SEREN SESSIONS: Talks, debate & music

Alex Wharton is an award-winning writer, poet and Children’s Laureate Wales 2023-2025. He won the inaugural Rising Stars Wales Award in 2020 and has collaborated with key national organisations such as Cadw, National Dance Company Wales, Welsh Government, British Council of Literature and Welsh Libraries, and has also appeared at many festivals including ours this 2024!

Tommy is a registered occupational therapist and mindfulness teacher. He is a teacher on Insight Timer with over 45 thousands plays of his guided practices. He started Mindful Walks in 2018 and recently completed a MA in Teaching Mindfulness at Bangor University. Join Tommy Carr (MA Teaching Mindfulness) on a relaxed Mindful Walk at Between the Trees exploring your inner nature in nature through seven senses.

Sessions from the Forest Barn: 2pm Friday; 10am and 2pm Saturday and Sunday

Shags and Ducks and Rock’n’Roll

Dr Brian Briggs is a conservationist and musician on a lifelong quest to tune into the natural world. He is both a manager of an internationally important nature reserve in Wales, and the singer/songwriter for the band Stornoway. Brian will play a selection of amazing bird songs from his Avian Jukebox, and teach you how to identify some common British birds from their songs and calls. He will share fascinating secrets of bird communication and talk about the changing soundscapes of our natural environment, and describe how the sounds of nature have influenced his songwriting as frontman of the band Stornoway!

Dr Leah Salter and Julia Evans are co-directors of The Centre for Systemic Studies The Family Institute, Wales. Their talk will explore how we learn and who we learn with and from, in an ever-evolving, intra-connected, more-than-human world! They see learning as a social activity and are interested in how human and beyond-human systems interact to create learning communities. Delve into this on our opening Friday 👐

Systemic practitioners Leah Salter, Paul Price and Andre van Wyk will be hosting a “warm data lab” workshop, centered in ecosystemic practices and community conversations. A space where learning is relational and interdependency is fostered within group conversation, generating new understandings about complex human relationships and beyond! Join them looking through a number of lenses… 🔬

Carwyn Graves is a an author, public speaker and gardener based in Carmarthenshire. Author of the bestselling Apples of Wales, Welsh Food Stories (called ‘best food book of 2022’) and Tir: The Story of the Welsh Landscape (published spring 2024). This year at BTT, he takes us on a journey into the human and ecological history of Wales. Why, he asks, does the countryside contain far less nature and fewer people working the land than it did a century ago – and what can it teach us about how we approach the future?

PANEL: Ken Moon (Chair), Founder of Tir Pontypridd; Abi Reader (NFU CYMRU Deputy President and farmer; Carwyn Graves (Author of TIR: The Story of the Welsh Landscape); Simon Wright (Food writer and broadcaster, owners of Wright’s Food Emporium, Cams).

Very few of us have access to considerable areas of land, yet land, and how we use it, is critical to our sustainability both now, and in the years ahead. But when it comes to the question of how we’re all meant to live in Cymru sustainably we’ve barely touched the copa’r mynydd.  

• And what can we learn from the land use of the past, that can help us shape the future together?
• Is the push to cover the landscape in solar farms, wind farms and carbon offset tree planation’s the answer? 
• Should we all be eating far less meat and reducing stocking levels to meet local needs? 
• In a nation dominated by poor quality upland soils can mixed farming and agroforestry feed the population? 
• What role can our rural & urban communities play in managing land more sustainably?

As well as a brilliant musician, who has headlined BTT on a number of occasions with his band The Lost Boys, Sam is also a keen naturalist and enthusiastic forager. Join him on Saturday for fun, exploratory, foraging trip into the depth of Candleston Woods (Check the Forest barn notice board for time and sign-up sheet).

Join in on this talk on Saturday at 12pm with children’s author Catherine Fisher about the process of re-telling this ancient and exciting Mabinogion story. Catherine Fisher is a poet and author of fiction for children, twice winner of the Tir na n’Og prize and New York Times bestseller.

Hear wild and wonderful tales about talking trees and curious creatures with Tracy. Learn about kindness & being thankful for nature! Ages 5-11, but everyone is welcome!

Saturday & Sunday at 3pm

🔮 Professional teller of traditional tales Daniel Morden joins our festival for the first time this year! Join him in the Mabinogi world as he explores nature and poetry through the iconic story of Taliesin… He is a fantastic, renowned storyteller, author and podcaster, also found in The Devil’s Violin project with Sarah Moody and Olly-Wilson Dickson from trio Alaw! 🔮

🌊 Leanne is one of the original founders and current CEO of Project Seagrass, as well as named one of the BBCs top 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world! In her talk, she explores what we can do to help against the destruction of native seagrass meadows and to protect what’s left and put back some of what has been lost… 🌊

‘Sleepwalking into Climate Change?’ is a compilation of 3 short films, which were largely filmed locally in Porthcawl (Bridgend Borough). It locates climate change in the places where we live, involves young people and aims to stimulate debate and action locally. The film engages the public, a NRW scientist, a Bangor University academic, WWF Cymru, Community Energy Wales, Bro Ffestiniog Citizen’s Assembly, Cenin Renewables, the ‘Hi Tide’ business a local politicians. The series of films was produced by the charity Sustainable Wales and film company Mud and Thunder. Contact: Margaret Minhinnick for further details. She can be found at the Sustainable Wales Stall. Sunday 2pm.

New to the festival, wild swimmer and poet Katrina Naomi shares her poetry and experience of swimming every day for a year in Battery Rocks, Cornwall! Her collection of poems is a thoughtful meditation on nature, risk, swimming and the sea; encountering a wide range of topics including issues of fear, strength, vulnerability, climate emergency and self realization 🏊

Explorer, writer and presenter Will Millard, brings you ‘The Magic of Water’ – a children’s talk all about the magical beings that inhabit our freshwater environments. He will be bringing tanks with live specimens (native & tropical) and telling the story of what lives in our watery world and why it matters! 🐠

Filkin’s Drift are not only incredible musicians, but they are also making a change in the world! Come watch and listen to their journey about walking the Welsh coastline to combat sustainable gigging, all while fundraising for Live Music Now. They have lots to share and lots of supportive followers by their side 👣

Martin is a keen enthusiast of all things fungi with 40 years experience in the field and loves sharing his fascination of how fungi profoundly interact with our lives. He hosts guided walks and talks through the forest, so make sure to check the programme timings and join along!

Phil Cope is a writer, photographer and poet, with a series of groundbreaking books published by Seren and Parthian on the oldest music, holy wells and sacred springs! Phil’s talk will share some of his poems with us and maybe encourage some new ones to be written ✍️

Head of the Cardiff University Otter Project (CUOP), Elizabeth Chadwick’s research focuses on freshwater aquatic systems, particularly the Eurasian otter and British amphibians! Using the otter as a model species, she addresses fundamental questions about population biology and freshwater systems 🦦