Paul is the founder and lead instructor for Explore Our Nature, based in the Midlands. Through a variety of courses, qualifications and retreats, his work focuses on creating more meaningful relationships with the natural world through bushcraft, foraging, tracking, woodcraft and forest school.
Before setting up Explore Our Nature he worked as a community forester, advanced forestry instructor, countryside ranger, forest school trainer and bushcraft instructor. Paul has been teaching for over 20 years, working with a variety of communities across different cultures and lands. He is one of the most experienced and respected forest school trainers in the world, having trained thousands of practitioners both within the UK and internationally.
Paul lives surrounded by the forests that he grew up in as a child and so spends a huge amount of time learning from the land. He especially enjoys studying and sharing primitive skills, plant uses and tracking as ways of opening up how people relate to the natural world.
Paul is currently undertaking a Masters in Outdoor and Experiential Learning, specialising in Bushcraft. He is deep in research that explores new directions for how bushcraft can contribute to bioregionalism. He is especially interested in different physical and emotional sensations of the natural world that persist after working with natural materials, as well as the role of foraging in promoting a sense of place.
Currently, Paul is creating radically new approaches in the areas of forest school, bushcraft and outdoor play, pioneering new practice as it relates to ‘nature connection’ as well as increasingly advising on projects within the field of sustainability. He now works with several local and international projects centred on communities and their relationship with their natural environment.
On completing his Masters, Paul will be continuing onto a PhD where he will explore how we can develop a deep level kinship with the more-than-human world through natural crafts and everyday interactions with wildlife.