S38 · E10

Kielder Forest

Matt Baker welcomes new presenter Vick Hope to Countryfile. Together, they explore England’s largest forest – Kielder in Northumberland – where they meet the people protecting its ecosystems and preserving its future. Matt joins a landscape-scale project looking to diversify the woodland’s make-up by collecting the seeds of the country’s rarest native trees. He also helps a team construct one of England’s longest mountain bike trails and sees how they are being made accessible to adaptive cyclists. Vick helps with a project aiming to restore critically endangered freshwater pearl mussels to Kielder’s waterways, and in the Cotswolds, Adam Henson looks at using woodland on his farm to graze livestock and benefit wildlife.