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The Scotland Outdoors podcast from BBC Radio Scotland.

I'm Mark Stephen.

I think a lot of people would agree that over the year that we've had with lockdown,

a lot of us have become more aware of the natural world.

Somehow the colours have seemed brighter, the birdsong louder.

Those of us lucky enough to actually be in it.

That sense of healing that you get from nature has been stronger.

That's certainly been my feeling,

and I suspect my colleague today,

Helen Needham, feels exactly the same way. Absolutely. I think we've spoken about it a lot over the past

year, haven't we? Just that whole business of slowing down and observing what's going on around you.

For me, it really promotes a deep sense of well-being, but I feel we're in the very fortunate

position that we've got easy access to green spaces because we live in rural areas, but

that's not the case for the vast majority of the UK's population.

No, interestingly, about 80% of the population live in urban areas, and that percentage is

alarmingly rising.

Our guest today is a woman who spent a career working in botany around the world,

...