Samantha Tranter
Gateshead Riverside Project Manager
Sam grew up in the wilds of Northumberland, so she has always been a child of the woods. She has traveled and worked in East Africa, Australia and New Zealand which has influenced her approach to community engagement and led her to run the John Muir Award in the North East on returning home. Sam led multiple projects for the North Pennines National Landscape focused on engaging the public by fusing her love of arts and science to inspire social action. Sam took her MSc in Conservation Biology at the University of Cumbria, where she also qualified as a Forest Schools HE Level 4 practitioner. Her most recent work, which led her to Stomping Grounds NE, involved supporting young people and families in NE Cumbria. Through this project, almost 1000 people engaged with nature in a variety of ways, either introducing them to rural places for the first time or helping them to engage with their local green spaces through forest school.
Sam is passionate about forest bathing and often takes her boys out into the garden and the woods barefoot, she loves nothing more than being amongst the trees and connecting to nature no matter where she is. She is very excited to return to her old stomping ground of Gateshead and to bring forest school to Gateshead Riverside Park.