Back to the Future

 

Written by: Tim Gill

With a new Mayor and a new Government strategy for children and nature on the way, Tim Gill says it’s time London made its children an ‘indicator species’ and revived its blueprint for children and nature in the city. 

 

So our new Mayor has made a public commitment that all children should have access to nature. The Government will also soon launch a new plan to restore nature and reconnect children to it.

How might Mayor Khan fulfil this ambitious pledge so that London also leads on the Government strategy?

For a blueprint, Sadiq need look no further than my 2011 Sowing the Seeds report, whose central vision strongly echoes his commitment. My goal in writing the report was to get beyond the warm words and (let’s be honest) at times nostalgic sentiment that tends to frame this topic.

 

Access denied
Sowing the Seeds took a hard-nosed look at the evidence to show how spending time in nature enhances children’s physical and emotional well-being and learning, and fosters their concern for their environment.

Yet London’s children miss out badly. What’s more, the capital’s disadvantaged children miss out the most. They have poorer access to green space, and what little they do have is often neglected and unloved.

Sowing the Seeds also mapped out the action being taken across the capital to address the problem. It showcased city farms, adventure playgrounds, nature play areas, green school grounds, and outdoor learning programmes.

Yet even when all these initiatives were added up, they reached less than 1 in 20 of the capital’s children.

But there are signs of progress, especially among our members and supporters.

 

Sowing Seeds
Forest School programmes are spreading fast, as is Empty Classroom Day – inspired by my report, and now rebooted across the country as part of Persil’s Dirt is Good campaign.

Randolph Beresford forest school session

The network that formed around the report – Sowing the Seeds London – is becoming more active and vocal – and not just online.

At a policy level, the GLA’s revised planning guidance on outdoor play gave welcome support for the value of natural spaces, though its impact on what ends up getting built is open to question.

More recently, the exciting community-led movement to make London a National Park City has taken up much of the thinking of Sowing the Seeds, and also its core vision of reconnecting children to nature.

But overall, progress has been slow and fragmented.

 

No sleepwalking on the side-lines
Londoners need to ask ourselves fundamental questions about what kind of city we want to see for our children.

We can sleepwalk to a future where decent local green space is a privilege not a right, where education becomes ever more narrow and desk-bound, and where children – especially poor children – are notable only by their absence from public space.

Or we can put sustainability, child- and family-friendliness and tackling inequality at the heart of our vision and actions.

It should be the latter and especially as the Government is gearing up to launch a campaign to better connect children with nature as part of its long-awaited 25 year Natural Environment Plan.

London should lead in responding to this, not sit on the side-lines.

 

Children: London’s ‘indicator species’
If Mayor Khan wants further proof of what’s possible, as well as reading the Sowing the Seeds report, he should check out Enrique Peñalosa, the recently re-elected mayor of Bogotá whose dynamism and radicalism has helped turn that city around.

Peñalosa’s most famous maxim is that children are an indicator species for cities: if a city works for children, it will work for everyone. His achievements show what can be done when a city focuses on improving the lives of its youngest citizens: not only at home and in school, but also in our streets and green spaces.

 

Tim Gill is an independent researcher and consultant www.rethinkingchildhood.com/

Computer says: Delete!

In the run up Empty Classroom Day on Friday 17 June, Sowing the Seeds’ Imogen Stringer asks why words about nature are being deleted in dictionaries as though they never existed?

 

I get it. Society is changing. Technology is changing. Childhood today is not the same as it was 30 years ago. As a 23 year old, I’ve experienced childhood fairly recently. I had the choice to play on a PlayStation or climb trees in the park. 

Westonbirt Arboretum play structure – Forestry Commission

I pleaded with my parents for an extra hour playing on the computer. I saw stereos become Walkmans become iPods. As I travelled through school years I went from lessons on whiteboards to lessons on interactive whiteboards and PowerPoint presentations. Childhood experiences have certainly changed, the virtual world is closing out the natural world, lifestyles are becoming more materialistic and the opportunities and temptations for children to play indoors have increased.

Goodbye Blackberry

As a result, a variety of words associated with nature have been lost and replaced from the Oxford Junior Dictionary.

Goodbye to Almond, Blackberry, Chestnut, Catkin, Cauliflower and Magpie to name a few. Hello to Blog, Broadband, Cut and Paste, Analogue, Voicemail and Bullet Point.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate these new words are important. Technology is the future of everyday life, I mean where would we be without computers?

But, how are these words more important than almonds, blackberries and cauliflower? Pop into your local supermarket and I’m sure these will be there and even Blackberries now come in computer form! How often does your average 7-9 year old use the word Analogue or Blog?

Balanced diet

The Sowing the Seeds report by Tim Gill highlights that ‘contact with nature can be seen as part of a ‘balanced diet’ of childhood experiences that promotes children’s healthy development and wellbeing’.

With the gradual removal of nature-related words, how will children of the future be encouraged to connect with nature if they don’t know what they are surrounded by?

How much will this affect children’s development? And will this impact on the preservation of natural spaces by future generations?

For me, this leaves one last question: Which natural words will be deleted next…?

Sheer Khan

Sadiq Khan leads London until 2020. Now he must make good on his pledges to protect, extend and improve green and play spaces for the capital’s children – his next voters, says Friends of the Earth’s Paul de Zylva. 

written by Paul De Zylva

Being Mayor is about more than keeping the tube running. As usual the media focus was on transport and housing – with a bit of racism thrown in.

The media thrives on division and is easily bored if candidates agree – but that’s just what’s needed if London is to remain civilised (link).

In this the 5^th Mayoral race, more than in the previous 4, the main candidates were closer together on many things.

Unity over division

Candidates agreed on the need not just to protect London’s green spaces but to improve them and play spaces and children’s safe access to their city.

Pledges went far beyond the usual bland promise to plant X number of trees.

My usual response to such vague pledges is to ask: Where? What species? How will they be maintained? For the record, Sadiq’s tree pledge is less vague than the usual ones:

“Embark on a major tree-planting programme across London, in partnership with businesses and the public sector, with a particular focus on schools and colleges.”

Stealing ideas

London’s Evening Standard which backed Zac Goldsmith said ‘the greenest mayor is precisely what Mr Khan should now become. His ambition should always be to leave London a cleaner, more pleasant city than he found it.’

The Standard also advised Sadiq to ‘steal’ some of Zac’s policies on the natural and built environment. Sowing the Seeds agrees.

Yes we Khan

Sadiq Khan

Of Sadiq’s many election promises, perhaps the most significant is his commitment that all children should have access to nature.

This strongly echoes the vision set out in Tim Gill’s 2011 Sowing the Seeds report (link), that “all children in London have good access to sites where they can experience nature as part of their everyday lives, and have engaging everyday nature experiences in such a site, beginning in their early years.”

Overall, 3 of Sadiq’s promises stand out for us – see below.

We’ll cut out and keep these and both track and help him to stick to them.

 

1.    Protect nature and play space
Protect the green belt, green spaces and play spaces, prioritising development on
brownfield sites.

Strengthen protections for open spaces within the London Plan, including playing fields,
Metropolitan Open Land, and our Sites of Importance for Local Nature Conservation and
nature reserves.

Protect wildlife and biodiversity by creating green corridors through the city.

Ensure that the Met Police’s Wildlife Crime Unit continues to receive the resources it
needs to be effective.

2.    Improve walking and safety
Appoint a pedestrian champion to lead on measures to make walking safer and easier
across London.

Open up more walking routes around London. Work with local councils and TfL to
improve the London Loop and Capital Ring walks.

Establish safe walking routes, to give children cleaner and safer journeys to school,
avoiding busy and polluted roads where possible.

Complete the Thames Path, working with boroughs, landowners and business to complete
missing sections and protect access to what is already open.

3.    Make London the first ‘National Park City’
Setting a long term target to make more than 50 per cent of our city green and ensure that
all children have access to nature.

Children and London’s ‘housing crisis’

Everyone agrees London has a ‘housing crisis’ – but is the solution as simple as we’re being told by developers and politicians? And why does this matter for London’s children?

Go figure
How are you with figures? Try these for size: 

• £80 million – that’s the record sum paid for a house in London recently
• £64,000 – this the salary you’ll need to get an average mortgage (plus £46,000 deposit)
• 10% – is the rise in average house prices in London last year.

This matters for London children because the squeeze on land for housing raises questions about what space will be left for anything else people also need including children’s access to nature and play space.

Unaffordable housing crisis
School grounds are already being lost. And debate rages about how many houses to build and where.

At least the decades of failure to build affordable quality housing has been noticed by London Mayor candidates. But there are 3 risks to politicians trying to out-do each other on housing numbers:

Risk 1 – The push to build leaves communities hemmed in with a roof over the heads and without space to think, relax and play

Risk 2 – The focus on quantity ignores the need for quality of housing, from proper insulation to having quality green space nearby

Risk 3 – Perhaps most of all, building more houses may not even solve or relieve the crisis.

Boom or bust?
There’s no shortage of unaffordable housing. The London Evening Standard’s property pages are full of it – on 20 April the lowest priced house advertised was a 2-bed terraced flat (not a house) in Stratford – a snip at £359,000.

Clearly, most people can’t access this ‘unaffordable’ housing market, unless they win the Lottery or saddle themselves with a huge debt – which helped cause the recession we’re still paying for in the first place.

When developers and politicians demand more housing they can’t say how this will help stabilise or reduce prices. The logic is that building more houses will bring prices down.

But by how much? Has anyone done the figures – even on the back of a fag packet – of how much prices would come down with so much building?

If London builds 50,000 new houses a year (that’s Zac Goldsmith’s aim, for instance) how will this bring down prices when property have been rising by almost 1 per cent a month?

Land grab
Put another way, how many houses would need to be built to cut house prices by, say, 1 per cent?

And how much land would be lost to do this? We’ve yet to hear this answered in all the debate about how much land to use for housing most of which will be out of reach for most people.

If the housing that does get built fuels the price boom instead of solving the ‘crisis’ everyone talks about, the pressure on London’s land and spaces will rise.

Answers – not on a fag packet – please.

 

 

 

 

Sian Berry – Green Mayor for a green city?

We’ve assessed the policies of Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan (link). Now we speak with Green Party mayoral candidate, Sian Berry.

Sian Berry

What was your earliest memory of nature?
My mum says she once found me trying to eat slugs, but I was too young to remember that! We had a great garden near the edge of town and I remember it being full of foxes and hedgehogs too, which were fascinating.

When and where did you last see children play freely in a green space in London?
I’m a councillor for Highgate and this covers most of Hampstead Heath, which is a great space for children to play. Every Londoner should have access to high quality natural green space.

If elected as London Mayor, what will you do to improve children’s access to nature and play in London?
Greens in City Hall have pioneered the concept of a ‘Green Grid’ that maps and monitors green space. As Mayor I’d go further and put a deputy mayor in charge of making sure we preserve and increase the green spaces in London and link them up to support ecology too. My target will be to make more than half of London green.

What are the largest obstacles preventing this, and how would you deal with this?
We have huge pressures on green space, when it’s so lucrative if turned into housing. Locally I’ve seen a sports ground and a nature reserve threatened in recent months, and I visited Redbridge recently where a large group of playing fields on the green belt has been targeted by the council for new homes. My housing policies will make sure we don’t make the city a poorer place to live, while making sure we do get the 200,000 homes we need.

As Mayor you would have a big say in how London develops and how space and land are used. What needs to change?
We can build new homes in more creative ways on real brownfield sites, adding new floors on council estates, working with communities to make masterplans that include quality spaces for play and recreation as well as the new homes we need. I’d put funding and experts into making sure we build a balanced city and make sure that the homes we build are affordable for everyone not left empty by

What do you think are the main environmental issues facing London’s children?
Access to nature is such a vital part of childhood, and so is access to healthy food and warm homes. Our current Mayor hasn’t put enough work into these issues and I’d do much more to support markets, food growing initiatives, and set up a not-for-profit energy company to compete with the ‘big six’ and support insulation and lower energy bills. The other major issue children face is growing up in the filthy, illegal air pollution we have in London, which researchers have shown stunts the growth of young lungs and has long-term effects on health and life expectancy. A Green Mayor would make cleaning up London’s air, reducing traffic and getting diesel vehicles off the streets, an absolute priority.

What would you do in your first year as Mayor to put Sowing the Seeds into action? 
Making sure children’s access to nature and their experience of interacting with the natural world are prioritised will be an important part of the job for my deputy mayor in charge of green spaces. I’m a big supporter of the campaign to make London a National Park City and in my first year I’ll be working hard on making that a reality too.

Which children’s access to nature projects do you know of and what have you learned from them?My local nature reserve is a great example of a small space, run entirely by volunteers that has a big impact on local children’s connections with nature. We also have a fantastic set of Transition groups in Camden who are working hard on making our green spaces wilder and more welcoming to wildlife, as well as making sure food growing spaces are created on local estates. With a dedicated Mayor and deputy, we’ll be committed to making sure these projects are supported to expand.

You’ve been active as a local campaigner. What insight has this given to the needs of London’s children today?
As a local councillor and a campaigner on transport what I’ve noticed most of all is the contrast between my childhood and London’s children today in the freedom they have to simply play out and discover nature for themselves. A lot of the reasons behind this can be solved through the influence of the Mayor, whether it’s safety on the roads and reducing traffic, or improving the extent and quality of green space.

When you lent support to London becoming a National Park City you recognised the ‘benefits of green and open spaces for education, health and wellbeing’. What would this mean in practice for you?
I see the National Park City concept as an important link between a whole range of services and initiatives, making sure that schools, public health and mental health groups, transport provision, cycling and walking initiatives, people-friendly streets, flood prevention and housing policies all consider the impact they will have on green spaces and the access children have to nature. All these different aspects of how the city is run can contribute to this important goal.

 

Look out for our assessment of Sian Berry’s and Liberal Democrat candidate Caroline Pidgeon’s manifestos, coming soon.

Will London be greener with a Mayor Zac or Mayor Sadiq?

The race to be London’s next Mayor is in full swing. Like duellers at dawn, Zac and Sadiq have gone to the edge of town to trade blows over London’s green belt.

But there’s more to making London great for nature and children than green belt – it’s time for our first snapshot of the candidates.

“I will ensure that all children have access to nature” – Sadiq Khan MP

“I’ll protect Greater London’s precious green spaces” – Zac Goldsmith MP

These two leading candidates say they’ll put the green back into Londoner’s lives, showing there’s more to being Mayor than keeping the price of a tube trip below a fiver.

With a quarter of Londoners undecided on how to vote, we’ve taken a snapshot of Sadiq and Zac’s claims to make London clean and green in 7 areas – from protecting green belt and local green spaces to the Garden Bridge and children’s daily contact with nature:

• Will children growing up during the Mayor Zac’s time in office get a better daily dose of nature or will their access to green open space continue to decline?

• Will Mayor Khan let London’s local green spaces vanish as the pressure grows to grab land for housing, schools and ‘infrastructure’?

• And is London’s green belt up for grabs or safe in either of their hands?

Here’s our verdict on their speeches and policies so far – we’ll examine other candidates soon starting with an interview with Sian Berry, Green Party candidate.

 

1. Green Belt or darkness on the edge of town?

Sadiq says: “I will oppose building on the Green Belt, which is even more important today than it was when it was created.”

Zac says he’ll use his ‘Green Space Guarantee’ policy within 6 weeks of being elected to ensure London’s green belt and Metropolitan Open Land ‘enjoy the maximum possible protection’ from being developed.

Zac goes further – saying Sadiq will greenlight a grab for green belt land and claiming he was keen to do this when he was a Labour minister.

Zac also points to Sadiq’s interview with The Economist in which he contemplates, then pulls back from, letting green belt go:

“If I was persuaded that all the possible pieces of land in London were being used sensibly and were built-upon, building on the green belt would be something we could look into. But we are no-where, no-where, no-where near there.”

Verdict

Both say they’ll stand up to land-hungry developers who want to chip away at what they claim is low quality land that’s needed to solve the ‘housing crisis’. That pressure will grow. It’s still not certain how their policies will stand up.

 

2. Garden Bridge – the great divide 

As with the green belt, the proposed Garden Bridge divides them – slightly. They both support the £175 million footbridge but Sadiq dislikes £60 million of public funds being spent underpinning the bridge including £30 million of TfL money.

Verdict

The bridge could be a great visitor attraction. But when existing local parks, spaces and play areas across London are short of cash and protection Londoners needs quality green space and vibrant nature nearby, not just in the centre of town.

 

3. Local green space – quality and quantity please

Here’s a core test for the next Mayor.

Local spaces and play schemes across London are under two huge pressures: development threats and cash constraints to properly maintain and improve areas, access and local projects.

Sadiq’s 10 headline priorities mention the green belt. Zac’s headline Action Plan includes “Creating more green spaces and cleaning up local parks so they are safe to visit and enjoy”.

But in his Manifesto for all Londoners Sadiq says: “I am passionate about the amazing green spaces and views – commons, parks, heaths, playing fields and waterways – that do so much to make London a fantastic place to live. It is on these green spaces that our city’s biodiversity and wildlife is most concentrated, our children play and learn about nature, and where we Londoners go to relax…”

Sadiq adds, “I will strengthen protections for open spaces within the London Plan, including playing fields, Metropolitan Open Land, and our Sites of Importance for Local Nature Conservation and nature reserves… With huge pressures on land for housing and other uses, it is essential that we maintain these spaces, and even expand upon them.”

Zac plans to transform every community with 200 new parks, gardens and green roofs so that every Londoner is within 10 minutes’ walk of green space, even in the most built-up areas: “Everyone should have access to an area of reflection and green space…I’ll protect Greater London’s precious green spaces”, he says.

Verdict

They both get the need for local green space. Both remain vague about how to improve what we have. Protecting space is great but making it greener, richer in nature and better to visit is better. We need more than just grass and bins.

 

4. London as a National Park City

The closest they get is in their support for the ‘London National Park City Initiative’.

Zac signed up some time ago. Sadiq added his support in his recent manifesto saying, “I will Make London the first ‘National Park City’ – setting a long term target to make more than 50 per cent of our city green”.

Verdict

With the two leading mayoral candidates agreed, the notion of London as the world’s first National Park City is within our grasp – and is less far-fetched than some commentators have suggested.

 

5. Housing – bricks and nature?

Grey or green space?

Zac says “today London’s green space is under threat. A booming population means there is a huge temptation for the next mayor to build on greenfield land. It’s an approach I completely reject.

“No one denies that we need more housing in London. But the choice between a city that’s unaffordable and a city that’s unlivable is entirely false. There is more than enough brownfield land within Greater London to deliver the housing we need.”

“It’s really important that we hold the line. The moment we compromise our green space, we lose it. London has lost an enormous amount of the green spaces that make it special. One the reasons that people want to live here is because of our environment and green spaces. We can do that [keep green space and build homes] as long as we access the brownfield land that we know exits, by growing the transport network.”

Zac’s policy is to make green space part of all new major developments: “London is already the greatest city on earth. As Mayor I’ll make it the greenest too, with a ‘Green Space Guarantee’”. He says this would require developers to include green space in all building schemes.

Sadiq is less clear on how he’d ensure proper quality space for children to access play and nature when land is developed.

He does say, “It is important that we do more to protect the character of London’s communities while delivering the new and affordable homes we need to cope with a rising population. I will put good design and sustainability at the heart of the London Plan [the Mayor’s blueprint for how London develops].”

Verdict

Homes built without decent local green space, access to nature and places children can explore will be the housing estate errors of the future.

London’s children should be able to play and thrive in nature without having to travel to the green belt or countryside.

Sadiq and Zac should set out proper standards so every London child can play in nature on their doorstep.

 

6. Children’s daily experiences

Zac wants to “make sure the next generation are educated on the dangers of air pollution and the importance of protecting our environment…Making our children aware of the environment around them and where their food comes from is vital to their future wellbeing.”

In his manifesto, Sadiq says he wants “for all of our children, a city in which the air is clean, green space is accessible…”

Verdict

Both Zac and Sadiq have a way to go to show how they’ll reverse the damaging decline in children’s daily experience of nature and natural play.

Have they read the Sowing the Seeds report?

Tanya Byron supports Sowing the Seeds London

Urban children today face so many pressures. City life can pile up, confuse and overwhelm. We all need space to breathe – but especially children.

Tanya Byron (Consultant Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychologist)

Our precious natural places, however small, are the breathing spaces children and their families need to enjoy being in, playing in and learning in.

Access to nearby nature is part of having decent housing, schools, transport and public services.

We know that the best cities are those where people are not hemmed in by concrete, and where children can enjoy a daily dose of nature. Yet London’s growth is putting a strain on communities and green space.

That’s why I support Sowing the Seeds London – the grassroots network championing children’s access to nature – in their goal to ensure that every child in the capital can play in nature on their doorstep.

Professor Tanya Byron
Consultant Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychologist

www.professortanyabyron.com/

School places displace spaces

‘A school playground is a vital space’, says Sir David Attenborough. So why are so many being lost in the rush for school places? Learning Through Landscapes Chief Executive, Juno Hollyhock finds out.

written by Juno Hollyhock (Learning Through Landscapes Chief Executive)

A map of England on my office notice board has large splodges of a warning shade of red. Urban areas, especially London, look particularly gory.

You might think the red shows the road traffic accidents, knife crime stats or fire arms fatalities associated with modern urban life.

Children’s basic needs
Instead of showing crime and disorder hotspots, the map shows areas where people’s basic needs are not being met – not too much of something but too little.

In most cases these ‘Basic Needs deficit areas’ have at least a 5% shortfall in the number of school spaces for children.

This is great news for manufacturers of modular temporary classrooms that can be sited almost anywhere to house the overspill of children needing lessons.

You can see these sprouting up across the country in children’s play grounds and sports fields like so many over-sized mushrooms.

Almost overnight more pop up spreading their fat port-a-cabin footprints across school grounds meaning wildlife ponds get filled in, football pitches are closed off, well drained grassy areas are concreted over and children’s play spaces are eroded.

Free schools, restricted children?
Then there’s Free Schools. In order to overcome premises issues, children attending new Free Schools no longer have the right to a school playground (the actual statement is that the schools no longer ‘have to provide’ those spaces – my language and interpretation is a little closer to that in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child).

And dare we ask what happens to taxpayer-funded green space around schools if they all become academies and local authorities no longer maintain those schools?

Where will powers to manage, build on, or sell, the land assets lie? With the local authorities still but with little motivation and no staff to support? Reversion to the Secretary of State perhaps? Or will they transfer to the ownership of the Multi-Academy Trusts themselves possibly with all of the implications that may bring?

Children’s recreation can be taken elsewhere apparently. I understand the theory and, for PE and field trips, this may well be possible, but I hold fast to the view that most busy teachers will not have the time or the facility to take children off-site for their break and lunch times.

The implications of this are very damaging. I don’t know of many teachers who believe the way to a fruitful afternoon of focussed classroom study is to incarcerate children indoors for their lunch break.

I also think large numbers of children in confined spaces disproportionately increases incidences of poor behaviour. I am sure it used to be called overcrowding and was not acceptable.

There is no avoiding the fact that we have more children now than we have school places and it is going to get worse, not better. We would be foolish to cross our arms, stamp our feet and wave the ‘it’s not my problem’ flag.

This is why initiatives such as Sowing the Seeds are so important right now.

Unless we protect and promote children’s right to play in nature near to their homes at a time when they are not necessarily accessing nature in school then we will be raising a generation of children who don’t really know what nature is.

And if they do not know and appreciate nature they will not protect it as they grow up.

As Sir David Attenborough says in our short Basic Needs film, if they do not protect it who will?

www.ltl.org.uk/basicneed

 

 

Honey, we shrunk the kids

With most children in the UK now living in towns and cities, growing up with nature is more than just a pragmatic need – it’s the essence of being civilized, says Judy Ling Wong CBE, chair of Sowing the Seeds London.

written by Judy Ling Wong CBE (chair of Sowing the Seeds London)

Sowing the Seeds London brings organisations and individuals together to enable access to nature to become a reality for every London child under 12. Our strapline is “Every child can play in nature on their doorstep.”

Now, I can be very pragmatic and say all kinds of things that policy makers and funders deem significant – access to nature is essential to child development, benefits mental and physical health, increases resilience and so on.

Plus, with London being the powerhouse that it is, an entire generation of environmentally aware people will significantly underpin the future of our earth and therefore our own survival in time to come. All of these are undoubtedly important.

But if you gave me a million of the largest trees, I can spend a lifetime sifting through each of their beautiful leaves through the seasons and I will be unable to find two leaves exactly the same – that is the fascination and magnificence of nature! It is stimulating, uplifting, astounding, inspiring… enriching every aspect of our aliveness.

Trapped
Being outdoors with the wind in our hair, the infinitely varying colours, the changing light, birdsong, the scurrying of a fluffy tailed squirrel, basking in the warmth of the sun, lying in the grass among daisies watching the shifting clouds – access to all of these simple qualities of wildness are receding in our beloved city of London.

Our children are trapped, in all kinds of ways, inside variations of four walls. With that, the potential range of the reflective, expressive and initiative-taking personalities of our children is shrinking.

The meaning of our literature will be impoverished, for when children that do not know nature read the words, idioms, or metaphors that are infused with experience shaped by the elements of nature, they will feel nothing.

Growing up with nature is therefore more than just a pragmatic need – it’s something quite serious, for the descriptors of the conscious reality that describes our lives is born of our immersion in nature.

Staying alive
Industrialisation and our mechanistic digital urban lives are very recent phenomena. We’re living off the residual life experiences of generations that knew nature as a central part of their way of life. Childhoods devoid of nature will not give us the continuity we need to sustain a heritage and a civilization that is about more than just staying alive.

80% of children in the UK now live in urban areas. We need not just to retain the green spaces we have but consciously increase and incorporate areas with a sense of wild nature, in which children can play and lose their imaginative selves, growing not just their bodies but their very souls. Of course, they need to be allowed out to do this. The more children and families come outside, the safer everyone is.

Our name comes from the report of the same name for the Mayor’s London Sustainable Development Commission by Tim Gill. The report gives us the basis for putting the case and kicks off the process by giving us focused recommendations.

Join us! For our children, for us, for our environment, and for a sensuous rich natural way of life that produces civilizations.