments into spaces of healing, mental health support, and connection. Together, we explore how these small, human-scale interventions quietly reshape entire neighbourhoods from the ground up.

We also dig into the deeper questions beneath the movement: the global collapse of human connection to nature, why teenagers so often lose that bond, what it means to raise nature-connected children in dense cities, and whether cities—rather than rainforests or remote wilderness—may now be the most important battleground for reconnection.

This is an episode about maps, movements, rights to grow and swim, and what happens when a city stops treating nature as decoration and starts treating it as its backbone.

In this episode, Nadina sits down with Adrian Wong, SUGi’s UK Forest Lead, in the middle of the Forest of Thanks—a 10,000 m² Miyawaki forest planted in one of London’s most under-resourced boroughs. What was once a simple lawn is now a thriving woodland of oaks, elders, cherry trees, brambles, birds, and even resident foxes.

Adrian explains the Miyawaki method, a powerful approach to creating fast-growing, self-sustaining native forests in urban areas by planting densely, rebuilding living soils, and embracing the natural “messiness” of ecological succession. With 31 SUGi forests across London, most no bigger than a tennis court, Adrian shares how tiny forests can improve biodiversity, clean the air, soften noise, cool neighborhoods, and help stitch ecological corridors back into the city.

We also explore the human side of this work—from greening schoolyards next to airport runways, to kids planting their first-ever trees, to how daily access to nature boosts mental health and builds community resilience. Along the way, we discuss bioacoustics, iNaturalist, parakeets, fox dens, community gardening, and why messy forests may be the future of urban greening.

This is an episode about what happens when you loosen your grip on a piece of land—and watch life flood back in.

Filmmaker and N8RLND founder Pieter van den Braak joins the Internet of Nature Podcast for a walk through Eindhoven’s Philips de Jonghpark—a city park dense enough to feel like a pocket forest. Pieter shares how, during a period of feeling unmoored in his early twenties, nature became the one place that offered clarity, calm, and a sense of belonging he couldn’t find anywhere else.

We talk about the quiet drift into burnout, why awe can reset an overwhelmed mind, and how “microdosing nature” for five minutes a day can shift the tone of an entire morning. Pieter explains how this personal turning point led him to build N8RLND, a media platform designed to counter doomscroll culture with films and stories that reconnect people to the living world.

Along the way, we explore why solitude in nature feels different from loneliness, how simple outdoor rituals can anchor mental health, and why, as Pieter puts it, “you don’t need to know anything about nature to feel part of it.”

Amsterdam’s trees haven’t “stopped growing” — they’ve stopped growing the way they should. Arborist-turned-CEO Jan Willem de Groot explains why maturity matters more than planting counts, why crown volume is the metric that actually reflects ecological function, and what happens when cities focus on keeping the trees they already rely on.

We explore why large trees provide exponentially more shade, cooling, habitat, and carbon storage than saplings; how risk-averse maintenance has erased vital hollows and “imperfections” that wildlife depends on; and why the real frontier of the urban forest is private land, where most canopy sits and most removals happen. Jan Willem shares how Terra Nostra and greehill are using LiDAR-based smart inventories to create accurate, city-wide digital twins — not to replace arborists, but to free them to focus where their expertise matters most.

We also talk about Ukraine’s lanes of heroes — memorial trees that carry names, grief, and continuity — and what they teach us about trees as living memory, not just infrastructure. Technology can help us see what is worth keeping. But meaning is what keeps it standing.

John Tweddle joins the Internet of Nature Podcast to share how the Natural History Museum in London turned five acres of ornamental lawn into a living laboratory for the future of urban nature.

From eDNA that uncovers invisible life to bioacoustic microphones that map the city’s soundscape, John and his team are reimagining what a museum can be: not just a keeper of fossils, but a sensor-rich, public-facing experiment in coexistence. We talk about the 2,000 species found in a single acre of soil, why “data alone will not help nature recover,” and how machine learning and citizen science can work hand in hand to monitor—and mend—the living city.

Along the way, we explore what it means to listen to landscapes, how five million visitors a year unknowingly become research participants, and why, as John says, “the Internet of Nature isn’t about more data, but connected data that works for nature.”

Recorded in the heart of Tilburg—a Dutch city that has transformed from one of Europe’s hottest urban heat islands into a showcase of regreening—this episode explores the hidden worlds that decide whether city trees live or die. Arborist and Senior Advisor Erwin van Herwijnen of New Urban Standard joins the Internet of Nature Podcast to talk about why soils matter more than species, and how climate-adaptive growing places can turn trees into the new sewer system.

We discuss why most city trees never make it past adolescence, why climate-ready trees won’t save us without climate-ready soils, and how stormwater makes or breaks survival. Erwin explains why tree professionals can’t afford to be “softies,” why spreadsheets might be the Lorax’s greatest ally, and how making civil engineers happy is the secret to long-lived urban forests.

Plus: the tragedy of cutting down trees before they reach maturity, what it takes to plant for 80 years instead of election cycles, and why, for Erwin, the city only truly comes alive when its people can sit in the shade of a tree.

Tim Christophersen joins the Internet of Nature Podcast to talk about his new book, Generation Restoration, and why nature isn’t a luxury—it’s our only home. From his first steps in the forest with his forester grandfather to leading the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, and now as VP of Climate Action at Salesforce, Tim shares why waiting for perfection paralyzes companies, what greenwashing gets wrong, and how corporate pledges can move from CSR to true business resilience.

We explore why our ecological crisis is rooted in a 300-year-old worldview, how oyster reefs once filtered New York Harbor daily (and could again), and why AI might help “make us all ecologists,” from smallholder farmers in Colombia to city dwellers identifying birdsong. Plus: the role of imagination in rewriting our relationship with nature, the personal challenge of writing a book with Jane Goodall’s final foreword, and why, as Tim says, “Nature is waiting. It’s time to come home.”

Thomas Crowther returns to the Internet of Nature Podcast to open Season 6 with a simple provocation: don’t maximize carbon—maximize life. We revisit the whirlwind after the “trillion trees” paper, the shift from monoculture planting to restoring Indigenous-led, locally stewarded ecosystems, and why climate action should feel joyful, not joyless. Tom shows how Restor lets anyone map a garden, pocket park, or farm—and why tens of thousands of urban projects already do. Plus: Costa Rica’s national bioacoustics study (soundscapes ~86% back toward intact forest), music that echoes nature, health links, policy lessons, and an update on his new Branch Foundation.

Dr. Nadina Galle is joined by Jad Daley, the 40th president and CEO of American Forests, the oldest forest conservation organization in the states, to discuss the unprecedented $1.5 billion federal investment for the U.S. Forest Service’s Urban and Community Forestry Program, how the investment will give priority to projects that benefit underserved communities, address extreme heat, and low-canopy populations, and how Jad and the team at American Forests have estimated that the cash influx, combined with matching contributions from funding recipients, could create thousands of jobs and help plant and protect 40 to 50 million trees nationwide. At the end of the episode, we wrap up with Ian Hanou, the founder and CEO of PlanIT Geo, to reflect on what Season 5 has taught us and to discuss what it means for the future of urban forestry.

This podcast episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠PlanIT Geo⁠⁠.

Follow Nadina and the Internet of Nature Podcast on all social platforms:

Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/internetofnature_⁠

LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadinagalle⁠

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Dr. Nadina Galle is joined by Andy Lederer, Principal Arboriculture Officer for Oxfordshire County Council, to discuss how he got involved with trees despite growing up in North London, how data-driven decision-making is revolutionizing urban forestry, how his perspective on data has changed over his nearly two-decade-long career, how Andy has harnessed PlanIT Geo⁠⁠'s tree inventory and asset management software in Oxfordshire County (UK), the surprising way his team of tree officers reacted to a new, data-driven approach, and what he hopes the future of data-driven urban forestry might look like.

This podcast episode is brought to you by ⁠PlanIT Geo⁠.

Follow Nadina and the Internet of Nature Podcast on all social platforms:
Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/internetofnature_
LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadinagalle
Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/earthtonadina