Seeking asylum in nature
Listen now
Description
Helen Mark joins a group of asylum seekers as they help with a tree-planting project in Denbighshire. She hears how - without a car, and with rural buses both scarce and expensive - refugees rarely get access to the countryside. The group of people she meets have travelled to Wales from Liverpool for the day, but come originally from all over the world. She hears about the experiences of four of them - from Iraq, Iran, Namibia and Togo. They spend the day working alongside local conservation volunteers from the nearby village of Tremeirchion, sharing food, stories and songs. The project is organised by the charity Action Asylum, which has joined forces with the North Wales Wildlife Trust to get more than two thousand trees planted on former farmland near Offa's Dyke path. For the asylum seekers, who are not allowed to work while their cases are being assessed, it's a chance to contribute and do something constructive. With incredible views of the mountains in the distance and the Welsh coast spread out beneath them, Helen hears how working in the countryside is beneficial for both the environment and the refugees' mental health. Produced by Emma Campbell
More Episodes
Helen Mark visits 50 square miles that were neither England nor Scotland. The Debatable Lands, between Carlisle and Gretna, were home to untameable crime families that petrified the most powerful of Lords and Kings. For hundreds of years governments in London and Edinburgh left the region to its...
Published 10/03/24
Published 09/26/24
Martha Kearney follows the River Ouse, from the High Weald to the Sussex coast and - finally - into the sea itself. Along the way, she discovers how one of the UK's largest nature recovery projects is taking root. The project is called 'Weald to Waves' - it's a wildlife corridor that has been...
Published 09/26/24