Dear Friends,

It’s that time.. Spring is in the air!

Welcome to our Spring Newsletter, in which we celebrate the seasons changing from winter to spring. A time when we can look back at the darker, colder, winter and look forward with hopefulness, optimism and the scent of new beginnings as the sunshine lengthens the days. This seasonal adjustment has been ever such, and links us to the reassurance of the cycle of life – a most primitive experience that is celebrated as significant across the world’s cultures.

At the Foundation we have been busy throughout the winter and early months of this year. Thinking back about 8 years, we would have quieter months between October and March -traditionally a good time to rest and take stock of things – but we worried endlessly that we would not make it financially through these months as engagement with the schools and programmes seemed to hibernate and no income was coming in.

It was a lot of stretching resources and using only what we could to get through.

Now, in 2025, these hunkering down, and restoring months are as busy as the summer, because we have found the confidence and ability to engage and inspire people to work outside through rain and shine, cold and dry, and mud! And we continue to get great results. We teach a million hidden life lessons too, such as pushing through discomfort, the joy of the warmth of fire, camaraderie and that we are not made of sugar and don’t melt in the rain.

During the last year we engaged well over seven and a half thousand people in our service, which we are so proud of.

As we invest our values in our work with clients and participants – we also extend our values of kindness and care to all who work at the Foundation as well. The very busy outputs we have had this past year takes a lot out of our small, passionate team and they need looking after. However, nothing compares to the joy of the work and the sense of change that we see in people who connect meaningfully with us. Seeing the wild energising and healing them fills us with a sense of purpose in return.

To support the team and continue the high levels of impact with large referral numbers, we have also brought on new admin staff, new therapists to boost our wild therapy group programmes and offer more one to one support, as well as other freelancers to support the education delivery for schools and special educational needs and disability groups that thrive outside on weekly rotations.

Our environmental work continues to be in demand – and relevant – as the world reverberates with global conflicting pressures for nature and wilderness versus pressure on land for economic growth (including a ferocious house building agenda) reducing space for nature and wildlife. We also face the hunger for resources over protection and devaluation of efforts to mitigate climate change, amongst many other challenges.

All of these make our work very poignant as we care for people, wildlife and wild places in a balanced way.

However the national and geo political world plays out around us, we have settled into the joy of owning 92 acres of wildness and semi ancient wood at Mann Wood. We are taking our time to explore each glade, learn its trees and quirks, butterfly haunts, wildlife, birds and flowers either individually or with guided groups or experts in their field. We currently run four therapy groups a week in the woods, including a home schooled forest school, which fills it with pleasure, discovery, connection and healing.

Even though we own Mann Wood, the woods, much like most land that is unpopulated is at risk in time as population grows, land becomes a scarce resource and policy changes. Here in East Anglia the new major power line plan brushes past our boundary.

For us, this magnificent place presents a space of green calm and healing for humans in distress, and those just wanting to get away from the noise, and is of course a safe space for wildlife and children.

The woods acts as a green lung to partly offset, in a tiny way, the heavy change of land, housing and green belt loss predicted in the country. Whilst we recognise the genuine housing need for many families, we are at a crisis point to also keep landscapes wild, allow space for nature to exist not just on urban fringes but in wider and more protected habitats, and for our sanity be able to find true nature as near to us humans as possible. We must retain our relationships to wilder nature, learn how to care for it, and grow a wilderness spirit.

We need to remember the words of Chief Seattle :

“If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.”

With winter ending with the pressures of potential war, uncertainty about impacts of some pretty scary political decision making and how it will affect land, nature, and people – I am hopeful, wishful and optimistic that enough goodness will prevail for all life, and that the small buds that are breaking through on branches will bring goodness and fresh life and wonder. I am similarly hope that these wonders happening and changing cycles will be bright and positive for all of us and all of nature that holds them safe.

Wishing you blossoms and the wonder of spring birdsong.

Jo

Ps. As mentioned we have some great new staff join the team and many will see the contributions of people like David Wilkinson who writes our social media posts and general outreach. We want to share with you both news from other charities and science around wilderness, education and outdoor therapy, and what we are all up to.

None of this is worthwhile if we are missing the communications you need, so please do engage with us and let us know what you may want more of, or how you feel we are already doing. You can contact us through our social media or email david@wildernessfoundation.org.uk and directly to me on jo@wildernessfoundation.org.uk.

We would love to hear from you.