7 minute read

Finding peace in wild things

‘I come into the peace of wild things.’ The well-known lines from Wendell Berry’s famous poem articulate something which most of us intuitively know to be true: spending time in nature helps us thrive. Despite the apparent oxymoron, ‘wild’ and ‘peace’ are actually remarkably snuggly bedfellows.

And Berry’s poem is all about those middle of the night feelings of despair which so many of us experience. His solution? In your mind, ‘go and lie down where the wood drake / rests in his beauty on the water’ and ‘come into the peace of wild things / who do not tax their lives with forethought / of grief’.

In July 2020, after the first lockdown, Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s nature in lockdown survey showed just how much the majority of people valued nature during this difficult time. 95% of those surveyed agreed that during that time of uncertainty, nature had been important to them for relieving stress, as well as for their mental and physical wellbeing. Three fifths of people also connected with nature in a way they hadn’t before.

The Mental Health Foundation’s 2021 report, ‘How connecting with nature benefits our mental health’, drew a clear conclusion: ‘Our relationship with nature – how much we notice, think about and appreciate our natural surroundings – is a critical factor in supporting good mental health and preventing distress.’

Research carried out for The Wildlife Trusts found that taking part in a Wildlife Trust project for at least six weeks resulted in significant improvements in mental wellbeing. In 2017, the University of Essex analysed the impact of volunteering with The Wildlife Trusts, assessing changes in 139 participants’ attitudes, behaviour and mental wellbeing over 12 weeks of group-based nature conservation.

The study found that people’s mental wellbeing significantly improved over the 12-week period with participants reporting enhanced feelings of positivity, increased general health and higher levels of physical activity. 95% of participants with low levels of mental wellbeing when they started a Wildlife Trust programme reported an improvement in their mental health in six weeks. You can read a summary of the findings here.

Thriving by the sea

Thanks to funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Your Shore team have made great strides in engaging the community in the Mounts Bay area. They have been working with young people in the area, connecting them with their local environments and taking action to tackle the ecological and climate crises. There have been a whole range of fun activities to connect children and young people with nature and the marine environment, including those from low-opportunity communities or excluded from mainstream education. The aim is to help improve wellbeing, appreciation for nature, and awareness of conservation issues.

One of the places the Your Shore spend a lot of time is Mounts Bay Academy: a school in Penzance with 960 11–16-year-old students. The project’s Youth Engagement Officer Claire and Apprentice Lucy go in once a week, working on activities days (for example, helping to take Year 10s on wildlife spotting walks on the moor, near Zennor) and leading Wildlife Club. With 6–15 regular members, the students in this club have made birdboxes to put up around the school, planted wildflowers, and tidied up the 20-year-old woodland on school site, so that this amazing space can be put to better use.

Wildlife Club members have also supported the running and planning of lessons with every year 7 class in school. They have learned all about bats in the woodland, aging trees, how to restore habitats for hedgehogs and birds, and how to identify trees by their buds in winter.

The team also held a rockpool ramble with fifteen pupils from the club, coming out of school to spend some time at Battery Rocks in Penzance. They explored the marine life and conducted a timed survey to see how many species they could find in twenty minutes. They found fifty in that short space of time, recording their findings on the Shoresearch app (The Wildlife Trust’s marine data app) and were delighted to learn that the data they gathered could be used by scientists all over the world. Lots of them said how much they enjoyed learning about all the different creatures they discovered: starfish, crabs, worm pipefish, and anemones.

The pupils who have been involved have loved being part of Wildlife Club at Mounts Bay Academy. “Since doing wildlife club I’ve really noticed holes in trees where animals live,” said one girl. “It’s really calming to spend time in the woods after school.” Another said, “In the classroom some people get stressed a lot because of the confined space with loads of people in. You think they are going to judge you. But when you’re out here you feel peaceful and everyone is just relaxed… It’s kind of relieving to be in an open space!” One pupil said they wanted to be a Marine Biologist when they grow up: “It’s really great to talk about the marine environment.”

In the classroom some people get stressed a lot because of the confined space with loads of people in. You think they are going to judge you. But when you’re out here you feel peaceful and everyone is just relaxed… It’s kind of relieving to be in an open space!

The Your Shore team have also run a five-week volunteering programme for students with additional needs at Penwith College on an access to learning course, studying Land and Coastal Management. They completed a huge range of activities, including a beach clean and a shark egg case hunt. The students learnt how to identify the egg cases which get washed up on the shore in Marazion using an app from the Shark Trust.

They all said how much they enjoyed it. One student said, “It was amazing: we learnt about shark eggs,” while another noted that “they learnt more about animals that live in the sea and enjoyed going out into the beach”. Perhaps the best comment was: “I learnt about different sea monsters!”

They also learnt about Mounts Bay’s marine megafauna – dolphins, whales, seals – and how to identify them. The team took them to Mousehole to learn how to use binoculars and telescopes for the first time and were lucky enough to spot lots of seals.

Thriving on the land

Kernow Glassa, another Cornwall Wildlife Trust project funded by the Government's Green Recovery Challenge Fund, also provides opportunities to help people thrive in the natural world through volunteering. Aimed particularly at those who would like to improve their mental health, Kernow Glassa offers the chance to get out for some gentle volunteering on The Trust’s nature reserves through six or twelve-week courses. Volunteers, for example, have done excellent work bracken bashing on Breney Common to clear scrub for rare marsh fritillary butterflies which are found on this nature reserve.

Some of the participants access these courses through social prescribing and have found the initial welcome and contact from Charlotte Goodship, Green Recovery Challenge Fund Volunteer and Community Engagement Coordinator, particularly helpful. One person said, “Thank you for seeing me yesterday, I really appreciated it. It has helped reduce my anxiety and I’m looking forward to starting…” Another person who was referred to the project commented on how much it had helped grow their confidence.

This growth in confidence and an overall improvement in mood has also been recognised in feedback from referring bodies. One social prescriber stated that they had noticed a visible improvement in their client’s overall confidence and wellbeing. The initial results obtained from the Warwick Edinburgh scale – a widely used survey to shape and develop programs aimed at improving health and wellbeing – indicate that over 50% of our volunteers now feel more hopeful about the future and have seen an increased level in their confidence.

Visit our Kernow Glassa page to sign up to volunteer with us out on some of our nature reserves. The next twelve-week course begins on 20^th July.  

Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Nature Wellbeing Co-ordinator, Eve Tucker also works hard to engage people with nature’s capacity to help us thrive. Her role is all about getting people out and about to connect with nature. She’s led walks on our nature reserves, facilitated activities making bird feeders and bug hotels, and has organised a series of foraging walks to help with mental wellbeing. Eve strongly believes that activities such as foraging for food really help people to slow down and connect with the world in a mindful way.

The feedback from Eve's foraging walks has really highlighted the impact they can have on improving mental wellbeing. “This was simply my favourite day of the year so far,” said one participant. “I had a lovely time with the crew and hope you do many more things like this. It was thoughtful. Insightful. And I have learned things that otherwise I would probably miss for a long time. Maybe my whole time on this earth. I was smiling the days after and felt a lot freer. My friend was noticeably happier and we laughed about memories for the weeks after. Thank you!”

Another wrote: “The morning was a tonic from start to end.  We all lead such busy lives, so to have a few hours to just ‘be’, as well as to learn a new skill, was very special.  There is something very natural and essential about cooking as a group, nurturing and feeding each other as a form of respect and kindness and friendship. Sitting around the campfire with foragers’ soup and mint & nettle tea, all collected by us and for us, was a wonderful reminder of the important things in life.”

Listen to Eve talk about foraging and mental wellbeing on The Wild Cornwall Podcast.

At Cornwall Wildlife Trust, we’re hugely grateful to all of our funders. So much of the work we’re doing to support wellbeing is funded by the Green Recovery Challenge Fund and the National Lottery Heritage Fund... and a huge thanks to everyone whose lottery numbers help make these amazing things happen.