Tucked in behind Dorset's famous Chesil Beach is a unique and beautiful place - the Fleet Lagoon. Martha Kearney explores a thousand year history of human guardianship of birds on the lagoon. On the way she gets a close-up view of little tern dating platforms on the Fleet itself, learns why the swans of the ancient Abbotsbury Swannery are much safer now and who they hate the most, and - of course - learns to build a nest.

Contributors include:

Angela Thomas - Assistant Warden, Chesil and Fleet Nature Reserve

With thanks to Dorset Wildlife Trust.

Presenter: Martha Kearney

Helen Mark visits the port of Bristol – finding out how it changed the local landscape, and how the landscape in turn shaped it. She learns how and why Bristol became a port city in the first place and finds out about the creation of the floating harbour in 1809. She uncovers a tale of mud, the enemy of shipping, which scuppered the port’s ability to take on larger ships, resulting eventually in its move down to the mouth of the river in 1873. Helen visits the historic Underfall boat yard, which was badly damaged in an arson attack two years ago, but is now gradually returning to its former glory. She finds out how the modern port has managed to carve out spaces for wildlife, learns how it still continues to change the landscape today, and hears about plans to build a “compensatory” nature reserve further down the coast.

Contributors include:

Tiggy Latcham - Bristol Ferry Company

The Fylde peninsula stands between Morecombe Bay, the Bowland Hills and the Irish Sea. Its position means that it's a very windy spot. Windmills have been a feature of the area for hundreds of years, built to grind grain and drain marshy areas in order to turn them into agricultural land. At one point there were over thirty-five windmills on the Fylde coast. Rendered obsolete by the arrival of new technologies – first steam, then electricity - only a few are still standing today. In this programme, Martha Kearney visits one of the last remaining windmills, Little Marton in Blackpool. Built in 1838, it inspired the author Charles Allen Clarke to write 'Windmill Land', documenting the windmills of rural Lancashire. Martha is shown around the mill by the author's grand-daughter, who explains its significance.

Martha travels inland to discover how some of the impacts of the previous generations' decisions about landscape management are being reversed. Where land was once drained, in some places it is now being "re-wetted". She visits Winmarleigh carbon farm where Lancashire Wildlife Trust is running a project to restore peatland which was damaged in the past by drainage, involving planting 150,000 plugs of sphagnum moss. She learns how that's done, and meets the scientist who's monitoring the effect this has on greenhouse gas emissions.

Back on the coast again at Lytham St Annes, Martha finds out about the role the wind has to play in 21st century activities in the area, where sports like kite-surfing and land-yachting are growing in popularity. She meets a man whose father set up the local land-yachting club, and who - now in his 80s - is still going strong in the sport.

Producer: Emma Campbell

Helen Mark hears the story of how the ancient Epping Forest was fought for, and saved by, the people of East London.

In the late 19th century, Epping Forest was threatened with enclosures. As elsewhere in Britain, local landowners were selling off common land for farming or building developments. But local people fought back. Beginning with a Loughton man, Thomas Willingale, who continued to assert his commoner rights to lop trees for firewood, the groundswell of protest later became thousands of working class East Enders gathering on Wanstead Flats - the area closest to the city of London.

The land of Epping Forest was eventually bought by the City of London Corporation, and with the Epping Forest Act of 1878, was forever saved from more enclosures. As Queen Victoria declared in 1882, "It gives me great satisfaction to dedicate this beautiful forest for the use and enjoyment of my people for all time”.

Part of the responsibility of the new conservators of the forest, the City of London, was to look after and protect the forest for both people and wildlife. Helen Mark hears from those who job it is to carry that out, including Senior Epping Forest Keeper Martin Whitfield and Head of Conservation Tanith Cook. She also speaks to local historian, Georgina Green - author of 'Keepers, Cockneys and Kitchen Maids: Memories of Epping Forest, 1900-25', a book about the forests' eventful past, who also talks about her own memories of the place. And finally Luke Turner, author of 'Out of The Woods', who lives on the forest border talks about the myriad ways humans and Epping Forest are entwined.

Produced by Eliza Lomas, BBC Audio Bristol.

Rose Ferraby visits Orkney to discover the rich history of a stretch of coastline on the small Island of Rousay. She joins archaeologists from the University of the Highlands and Islands as they travel through the rugged landscape and varied timescales of Rousay's coastline, from prehistory to clearances. They chart the legacy of ancient islanders and uncover stories hidden within the island's brochs, tombs, churches and farmsteads.

Producer: Ruth Sanderson

The Sefton coastline stretches for around twenty miles between Liverpool and Southport. It has one of the largest sand dune systems in the country, but is also one of the fastest-eroding shorelines, shifting back by around four metres ever year. In this programme, Martha Kearney visits Sefton to explore the ways in which this ever-changing landscape has been shaped by both human activity and the elements. She walks along Blitz Beach, where rubble was dumped from buildings destroyed when Bootle and Liverpool were bombed during World War II, and finds out how this has affected erosion over the decades since then. She learns about the treacherous sands of Crosby, where the famous Antony Gormley sculptures on the beach have proved a huge tourist attraction, but where an RNLI lifeguard explains how it is all too easy for unwary visitors to get stuck in the quicksand and mud. A few miles further up the coast at Formby, she finds out how work is going on to restore degraded sand dunes and goes out looking for sand lizards with one of the National Trust rangers. She asks what the future holds for this coastline, with its diverse wildlife habitats and fascinating history.

Producer: Emma Campbell

Martha Kearney takes a trip through the past, present and future of mining in Cornwall, finding out how it has shaped the landscape. After crouching in an old tunnel at Geevor Tin Mine with the miners who used to work in it, she journeys into the future at a new lithium mine based in an old china clay pit in St Austell.

Producer: Beth O'Dea

Helen Mark visits 50 square miles that were neither England nor Scotland. The Debatable Lands, between Carlisle and Gretna, were home to untameable crime families that petrified the most powerful of Lords and Kings. For hundreds of years governments in London and Edinburgh left the region to its own laws and moral codes. When they did intervene, the result was an explosion of violence that's still visible in the landscape of derelict towers and still audible in the Border Ballads collected by Walter Scott.

Author, Graham Robb guides Helen through the region's complex history and Ian Scott Martin takes her to the ramparts of Gilnockie Tower- the fearsome stronghold of the Armstrong family, one of the most notorious clans of Border Reivers.

The Union of the Crowns in the early 17th century brought the age of the Debatable Land to an end, ushering in a long period of peace broken abruptly in 1915. On the Western Front the British Army was running out of shells. In Westminster the government fell and the decision was made to build an enormous 9 mile long munitions factory, stretching across the region. Rebecca Short of the Devil's Porridge Museum guides Helen around the remains of the industrial landscape in which 30,000 people- 16,000 of them women- worked in the production of the cordite that propelled shells across the battlefields of Belgium and France.

The western tip of the Debatable Land reaches out to the saltmarshes of the Solway Firth. This apparently peaceful landscape soon yields its secrets. The land is constantly battered and transformed by the tides while animals and plants have to adapt to survive the harsh and dynamic conditions. Helen explores the creeks, bogs and rivers with David Pickett of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and Chris Miles of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Martha Kearney follows the River Ouse, from the High Weald to the Sussex coast and - finally - into the sea itself. Along the way, she discovers how one of the UK's largest nature recovery projects is taking root.

The project is called 'Weald to Waves' - it's a wildlife corridor that has been mapped out over more than 100 miles of Sussex landscape and coastline, to encourage biodiversity on a huge scale, connecting food, farming, nature and people. Encompassing more than 20,000 hectares of contiguous habitat, it is a huge coming-together of farmers, land managers, councils, utility companies, wildlife charities, schools, gardeners and community groups. Martha meets some of the people who have pledged to be a part of this huge collaborative effort.

Producer: Becky Ripley

For young carers, it can be difficult to find time to get away from home and enjoy the great outdoors. In this programme Helen Mark meets a group of 12-13 year-olds who all have caring responsibilities for a family member at home, but who are spending a night camping out on Dartmoor. She joins them as they pitch their tents, do some river-dipping, and help with feeding farm livestock. As dusk falls, they set off on a night-time walk across the moor - battling their way through gorse bushes in the dark, to reach a rocky outcrop where they lie on their backs to gaze in silence at the stars.

Helen talks to some of the young carers about their experiences, and hears from the charity which organised the trip and the ranger from Dartmoor National Park who guides the young people through the activities. They tell her why it's important to offer opportunities like this and explain how much difference a taste of the outdoors can make to the life of a young carer. For some of them, this is their first experience of spending a night in a tent.

Producer: Emma Campbell