Resources

Organisations & recording schemes

Organisations, surveys, identification tools, award schemes and other teachers I recommend. Taking part in a survey is one of the best ways to give back: your sightings help protect the wildlife you have come to know.

Conservation and wildlife organisations

UK charities that look after wildlife and wild places. Most have local groups, events and ways to volunteer.

Nature connection and mentoring

People and networks working with deep nature connection, mentoring and the 8 Shields model in the UK.

Wildlife surveys and recording schemes

Your sightings count. These citizen science projects turn what you notice into records that help protect wildlife. The National Biodiversity Network keeps a full database of UK surveys and recording schemes.

Identify what you find

Apps and websites to help you put a name to a plant, bird, bug or fungus. Always double-check before touching or eating anything.

Record and share

Activity schemes and awards

John Muir Award (John Muir Trust)
50 things to do before you're 11¾ (National Trust)
30 Days Wild (The Wildlife Trusts)
Naturalist and other badges (The Scout Association)
Woodcraft Folk
Kamana: an independent-study naturalist training programme created by Jon Young

Knowledge and teaching resources

Wildlife education and bushcraft providers

Other people and organisations offering courses, from wildlife identification and tracking to bushcraft and outdoor learning.

Safety, and where the Wilding activity guides come from

Look after yourself and others. Outdoor activities carry real risks: fire, tools, water, weather, heights, plants, fungi, animals and getting lost. Every Wilding activity guide includes safety notes, but you are responsible for your own safety and for anyone in your care. Supervise children closely, get the landowner's permission, follow the Countryside Code, never eat anything you cannot identify with complete certainty, and only light fires where it is allowed and safe. If in doubt, leave it out.

With gratitude to the lineage. Wilding and its Practice Keys are inspired by the work of Jon Young and colleagues: the core routines of nature connection in the 8 Shields approach, also known as Coyote Mentoring, shared in Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature (Young, Haas & McGown). Many of the Wilding activity guides grew from those routines.

These ways of noticing and belonging are far older than any book. They grow from the knowledge of Indigenous and land-based peoples around the world, who have lived in close relationship with the land for thousands of years and have kept that knowledge alive, often in the face of great loss. Jon Young describes 8 Shields as built on patterns of nature connection he found in Indigenous cultures around the world, and on what his mentors taught him, including the teachings passed down through Tom Brown Jr. from Grandfather Stalking Wolf. Our own ancestors in these islands once knew the land in this way too.

I offer Wilding with deep respect and thanks to all of them. It does not claim or copy any culture's ceremonies or sacred practices. It is a UK way of carrying forward simple, shared human ways of paying attention, giving thanks and belonging to a place. — Jay