Learning to Think Like a Forest - A Conversation with Ben Rawlence

One of the best things about this job is that I get to find out about and share some of the most exciting new developments in education all over the world, sometimes in the most unexpected places. My guest this week, the writer, human rights activist, turned educational entrepreneur Ben Rawlence and his amazing team are building just that in a small market town called Talgarth in mid-Wales. Black Mountains College is an incredible institution working with young people locally in mid-Wales and from across the UK, set up as an alive and direct response to the climate and ecological emergency to help create a future in which nature and human societies thrive. As you’ll hear Ben describe, the college is part of a tradition of land-based alternative education organisations such as Dartington College in the UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartington_College_of_Arts ) and Rabindrath Tagore's Visva-Bharati University in India (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visva-Bharati_University ) and is continuing and updating this tradition to become one of the most inspiring examples globally of what is possible and needed in these times. Ben is an award-winning writer, activist, and former speech writer to Sir Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy. He was a researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Africa division, worked for the Social Science Research Council in the USA, the Liberal Democrats in the UK and the Civic United Front in Tanzania.

His books include The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth and his forthcoming book Think Like a Forest: Letters to my Children from a Changing Planet: https://uk.bookshop.org/beta-search?keywords=Ben+Rawlence

BMC website: https://blackmountainscollege.uk/

Beth Nawr Festival: https://blackmountainscollege.uk/events/beth-nawr-festival-2026/

Ben's Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Rawlence