WorldWild Podcast

65 | Who Else Lives Here? with Dave Goulson

Miles Irving — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 06:42:37 -0500

Who else lives here?

Miles and Dave met in the Sussex countryside (in Dave’s garden) to talk about the multispecies relationships which underpin our lives. Their conversation spans the ecology of bees, planting for wildlife, pesticides, and bringing people home to interdependence. Miles and Dave shared a lunch of pasta with mushrooms, nettles, wild garlic, hogweed, and cow parsley.

Dave, professor of Biology at the University of Sussex and author of Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse, specialises in the ecology of insects, especially bees. He generously shares his research experiences and insight in their conservation conversation. By being attentive to the garden together, Miles and Dave share and grow in their understanding of what it means to live alongside so many other living things.

Dave Goulson’s upcoming book Eat the Planet Well can be found here.

64 | Repairing the Tearing with Dr Gail Bradbrook

Miles Irving — Sun, 11 May 2025 08:04:29 -0500

How can we work within the wounds of severance to bring repair to the trauma-induced damage of people and planet?

Gail, one of the Co-Founders of Extinction Rebellion, and Miles walk from Brantham, Suffolk, to the nearby Stour estuary on a cold grey January morning. They chat about XR and protest, birdwatching, body politics, humans as a keystone species, psychedelics, and cultural change. After some time spent with the low-flying knots at the water, Miles and Gail forage some ingredients for lunch as they make their way back to the village.

As they cook and eat together, they ask what community practices we need for a kinder future.

Gail is a Co-Founder of Extinction Rebellion. Her time is spent supporting people and actions to help us all meet the unfolding collapse of modernity. Dedicated to spreading dignity and freedom, reclaiming people power, and unifying with our global family, her activism has been a source of inspiration for many. Her doctorate is in molecular biophysics.

Here is a Greenbelt talk referred to in their conversation:

https://www.greenbelt.org.uk/product/the-religion-we-need-next/

Here are some of the books that they mention:

Hospicing Modernity - Vanessa Machado de Oliveira

Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive - Kristen J. Sollee

At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the Time of Climate Crises and Other Emergencies - Dougald Hine

The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World - Iain McGilchrist

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity - David Graeber and David Wengrow

Please, fund Gail’s work if you can

Updates about her work via telegram

Gail’s latest talk, So Now What blog, Just Transition blog, Lifehouse-Collapse Preparing Communities work

63 | Communities of Connection with Dr Dan Siegel

Miles Irving — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 09:09:14 -0500

In this third and final episode with Dan Siegel, the journey back to Oxford centres around religion and what Dan describes as ‘communities of connection’. What new forms will emerge in future and how can we participate in fostering that emergence?

62 | Longing for Belonging with Dr Dan Siegel

Miles Irving — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 05:23:28 -0500

Dan and Miles start their walk in the Oxfordshire countryside contemplating access restrictions to land and the humble stinging nettle. The conversation moves on to the innate need for belonging but also the problematic reality that in group outgroup distinctions appear to also be innate. The question then arises as to whether our ingroup category can be extended to include not just all humanity but all living beings…

Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

61 | Emerge and See with Dr Dan Siegel

Miles Irving — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 05:35:35 -0500

This week Miles speaks to Dan Siegel during their journey into the Oxford countryside. Dan is an author, therapist and founder of the interdisciplinary science of Interpersonal Neurobiology. This episode, the first of 3, introduces our new format which has Miles chatting to guests as they go for a walk that includes foraging, cooking and eating a meal.

Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

60 | Wild Acts of Resistance with Monica Wilde

Miles Irving — Sat, 16 Jul 2022 18:57:07 -0500

'We would have had to move around to follow these foods'. This week we are joined by returning guest and good friend of the podcast Monica Wilde, author of The Wilderness Cure (Simon and Schuster UK, 2022).

Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

59 | Missing Each Other with Richard Trudgen

Miles Irving — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 08:58:32 -0500

'We live right in the middle of tragedy. that's our daily life'. This week we are joined by Richard Trudgen, author of Why Warriors Lie Down and Die and long-time community educator working with the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land, Northern Australia.

Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

58 | Multidimensionality with Holly Bridges

Miles Irving — Mon, 09 May 2022 16:36:26 -0500

‘You can’t think it, you can’t create it from your mind. It’s not like that. You see what’s next. You keep walking'. This week we are joined by Holly Bridges, a somatic therapist and author of Re-frame Your Thinking Around Autism...

Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

57 | The Part of You That Gathers with Rachael Knight

Miles Irving — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 09:50:13 -0500

‘It's the collective unconscious of a community that draws forward ancestral ways that have been lost. because they are never really lost'. This week we are joined by Rachael Knight, an attorney with expertise in community land tenure security, community natural resource governance, legal empowerment, and community-led conservation and cultural revitalisation...

Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

56 | Forgotten Knowledges with Nina Lawrin

Miles Irving — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 11:15:54 -0500

‘How are things lost and forgotten, and when are they reclaimed?' This week we are joined by Nina Lawrin, an ethnobotanist, artist, urban forager, permaculture designer, and general world nomad...

Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

55 | Whispers of Better Things with Duncan Mackay

Miles Irving — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 09:25:10 -0500

‘Foraging is one of those essential roots to care for landscapes, care for biodiversity'. This week we are joined by Duncan Mackay, an environmental policy specialist and an elected council member of the National Trust...

Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

54 | Rites of Passage with Lucy O’Hagan

Miles Irving — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 11:45:39 -0500

‘We’re trying to create initiation that would have been developed by a community for a community, in the absence of community’. This week we are joined by Lucy O'Hagan, an ancestral skills teacher, ethnobotanist, and wild food educator...

Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

52 | Wilding the Wheat Fields with John Letts

Miles Irving — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 02:47:12 -0500

‘Genetic diversity is the key to all resilience in nature’...

Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

51 | Never Being Alone Again with Vivienne Campbell

Miles Irving — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 02:54:53 -0500

'When you realise that you’re part of nature, it’s not just learning about it, when you realise that you actually are nature... when you link back into all of this, you’re never on your own again'...

Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

And we’re back...

Miles Irving — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 10:49:05 -0500

WorldWild Podcast is back with more episodes soon. Here Miles talks about going into podcast hibernation and what is to come... Stay tuned!

WorldWild Medley

Miles Irving — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 13:24:03 -0500

To celebrate 50 episodes of the WorldWild Podcast we've put together a medley of some conversations, stories, and songs which have inspired us to think a little wilder... Enjoy and thanks for your support!

50 | Being a People with Mark Lewis and David Benjamin Blower

Miles Irving — Sat, 27 Jun 2020 08:23:00 -0500

What does a new cultural story look like? How can we weave new threads to unearth old ways of being and relating? Exploring Mark Lewis' Native American heritage we begin to see the power of a story and the degree of loss which goes into the construction of one. Through exploring how the lessons he has learnt could inspire a UK wild-food cultural renaissance we tap into an even deeper truth; that what we are really looking for is a centre to grow...

49 | True Rebellion with Mark Lewis

Miles Irving — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 13:27:32 -0500

Connecting wild food to the culture, bringing up kids in a wilder way, making inter-generational learning happen to sustain ways of being and unearth tacit knowledge. All these and more we explore with returning guest Mark Lewis...

48 | The Unfolding with Irene Lyon

Miles Irving — Sat, 06 Jun 2020 03:41:15 -0500

The fourth and final part of a series on being rooted in your body, this week's guest is Irene Lyon, somatic practitioner and nervous system expert, who joins us to explore how our nervous systems can get regulated, how to work with past trauma, and humankind's relational nature. With an eye on what is possible for our bodies, our communities, and our planet, we end this short series with much hope.

47 | Our Deeper States with Holly Bridges

Miles Irving — Fri, 29 May 2020 01:00:00 -0500

'We've lost the language of the dorsal state, which our deeper states, our otherness states'. In the third of this series on the Polyvagal theory, we are joined by Holly Bridges who explains its connection to Autism and 'otherness states'. Tune in for a deep dive into bodily states, neuroception, and what might be possible as open up spaces for other ways of being...

46 | Befriending Your Nervous System with Deb Dana

Miles Irving — Fri, 22 May 2020 04:53:09 -0500

In the second of a series on the Polyvagal Theory, we are joined with respected and passionate Polyvagal clinician, consultant and lecturer, Deb Dana, to speak about what kinds of stories we tell ourselves and what this really tells us about the state we are in. She provides insight into ways to re-connect with the ventral vagal - or as she calls it: home. It is only through the body that we feel safe, so learning how to nourish our nervous system to get to that place time and time again can turn our limiting beliefs into 'stories of possibility'. Join us as we go deep into the body as we aim to befriend the nervous system...

45 | Body as an Antenna with Rachel Lambert

Miles Irving — Fri, 15 May 2020 05:56:42 -0500

In the first of a series on being in your body with reference to the Polyvagal Theory, we chat with Rachel Lambert, the singing forager, who not only regales us with songs about wild plants but also shares with us her journey through somatic therapy training, her teaching philosophy, the topics of stillness and movement, and the tendency in our society for wanting to pin things down into abstraction and the need to dance with language...

44 | Back Into the Wild with Lukasz Luczaj

Miles Irving — Fri, 08 May 2020 08:58:57 -0500

Ethnobotany seeks to investigate our relationship with plants, in the wider sense it is how we relate to the earth as a living planet. How we turn to it when we are met with frightening prospectives, and how we turn away from it in our quest for control. By tapping into humanity's exceptional potential, but not turning exceptionalist, we aim to seek ways to bring ourselves back into the complexity. Discussing this with us this week is returning guest Lukasz Luczaj, ethnobotanist and author of the new book On The Wild Side. Tune in for a peek at a wilder world...

43 | Hungry Hearts with Fred Gillam

Miles Irving — Fri, 01 May 2020 08:32:35 -0500

Journey with us into the biochemistry of reward, addiction’s evolutionary role, and life-supporting mechanisms, plus how they can be subverted by mechanised systems. We also discuss bee-keeping, de-organisming things, foraging as normal human behaviour, and being human when we are less than fifty-percent human cells. Joining us is Fred Gillam, medicinal mushroom teacher and forager, as we seek out a north star to guide us towards well-being...

42 | The Super Curious with Eleonora Matarrese

Miles Irving — Fri, 24 Apr 2020 07:28:00 -0500

We need to know the other living things around us. The work of remembering and documenting these intricate and intimate relations is one that receives little fanfare and even less funding. What Eleonora Matarrese is doing, then, is a deep unearthing of these relations through historical documents and literature. It is this that informs her cooking and the approach she takes in her restaurant in the mountains in Northern Italy, bringing forth remembrances to communicate through wild food...

41 | Wild Solitude with Leanne Townsend

Miles Irving — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 04:29:22 -0500

What happens when you become your own datum? Social scientist and forager Leanne Townsend finds herself turning into her own study subject as she looks at the lifestyles and practices that make up modern foraging. What comes to the surface time and again are the relational aspects of our ways of being; that which tells us where our beliefs, our practices, and our sense of self comes from is often rooted just below the surface. We dig a little deeper to find out more...

40 | Foraging with the Family with Kate Blincoe

Miles Irving — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 13:20:17 -0500

We've been grounded and before we take another journey around our room we should take a look at what's growing in the front garden, you might be surprised how many edible plants can go in a salad of many wild things just under your nose! In this episode we're joined with Kate Blincoe, author of The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Parenting, to discuss how we can all stay grounded in these trying times and inspire the next generation at the same time...

39 | The Janus-Faced Present with Adrian Boots

Miles Irving — Tue, 07 Apr 2020 06:04:33 -0500

What can we do in and around our homes to revitalise our relationships; with our landscapes, our communities, our bodies? Joined by wild food and outdoor adventure guide, Adrian Boots, we endeavour to come up with ways to weave ourselves into the fabric of life. One-eye backward, one-eye forward, with our feet firmly in the present...

38 | Starting with One Plant with Robin Harford

Miles Irving — Fri, 27 Mar 2020 08:56:09 -0500

Learning is empowering, that much we know. So how do we go about teaching whilst lessening the grip of authority and control - thereby empowering the individual to be their own authority, to embrace their own experience and to develop a relationship with a wild plant as commonplace as a dandelion. We are talking with Robin Harford, the man behind EatWeeds and author many foraging guide books, about what we can do right now to be more at home in nature and to embrace the sensory experience...

37 | A Feminine Landscape with Alys Fowler

Miles Irving — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 14:28:57 -0500

When all things seem uncertain we take solace in that which connects us to ourselves, to each other, to the land. When we are forming we learn to eat through the hospitality of the feminine; the womb, the breast, what the mother eats the child does also. And the land is the greatest mother of all, its abundant provisions are given over and over to us. We are speaking this week with Alys Fowler, horticulturist and journalist, about what we can do to confront issues of power, dominance, control, and what the wild provisions can tell us about the relationships we need the most right now...

36 | Wild Ways of Being with Fergus Drennan

Miles Irving — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 18:27:38 -0500

Fergus Drennan is a wild food experimentalist and educator who once ate only wild food for three months, he also crafts and teaches on wild paper-making and natural dyes and paints. Miles and Fergus go back over fifteen years; they talk about their early days driving to London to sell their foraged goods and Fergus recounts the story of how he managed to shut a major street down with police surrounding his wild food-filled car after making a delivery to The Ivy...

35 | Mental Health in the Kitchen with Andrew Clarke

Miles Irving — Sat, 29 Feb 2020 10:30:20 -0500

Mental health in the hospitality industry has become more recognised and spoken about in recent years. Andrew Clarke, chef and mental health ambassador, is working with restaurants to build spaces where people can share their struggles in a nurturing environment. Going through his own bout of depression a few years ago he began the hard work on himself. Now he wants to share his experience and to create a healthier and more fulfilling work-life for those in the same position...

34 | Reimagining Ourselves with Bruce Parry and Nicola Burgess

Miles Irving — Fri, 21 Feb 2020 10:48:21 -0500

Bruce Parry has visited with many indigenous tribes throughout his career in television and film. Now he has come to a point of wanting to put what he has learned of egalitarian values and land-based culture into action in his own life. Joining the conversation is forager, expedition leader and traditional crafts teacher Nicola Burgess for an open discussion of what kind of society we want to live in...

33 | Relinquishing Control with David Benjamin Blower

Miles Irving — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 14:01:33 -0500

All citizens, put your hands in the soil! Those are the words of David Benjamin Blower, musician, theologian, and podcaster, who talks with us about what to do when things are soon to change radically, what Francis Bacon left in his wake, on what comes after collapse, and why we must break down the wall between 'reality' and 'metaphor'...

32 | Improvisation and Wildness with Sam Bailey

Miles Irving — Sat, 01 Feb 2020 05:24:15 -0500

Musician, improviser, and educator Sam Bailey talks about wildness and spirit in improvisation, the relationship between craft and the unconscious and the role of serendipity. Plus, an improvised performance!

31 | Corrupting the Food System with Cesar Costa

Miles Irving — Sat, 25 Jan 2020 07:36:43 -0500

In Sao Paulo we catch up with Cesar Costa, head chef at Corrutela, to talk about a new food system, the job of chefs, the importance of love in food, and what he is doing on the ground to set up new supply chains and ways of eating out...

30 | Truffle Hunting with Melissa Waddingham

Miles Irving — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 06:00:49 -0500

On the trail with a top truffle hunter and her truffle-hunting dogs to seek out that wondrously scented and much-heralded subterranean treat...

29 | Full Nettle Jacket with Gillian Edom

Miles Irving — Fri, 29 Nov 2019 09:19:10 -0500

Stinging nettles. They conjure up a lot of images, maybe a few teary-eyed remembrances, so you may be surprised to learn of their historical use in textiles. We delve into nettle fibre history, processing techniques for fibre preparation and what the future may hold for wild crafts...

28 | The Picture of Nature with Anu Tossavainen

Miles Irving — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 18:09:27 -0500

Where do humans stand in the picture of nature? Our dictionary definition says we are outside of it, but how can this be right in a relational world? We talk with Finnish forager and teacher Anu Tossavainen about this and more; including a review of the berry and mushroom season in our respective countries and a look at why reindeers are moving south in Finland...

27 | Why Do Mushrooms Make Me So Happy with Matthew Rooney

Miles Irving — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 12:09:55 -0500

Come into the woods to delve into the magical world of medicinal mushrooms...

26 | Embracing Complexity with Fred Provenza

Miles Irving — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:21:04 -0500

Professor Fred Provenza re-joins us on the WorldWild Podcast to continue the conversation on complexity in food, different ways of doing agriculture, the wisdom of grazing animals and our own bodily wisdom...

25 | Wild-Farming with Tama Matsuoka Wong

Miles Irving — Sat, 12 Oct 2019 03:13:52 -0500

When is farming not farming and when is the wild not really that wild? What to do when what is sidelined may just be a path back to connection with our living planet? It's time to break down dichotomies and silos to move into a new space of possibility...

24 | Sensing Seaweed with Ole G. Mouritsen

Miles Irving — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 07:16:40 -0500

Traveling into the deep blue to talk about the food found there, why it may just be our species' saviour, and the science of umami synergy...

23 | Medicinal Mushrooms with Adam Haritan

Miles Irving — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 07:57:09 -0500

‘It’s ingesting the forest where it came from...that mushroom is made up of the elements that built that forest’...

22 | Essense of Lapland with Eva Gunnare

Miles Irving — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 06:56:09 -0500

Essense; with the emphasis on 'sense', allows us to perceive the world differently, not tied to written language and conceptual frameworks, but freed into wild lyricism and experiential abandon. Here, with Eva as our cultural guide, we take a journey through wild Lapland, Sámi culture, traditional singing, and connecting with deep truth and contentment...

21 | Places You Know with Thomas Laursen

Miles Irving — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 05:50:17 -0500

‘I take people to a place that they know, and then I change it, and now it’s a different place. After, they will be motivated to meet nature with more empathy and change how they act in the world’.

20 | Plants Native to Humans with John Kallas

Miles Irving — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 03:53:47 -0500

How to build community? This week the highly-respected wild food educator and author John Kallas joins us in conversation around community-building, the concept of elderhood, declining botanical knowledge, the potential of agroforestry and hydroponics, eating seaweeds, and tackling inertia to bring about change…

19 | Weeds to Delicacies with Mark Hix

Miles Irving — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 06:05:39 -0500

Telling the story behind the food on the plate and going foraging in central London with esteemed restaurateur Mark Hix...

18 | Nature the Great Library with John Akeroyd

Miles Irving — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 07:47:26 -0500

Botanist John Akeroyd takes us to the wilds of Romania and Ireland, through his days at Cambridge, and details the obstacles to conservation...

17 | The Story of Weeds with Philip B. Stark

Miles Irving — Fri, 02 Aug 2019 14:32:59 -0500

We talk with Professor Philip B. Stark, one of the key figures in the Berkeley Open Source Food Project, about what weeds can teach us...

16 | Modern British Cooking with Jeremy Lee

Miles Irving — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 03:56:39 -0500

Jeremy Lee, Chef Proprietor of Quo Vadis in London, is a man who knows good quality produce and the winding journey of British food up to now...

15 | Cactus Calls the Rain with Mark Lewis

Miles Irving — Thu, 04 Jul 2019 12:51:54 -0500

Journey through the desert with us as we talk about the heritage of harvesting the saguaro cactus, and the intimate bonds between person and place...

14 | What Might We Become with Sunny Savage

Miles Irving — Thu, 27 Jun 2019 07:11:22 -0500

One of the world's most biodiverse places, Hawaii is known for its natural splendor and for Sunny Savage; wild food advocate, author, and app-developer, it offers endless wild food adventures...

13 | Responsible Deliciousness with Matt Orlando

Miles Irving — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:41:03 -0500

One of the world's top chefs talks about what it really means to be sustainable in the food industry, brewing with wild plants, and the importance of inconvenience...

12 | Back to the Family Table with Santiago Lastra

Miles Irving — Wed, 12 Jun 2019 06:12:44 -0500

Globetrotting chef Santiago Lastra chats to us about his Mexican food heritage, love of wild flavours, how restaurants influence supply chains and his approach to dish preparation...

11 | Eating the Evidence with 'Wildman' Steve Brill & Violet Brill

Miles Irving — Mon, 27 May 2019 08:43:49 -0500

Wild food father-daughter team Steve & Violet Brill talk about what it's like to teach foraging in New York City and how Steve became a nationwide celebrity after picking a dandelion and getting arrested for it...

10 | Wild Food Traditions with Łukasz Łuczaj

Miles Irving — Fri, 03 May 2019 06:28:40 -0500

Ethnobotanist Łukasz Łuczaj takes us on a journey through traditional wild food knowledge around the world...

9 | An Ethnobotanist's View with Anna Lewington

Miles Irving — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 06:13:19 -0500

How can we move closer to living in harmony with the plants which have given us so much...

8 | False Dichotomies with Jules Pretty

Miles Irving — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 07:10:10 -0500

We need bonds with the land in order to survive, here we talk with prolific author and Professor of Environment and Society, Jules Pretty, on how to regain some...

7 | Restoring Vital Connection with Monica Wilde

Miles Irving — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 04:39:00 -0500

Reconnection with land and with each other are integral to finding our way...

6 | Food as Medicine with Alex Laird

Miles Irving — Thu, 21 Mar 2019 15:00:18 -0500

The wild food and medical herbalist worlds collide in this far-reaching conversation around the potential for food and our understanding of ourselves...

5 | Temporarily Uncertain of Our Position with Tristan Gooley

Miles Irving — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 06:13:33 -0500

Temporarily Uncertain of Our Position with Tristan Gooley. We go navigating in the natural world to try to find answers; how to reconnect with nature and what it means to be literate in the wild...

4 | Land, Heritage, and Freedom with Alastair McIntosh

Miles Irving — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 03:23:32 -0500

As if being guided by a Highland elder, Alastair McIntosh takes us on a journey through the deep history of our land; a history of dispossession, disconnection and now; community led initiatives to take back control...

3 | Wild Fermentation Helpline with Sandor Katz

Miles Irving — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 12:41:53 -0500

Exploring the exciting world of fermentation with Sandor Katz, author of The Art of Fermentation and Wild Fermentation...

2 | Rediscovering Nutritional Wisdom with Fred Provenza

Miles Irving — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 10:15:19 -0500

Delving deep into our food systems and ways to reconnect body and land with Professor Fred Provenza, author of Nourishment: What Animals Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom.

1 | Foraging and Knowledge with Samuel Thayer

Miles Irving — Mon, 29 Oct 2018 11:29:42 -0500

Miles Irving, author of The Forager Handbook and founder of Forager Ltd, introduces the World Wild Podcast and talks to Sam Thayer, world-renowned forager and author of The Forager's Harvest and most recently Incredible Wild Edibles.