Coronavirus lockdowns have taught us the importance of having wild areas for children. We should build on this and create a comprehensive strategy to rewild our cities, says architect Cristina Monteiro.

The lockdown has brought about a seismic shift in the way we think about space in the city. It became obvious that a lot of our urban environment is not green or accessible enough and we have seen the negative effects on our health and wellbeing, particularly in more deprived areas of our cities.
Learning from the lockdown and the struggles for public space and education that it led to should inspire us to rewild cities to better support our children.
During the first UK lockdown, my family were lucky enough to have easy access to the countryside. The anxieties of the Covid-19 pandemic were alleviated to a huge degree by the ability to explore this environment with my five-year-old daughter. The woods around us provided a safe and exciting place of learning that was a welcome alternative to the kitchen table. What would it take to retrofit our existing towns and cities to make access to woodland an easy, natural part of a child's education" We would need to create a 0.5-hectare area of woodland ? the minimum size for a viable habitat according to the National Forest Inventory ? within easy reach of every school. Creating this wild, green space would align directly with the "rewilding" agenda.
The woods around us provided a safe and exciting place of learni...