15. Tristan Gooley, the natural navigator

Woodland Walks - The Woodland Trust Podcast

You'll never look at a tree in the same way again after this episode. Our guest, Tristan Gooley, is known as the natural navigator and gives us fascinating insight into the stories nature is telling us and how they can help us find our way. At Eartham Wood, West Sussex, he teaches us how each part of a tree can tell us about the land, water and animals around us. I put his skills to the test as we read the captivating clues of brown leaves, leaning trunks, lichens, yew, blackthorn and more. Find out how to determine which way is south, why thorny branches could indicate small animals and if he ever gets lost!

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Transcript

You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife.

Adam: Well, today I'm off to meet a writer, navigator and explorer who has led expeditions in five continents and I'm told is the only living person to have both flown solo and sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic. He’s known as the natural navigator because he has learned how to find your way through the natural world really by looking at the clues that nature provides us and although he has travelled the world doing some extraordinary adventures, I’m meeting him much closer to home in a forest near Chichester. And that's important because he says, actually, the globetrotting is, in a sense a diversion. And, and the lessons about the natural world and practical things we can take from that can be found actually so much closer to home. His book, How to read a tree, has just come out, which tells you a lot about how to read the natural world around you, and I'll definitely be talking to him about that. Anyway, I'm off to meet him, which is a bit of a joke because I am the world's worst navigator and my first problem, as ever, is of course he is not where I think he is, but I've called him and he's going to come out of the forest and wave, so I'm off to look for a man who's waving.

Tristan: My name is Tristan Gooley, also known as the natural navigator, because of my lifelong passion in the the wonderful art of natural navigation, finding our way using nature and I'm gonna lead you into my local woods, Eartham Woods to have a look at some of the clues and signs we can find in trees.

Adam: And how did you get into all of this?

Tristan: Well, I I loved, I was pretty restless as as a youngster and I loved putting little journeys together. And then the the little journeys became bigger journeys and and through that I I developed, it started as a practical thing. I needed to know how to find my way. And then what happened was as the journeys became bigger and bigger, I had to become a proficient navigator. And there came a point quite a few years ago now, where I realised the scale of the journeys wasn't wasn't making them more interesting. So I turned everything on its head and learned to to find my way using nature and it, and it started with very, very small journeys. Just, you know, using the the sun, the the flowers, the trees and the weather generally as as my guide and just trying to cross a a mile or two of English countryside.

Adam: I mean, I know, you’re concentrating on the UK at the moment. But you have done some amazing foreign trips as well?

Tristan: Yes, and that was that was the the my school, if you like. And it was very much a a self-imposed thing. I loved learning about how to shape these journeys. But as I say it it got to the point where I was staring at kit the whole time I was I was literally staring at screens which had robbed all of the fun. I'd, it I I wasn't a I wasn't the sort of fidgety, 10 year old feeling the wind on my face and crossing, crossing little lakes or or scrambling up hills. I was, I was effectively managing systems and so that's when I when I decided to turn it on its head and and go for much smaller journeys. But try and understand how how nature is making a map and quite often a compass for us.

Adam: That itself surely has its own contradictions, because it seems to me what you're talking about is relearning some lost arts. The very nature of the fact that they are lost arts makes them hard to relearn. So how did you do that?

Tristan: Yes, it's it's a really interesting area because the, the, we we lost our connection with land based natural navigation in in a time when there was no writing. So there are very, very few written records. But the good news is navigation is something, and I feel really passionate about this, it is, it is one of the few fundamental skills. If I'm if I'm talking to a group or leading a group, I sometimes say to them, I don't know you, but I'm pretty confident in the last 24 hours you've eaten something, you've drunk something, you've slept, and you've navigated. Those are some of the things that all human beings do by and large. And so what we find is with fundamental things they pop up in in stories. So another another thing is if if you or anyone listening thinks of their favourite story in the world, it can be a blockbuster movie that came out a week ago or it can be an ancient myth, it really doesn't matter, you'll find navigation features in it, so the clues the clues are there. So I combined that with looking at all sorts of accounts of journeys, combined that with my own observations and combined it with research into some quite recent botanical research, for example, and and piecing all those bits together that allow me to to rediscover the art.

Adam: Do you bemoan the fact that we're now so dependent on satnavs? We don't use any of those skills and perhaps don't even see the need for them.

Tristan: No, I see it as a potential win win, but I think it's about an awareness of how the I have this weird thought experiment, I imagine that we each day we wake up with 1,000 units of attention and then it's it's up to us how we spend them. Now work might take 600 or 700 of them and sometimes we have no choice about that. But the question then is what do we do with the ones leftover. There's, there's lots of options there and understanding the clues and signs in nature is not something I expect to, you know, fill fill the available units for everyone. But it is something where we can, we can say, well, actually I'm just going to, I'm just going to give 10 minutes of this day to trying to understand, you know what that insect is telling me, what is that butterfly telling me about what the weather has just done, for example. And then through that it becomes quite a moreish subject because our brain has evolved to do it.

Adam: Yes, I mean, I agree. I mean, I think you know, wandering through the forest as we are now, it's it's not a lesson, it's not like I'll get extra points for knowing this tree is X tree, but it helps you engage with it, it's quite interesting to go, oh, there's a there's another narrative being told to me that I'm I'm not listening to, I'm not tuned to, but I could tune into that story actually makes the walk a richer walk, doesn't it?

Tristan: Yeah. I I really agree with that and I I'm I'm a bit of a poacher turned gamekeeper in the sense that I wasn't one of those kids crawling around with a magnifying glass looking for beetles, I I discovered it through what started as a fairly pragmatic practical need through through the natural navigation journeys. But what what I have discovered since for myself and others is that there's a there's a very widespread feeling that we ought to connect with nature, that we should feel something, that if we just go and stand in a in a wood that it should somehow magically make us feel something. But actually, our brains have evolved to to be doing things and to be understanding things. And if we think about the animal kingdom, which which we're obviously part of, we're we're not the fastest by a long way. We're not the strongest by a long way. We we don't have the best senses. But the one thing we do really, really well, our one trump card is an ability to to take in a landscape and and understand the patterns and build a more interesting and meaningful picture from what we see than any other creature can. So whether you're talking about a dolphin, a chimpanzee, any any creature you want to name it can probably beat us in some areas, but it can't do what we can do, which is look at look at a, a, a picture or a tree or or or any organism and and derive a more interesting picture and more meaning from it.

Adam: So look, I I feel like I'm aimlessly wandering through the wood here. Are we heading off somewhere specific or we just, we’re just rambling?

Tristan: We're we're going for a bit of a a a bit of a wander there's no no sort of fixed destination but that again is quite I I think it's quite nice I I often like to go for walk and just the sole aim instead of, you know, many, many years ago, the aim would have been perhaps to cross, you know, 30, 30 kilometres of woodland. But now the aim is to perhaps notice a a clue or a sign that that that is is new to me or that I can share. I mean the the view I often take is every single thing we see outdoors is a clue or a sign. And when we take that that perspective instead of sort of thinking, well, maybe there's something interesting out there and if I'm lucky, I'll spot it, if we if we just pause, let's let's pause by this yew tree for example...

Adam: OK.

Tristan: So every every single organism, including every single tree, is is full of meaning, which is another way of saying nothing is random. And if we just come round the side of this one, I'll be able to show you, hopefully this one will be a good one to, so a nice a nice introduction to the idea that that nothing is random is that if you ask anybody to draw a tree, you'll get a symmetrical tree. Symmetrical trees, of course, don't exist when we think about it, we know that. Every single tree appears as a unique individual, and that means that there's a reason for all the the asymmetries and the differences we find, I mean, as we look at this one here, we can see it's not symmetrical. There's more tree on the left side as we look at it, pretty, pretty sort of pretty clear asymmetry. So noticing that it's not symmetrical on its own is not is not fascinating, but knowing that we get most of our light from the southern side, and that that every tree is harvesting light, we put those two pieces together and and that tree is clearly showing us that south is out this way.

Adam: Is that true?

Tristan: *laughs* It is, it is. Yeah, I'm I'm pretty confident on that one.

Adam: OK, I tell you what. It's not, we've only just met, it's not that I don't believe you, but I'm just going to, let me just go get my, my, yes and I I can confirm, I can confirm the tree is correct. That is the south. OK, very good. *Both laugh*

Tristan: And and actually there there are lots and lots of other clues within that individual tree. The the angle of the branches, they're closer to vertical on the the right northern side and close to horizontal on the left southern side. And this is something I call the tick effect from this perspective, it's a reverse tick. But again, it's just a reflection of of the fact that it is it is, it is reflecting back to us, its little patch of the world. So if you get more light out to that side on the southern side, the branches are going to grow out towards the southern sky. On the north side, fewer branches and they're growing up towards the only light they can get up in the sky there.

Adam: Very good. So and that's, I mean it tells its story, but it's also if you were lost and needed to go south you have a ready made compass.

Tristan: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think that I was talking about how we're sometimes we feel we ought to feel something and actually natural navigation is is a sort of fun, simple way of turning on its head and saying instead of nature magically sort of plugging me into a different sensation, let me come at this a different way and say I'm going to ask this tree to to make a compass for me or I'm going to ask this tree to make a map for me. Or I'm going to try and discover the story of this tree. What has it been through? And if we we wander on our our, you know, I mean I mean you at any point you want, you can pick any tree you like and sort of say let's let's find the story in that and I will I will, have fun.

Adam: No, it's it's alright, I’m not testing you, I I believe you. No, I mean that's that's amazing. I mean I was, I know your book is only just coming out April this year, so just hitting the bookshelves. But I've sort of had a sneak peek at some some of the elements in it and I think one of the things I saw quite quickly was about knowing when water is close by. Well today that's not a problem because water is everywhere but it, you know, it might be a problem and then and indeed, with climate change, that might be a very significant thing. What tell tell me about that, how do you, what are the clues from looking at a tree to know that water is close or where water is?

Tristan: Yes, every every tree is is reflecting back to us through through its niche. So every single organism has a niche. Nature's ultra competitive, there is, there are no organisms that can kind of survive by waking up in the morning saying, well, I'll just kind of do a bit of everything. So what we find is it doesn't matter whether we're talking about animals or plants, they all have a a niche they they all have a habitat that they are better suited to so that they can outcompete other, in this case, trees. So for example, you'll notice if you if you walk by a river, for example, you'll start to notice willows, perhaps alder trees, and then if you walk up a hill nearby, all the trees will change. Here, although it feels very wet at the moment, we're actually in dry country, we're on chalk here and the the water tends to disappear quite quickly, which is why we see many more beech trees. Beech trees thrive on relatively dry soil on on chalk in particular.

Adam: But also I think you were you were talking about the the leaf structure and that when you look at a leaf which is near water, it has this sort of white vein in it? But I think that's really a neat trick if I was out with my family to go, I'm looking at this leaf, there is a river nearby and that's gonna get me huge nature points. So explain that.

Tristan: Yes. Yeah, and that's that's taking a a visual cue in the case of the willow trees. One of the one of the sort of telltales for willows, I mean willows, a hugely diverse family with with you know, tens of thousands of species, conceivably and and I don't think we'll ever exactly know how many species, which is why going down to species level isn't isn't super helpful, but a lot of the willows that thrive right next to water have long, relatively thin leaves. and they have a a pale rib down the middle. And what I've learned over the years is there's so many clues and signs and there's so much so many sort of things that nature is trying to whisper to us that having the odd visual cue can really help us remember it. So if if I, you know, just wrote that willows are next to water, that's quite an easy thing to sort of forget. But when you think there's what looks like a stream down the middle of the leaf is telling you that you might be near a stream, the brain quite likes that pairing, it makes it more memorable, and that's that's how a lot of lore, as in folk lore survives is because it's memorable, either in an oral or a visual sense. It's entirely up to us whether we want to do the the stepping stone of thinking well that white vein and the shape of that leaf is telling me it's a willow tree and the willow tree is telling me I'm probably near water, or if we just want to skip that like I'm convinced our ancestors, quite often they weren't doing the the identification they were, they were just they just knew, for example, from the sense of a tree shape or or its leaves, that was telling them that there was water nearby because we we still find that in indigenous communities.

Adam: Well, you you just you said I should test you at some point. So look this is a really interesting shape tree, tell tell me a bit about describe it for us first of all and then, does it, does it tell us a story?

Tristan: Yes. So one of the first, the first things I'm noticing on here are the these thorns here and we're looking looking at a blackthorn and it's it's giving me two messages, quite, quite sort of quickly. The first, the first one is thorns make me look for animals. It's it's a tiny bit counterintuitive, but because because thorns are not the sort of things you want to fly through very quickly, you don't, you don't find the the the fast birds of prey zooming in and out of this, which means that small animals actually are quite comfortable in here. So this is the sort of place where if for any reason you wanted to get closer to to small small animals quite often little birds, in there, they've, they've they've learned over the years that that's a pretty friendly place to sort of go. You're not going to find a a raptor zooming in out of nowhere and making life uncomfortable because it's just too dangerous to come in here sort of 50 miles an hour. The other thing is that it's its size is is telling me it's quite likely that we're not in the heart of a mature woodland. So what what we find is that there are, generally speaking, there are large trees and small trees, and the reason is because being a medium tree is not a great strategy. The reason for that is that if you grow up to be a medium tree, you've needed all the water and all the minerals and all the energy to get halfway towards loads of light. But you don't get loads of light cause the tall trees steal it all. So the reason we mainly have is, we look around here we can see there are mainly small trees and then there are tall trees. We've got, we've got spruces and we've got, we've got back back in that direction we've got beeches and an oak there. And then we've got the thorns here, a mixture of blackthorn and and hawthorn and and this is this is the smaller trees are much more common at the edges of woodland or in clearings. You know, if we were trying to find our way out of these woods, you'd generally go from tall trees to small trees on the way out.

Adam: We’d be near home. We’d go, this is the right way, this is going. And that's, I mean, that's a fascinating story, this, is it, I'm just trying to make this understand the logic of it, is that can you not be put off track by the fact that it's not a mature small tree, it's just a small tree, cause it hasn't got big yet. I mean, so all large trees were small once, so doesn't that rather make it rather confusing?

Tristan: Yes, yes. No, it's it's a, it's a valid point and I do I do put that in in the book that, you know, the the there is a look to to a mature tree. So you can generally tell when a tree is young and the the bark is quite a good clue. I mean, if we if we look at this bark on the on the thorn here, it's that's quite gnarly and you can just tell that that's that's not been you know that's not a 10 year old is it, that's that's something that's that's seen a few seasons. We're we're always building a jigsaw here. If if a place looks like it's it's established and there hasn't been much disturbance, recently, we're going to find mature species. If if you're surrounded by a load of young trees, that's telling you a totally different story, it’s telling you that something major has happened. Now, there may have been a there could have been a landslide, there could have been a fire, there could have been human clearance or something like that. It's pretty rare we're going to look at a single branch of a single tree and say that tells me the whole story. But but here we can see the combination of human activity, the size of the tree that this is this is a fairly classic, the trees trying to reclaim the land, so what, what happens is that these pioneer species get in here, I'd expect us to be able to see some birches. Yeah, there are a couple just there. Can you see just the the silvery bark on there. So birches are another pioneer species. So the story here is humans have done their best to clear a track that we're walking along and the trees through the pioneer species are saying we're going to have that back. You know, if you drop your guard, this this land will be ours again. And that's that's part of the map.

Adam: And one of the things I always love about trees is the, well, we've got lots of little bits of mosses and lichens growing on them. Is there anything that that tells us a story? I mean on on that on that branch, there's a lot more moss on one side of the branch than the other. Is that just because just is that random or is there a story there?

Tristan: When when people are new to natural navigation, they often often sort of they're they're familiar with the idea that moss grows on the north side of trees. But moss is really hard to use. It's it's not one of my top 20 techniques for the simple reason that it's it's not fussy enough. Moss will grow anywhere there's moisture, so all moss is telling you is that there's a surface that stays moist. The reason we're seeing moss on the on the side of that tree is nothing to do with aspect. It's nothing to do with north or south. It's because that tree has has come off the vertical, but it's what whatever we notice is a key and a and a way into into noticing other things. So if you hadn't noticed that moss, we might not be standing here noticing that that tree has come off vertical, so why does has it come off vertical? Well, this this tree to one side of it is bigger, therefore most likely older, which means this one has had to grow in the shade of it, which was why its trunks leaning away. So the trunks leaning away to get more light that leads to a gradient in the trunk. That means one side is is is not vertical, so the water is slowing down there and the moss is thriving. I I find lichens on trees much more much more instructive and the more the more filamentous, more hair like they are the the stronger the sign that you're in an area with fresh air.

Adam: Yes, they're they're generally a sign of of good air quality, is that right?

Tristan: Yes. Yeah, yeah. The more lichen species you see, it's it's a fairly strong sort of correlation.

Adam: So, but these aren't so so fine are they?

Tristan: No, no, we've got they're not they're not the Usnea family, which, which is the the ones who are most fussy about fresh air. But we have got a good mix here. I mean I would say it's a very specialist area, but if we had a lichenologist here with their magnifying glass and their way of testing pHs and all sorts of other wonderful things, I wouldn't be surprised if they found dozens just there. Whereas if we were much closer to a town centre that that number would come right down. I say here we've got a a hawthorn and as as we've sort of seen, one of the the smaller trees, but what's rather wonderful is this is very clearly bursting into leaf right now. And one of the most fun things to look for in in spring is small means early. And it doesn't actually matter whether it's a slightly taller tree with low branches or a small tree as we've got here. The lower down we look the earlier spring comes. And it's a simple race, because once the canopy leaves are out and it's sealed out the light there is there is no light here. So, so so bluebells will will be out here in a few weeks, and they're just trying to beat the the canopy. So. So what we find is that spring at head level comes you know, typically a couple of weeks before spring higher up in the trees. We've got a slightly different thing which is quite fun here as well. Which is we're just seeing a few few brown leaves low down on on this oak here and I don't know if you've come across that before, but that's it's a it's an odd word to write and say, it's marcescence is is the word, but it all it all it means is that quite a few broadleaf trees, but notably beeches, oaks, hornbeams do it, and and a few others will hold on to a few of their lower leaves all through winter, and then they start to typically lose quite a few of them just before spring. And the fascinating thing is, there's no agreement amongst the scientific community about why it happens, which I find, you know, such it is such when you when you know to look for it. And it's one of the reasons, for example, beech hedges are very popular because they hold on to that brown leaf covering all through winter. But it only happens in the in the low parts of the trees, which when you find things that only happen in the lowest parts of trees, it sometimes has a relationship with with animals and and the idea there is that you know the the grazing animals that could otherwise nibble off the buds, which which the tree obviously doesn't want find the the brown leaves from the last season less palatable and another theory is that if they're, if they're shedding them about now, it's a way of adding those nutrients as a as a fertiliser for the roots when the growing season’s about to start. So instead of dropping all the leaves in autumn when when the minerals aren't going to be needed for quite a while, the trees wait until this time of year and and then drop some more leaves like like sort of putting feed on the ground because it's it's very near the the the edge of the canopy, the area that's known as the the drip line, where where water and minerals are taken up. But yeah, I I like the fact that the, you know, there are still, there are still mysteries, the scientists need to, yeah.

Adam: So, I mean, you're known as the natural navigator, have you, have you ever been lost terribly, I mean on your travels? I mean it's there's a limit to the amount of danger we're going to get in today even if we did get lost, but in some of the more wilder places you've been?

Tristan: I certainly overrated my abilities and and underplanned and underprepared when I was when I was a young man, I when I was nineteen, I led a friend up a an active volcano in Indonesia and got us horribly lost and we we had to walk for three days without food, which was, yeah, I mean, I really thought it was the end. I thought that was a a mistake too far I didn't I didn't think we'd get out of that, but in the end it was a it was just trying to hold a hold a straight line, and then we saw these trails that we thought were animal trails and then we noticed there were parallel and it was the very end of a four by four track and it was it was it was a pretty harrowing experience.

Adam: My goodness. It's, you talk about this, it reminds me I was doing some filming many years ago with the Surui tribe in the Amazon and we got lost and were abandoned a bit and at the, initially we did think oh this is quite funny because it's a good story and then it, you go, we're very close to this being exceptionally serious. And there's this odd, sort of emotions are partly going, well this is all a big adventure and quite interesting, and yet I was also thinking one more thing goes wrong and we are never getting out of here. And that's a sort of curious sort of tension, isn't there when those things happen. And you get lost.

Tristan: It is interesting with the, when I when I've met indigenous people and walked with them in in remote areas, there's a a western view of being lost, which is quite a binary view. The idea is that we either know exactly where we are or we're 100% lost. The the indigenous view of navigating in in wild regions is is a little bit more, what we might almost call sort of fuzzy logic in the sense that they don't necessarily always know exactly where they are, but they know where they are relative to landscape features, landmarks and and things like rivers and ridgelines, so, and this is one of the things that I, one of the ways I sort of teach people to not feel, natural navigation is not about, you know, knowing how to get from A to B absolutely perfectly and efficiently. It's about exploring, taking in signs and if needs be keeping things unbelievably simple. So we we I could sort of show you show you an example now we could do which which might work quite well with the, if we pick up the sounds. If we come off the track just here just head into a little bit of, in amongst the trees here. Now, if we just stop and have a listen. Are you picking up that we're getting slightly more birdsong behind us and the sound of some wind out this way? It's quite faint. A buzzard in the distance, I think there, but we could just take a very sort of simple idea, which is that if I if I held out a an Ordnance Survey map and said to you point to exactly where we are, you might find that exercise quite tricky. But, but if I said to you, can you find the track we've just been on, you'd look back and you'd find it. But if having tuned into where the bird song is coming from, we took a few more steps over there, you can you can, I'm sure imagine a situation where you could neither point to exactly where you are on a map, nor see the track, and yet you've picked up just enough awareness to get back to the track. And having found the track, you could then work out how to get home. So if you'd noticed that we'd walked very slightly uphill, then we could bring start to bring all the pieces together. If we headed into the more mature trees over there, away from the shorter trees, you could you could have a map in front of you and think I'm completely lost, I have no idea where I am. But then if you just bring those pieces back from your memory, you say to yourself, well, I think if I head towards the birdsong, there tends to be more birdsong nearer, nearer the opening of of the track. And I'm going to put the sound of the wind, which is catching the taller canopy trees behind me. And then ooh, I'm just starting to lose confidence, ahh but the the taller trees have got smaller now, and I know that means I'm getting near the edge. I'm getting near the clearing. Then you found the the linear feature, the track, and you just remember you just go downhill from there and then you start to recognise where you are again. So it's this, as I say the the sort of developed world way of thinking navigation is you know exactly where you are and you know exactly the right track or path to take to where you want to get to. The the more indigenous natural navigation way of thinking of it is absolutely everything is a clue, and if I've tuned into enough of them, you'd have to tune into everything, but if I've tuned into the fact that I'll head towards the birdsong, I'll keep the wind on the top of the canopy behind me, I'll notice how the the tall trees become smaller trees just before I hit the linear feature and I I remember from there how to get back. You can see how you're you're not you're no longer feeling 100% loss, but at the same time you couldn't say exactly where you are.

Adam: Yes. Yeah. No. How interesting. That's amazing. And I mean, we've gone through a very interesting year or two. I mean, there's been chaos and tragedy around covid. There's been cost of living crises, there's been all sorts of political upheaval. It feels more tumultuous than normal. Has that you think changed peoples reaction to the natural world, desire to get something from it and desire to engage with it. Or am I reading too much into that?

Tristan: I definitely saw in in the lockdowns I saw what started as a necessary, you know, we were literally forced to find the same short walks interesting because we had no other legal choice. And so what started as a a a negative requirement, I think I I'm I'm a bit biased, but I think it was sincere. I I detected people actually starting to have quite a lot of fun saying well I, this 10 minute walk that I've done perhaps 100 times before I’m suddenly realising that there are perhaps 1000 things I've never noticed and that that I think is philosophically, I sometimes think of it like a a pension in the sense that the early, earlier any of us start to realise that there is this richness of meaning in everything around us, that the more we develop it and it, and it really is moreish, the brain loves doing it, it's, it's what we've evolved to do and so the earlier we we start doing it, it it sort of nurtures itself and then you find it's actually quite hard to go on really long walks because there's too many fun things to notice *both laugh* I'm I'm an optimist at heart. I'm of the view that if there's, if there are positive ways to get people to care about things we should, we should we should throw everything at those because it comes back to the the sort of psychologists, as far as I'm aware have have done quite a lot of research in this area, and it doesn't matter what area you look at if you if you try and change behaviour purely by alarmism, it doesn't actually have the same effect as if you give the brain a genuine reward for for for changing. But a good example is we we only we can only care about things we see and notice. And even the word sort of trees can seem very abstract. Whereas if we get to know individual trees and woodland better, then we start to start to take a real interest in in what people are doing to them and around them. And that's why I do sort of feel positive is that, our ancestors and indigenous people, you, you can barely you know, you can barely bend a leaf without them sort of noticing because they've, they've, you know, invested in this practical awareness of what things are telling us.

Adam: I think Obama called one of his books the audacity of hope, I I agree, I think, hope is often underplayed. The power of hope. And it is audacious. It is bold to go, there is hope, but I think it's also powerful. It is powerful.

Tristan: Yes. Yeah.

Adam: Well, I met Tristan at Eartham Woods in West Sussex which is a fantastic place which I'd highly recommend, but if you want to find any wood near you do go to the Woodland Trust website which is woodlandtrust.org.uk/findawood. Until next time, happy wandering.

Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to [e-mail]. We look forward to hearing from you.