Rewilding Or Renewal?

In North Lanarkshire, Graham Butt’s Campfire History offers an alternative way of engaging with the landscape—one grounded not only in history, but in reflection, connection, and healing. Through guided woodland walks, storytelling, bushcraft, and shared moments around a fire, Butt creates spaces where people can reconnect with both nature and themselves. His walk through the Ravenscraig site, and his connection to it, are deeply personal. Growing up nearby, he remembers the steelworks’ iconic blue towers dominating the skyline—landmarks that signalled home. “That was your cue that you were coming home,” he recalls. At the time, he didn’t fully grasp the scale or significance of the industry, but its presence left a lasting imprint.

The demolition of Ravenscraig marked more than the end of steel production; it signalled a profound shift in the identity of the area. For Butt, its closure is still felt today in the social and economic challenges facing the community. “There is still a lot of social deprivation and high poverty—and that’s a direct effect of Ravenscraig closing, even now, 30 years on.” His work with young people, particularly through Campfire History and Socialtrack, is rooted in this reality. Working outdoors with the community has long been his passion—offering not just skills, but space, support, and a sense of belonging.

Today, Butt sees Ravenscraig as a landscape in transition, telling a quieter and more complex story than its industrial past. Where steel and concrete once dominated, nature is steadily reclaiming ground. Moss spreads across the surface, creating the conditions for new life—first grasses, then hardy trees like birch and alder. “It all starts with the moss creating the compost for the seeds,” he says, pointing to the quiet persistence of these small organisms. In time, they begin to heal the soil, breaking down concrete and turning what was once barren and industrial into something capable of sustaining life again.

This natural regeneration—slow, unplanned, and resilient—embodies a cycle of destruction and renewal. it is both powerful and necessary.

Yet Ravenscraig is also a place of tension. Debates continue over its future: redevelopment or rewilding, economic growth or ecological recovery. Over the past several decades, various industrial, retail, and housing plans have been proposed, but none have fully taken hold. Butt believes that any meaningful regeneration must come from within the community itself. “There is no point in the council or landowners parachuting in and saying, ‘we’re going to build this or that’—it’s not going to work. It needs to respond to what the community actually needs and wants.”

At the same time, while he recognises the importance of job creation and economic opportunity—and the complexity of balancing ecological and economic futures—his personal view is firmly in favour of allowing the land to rewild. He sees nature as the most effective way to restore and detoxify the environment. “The best way to get rid of pollutants is to let the trees do what they do,” he reflects.

For Butt, Ravenscraig is not just a site of loss or potential, but part of a longer, ongoing cycle—one that extends beyond industry, beyond redevelopment plans, and even beyond the present moment. “Nature goes through cycles. It will recover, no matter what you do to it. A hundred years ago this was farmland and meadow. Then came industry, then closure, demolition, and now regeneration—all within a century. It’s just another scar, another chapter in nature’s story.”