New movement aims to reconnect children with the outdoors

The idea behind the Wild Network, founded by ten organisations including Play England, Play Scotland, Play Wales, the National Trust and RSPB, is to ‘kick-start’ a revolution to reconnect children with the natural world.

As part of this, the Network is working with filmmaker David Bond, to promote his feature length documentary ‘Project Wild Thing’ which will be showing at Picturehouse cinemas across the country from 25 October.

The documentary follows David Bond, father of two, as he launches a marketing campaign to get children outside.

Mr Bond was inspired to make the documentary because of concerns his children spend too much time indoors in front of a screen, threatening to turn them into ‘glassy-eyed zombies’.

A survey, commissioned by Playday 2013 earlier this year, found that less than a quarter of children (23 per cent) play out at least seven times a week, with 40 per cent saying they want to play out more.

Just 17 per cent of children said there is freedom to go and explore in their neighbourhoods and only 4 per cent said they play in fields or woodland.

Andy Simpson, chair of the Wild Network, said, ‘The sort of outdoors childhood that many of us took for granted is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. In just one generation we have moved from a nation of free-range children to "cotton wool kids" that rarely play outside or have much of a connection with nature. If we don’t start to turn the tide now this could have major implications for the health and well-being of today’s children and the desire of people to care for the natural world around them.’

Mick Conway, nature play programme manager at Play England, said, ‘For children, nature doesn’t have to be something out there and far away, it can just be the doorstep miracle of a dandelion growing from a crack in the pavement, the fun of jumping in a puddle or wondering why the sky is blue.’

• For details of screenings of 'Project Wild Thing' visit http://projectwildthing.com/film