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Open Country

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of Britain

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of the British Isles

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Open Country: Young people and landscape, Doncaster

Young people and landscape, Doncaster

19/04/2018

BBC Radio 4 - Open Country, Young people and landscape, Doncaster

Dominique Moore finds out how young people are engaging with the landscape near Doncaster.

Lions and paintballing: actress Dominique Moore meets young people who are using the landscape around Doncaster.

Actress Dominique Moore visits forests, moors and parkland around Doncaster to find out how young people here are using the countryside. 

Rural landscapes in this area tend to be sandwiched between motorways, airports and industrial parks, but there are places to escape for a breath of fresh air, if you look carefully. And in Bawtry Forest, you won't just find trees. You might also bump into a couple of tanks or a helicopter from a film set, at the home of the largest paintballing centre in Europe. Owner Karl Broadbent says that young people think about the outdoor spaces through the prism of the computer games they play at home. 

Being tied to a screen can adversely affect your mental health, according to young graduates Megan Humphries and Helen Earnshaw, who are part of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust's 'Tomorrow's Natural Leaders' scheme. They are setting up an eco-therapy project to enable people to improve their mental well-being in the outdoors at the Trust's Potteric Carr Reserve. 

Dominique also meets 19 year old Suzanne Lines, an apprentice with Flying Futures, at Hatfield Moor. Learning survival skills on the National Citizen's Service course helped her discover a passion for the outdoors which she had never suspected. Now she leads groups of young people in alternative provision education, building fires and searching for adders on the Moor. 

The last visit is to meet the lions at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, which hosts 'ranger' training for young people on week-long courses in animal husbandry. The large carnivores are always popular with teenagers, according to Rachel Ford. But it's a shock for Dominique to go behind the scenes and visit the Meat Store. Hand-feeding the wallabies, on the other hand, is hard to resist.

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