Slow rise…or how a woodland grows – a conversation with Robert Penn

Rob Penn at Stump Up Trees site at Bryn Arw

A few weeks ago I travelled out of Cardiff to the eastern edge of the Brecon Beacons to chat with Robert Penn.

Rob is the highly accomplished author of numerous books including: It’s All About the Bike, The Man Who Made Things from Trees and is latest, Slow Rise – a global exploration of bread making.

Rob is also the co-founder of an exciting and important new reforestation charity called Stump Up Trees. Its aim is to plant one million native trees across the Brecon Beacons to boost biodiversity and help fight deforestation. A key part of the project involves working with upland farmers and other local landowners to include more trees on their land – so creating biodiversity corridors and helping boost natural flood management.

It’s a bold project and completely in keeping with The Liminal Forest’s quest to explore how we restore balance with nature. So it made perfect sense to go and chat with Rob about Stump Up for Trees and learn more about what inspires him about nature and woodlands in particular.

This is also the first in a series of audio interviews that we’ll be publishing as a podcast. You can listen to the walking conversation with Rob here.

A walking chat with Jane Davidson – Return to My Trees

In this episode I take a walk through the ancient Celtic Rainforest of Ty Canol with Jane Davidson, former minister for environment and sustainability in the Welsh government and one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act. We talk about the importance of restoring balance with nature and how walking can open our eyes to the possibilities of a better, sustainable future.