What is a Wild Zone? / Why are Wild Zones needed? / New form of Social Space / New Land Use Concept What's New? / The Concept Paper / About the Co-founders / Contact us What is a Wild Zone? Over time, evidence of the activities that have occurred in these zones becomes a changing portrait of the community's play and creativity: art trails, dams, gullies, tree houses, mazes, sculptures, forts, earthworks, benches, meeting places, performance spaces - a hand-built commons and collective work of art. Why are Wild Zones needed? >>> New Form of Social Space
Wild Zones offer a proactive and holistic response to 'nature-deficit disorder' - the term coined by Richard Louv to describe the aggregate of childhood ills linked to a lack of free play in nature. When thinking about social problems, most people and institutions, including schools, are using a 'deficit' model. They are focused on what people don't know and what their problems are. Wild Zones use an 'asset-based' approach that starts from people's abilities, interests and potentials, rather than their problems or needs. They offer many pathways to increase social and emotional intelligence. New Land Use Concept
What's New?
Wild Zones and Escuela Popular Escuela Popular, a charter school in downtown San Jose, California, invited Wild Zones' co-founders David Hawkins and Karen Payne to engage their students in creative activities in nature. The first event was an afternoon with environmental artist Zach Pine. High school students and staff of Escuela Popular created a temporary Wild Zone in Guadalupe River Park and made wonderful sculptures using natural materials. Check out the photos: http://homepage.mac.com/zpine/child/wz2007/wz2007.html The Concept PaperHow do Wild Zones meet these needs? How can Wild Zones be developed? Where will Wild Zones be located? Read the full Concept Paper: PDF About the Co-foundersContact UsWild Zones provides consulting services internationally to people and institutions concerned with fostering children’s free play in nature and creating intergenerational projects that build community. For more information about us and our services contact: Karen Payne and David Hawkins. "Let the wild rumpus begin!"
Did you ever feel your heart leap at that clarion call in Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are ? "Let the wild rumpus begin! " Yes, please!
What is a Wild Zone? / Why are Wild Zones needed? / New form of Social Space / New Land Use Concept What's New? / The Concept Paper / About the Co-founders / Contact us
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Wild Zones are places where adults, children and adolescents can playfully co-create new forms of public space that enliven people's connection with each other and with nature.
Each Wild Zone is an outdoor laboratory of creativity with open-ended possibilities for self-designed play, learning, and socializing. They differ from parks and nature reserves because they offer opportunities to alter the environment rather than leaving it untouched -- places to build dens and forts and treehouses, make new pathways, mess around with water and mud, climb trees, create sculptures from natural materials, stage performances, invent games and other types of free play.
Wild Zones help create a web of relationships across boundaries of age, gender, class and ethnicity. They are a new form of social space - and, in particular a different kind of relationship between young people and adults which is not based on an educational model of giving information or eliciting correct answers. Not based on rewards or competition. A 'zone' that provides a context for adults and young people to relate to each other by playing around without pre-established goals or agendas. In the Wild Zone people can engage in spontaneous work and play which may result in wonderful friendships or remarkable things that intrigue and delight other people. But it is also a place just to wonder and to wander in nature - to muck about or reflect or find solace - without having to achieve anything. 
This new land-use concept gives priority to the crucial need of current generations to enjoy hands-on engagement with nature that is playful and creative, while continuing to respect the interests of other species and future generations by protecting some natural areas in a pristine state. By offering the pleasures of creativity and community, Wild Zones encourage a sense of affection for the natural world which can help counterbalance the onslaught of frightening news about ecological degradation. We believe that a high level of commitment to ecological responsibility and protection can best be ignited and sustained through love and enjoyment rather than fear. 
