Internet of Nature Podcast

Lucy Jones is a journalist and the author of Losing Eden — an investigation into what nature does for the human psyche, written from inside her own recovery from depression — and Matrescence , a memoir-meets-neuroscience of the developmental transition into motherhood. The word was coined in the 1970s by anthropologist Dana Raphael and brought back into circulation in 2017 by reproductive psychiat...

At ten, Gil Penalosa tried to convince his parents to let him quit school and turn pro. He was ranked second in tennis in Colombia. The catch: 99% of tennis in Colombia was played in private clubs — and Gil's family wasn't a member of any. He played on a public park court across from his house, and routinely beat the wealthy kids on their own courts. You can see the rest of the life unfold...

Fewer than 23% of Flemish children between 8 and 17 can identify a blackbird. Less than 5% can name a peacock butterfly. The mole scores highest — not because of nature education, but because it's a beloved character in children's stories. Nature isn't just disappearing from our landscapes. It's disappearing from our minds. In this episode, I sit down with Prof. Hans Van Dyck, beha...

Ya-Ting Liu became New York City's first-ever Chief Public Realm Officer in 2023 — a role created from scratch to focus City Hall's attention on the parks, plazas, streets, and sidewalks that make a dense city livable. Recorded inside NYC City Hall in November 2025, just after Zohran Mamdani's election as New York's next mayor but before his inauguration, this conversation traces h...

What does a nine-month Amazon expedition have to do with a public school playground in São Paulo? More than you'd think. This week, Nadina speaks with Laís Fleury — original story architect behind the Netflix documentary The Beginning of Life 2: Outside and children-and-nature lead at the Alana Foundation — about why urban children may be the planet’s most underestimated conservation strategy....

There's a statistic I keep coming back to: the average child can name more than 1,000 corporate logos, but fewer than 10 native plant species in their own neighborhood. Christina Delfico has been fighting that number for 13 years — one toddler, one oak tree, one planting day at a time. In this episode, I talk with Christina — Emmy-nominated TV producer turned urban greening practitioner, and f...

A free-range chicken has more space than a child on a Dutch school playground. Ian Mostert has spent 12 years doing something about that. In this episode, I talk with Ian Mostert — youth health worker turned urban greening practitioner, and Project Manager for Child and Nature at IVN Nature Education — about what actually changes when you transform a paved, fenced schoolyard into a green community...

Just because someone lives in an apartment doesn't mean they don't want to go outside and be in nature. In this episode, I sit down with Lauren Zullo, Managing Director of Impact at Jonathan Rose Companies, at their Midtown Manhattan headquarters to talk about what happens when you design affordable housing around health — and how nature fits into that equation. Lauren's work sits at t...

There's a reason people write poetry about trees and not speed bumps. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Geoffrey Donovan — forest economist, 23-year USDA Forest Service researcher, and founder of Ash and Elm Consulting — about why the health benefits of urban trees dwarf every other benefit we talk about, and why most people still don't believe it. We get into the emerald ash borer study th...

Most people walk through their city every day and never notice the nature around them. In this episode — the Season 7 premiere — I talk with Nuno Curado, founder of Wild Eindhoven, from a bench along the river Dommel in the center of Eindhoven. We walked from the High Tech Campus into the city along the river, barely touching a road, talking about beavers, birdsong, mushrooms, and what happens whe...

What happens when you plant a forest where nothing should grow? In this bonus, end-of-season episode, I’m joined by Adrian Wong of SUGi inside a dense pocket forest tucked into London’s Southbank Centre—surrounded by brutalist concrete, cultural landmarks, and constant city noise. Just two years ago, this space was solid concrete. Today, it’s six metres tall, alive with insects, birds, bats, and i...

A mushroom on a tree isn’t a verdict — but in arboriculture, it’s often treated like one. In this episode, Nadina Galle talks with Kyle McLoughlin , a Board Certified Master Arborist and founder of Ironwood Arboricultural, from his two-acre, tree-filled property in St. George, Ontario. Together, they unpack why fungi should be foundational knowledge for anyone caring for trees — and why “there’s a...

On a rooftop disguised as a public square outside Amsterdam’s public library, Nadina sits down with Daan Grasveld , co-founder of Urban Jungle Project , to explore how trees can thrive in the most unlikely urban places. What looks like a normal city square is actually the top of a parking garage—once barren, hot, and lifeless. Today, thanks to modular “jungle blocks,” it’s a cool, shaded micro-jun...

In this episode, Nadina meets Mark Cridge just off Oxford Circus, inside a quiet, plant-filled HQ that serves as the visitor centre for something radical: a city that calls itself a park . London was the first place in the world to become a National Park City —but what does that actually mean when you’re standing in the middle of one of the busiest urban intersections on Earth? Mark shares the sto...

In this episode, Nadina sits down with Adrian Wong , SUGi’s UK Forest Lead, in the middle of the Forest of Thanks —a 10,000 m² Miyawaki forest planted in one of London’s most under-resourced boroughs. What was once a simple lawn is now a thriving woodland of oaks, elders, cherry trees, brambles, birds, and even resident foxes. Adrian explains the Miyawaki method , a powerful approach to creating f...

Filmmaker and N8RLND founder Pieter van den Braak joins the Internet of Nature Podcast for a walk through Eindhoven’s Philips de Jonghpark—a city park dense enough to feel like a pocket forest. Pieter shares how, during a period of feeling unmoored in his early twenties, nature became the one place that offered clarity, calm, and a sense of belonging he couldn’t find anywhere else. We talk about t...

Amsterdam’s trees haven’t “stopped growing” — they’ve stopped growing the way they should. Arborist-turned-CEO Jan Willem de Groot explains why maturity matters more than planting counts, why crown volume is the metric that actually reflects ecological function, and what happens when cities focus on keeping the trees they already rely on. We explore why large trees provide exponentially more shade...

John Tweddle joins the Internet of Nature Podcast to share how the Natural History Museum in London turned five acres of ornamental lawn into a living laboratory for the future of urban nature. From eDNA that uncovers invisible life to bioacoustic microphones that map the city’s soundscape, John and his team are reimagining what a museum can be: not just a keeper of fossils, but a sensor-rich, pub...

Recorded in the heart of Tilburg—a Dutch city that has transformed from one of Europe’s hottest urban heat islands into a showcase of regreening—this episode explores the hidden worlds that decide whether city trees live or die. Arborist and Senior Advisor Erwin van Herwijnen of New Urban Standard joins the Internet of Nature Podcast to talk about why soils matter more than species, and how climat...

Tim Christophersen joins the Internet of Nature Podcast to talk about his new book,  Generation Restoration , and why nature isn’t a luxury—it’s our only home.  From his first steps in the forest with his forester grandfather to leading the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, and now as VP of Climate Action at Salesforce, Tim shares why waiting for perfection paralyzes companies, what greenwashing...

Thomas Crowther returns to the Internet of Nature Podcast to open Season 6 with a simple provocation: don’t maximize carbon—maximize life. We revisit the whirlwind after the “trillion trees” paper, the shift from monoculture planting to restoring Indigenous-led, locally stewarded ecosystems, and why climate action should feel joyful, not joyless. Tom shows how Restor lets anyone map a garden, pock...

Dr. Nadina Galle is joined by Jad Daley, the 40th president and CEO of American Forests, the oldest forest conservation organization in the states, to discuss the unprecedented $1.5 billion federal investment for the U.S. Forest Service’s Urban and Community Forestry Program, how the investment will give priority to projects that benefit underserved communities, address extreme heat, and low-canop...

Dr. Nadina Galle is joined by Andy Lederer, Principal Arboriculture Officer for Oxfordshire County Council, to discuss how he got involved with trees despite growing up in North London, how data-driven decision-making is revolutionizing urban forestry, how his perspective on data has changed over his nearly two-decade-long career, how Andy has harnessed PlanIT Geo⁠⁠ 's tree inventory and asset...

Dr. Nadina Galle is joined by Tom Ebeling, Community Arborist at Openlands, to discuss how we can ensure the trees that are planted today will still be there in 10, 20, 50, and 100 years' time, why urban tree mortality statistics are all over the map, and how Openlands' highly successful TreePlanters Grant and TreeKeeprs program may hold the secret to transforming tree-planting campaigns i...

Dr. Nadina Galle is joined by Brett KenCairn, the City of Boulder’s Senior Policy Advisor for Climate Action and the city’s Natural Climate Solutions team lead, to discuss the vital link between municipal climate change policy and urban forestry policy, how they complement each other to achieve sustainable urban forest planning, and why most city governments haven’t yet connected the dots – at lea...