About the Project
“When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure.” Rudolf Bahro
The Natural Change Project has been developed as part of WWF-UK’s work on Strategies for Change.
Growing evidence shows that current approaches to encouraging sustainable living do not result in long-term, large-scale, social change. This is because they do not address the deep seated social, cultural and psychological structures that hold many unsustainable patterns of behaviour in place.
The Natural Change Project explores how experiences of the natural world inspire people to live sustainably. In addition to this personal process, Natural Change also equips participants with the skills, insights and motivation to lead others towards a more sustainable future.
The Natural Change Project works with people who hold positions of influence in society, offering them potentially life-changing experiences of wild places. It then goes on to support the growth of these personal experiences into leadership and social action for an ecologically sustainable future. The stories of transformation that emerge from this process are published in real-time on the internet and are intended to inspire others.
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In 2007/08 a group of professional communicators participated in The Natural Change Project, communicating sustainability in an entirely new way.
In 2010/11 a group of leaders from the Scottish education system participated in The Natural Change Project, embedding sustainability in education.
The programme consists of a series of workshops run over a period of six months. An orientation day will be followed by two wilderness residential workshops either side of a one-day interim workshop. The groups then meet again for one day after the last workshop to ‘close’ and evaluate their experience. Mentoring support is offered throughout, and after the programme.
The online communications resources, including this website and team blogs deepen participants’ experiences and allow them to communicate to their professional and social networks. This creates a fertile context for transferring their learning beyond the programme itself. You can read the participants’ blogs here.
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The workshops that lie at the heart of The Natural Change Project were designed and facilitated by Dave Key in collaboration with Dr Margaret Kerr.
Dave Key is an Outdoor Educator and Ecopsychologist. Dr Margaret Kerr is an Integrative Psychotherapist and former medical doctor.
