Growing Roots: Creating Sustainable Adventure Experiences with Trees

What is special about this course?

‘Growing Roots’ is a course to inspire people to collaborate with nature and develop their personal potential while running a rural enterprise. It explores how to design innovative experiences with trees which can provide an alternative, sustainable income while respecting and enhancing the forests and woodlands around you.

If you care deeply about the environment and want to find a way of working in real harmony with nature – giving back as much as you take from the countryside – ‘Growing Roots’ will help you develop your skills and business while nurturing your personal connection with green spaces.

Participants will learn about eco-economy and transformative ‘slow tourism’ in a way that benefits them and their community. Maybe you’re a crofter, run a bed and breakfast or represent a community-based tourism or land ownership group seeking to develop well-being experiences for visitors while also caring for the land. If so, this programme would suit you.

There’s an increasing demand globally for ‘soft’ adventures – experiences which encourage people to enhance their personal development while immersing themselves in a new learning environment. ‘Growing Roots’ offers the ideal opportunity to start designing soft adventure experiences in synergy with people and the planet.

Entry requirements

No formal entry requirements.

Over seven weekly evening sessions, online, lecturer and mountain writer Dr. Tamara Griffiths with a variety of guest tutors will support you to:

• Discover a range of experiences – including sustainable bushcraft without ‘using’ trees, forest food gardening, woodland crofting, crafts, and forest bathing - that allow people and the environment to prosper simultaneously and equally.
• Gain new insights to strengthen your business, your community and yourself.
• Understand trees as sentient beings and how to collaborate with the environment.
• Understand the context of rural livelihoods today through discussions including the multifunctional countryside and the experience economy.
• Learn how experiences with trees can lend themselves to working with NGOs, third-age care, local community groups and schools.

Equipment

Our online courses are easily accessible by computer, laptop, iPad or tablet through MS Teams

*IMPORTANT INFORMATION* Once you have made your booking, we will send you various emails prior to the course starting. These can go into Spam folders so please check there, and add business.whc@uhi.ac.uk to your Inbox.

Worried about your Internet connection? - To work effectively, Teams requires a minimum of 1.2 Mbps. You can check this here.

30 minutes before the course is due to start, a member of staff will be available by email: business.whc@uhi.ac.uk for any last-minute technical issues.

Fees

For the pilot course running in October 2022 the course fee is £88*. 

*This is a reduced rate as we have secured funding for the pilot of this course. Course fee will normally be £275.