The natural health service

Newcastle Town Moor and its famous cattle

First published in edition 205 of The Northumbrian, Apr/Mar 2025

Northumberland Wildlife Trust chief executive Mike Pratt explores the work being done to bring nature closer to the city

It is often said that the wildest place north of the Tyne is not the depths of Kielderhead and Whitelee Moor, Simonside or even Cheviot, but the Bigg Market in Newcastle late on a Saturday night. I imagine that is often the case, but there is also a much more meaningful connection, beyond a night out on the Toon, between the people of Tyneside and their surrounding wilder environs.

The natural heritage of Northumbria lies at the heart of the pride people feel in this part of the North East, and there is, as it happens, plenty of actual wildlife within the city limits and urban fringes. The River Tyne itself is a focus for this, as are other waterways. Newcastle’s Town Moor and parks represent some of the largest green areas in any UK city, and we have red squirrels, badgers, deer, otters and numerous birds from parakeets to buzzards in and around the city.

Northumberland Wildlife Trust and our partners are investing in bringing people closer to the wilder side of town. In fact, we have ten programmes doing this in Newcastle under the banner of Wild City. These include working with the Freemen and Community Forest on the Town Moor to plant hedges, trees, wildflower meadows, and grazed and wet pastures; and work with partners such as the Reece Foundation in the Ouseburn and elsewhere to reconnect people to nature.

We have youth projects, school eco-influencer schemes, community food-growing, local conservation, climate-action groups and more. The idea is to link people from all backgrounds and interests to nature in the city, enabling them to take the initiative and get back in touch with their natural heritage.

Much can be done where people are, and sometimes it is good to look beyond your immediate boundaries. We want to develop a programme to link people, especially young people, to places they may never have seen, to cultivate a generation of people who appreciate and want to nurture the nature of wilder Northumberland. This approach seeks to connect urban communities with Kielder, Whitelee and Redesdale, Rothbury and the coast; many of the nature reserves and areas we manage, to engender a new sense of appreciation and love.

Like many readers and writers of this magazine, I’ve always been immersed in nature and the countryside, and it is natural to me to watch wildlife, to walk and rest in nature. Some encounter with wildlife, elemental surprise, or view makes my day.

But that isn’t the case for most people, especially in an urban environment, where nature deficit disorder is a real risk and a feeling of isolation and disconnection can take over. As we know now, people most benefit when they are helped to reconnect with their natural selves and the nature around them. It can be therapeutic and life-changing, plugging back into the ‘natural health service’.

Often, people need a hand to do that, hence our Wild City and community engagement efforts. Our teams tell me how people react to nature when given the chance. It can appear life-changing, humbling and beautiful. As a ranger, I remember taking a group of youngsters to a forest. They had hardly been out of the city, and at first they felt disorientated and slightly uncomfortable. But over a weekend in the beauty of nature night and day, they began to relax and enjoy discovering the unknown, doing what came naturally.

I still take groups of adults out to forest bathe and practise mindfulness and movement in nature, and many say they feel held and healed by gradually bringing more nature into their daily lives. Seeing someone experiencing a new-found freedom, instinctively walking barefoot on moss under pine trees, is to witness transformation in tired, stressed people coping with busy, challenging lives.

We who benefit from being in the Northumbrian countryside and nature every day – who can at a turn of a moment feel part of the wholeness of it, be swept along in the seasons and in every aspect of beauty and wonder – have a great advantage, even if we can sometimes take it all for granted. But how better still to help to bridge the local urban-rural divide and link people in urban areas, some of whom have no connection to nature even close by, to the magnitude of what we have not that far away.

So, we intend to help Tynesiders to connect to the Simonside Hills and Hadrian’s Wall, the coast, Kielder and other natural areas, and feel part of the life, big and small, that exists there. We are fundraising and planning towards this, and we are about to appoint a community engagement officer at Rothbury to link urban communities with the natural world

The likes of our huge Rothbury estate and its links to Wallington, Hepple and beyond present fantastic opportunities for linking people to nature to cherish it into the future. This is what true nature conservation is all about. Through this, we may also see the long-term benefit of seeing people become that little bit wilder within themselves, on the outside, and maybe occasionally alongside the dubious pleasures of a Newcastle nightclub!  
Mike’s books of prose and poetry about the natural world, including Infinite Wonder, Loving Nature Back to Health, are available via Northumberland Wildlife Trust at www.nwt.org.uk and at selected bookshops, and online at: www.livingmindfullywild.com