I’ve been thinking a lot lately about putting together an online university of sorts comprised of the academic aspects of bushcraft to complement the hands-on work of our yearlong immersion program. Yesterday I spent half an hour sketching out ideas on it, and will likely be sharing them here in the coming weeks.

Then this morning I received an email from Steve Quilley in the UK. He’s a lecturer in environmental politics at Keele University, and is putting together a master’s degree program with a focus on bushcraft, human ecology and sustainability at the One Planet Institute. He described the endeavor in the forum section of our online network:

If anyone is interested in combining bushcraft with study for a Masters degree, you might like to check out www.oneplanetinstitute.com – I work at Keele University in the UK and I am flying a kite for a radical environment institute organised around bushcraft and and a self-sufficient smallholding. Traditional universities will take some persuading about such an unconventional programme – so i need to get several hundred hits from potential students before submitting a business plan. I would be interested in any comments or suggestions. Please pass on the link to any friends who may be interested. There is a poster attached and some blurb below,
Thanks Tim for encouragement! Best wishes Steve Quilley

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Are you interested in the sustainability? How about human ecology or bushcraft? Perhaps you are pondering some of the big questions about human beings and planet earth? Do you want to do a Masters degree?

The One Planet Institute is a radical concept combining a suite of environment-related Masters courses with an innovative ‘residential programme’ organized around the operation of a self-sufficient smallholding. A variety of complementary activities will include foraging & bushcraft, music, woodland management, field botany, and natural history. Such visceral and collective engagement with the natural world will function to ‘educate the attention’ of students, animating formal academic study whilst promoting a self-sustaining culture of reflection and debate. Masters degrees will be offered in a range of overlapping subjects from Sustainable Development and Human Ecology to Bushcraft Studies.