Black Mountains College: learning for a positive future

Another pioneering project in Wales

Black Mountains College (BMC) is an exciting new project, which only started teaching in 2020. Whilst a lot of educational institutions are large, formal, and focussed on content which is abstract and past-based, this one is the opposite. The vision which Chief Executive Ben Rawlence and his team are manifesting is a catalytic community which helps people face the realities of climate change and learn the skills they will need in an uncertain future.

BMC is not a conventional institution: it is a community of change-makers committed to regenerative practices, learning to live and work in ways that help both nature and human societies flourish. Courses combine traditional craft and practical skills with forward-looking approaches to ecology, justice and resilience.

By now, you may be wondering, is this really as good as it claims to be? From personal experience, I can say, mostly yes. I’ve had several meetings with Ben Rawlence and other senior staff members: they are practical visionaries with a lot of integrity. I ‘m also in a local men’s group with three BMC graduates, and I know several current students. All of them are enthusiastic about how BMC has inspired and shaped them. Like most pioneering projects, especially those growing fast, it has its blind spots, but overall this is a brilliant project which deserves to be replicated elsewhere.

Recently I was involved in discussions with most of the students, to explore the stresses they face and how I and others could help them through workshops on such topics as The Work that Reconnects, community building and more. It takes courage to face into the alarming future outlook, as these students are doing: I am touched by how much mutual support they give each other, and it is clear that they are keen to get help and skills from others like me.

Nature as the classroom

One of BMC’s special features is the way learning happens. Classes are small, teaching is hands-on, and the outdoors is fundamental to everything the college does. Students work directly with the land, and the natural environment itself becomes a teaching space.

This approach is rooted in both ancient practice and modern neuroscience. Humans learn best when head, hands and heart are engaged together. By combining outdoor learning, multi-sensory methods and collaborative projects, BMC helps knowledge take root and grow into action.

Courses with purpose

BMC offers both higher and further education. Its flagship BA (Hons) in Sustainable Futures: Arts, Ecology and Systems Change, run with Cardiff Metropolitan University, brings together ecology, politics, economics and the arts. Alongside, the college offers a range of vocational courses in areas such as Regenerative Horticulture, Coppicing and Greenwood Trades, Nature Recovery, and Agroecology.

Across all levels, the emphasis is the same: practical, land-based skills taught in context, linked to the wider need for resilience and cultural change.

Growing in Wales

Wales and the Welsh Government are fertile soil for a range of pioneering, future-focussed projects: for example Our Food Trust and Cegin Y Bobl. The Future Generations Act helps create a context, and BMC’s location is no accident.

The main teaching facilities are in and near Talgarth, in southern Powys, and include the 120-acre upland farm at Troed yr Harn nearby. There is a satellite campus spread across the Rhondda Valley community of Treherbert: this is a former mining town, with the regeneration challenges that brings. Student enrolments are growing rapidly, with new teaching facilities being added.

Why it matters

Black Mountains College may be small, but it embodies something much larger: a model of education rooted in place, responsive to global challenges, and shaped for the times we live in. It demonstrates how learning can be regenerative, how skills can serve both people and planet, and how a college can help point towards a future lived in balance with nature.

For more information, see the Black Mountains College website here.