Through The Bush Backwards: This multifaceted project will take you on a journey through time to explore how Britain’s nature has changed and how it could be restored.

We’ll time travel through a graphic novel, where we’ll visit the Last Interglacial (125,000 years ago) when elephants and hippos were living in Southern England. We’ll stop off in the Last Glacial (40,000 years ago) when humans were just arriving in Britain encountering woolly mammoth and rhino. We’ll visit the Early Holocene (7,000 years ago) after the extinction of Britain’s big mammals, when human hunter gathers were hunting aurochs and red deer. We’ll drop into the Late Holocene (3000 years ago) after agriculture had arrived and farming communities had established.

Finally, we’ll talk about what our countryside looks like now and explore your visions for the future. We’ll play card games to introduce you to Britain’s past, present, and (maybe) future big mammals and we’ll help you create visions of Britain’s future by exploring how nature would change if different species were reintroduced.