Cabin in the woods (a preview)

Tucked between Douglas Fir and regenerating birch, there’s a small green oak cabin at Hazel Hill Wood. From its windows and door, all you can see is woodland. 

The cabin was gifted to the Trust by our founder, Alan Heeks, and yesterday I worked with a group of volunteers to give it a spring clean. We’re hoping to bring it back to life — maybe as a writer’s cabin, maybe a solo retreat space.

I can vouch for it as a place to write. This is where I drafted the Critical Thinking training for Useful Simple Trust (some of which made it into the Pattern Book for Regenerative Design). It is also where I have written many blog posts. 

In time, I’d love to see team leaders or designers using the space — staying a night or two and putting their plans through a series of regenerative prompts. And they might not even need the prompts, as the wood seems to ask questions of you the more time you spend there. 

The cabin still needs a few upgrades, and we’re thinking of launching a crowdfunder to help make it happen. If a solo professional retreat in the woods sounds like your kind of thing, let me know.

Seedling analogy – working with what is emergent

Seedling analogy - picture shows a sweet chestnut emerging from a tree tube

The aim of conservation work at Hazel Hill Wood is to help accelerate the diversification of the woodland from commercial forest to a mixed-leaf woodland. Why? Because the more varied the woodland, the greater its likely resilience to a changing climate. Of course, in the normal course of things, the make-up of species in the wood would adapt in response to the changing climate. But these aren’t normal times. Human-induced climate breakdown is causing environmental conditions to change faster than the trees can respond. And so part of our work at the wood is to help accelerate this diversification process. 

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