Nourishing brings our focus onto nature’s fundamental process of continuously cycling and improving the quality of nutrients and the capacity to use those nutrients and the bonding this requires. This is the basic level at which energy is derived for all life that inhabits the planet. How can we observe this process, and how to enhance what nature is doing?

The Wilderness Centre currently provides shelter for a precious variety of wildlife. The ancient semi-natural woodland and grasslands all feature on the UK Priority Habitats List because they have both escaped the intensification of agriculture. There is great potential to welcome new life here through creating new habitats in hedgerows, our meadows, stonewalls, temporary ponds and woodland.

Creating beneficial associations that make available increasingly rich and diverse sources of food and energy is what seems key to bringing out life’s potential. Think of ourselves, moving from infancy to adulthood and how our family network responds to a growing child with the right nourishment and stimulation at the right time, and in the process we mature and the family becomes able to contribute to the next generation when the time comes.

This plan goes beyond doing all the good things that ecologists indicate are likely to help nature thrive here. We want to give everyone who comes to the Wilderness the chance to make their own connection to it. Some of the places, trees, or creatures on the site will be special to you; they will hold something of the spirit of the place and represent what you want to see endure here. Some spots may be special to us all. Making this explicit and even marking these spots, may draw us closer to the place and its potential.

If as many scientists believe, that life is continually adapting and responding and in a state of flow and becoming, then our own efforts to bring more life also need to keep developing and evolving. If what we do becomes routine and mechanical, it is likely we will lose interest, and our work may have limited effect. The invitation is to keep learning. We might find that as we learn more about the Wilderness, and as we review what we are achieving with this plan each of us is drawn to ask: what’s required of me now if I am to make a contribution?

The sixth essential process focuses on the question: why are we doing any of this at all? There will be many answers to this question but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good question to ask. We would like this part of the plan to open up the space for parties, festivals, and fun. There should be a chance to celebrate the many reasons why we’re committing time with others to bring new life here and how that benefits the wider Forest and County around us - in a way that brings out the spirit of the Wilderness.