Alladale Wilderness Experience (AWE) is a professionally designed and delivered holistic environmental education and personal development course set within the most remote rewilding project in the UK.
We believe that young people must be inspired to preserve nature and that this is only possible through meaningful experiences in wild places. Yet, less than 40% of schoolchildren in the UK spend time regularly in natural settings. Our mission is to engage young people with nature, support their wellbeing, and empower the next generation of environmental stewards. This year, our charitable programme welcomed 125 schoolchildren for a life-changing, nature-focused experience.
Empowering the next generation of environmental stewards
From an early spring in April, to a chilly start to June, 125 children from Wick, Golspie, Dornoch, Tain, Invergordon, Alness and Dingwall schools attended TENT’s landmark outdoor environmental education programme based at Alladale Wilderness Reserve. The Wilderness Experience was designed and launched in 2024, bringing a refreshed approach to school activities at Alladale that began in 2008 and have a lasting legacy for local alumni, many of whom have gone into careers linked to nature as a result.
This year the concept of climate change was never far from the minds of participants as the groups in the first few weeks experienced drought conditions, high temperatures and strong sun, while later weeks saw cold wind and rain. These first-hand experiences of extreme weather conditions caused by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide made the job of communicating the benefits of nature restoration in mitigating these effects all the easier for the instructors delivering the course. Coupled with this, the teens adapted to restrictions in water supply, or the need for assessing the needs of the group for shelter and safety, giving them an appreciation of our impact on the planet, and setting them up with useful life skills.
One of the consequences of the remote location of the programme is a break from technology, as there is no wifi or phone signal at the basecamp. Many of the young people attending can be anxious about this before coming, but by the end of the week most are willing to acknowledge the relief they’ve felt by disconnecting from incessant notifications and an overload of oft-distressing information. Simple communal tasks, such as preparing and cooking food, or inventing games involving everyone, with each individual having the chance to show their particular skills, enabled them to appreciate the value and satisfaction of accomplishing simple tasks or enjoy each other’s achievements. By hometime, every group becomes a tribe, or a family.
Immersion in nature, together, gives participants the chance to share adversity, while taking the time to notice what’s around them and how they respond to it. They come to appreciate the natural world and our place in it, how its health affects our physical and mental wellbeing, and how caring for it and protecting it is also caring for and protecting ourselves. The majority of those who experience this want to spend more time doing it, whether in their leisure time, or as a career. And so we hope we are sowing the seeds of a new generation of nature ambassadors.
Alladale Wilderness Reserve has embarked on a mission of ecological restoration – a core part of the learning experience during the Alladale Wilderness Experience.
To restore forests, Alladale’s landscape-scale restoration plan has seen the planting of a million native saplings to date, reinstating a seed source for natural regeneration. These include a variety of native broadleaves and the iconic Scots pine – species that once took root in the Great Wood of Caledon. During the Alladale Wilderness Experience, children learn about the past, present, and future of Scotland’s landscapes, seeing and feeling first-hand the beneficial impacts that nature restoration has on land, ecosystems, and personal wellbeing.
Across the reserve, deer numbers have been reduced to more sustainable levels, allowing forests to regenerate. Trees help build healthy soils and diversify habitats; they will even revitalise local rivers, benefiting wild Atlantic salmon, brown trout, freshwater pearl mussels, and other aquatic species. These seemingly unseen ecological relationships open eyes to the wonder of nature, inspiring children as custodians for a nature-positive future. Children learn how through partnership approaches and collaboration, we can restore landscapes at-scale; they learn how whole river catchments can be restored, the focus of TENT’s Riverwoods: Catchment Restoration banner project, with which Alladale is a land partner.
Crucially, climate change forms a core part of the curriculum. Across Scotland, peatland restoration has a crucial role in mitigating the impacts of climate change. Re-wetting is currently underway across more than 720 hectares of degraded peatland at Alladale, locking in carbon. This also helps to regulate run-off, prevent erosion and improve water quality downstream. Local children had the chance to learn about the beneficial effect of peatland restoration for the global climate – a key part in understanding the relevance of their local nature to global systems.
Alladale offers the perfect location for children to learn and be inspired to protect nature.
“I loved learning new things like navigation, about animals and sustainability, making better and stronger friendships and being outside”
Pupil,
Dornoch Academy
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