In this episode of Unearthed: Nature needs us from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew we ask what it means to regenerate and restore degraded forests and landscapes, and why so many tree-planting projects in the past have failed.

Mya-Rose Craig (AKA “Birdgirl”) hears from Kew’s scientists including Dr James Borrell, and Dr Kate Hardwick, who are leading the conversation and collaborating with other organisations on how to reforest and regenerate successfully. We visit the Woodland Trust’s Home Farm, one of the largest native woodland creation sites in Southern England, where Forest Research Forest Ecologist Nicola Cotterill is carrying out research into how genetic diversity can help strengthen the ecosystem.

Building back ecosystems with genetic resilience is essential if we want species to survive disease, pests, climate change and other changing conditions. But UK woodlands are facing an enormous battle with Ash Dieback. We meet Russell Croft, the Arboretum Manager at Wakehurst, to find out how the team there are managing the effects of this disease in Kew’s own beautiful nature reserve.

And Professor Katie Field explores how the past can unveil incredible insights into our forest ecosystems.

Further afield, in Thailand, Professor Steve Elliot and the team at FORRU (Forest Research and Restoration Unit at Chiang Mai University) are working with schools to run innovative seed collection and tree planting programmes as part of their version of the “Framework Species Methodology”. As they restore tropical forest ecosystems, Steve explains how all wildlife is prospering from planting the right kinds of species in open areas close to natural forest.

Kew’s partnerships around the world enable amazing seed conservation and species reintroduction work to take place and this has extended to the volcanic slopes of Indonesia, at Mount Ciremai. Dr Dian Latifah and Dr Yayan Kusuma from BRIN tell us about this exciting project.

Dr Kate Hardwick has worked heavily in the tropics and is Restoration Coordinator for Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank Programme. She and Isabella Tree – Wilding author and co-owner of the Knepp Estate in Sussex – unpick the differences between rewilding and regeneration and explore the spectrum of conservation that encompasses these approaches to regenerating our landscapes.

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