The National Forest Podcast

In this episode, we explore the future of the National Forest. What will it look like centuries from now, when today’s National Forest babies are the ancestors of future generations? Our experts and advocates share their visions of a world where green space is truly accessible—and how long it might take to get there. We ask big questions, dream big, and invite you to be part of the journey. Who’s ready to help make it happen?

We visit Timber Festival – the former festival that took place in the National Forest at Feanedock Woodlands. Here, art, culture and wellbeing are at one with the landscape. It’s joyous – a slice of the harmony the National Forest's strategy aims to create long-term. We celebrate everything the Forest has achieved so far, and take an in-depth look at how it’s brought the community together.

We’ve caught up with the present day: it’s 2023 and the National Forest is growing and firmly entrenched in the landscape. Now, we have the space to think about expansion and our place in the world. We check in with our environment, economy and society. We’ve come so far, and made a huge impact. But new areas of focus have emerged since we began: the cost of living, mental health provision, and the stark effects of climate change. We explore the National Forest's strategy for the next 25 years, and how it plans to face these challenges head-on.

Our tree is now a seedling, and the soundscape has changed again. Is that the sound of water? It’s the 2000s, and the Ashby Canal is newly reopened. We plant the Forest's five millionth tree just outside Burton upon Trent and launch the National Forest Wood Fair. Our 06 March 2023 National Forest babies are teenagers now, and talk about their experience of growing up here. The National Forest is in its own period of growth and transition. It has achieved so much already, but there still feels like so much more to do. Will the National Forest be able to deliver on the hope it promised? By the end of this episode (the mid-point of the series) we should feel the jeopardy of this mammoth enterprise.

 We’re in the same place, but now it’s 1995 and the National Forest Company has been officially founded. We visit the site where the first National Forest trees were planted. We speak to a group of young adults; they are all very different, but have one thing in common: there were all born here in 1995. We speak to their older family members about what was happening for them at that time; their way of life and their hopes for the future. This episode focuses on birth and the promise of regeneration – and those people who were at the centre, living the change.

The rumble of traffic, the creak of rusting machinery; a distinct lack of wildlife’s thrum. This is the sound of the area that would eventually become the National Forest – but now, we’re in the late 1980s, following the closure of the coal and clay industries there. In this episode we focus on the things that preceded the National Forest’s inception, culminating in a land crying out for regeneration – not just environmentally, but economically and socially too. We explore the visionaries who decided to push for change, and how they made their voices heard. We understand what is at stake for the land and people who live here.