Editor’s Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.

Lush greens, tangled wood, blurs of light – giant images of rainforests hang on the walls of a church in London. Sounds of the wind whipping through trees and birdsong fill the room.

The images are not of tropical rainforests, but very rare temperate rainforest in the UK. This type of woodland once covered most of western Britain and Ireland – the country’s wet, mild conditions providing the perfect conditions for it to flourish.

Today, due to excessive agriculture and development, rainforests cover less than 1% of Britain, found in isolated pockets running from Cornwall in the south to northwest Scotland.

When photographer Joanna Vestey discovered that rainforests existed in her home nation, she wanted to see them for herself and make the forests accessible for everyone else. Through a series of photographs and audio recordings, on display in an immersive exhibition in London’s Fitzrovia Chapel this week, she hopes to raise awareness of the endangered habitat, while also exploring the forests’ potential health benefits.

Forest bathing

Vestey’s first trip to a temperate rainforest was in Devon, southwest England. Stepping into it from a modern conifer forest, she immediately felt the difference: the temperature dropped, the trees became more varied – oak, birch, ash, pine, hazel – and a tangle of mosses and lichens climbed over it all. The experience was “magical,” she said.

Since then, Vestey estimated she has visited around 60% of the remaining temperate rainforests in the UK. At each spot, she would find a position to take a photograph, set up her tripod, and using an analogue camera, take a long exposure image over a period of two hours. Leaving the camera’s shutter open so long created a unique effect: “There are these incredible blurs where the wind blows branches across where it’s raining and raindrops fall on the lens,” she said. “It’s a more organic way of working.”

Her method was inspired by research into “forest bathing,” a concept that originated in Japan, whereby being quiet and calm among trees while breathing deeply is thought to help people de-stress and boost their health.

Vestey had read “Into the Forest,” a book by Japanese immunologist and forest medicine expert Dr. Qing Li, who, after extensive physiological testing, discovered that being exposed to a forest environment for two hours is beneficial mentally and physically. After four to six hours’ exposure a person’s immune functions can be boosted for one week, and after three days and two nights changes occur on a cellular level that can boost immune functions for up to 30 days, according to Li’s research. To reflect this optimal time period, Vestey’s final collection of 26 images amounts to a combined exposure time of three days and two nights.

She recorded the sounds of the forest at the same time. “(There’s) everything from babbling brooks to torrential rainfall, to noisy birds and sheep, and the beautiful wind in the trees,” she said, adding that the aim of the combined audio and visual elements is to recreate the experience of sitting in the forest for those who don’t have access.

“Anxiety levels and depression are so high at the moment, especially among young people, and there’s so much research about the connection with nature and how beneficial that can be,” she said. “I’m trying to explore whether I can share the experience I have standing in a forest, by taking it into a hospital or a clinic or a school and share in some way that virtual immersion into nature.”

Healing powers

With a grant from the UK’s Art Council, Vestey is working with a team of researchers from the University of Exeter to test whether these benefits are transferable to an audio and image experience. She has also partnered with The Thousand Year Trust, a charity founded by Merlin Hanbury-Tenison and his wife Lizzie, which is working to triple the amount of rainforest across the UK in the next 30 years.

The couple are strong advocates of the health benefits time in the rainforest can bring. After working in the British military and doing three tours in Afghanistan, Hanbury-Tenison was suffering from complex PTSD, while Lizzie was struggling after a series of miscarriages. They started spending more time in the ancient woodland at Cabilla, their family’s 300-acre farm on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall.

“Both of us were getting a lot of healing and nourishment from spending time in this space, and it became very clear to us that the healing power of nature was something we wanted to focus more of our energies upon,” said Hanbury-Tenison.

As well as working to plant more trees and restore rainforest cover across the UK, the charity is building what it calls the first Atlantic temperate rainforest research station on Bodmin Moor. Similar to Vestey, some of the research will explore whether the forests’ mental health and wellbeing benefits can be accessed outside of the natural space.

Hanbury-Tenison explained that the lichens and mosses that grow on the trees in the UK’s temperate rainforest secrete volatile organic compounds called terpenes which some say can reduce a person’s inflammation and cortisol levels, the main stress hormone, when breathed in. “We’re doing a lot of research into how we can synthesize the terpenes within the rainforest so that you could have diffusers and room misters that are put into places like NHS wards or nursing homes,” he said.

Vestey hopes that by combining scientific research with immersive art, her photographs will move from being in an exhibition space to being in a support or wellbeing space – all while raising awareness of the UK’s remaining rainforests.

“I’ve always been really interested in what photography can do, and how it can amplify things,” she said. “If you can invite someone to sit with an image … they can decide whether they now feel more connected to nature and want to do something about stewardship.”

A moving photography exhibition is set to take place at this year’s Hay Festival, highlighting the human impacts of factory farming – with a special focus on the ‘devastating’ effects felt locally and in the River Wye.

Compassion in World Farming and Friends of the River Wye have joined forces to highlight issues caused by factory farming and to showcase farmers in the Wye catchment who are committed to working with nature.

The images displayed in a thought-provoking exhibition at Hay Festival illustrate the people whose lives have been devastated by factory farming – and the British farmers pioneering a more nature-friendly future.

Severe impacts

Compassion has commissioned leading photographers to capture the portraits of people severely impacted by industrial animal farming.

These stories stretch from the UK to Europe, Brazil, and the USA. They show how the lives, health, and wellbeing of people living close to factory farms are devastated.

In South America, they show how deforestation to grow food for farmed animals is leading to community breakdown and even death threats.

In the UK over a billion animals – 85% of all UK farmed animals – are confined in factory farms every year. But factory farming isn’t just the world’s biggest cause of animal cruelty.

It’s a primary driver of wildlife declines, a serious pollutant, contributes to climate change and marine dead zones, and is a potent source of disease that risks future pandemics.

Philip Lymbery, Compassion’s Global CEO, said: “This exhibition highlights the urgent need for change but also showcases solutions.

“Ending factory farming will bring better lives to billions of farm animals across the globe, save wildlife from extinction, improve our health, and leave a planet fit for future generations.”

Trauma

Richard Dunwoody MBE, one of the exhibition photographers, added: “Everyone I photographed were clearly traumatised as a result of the intensive farming of animals in their communities.

“Although spending only a short time with the subjects, I quickly understood just how badly their lives and environments had been impacted by factory farms.

“No one should have to endure the upset, distress, and torment that they were clearly facing on a daily basis.”

Kate, an artist who featured in the exhibition, said: “I’ve had to move twice because of factory farming in Powys, and it’s been devastating.

“My dreams of finally having a home were ruined by the constant noise, smell and traffic, and the animal cruelty made me feel sick – I didn’t want to live next door to a factory, it was nearer me than the farmer.”

Agriculture is the number one source of river pollution in the UK and is responsible for over 72% of the phosphate entering the River Wye , which flows through England and Wales.

The river is suffering from algal blooms and poor water quality, partly caused by intensive poultry production in the region. More than twenty million chickens, alongside other animals in the catchment, produce more manure than the surrounding land can absorb, with the excess entering watercourses.

Polluted water is just one symptom of a farming system that is out of balance with its environment.

Change needed

Tom Tibbits, Chair of Friends of the River Wye, said: “We’ve concentrated too many animals in one area. The science tells us that the majority of the phosphorus imported into the Wye catchment comes in the form of animal feed.

“Whilst we exist to protect the River Wye, our actions impact on other precious habitats too, like the Cerrado in Brazil which is being destroyed to grow soya for intensively-farmed animals.

The Government’s new River Wye Action Plan proposes to deal with the manure mountain by installing incinerators throughout the catchment, but this does nothing to reduce the feed we’re importing from abroad. The only sustainable solution to this problem is to reduce the number of chickens we farm.”

Friends of the River Wye has taken portrait photographs of farmers in the Wye catchment who are farming with greater sensitivity to the natural world.

Farmers featured in the exhibition champion rotational grazing, cover crops, agroforestry, reducing chemical and nutrient inputs, and the importance of soil.

Ultimately, farmers are on the frontline of our climate and biodiversity crises. They need their land to be resilient to floods and drought, just as they need pollinators and healthy soils to produce good food to feed us all.

Inspiration

Eamon Bourke, a trustee of Friends of the River Wye, who photographed the famers for this exhibition said: “I was very inspired by meeting farmers throughout the Wye catchment doing innovative and experimental things to produce food whilst taking care of the land and rivers and adapting to climate change.

“I hope these images carry some of that inspiration. Farmers working with nature and leading the change is where hope lies for the Wye.”

The exhibition also launches a new Manifesto for the Wye, co-created by Friends of the River Wye alongside Save The Wye and other local river guardians, outlining the actions needed to restore the river.

It calls on the Governments of the UK and Wales to establish a single, cross-border approach to tackling the pollution crisis across the Wye catchment.

It also demands the establishment of a Water Protection Zone and enforcement action against polluters.

Compassion has launched a petition calling on world leaders to transform the global food system and end factory farming – for the sake of animals, people, and the planet. Take action to End.It.

Monorail, Steeplechase Park, Coney Island, 1981

Originally opened in 1897, Steeplechase was one of Coney Island’s original parks, which also included Dreamland and Luna Parks. It closed in 1964 and was bought by Fred Trump, Donald Trump’s father, and demolished before it could be landmarked in a failed attempt to build condos. It later reopened with children’s amusement park rides in 1970, was again abandoned in 1980, and torn down to make way for a stadium for the minor league baseball team the Brooklyn Cyclones

Photograph: Phillip Buehler

A photographer from Los Angeles captured an incredible video of a lion during his trip to South Africa and has shared the footage on Instagram. Simon Needham travelled hours and was “greeted” with the lion’s “welcome roar” as soon as he arrived in the sanctuary – an experience that he asserted was totally “worth it”.

The video of the lion was recorded at the Glen Garriff Conservation, whose “mission” is to “love, protect and preserve the magnificent lions in our care,” as described on their website.

It took Simon 32 hours of flying time and a four-hour car ride to get to the spot in South Africa, but what followed was worth the wait.

“Just arrived at @ggconservationâ€æ32 hours flying time, 4 hour car ride to be greeted to this just after I got out of the car! Worth it,” Simon said in his post.

Meet King Shalom, who said hello to Simon like this.

Take a look at the comments on the video that has delighted wildlife enthusiasts.

Simon Needham, who has 92.8k followers on Instagram, often posts stunning videos and close shots of lions, tigers and other animals. If you enjoy watching such clips, his account will certainly be a treat for you.

Sample these:

At the Glen Garriff Conservation, meanwhile, there are 60 lions who “live out the duration of their lives” in the sanctuary.