Survival skills bring us into communication with the Land, Plants & Nature. By learning skills our distant indigenous ancestors used to survive, we learn how we are connected to the land. Our brain is tuned to nature; we are hardwired to it at a subconscious level. We don’t feel it, but we benefit from it, and this is supported by medical/psychological research. Big claims? Gardening is recognised in psychiatry as a medication-free long-term treatment for anxiety. An hour of gardening a day + psychological/peer support. But nature, and close contact with nature, is where the connection happens. By handling plants and using them to create things we might usually buy, we start to understand how the depletion of nature makes some items scarce. I have waited years to get hold of some coppiced Lime (Tilia x europaea). I am retting the bark now. I have strict rules about what I accept from nature. I don’t buy materials.

I suspect that there are Greens who look at Solidarity Prepping and think it’s prepping like others. Solidarity Prepping is anti-fascist, pro-science, and presented by an ex-anti-roads protestor, ex-health-worker, climate dad type. This entire blog and my own linked videos are a radical Green approach to individual preparedness. Which is repeatable by anyone who is also preparing for what happens next. Community preparedness is where everyone is also individually prepared, 1st Aid trained, Mental Health 1sta Aid trained, and at least a few have survival skills.

I designed and piloted a green therapy project at a large psychiatric teaching hospital and won an award for it. I have seen nature support recovery in many patients. When I say “nature supporting recovery”, it is what I mean. I’m in nature more than anywhere else. Nature Love, plant love, animal love and learning new skills in nature are good for our mental health and wellbeing. I chose to be in nature, where I have reclaimed wasteland from rubbish. planted many woodlands, and have barter relationships with a few landowners for my skills.

Some of the things I experiment with are only possible in certain places because nature is so depleted; plants that used to be common across the country are now scarce. Ancient coppices, neglected since my grandparents’ time, are slowly reverting to high forest. We connect deeply to nature by returning to these skills and practices for our mental health, for nature and for the climate. I left healthcare a little while ago, and my new employer sent me on a Mental Health 1st Aid course, and it was excellent. We should all be mental health 1st Aiders, with the certificate.

Climate Change & The Pollychrisis Are The Signals To Prepare

The Polar vortex blocking the Heat Dome over Europe and cooking England with humid heat is climate change. Each summer it has got a little hotter than the last. The global average surface temperature is approximately 1.4°C to 1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels. This warming trend means the planet is currently hovering near the critical thresholds established by international climate agreements.

This heat is the future

Survivalists do the research to understand the risks: pluvial rain, flooding, changed seasons, agricultural collapse, severe storms, and alternative staples which can survive 45°C+. It grows from the Arctic Circle to the Equator. I grow it in shallow ponds where I know the Water is Clean. I also use it to purify rainwater. The entire plant is edible and a superfood.

Connection To Nature Is Becoming Such a Throw-Away Phrase, It Is Meaningless

From forest schools, forest bathing, to New-Age Neo-Shamans, every single one of these practitioners will tell you they are facilitating a connection to nature through one method or another. Or you can ask a real Shaman from Satmi, Europe’s last true Pagans.

Following Jungle Svoni example, I too spend long periods in nature. I am no Shaman, I am not pretending to be a hunter-gatherer, nor do I expect that to be a future post-collapse, Plucky Hunter-Gatherer roaming a burning planet. These skills, however, are a complex understanding of plants and processing them for many different uses. Learning these skills teaches us resourcefulness and resilience. Skills like coppicing can be learned by volunteering at Wildlife Trusts or working and restoring coppice woodlands. Working in ancient woodlands helps develop a deep connection with the land. A far deeper connection to nature develops when we actually learn about its many bountiful aspects.

Nature Depleted, Observed By Survivalists Long Befor The Government Was Suppresing The Report

You can’t build a shelter like this anywhere; the combination of a suitable site and materials in the vicinity is becoming rare. The Skills of the advanced survivalist are to assess if a site is even suitable to camp in. The Bug-out or run to the hills fantasy never includes careful site selection. Tents are either too hot or freezing cold. But a shelter Which Can keep out the heat and in which you can have a fire is on another level. In a crisis or disaster, people with skills help solve problems for other people, because survivalism isn’t about selfish survival. Survivalists are like First Aiders with skills for collapse and post-collapse.

Advanced fire and tinder knowledge and skills. I taught my now 25-year-old son how to make fires from scratch in nature, and not to be scared of plants like nettle. Outdoor resilience skills were becoming a thing of the past on YouTube. AI slop, Covid denial, conspiracy theories, climate denial, misinformation and bragging about voting Reform is the stock output from a lot of the UK prepper community, and none of this is of any use to the climate acceptance community.

I joined a forum for preppers a couple of years ago, which was a toxic place. But there were Greens on the forum who PM’d me when I was targeted by the local troll. Some survival/bushcraft/prepping forums ban climate change as a subject because it’s too triggering for the idiots, and denial is the default.

I was once asked why I experiment with so many plants for tinder by the group expert on a (Facebook) survival forum. When I responded, “because there are no Birches near me, and in case they go extinct due to climate change”, I got a lot of laugh emojis and the usual denial nonsense. The main reason I try so many plants as tinder is that our ancestors would have done this and built a strong relationship with 1000s of plants.

Apart from the plants you eat and grow, how many other plants do you have an intimate relationship with where you regularly process them with simple tools you could make yourself or learn to make?

Nettle tinder from a living plant to usable tinder in 4 hours

A Deep Connection To The Web Of Life Is More Than Sitting Under A Tree Or Spending The Night In A Hole In The Ground