Lost Woods reaching new audiences

One of the core aims of the Lost Woods programme, made possible thanks to money raised by National Lottery players through the National Lottery Heritage Fund, is to bring the benefits of time in nature to everyone - especially to people who face barriers to accessing woodland or who could benefit from a wellbeing boost.

We’ve been doing this by running specially designed wildlife and wellbeing walks in woodland near Hassocks with both the deaf community and adults with learning difficulties. The response was heartfelt. One participant told us:

"It was a lovely walk and I greatly appreciated an event specifically for the deaf and hard of hearing."

Another said it was the first time they had been to anything like that - a BSL-interpreted wildlife walk. There just aren’t any.

Our community-led approach is to work alongside organised groups that support underserved communities. Participants often face barriers to accessing woodland, such as not knowing where to go, what to do there, or needing someone to go with to feel safe.

One such group is Refugee Radio which runs a weekly mental health and social group for refugees from their base in Brighton. To get to know them and for them to get to know us, we visited one of their sessions and brought along leaves, woodland plants and magnifiers as a ‘bringing nature to you’ activity. This created much delight and sparked conversations and memories of nature from participants’ home countries. The next step is a nature walk with the group later this summer.

In February, we supported a group from Worthing 4 Refugees to help manage ancient woodland for a day, joining volunteers to coppice hazel trees on the Wiston Estate, led by Roots CIC. Traditional coppicing is fantastic for biodiversity, allowing light to reach the woodland floor so that flowers such as bluebells can flourish.

Feedback from the day was that participants loved it, felt very welcome and were keen to come back again!

To widen the options for the group to benefit from giving back to nature, in April we later introduced refugees from Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela to Sandgate Conservation Society's regular Saturday volunteer sessions. It was a sociable and friendly day building leaky dams and clearing brambles alongside regular volunteers and local scouts.

One Ukrainian participant wrote:

"We had a wonderful time in a beautiful place with wonderful people!"

We gain a lot of satisfaction from hearing that two of the refugees returned to volunteer independently. We know this benefits their wellbeing, supports the conservation group, and ultimately helps nature in Sussex.

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- Written by Mark Whitaker (Action in Rural Sussex, Lost Woods Project)

Photos: Ahmad and Yara coppicing at Wiston with Roots West Sussex CIC in February 2026.