Projects
Renaturing an inner London School
Set up in early 2024 and led by Jane, the William Ellis School Eco Club aims to re-nature the school grounds and put students at the centre of the project. Students have learned about the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and how rewilding, restoration, and everyday choices can create positive change.
They’ve taken part in a range of opportunities, including EarthFest, a visit to a major recycling centre, and Camden’s Love Your Climate initiative, helping shape the next five-year Climate Action Plan. Guest speakers have taught them about local wildlife, and the students have also gained hands-on green skills: installing a 1000-litre pond with plants and a frog hibernaculum, planting trees, hedgerow species and wildflowers, and building hedgehog boxes, bird boxes and feeders. These efforts have already boosted local biodiversity. The newly planted trees are thriving and should eventually help cool the grounds and improve air quality.
More plans are underway—such as species monitoring and installing water butts—so watch this space!
Learn to rewild, a six-month youth program
WildGen is currently running a six-month programme taking 10 inner city London children (aged 13-15) from a London secondary school to a 150-acre ex-farmland in Kent, which is beginning its rewilding journey. Each month, children get to spend a full day on the land with two experienced session leaders/facilitators, engaging in hands-on rewilding/conservation work, nature arts and crafts, bushcraft and classroom-based rewilding lessons. The programme aims not only to improve on-site biodiversity but to increase participant well-being, resilience, environmental awareness, and green skills. And foster a deeper connection to nature and community.
Wild Card Ghost Woods campaign
From many submissions, Wild Card selected our Ghost Wood Shadow puppet artwork to be included with 9 other artists' for their Ghost Wood campaign!
The work will be published in a video zine and on social media.
In collaboration with The Forest School Way & Sophia Marinkov Jones, a London-based artist.
​This was an ambitious collaborative artwork that aimed to bring together the sounds and imagery of a group of children, including those from The Forest School Way and adult artists from the rewilding community. The artwork will tell the story of the Ghost Woods through shadow and sound. The shadows speak to the lost ancient woodlands of the past, but also to their possible resurrection from beneath commercial conifer plantations - the rewilding of the UK's Ghost woods.
For information, please see Wild Card
Home Educated children's rewilding day trip
As part of a free learning program, WildGen took a group of children to Rectory Rewilding in Kent. Here, the children carried out a hedgerow survey to establish its health and any future maintenance that may be required. The data was submitted to the owners as part of their site's baseline surveys to inform future works. Yellow rattle seeds were also collected from an on-site wildflower meadow to be stored ready for sowing in a donor field during early winter. Yellow rattle suppresses the growth of dominant grasses, allowing for more wildflowers to establish, which in turn provide a food source for many species, helping to increase biodiversity. The day was rounded off with tosting marshmallows on an open fire and meeting Truckee, the resident pig and his pal Carl the dog! A follow-on art project in collaboration with The Forest School Way is taking place, looking at extinct species and those being introduced to the UK with this group.
