Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Why do we all need nature?
259 Plays3 months ago
Steve Backshall MBE has loved nature from almost the very first moment he could move around.
Since then, nature has given him a career - but also remains one of his favourite ways to spend his spare time, to support his wellbeing and to enjoy life with his family.
But why is nature so important to him, and his children? And how can it compete with the television screens and smart phones always vying for our attention?
Host Kate Quilton chats to the TV presenter, naturalist and broadcaster about his enthusiasm for nature, sharing the importance of the outdoors with others, and what the future may hold for the natural world and wildlife - both in England and Wales, and further afield.
Steve also considers whether there is a tipping point that could encourage society to take nature more seriously - and swing people's perspectives to live their lives in a way that is kinder to all animals. He also talks about why we need to ensure nature feels accessible to people from all walks of life.
The Animal Futures podcast is part of the RSPCA Animal Futures Project, which explores five possible scenarios of what the world could be like for animals in 2050. People can have their say on the future of animal welfare by joining The Big Conversation, and by playing the RSPCA’s Animal Futures game.
Host: Kate Quilton
Guests: Steve Backshall, MBE
Produced by: Mark Adams, Chris O'Brien, Emily Prideaux and Jo Toscano.
Animal Futures Project: https://www.rspca.org.uk/whatwedo/latest/animalfutures
Animal Futures Game: https://www.rspca.org.uk/webContent/animalfutures/
Animal Futures: The Big Conversation: http://rspca.org.uk/bigconversation
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Focus on Nature
00:00:00
Speaker
ah RSPCA presents Animal Futures, hosted by Kate Quilton. Episode 6. Why do we all need nature?
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome back. I'm broadcaster, journalist and RSPCA ambassador, Kate Quilton. And today I'm talking about nature, one of the big themes of the RSPCA Animal Futures project.
00:00:24
Speaker
What will happen to nature in the future? Will we protect it or might we lose it? In this episode, I speak to broadcaster and naturalist Steve Baxchall about nature and why it matters to him and his family, how it's been so integral to not only his career, but his wellbeing too.
00:00:43
Speaker
I absolutely loved chatting to Steve. I think I now might love him almost as much as my six-year-old does, who is a huge Deadly 60 fan. His passion for nature is infectious.
00:00:56
Speaker
I really think you're going to enjoy this.
00:01:00
Speaker
So, hey, I really would love to talk to you I guess, about nature and where it all started for you.
Steve Backshall's Personal Connection to Nature
00:01:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think i'm I'm incredibly lucky in that my parents, although not themselves ah coming from privilege, were always obsessed with nature with a capital n and the outdoors and adventure and travel. And both of them and spent their entire working lives working for British Airways.
00:01:27
Speaker
And the reason they did that was that they could travel the world and go to cool places and give my sister and I the opportunity to have... a kind of investigative childhood that otherwise they would never have been able to afford if it wasn't for the fact that they were working for the airlines.
00:01:42
Speaker
And it was such an integral part of my childhood growing up surrounded by animals, surrounded by wild space, and then being able to, you know, see the most exotic sides of our planet. And and this is from, you know, being a babe in arms.
00:01:58
Speaker
It was, it was something I just took for granted. That is extraordinary. So basically you were Steve Batchel, as we know and love right now, but literally fresh out the box. That's what you were doing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:02:10
Speaker
And I would say that while as kids, my my sister was very much into the domestic animals, particularly particularly horses. I, from the moment I could crawl, was going into the compost heap looking for snakes and snakes' eggs and looking for worms and beetles. And and that was apparently my my thing from the the very first moment I could move.
00:02:31
Speaker
and I've seen the exact same thing in my oldest, in my oldest and my boy, is six years old. you know from From the first moment he could crawl, his instinct was to move towards anything natural. and That was the thing that the most and inspired him and calmed him and gave him all the things that that he he he needs.
00:02:50
Speaker
If you hadn't have had that, right if Steve Batchel didn't have that exposure to nature, from a young age. How do you think that would have changed your life?
00:03:01
Speaker
Would you be where you are now?
Nature's Role in Mental Wellbeing
00:03:02
Speaker
No, definitely not. um Where I would be, who knows? I think that you know nature has been so many things for me. It's been it's been a career. It's been a a way of filling my days. It's also the thing that I know i always have in my back pocket as as a way of just sorting my head out.
00:03:20
Speaker
If I ever feel overwhelmed by by stress and anxiety, if I have big ideas that are too much for me, if there are there are struggles with with work or with a family that I find too much, ah I'll take myself off for a kayak up the river. I'll go birdwatching. I will do something, probably physical, definitely outdoors and in a natural environment.
00:03:43
Speaker
And within seconds, it it has dropped my heart rate, brought me back to brought we brought me back to me. And i've I've been able to do that for the last 30 odd years.
00:03:57
Speaker
And to begin with, it it wasn't something that I'd actually processed. It was just something that I did. was something I found myself doing. you know i was I was in a funk, I was cross, I was angry. And the next thing I knew, I was striding across the fields out on a run and I hadn't figured out why, but now I really do know why. And I know that if I'm if i'm in a bad place, I need to go to a good place.
00:04:17
Speaker
Wow. so It's very conscious for you now. It's almost medicinal. It is. and you know I've had so many people in my line of work who have had even more definitive connections, you know people who have struggled with depression and and loss and you know really major major psychological issues and problems and trauma.
00:04:41
Speaker
that have been solved in inverted commas through bird watching that have been solved through climbing or kayaking that they personally as an individual, i'm not saying that this is genuinely a panacea for all ills in our civilization, but for some people, it is the solution to everything that can be bad in life.
00:05:01
Speaker
And i I've seen that so markedly in so many people, you know, talking about yeah prescribing nature on the NHS now, prescribing exercise on the and NHS now. Well, that should have been being done for decades. we We've known and understood about the benefits of the outdoors, of our connection to animals for a long, long time.
00:05:22
Speaker
And that it is only now in this day and age that we are starting to quantify that is is actually kind of bonkers. I could not agree more.
Family's Lifestyle and Nature
00:05:32
Speaker
Wow. Okay. So tell me a little about how nature plays a part in your family life with your kids.
00:05:40
Speaker
So I think that, you know, for Helen and i when we, when we first had kids, you know, were both crazy busy and we didn't ever really sit down and say, this is how we're going to do it.
00:05:53
Speaker
This is going to be our strategy for raising our ah children. and And if we had done that, it would have fallen apart in the first hurdle anyway. But right from the very start, we were we were living on a houseboat at the time while we were building our present house. We were there at the riverside with swans and ducks coming to the back door to be fed for breakfast every morning and kingfishers landing on the prow of the boat every single morning and evening.
00:06:18
Speaker
And so the rhythms of the river were were our life. They were the thing that dominated our early parenting. And so it was, that wasn't something that was ah in any way structured.
00:06:31
Speaker
It just happened. You know, we were outside all the time and, you know, Logan was a year or so before we moved off the boat. and Even then we're we're living in the middle of farmland where we are surrounded by nature all the time.
00:06:47
Speaker
And it instantly became obvious that that if ever a screen came on, there was an unhealthy fixation with that and a wrench whenever that would be removed.
00:07:02
Speaker
Whereas to the contrary, if we were to go outside and play down by the river, if we were to go for a wander in the in the fields, There was just a calm and a tranquility and an ease and a desire to investigate everything around him, which was far, far greater once we had the twins as well.
00:07:23
Speaker
And it just it was just so obvious and remains so obvious now. that the things that really make them happy, they, they desire all the technology stuff. And, you know, of course they have to have a certain amount of it. You know, we are living in this day and age. of course they do, but you can see how much more,
00:07:43
Speaker
peaceful, tranquil, happy, at ease they are when they're when they're outside and they're doing physical things and animals too, you know, and it's it's not just nature, although I, you know, that's that's my particular passion, but it's very clear that, you know, taking a dog for a walk, stroking a dog, you know, going going to the to the local petting zoo, those connections to animals have a big, big impact all on kids and And to see it in kids and not believe that it doesn't do the exact same thing for us would be staggeringly naive.
00:08:16
Speaker
So yeah, it's been everything for our family to this point. Everything. And I really, really hope that it can continue to be into the future. But I'm very aware that our kids are young and that they are going to grow up, start getting their own passions, and that there will only be a certain amount of my...
00:08:34
Speaker
the thing that I can impose on them. I just hope that we've done enough in these formative years that they will continue to seek it out. What's the current family favourite?
00:08:45
Speaker
and We, at the moment, and love wild swimming. We spend a lot of time in the water. Logan has started surfing for the first time at six years old, which is just absolutely amazing. Because they're so small, got you know very, very low center of gravity. Stick them on a surfboard and boom off they go. It's like Hawaii Five-0. It's absolutely amazing.
00:09:07
Speaker
That seems incredible. I know. Climbing is something that's huge for all of them. I think that, you know, you know there's a very there's a very natural, instinctual desire for for kids to hang off stuff.
00:09:18
Speaker
And all three of them are just like hanging from one arm in ways that I would i would kill to be able to do off off the rings, off the climbing frames, off trees. So those things are a massive go-to.
00:09:28
Speaker
You're not far off. ah ah I mean, i would seriously, they they look like little chimpanzees. It's absolutely genius. if but If I could do that, I would be eternally happy. How brilliant though, to be living with those role models for you.
00:09:44
Speaker
ah what Them role models for me. I mean, it it kind of feels that way. Inspired to hang by one arm. Yeah.
Environmental Changes and Challenges
00:09:50
Speaker
Brilliant. Brilliant. And so when you look at projections for the future,
00:09:57
Speaker
You know, you have this very unique global perspective on all of this, you know, travel the world. You are a brilliant dipstick in terms of, okay, what's going on? Have you seriously just described me as a brilliant dipstick?
00:10:12
Speaker
I am going to get business cards with factual brilliant dipstick. yeah love it. That's it.
00:10:22
Speaker
mean, in terms of a global perspective, so yes, you are. You're the dipstick in the engine, that's Steve Blackshaw, in the engine of the world. How we doing? Have we got any oil left? No, we don't want to.
00:10:35
Speaker
Let's not do what. But a what i you know, you do have this phenomenal, unique perspective. Where do you feel we're going? Like, where ah where are we going to look? You know, how are we going to look in 2050?
00:10:49
Speaker
that That's so interesting. and And although I've never thought of myself as a brilliant global dipstick, I think that there are there are there are ways that my my profession and my traveling have given me a very unique perspective.
00:11:03
Speaker
They've given me, because I've been doing this for a very, very long time, you know I first started doing expeditions in 1990, and I've been going back to the same places over and over again. So I've seen them change over time, and you know within 35 years. And a lot of places have changed out of oh consideration. you know that I look at places that I first went to in my early expeditions and you know the the changes are stratospheric.
00:11:30
Speaker
I do need to be very aware that by no accident, have always kind of chosen the best places to go to. you know i usually going to to the wildest places in the world. I'm usually going to the places where we have the best chances of finding wildlife. And although I do conservation programs,
00:11:48
Speaker
you know Going to the bad places is a small amount of the the traveling that I do. i tend to see our planet at its very best and ah I tend to meet people at their very best as well too. So I've got to be aware that I, despite this vast expanse of and experience, knowledge and traveling, I'm still in a bubble and it's important to to you know be aware of that.
00:12:15
Speaker
I think the change over time thing is probably the thing that's most important. Let's say, for example, my very first ever expeditions on my own in 1990 were in Borneo. I saw this vast jungle island that at the time, you know you could go up in ah in a light aircraft and you could look out to the horizon and see nothing but perfect, pristine primary rainforest and filled with orangutans and proboscis monkeys and clouded leopards and you know paradise on earth.
00:12:43
Speaker
And then I came back when I was writing the, uh, the rough guides in 1997, during the year of the great burn, when, yeah a huge expansive Southeast Asia was essentially on fire in places you could only see like a hundred meters because the smoke was so dense and so thick.
00:13:01
Speaker
And then when I came back again for things like expedition Borneo to 2005, you know, you go up in a light aircraft and you look out to the horizon and pretty much all you see is palm oil, just these, this monoculture expanse of the identical one single tree, the biodiversity largely gone.
00:13:21
Speaker
And you know i've I've seen that happening all the way through to my most recent expeditions where you we're we're visiting tiny pockets of rainforest within those vast plantations, but you're also starting to get a sense of how important those remaining fragments are and how much is invested in in making sure they, as repositories of biodiversity, are are treasured and taken care of.
00:13:47
Speaker
And ah sorry, I'm going to probably go off on one now, but but while we're talking about Borneo, the thing that I think I had the the most intense experience with was one of my more recent expeditions where we went searching for um ancient cave art.
00:14:02
Speaker
which had not been seen before, not been discovered before. I was lucky enough to be with a local expert who is the international expert in this kind of cave art. And we found a cave in the middle of San Kulurang in East of Borneo, filled with 50,000 year old handprints from our ancestors.
00:14:20
Speaker
And you wander around these caves. Yeah. Yeah. i mean, it, it, it just sends the hackles up on the back of your neck, looking around at it. But you look around these caves and what you see is that the the the people there 50,000 years ago, who you know physically are anatomically identical to to us as humans today, had the exact same things that they wanted out of life. you know They were looking for shelter from the elements.
00:14:45
Speaker
they They had signs that they were mourning the death of their ah their young and of of relatives in the way that they created and the art around these these caves. nothing has changed in that 50,000 years to us as humans.
00:14:59
Speaker
And our connection to nature throughout that has been constant. Nature has been the place we exist. It has been our source of food. It has been a ah potential source of all of our comfort and all of our discomfort. has been everything, everything to us for 50,000 years. and then In the last 100 years, which is nothing, I mean that doesn't even occur in evolutionary time, it's a blink, it's ah in a whisper of evolutionary time, everything has changed and our disconnect to nature in that time is you know stratospheric. and We cannot possibly have hoped to keep up with all those changes.
00:15:40
Speaker
We still need nature, it is still critical to us in the back of our reptile brains, whether we like it or not. And we need to know that. We need to be aware of that in our modern world where we are have this this critical disconnect with the very thing that defines us.
00:15:57
Speaker
Why do you think we are disconnected now? but I think that first of all, you you know you you can't look away from overpopulation.
00:16:07
Speaker
When I was a kid, there were half as many people on the planet as there are today. When my parents ah were kids, there were a third as many people on the planet as there are today. Increasingly, we're living in ah you know urban environments.
00:16:22
Speaker
And all of the technology that I am going to sound like ah you know an ancient old fuddy-duddy that I am decrying is is enticing. It's bewitching. it It has us under its spell. So, ah of course, we're losing our contact. It's inevitable.
Technology and Advocacy for Nature
00:16:36
Speaker
you know I was talking about it with mike my kids. you know i i know, and they kind of know, that they're happiest when they're outdoors and when they're running around kicking a football or climbing a tree. They know that. But if there was a television on in the house, then they'd sit down and watch it and they'd find it very, very difficult to tear themselves away.
00:16:53
Speaker
It is designed to be addictive. That is a ah part of all of these technological advances is they are designed to make us want to use them. And while I, as a 50 year old ancient old git can have the willpower to force myself to be dragged away from them.
00:17:13
Speaker
That's, you know, that's impossible for my kids at this present moment in time. I need to be the the thing stepping in there and, you know, providing the barrier and the rules. i i'm not going to be able to do that in 10 years time.
00:17:25
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And the thing about technology as well, i mean, it's evolved, you know, well, designed to be even stickier than it was, you know, when we were kids and, you know, we watched a bit of telly.
00:17:36
Speaker
It wasn't that same cocoon immersive experience that you get when kids are there, they're hitting buttons, stuff's happening. is so, so sticky. Yeah. Yeah. No, but I mean, that's, that's absolutely it.
00:17:49
Speaker
And I had to be careful. You know, I can say all this stuff when I'm talking to you here now on this, this podcast, but I can't say any of this tip when I'm talking to young people. The second I say the things that I'm saying now, I become that ancient, irrelevant,
00:18:06
Speaker
old git that they're not going to listen to. I have to be aware that the, that that technology is good. that There are so many benefits that technology has brought to us and that, you know, there are so many ways that this addictive technology is fun, is entertaining, has brought great developments to our lives.
00:18:23
Speaker
i And I need to be very aware of that too, because messaging is is so, so important, but particularly when you're talking to young people. Yeah, and you know, it's the paradox that I guess you and I are both engaged in as in we make television for a living, you know, and we make television about things to kind of, I guess, spread information and knowledge um and for you in terms of your work.
00:18:49
Speaker
It's amazing when my kid settles in and watches Deadly 60 and his mind is blown, you know, and it's expanded his perspective of the world and he's encouraging him to get out in nature. So yeah, it's a fine balance.
00:19:04
Speaker
But what I also found really interesting in terms of, I guess, my experience hearing you say, look, I go to a lot of really beautiful places on the world where there are you know, there's a lot of wildlife, you know, that's the gig. You're not really deliberately going to you know, the most shocking spots in the world where there's been devastation, destruction, deforestation.
00:19:28
Speaker
And the same goes for me, which makes me think about, you know, How true is the perspective that I guess we project in the world?
00:19:39
Speaker
You want to make a beautiful, very watchable TV show about how amazing and incredible the world is and how it is thriving and yet actually in reality.
00:19:50
Speaker
It maybe isn't the case, you know? I think i've I've been quite impressed with how um particularly Children's BBC over the last few years, and over my last couple of series of ah Deadly 60, my kids' wildlife series, have been prepared to engage in the the the toughest conservation topics and haven't shied away from the negatives. And I think that...
00:20:17
Speaker
we We have to work really hard to make sure that we still tell those very important stories while at the same time being aware that when it comes to constellation messaging, we we cannot overwhelm young people. We cannot give them that that horrible sense that the world is screwed and there is nothing they can do about it.
00:20:37
Speaker
you know We need to tell those stories. We need to show the ways that we are doing terrible damage. But as often as possible to to keep it ah give it a possible positive ending, to to to make the message empowering, to put the tools of change into young people's hands.
00:20:56
Speaker
And if you do that, then there are very few things that we we can't talk about. Um, but you know, to to me, it is still shocking. it It is still shocking when I deliberately go to somewhere where you see rampant deforestation. and When you walk inside a palm oil plantation, which we we did on a deadly 60, uh, last series actually. and you know, you walk through the tropical rainforest, have this cacophony of sound with the, the deafening cicadas and the frogs and the birds, ah that the gibbons calling off in the distance, singing across the treetops.
00:21:31
Speaker
And then you walk into a palm oil plantation and it is silent, absolutely dead silent. There is nothing living there apart from the occasional rat. And do find i do find it I find it as someone who you know gets to see the very, very best of ah ah of our planet and as someone who you know is a rational, qualified zoologist and conservationist, I find it overpowering. I find the dread you know almost too much to bear.
00:22:04
Speaker
So you've got you've got to have that in the back of your mind because if I do, then kids certainly will. And to bring that back to the UK, think, you know, that experience is relatable. You know, if you go into, I guess I live in the middle of Suffolk and i'm looking out the window and I can see kind of a monoculture, you know, i can see lots and lots of corn.
00:22:30
Speaker
i can, I can see these fields where ultimately get into the middle of them. You're not going to hear much and you're, you might not see much, you know. like I couldn't agree more. i'm I'm lucky enough that I live on farmland of um a wonderful farmer, James and Tina, who, yes, they farm the main fields relatively intensively, but they they absolutely treasure nature and they maintain hedgerows. They maintain wild places ah around their big area of farm here.
00:23:01
Speaker
And for the last three years, they've left one big field, which you know is worth an awful lot of money to them if it was you know full of full of crops. they have left it as a wildflower meadow and it's it's the field that you drive out past and back to to get to our houses and you see all the local residents just driving past and just stopping.
00:23:23
Speaker
every Every beginning of every day they just stop, they go out, they they walk and and it is so uplifting. That one single field of flowers has made everybody's lives better.
00:23:35
Speaker
and yeah you know not don't Don't even think about the biodiversity. Don't think about the the return of the the insects and the pollinators and all of the the the strange bugs that all of a sudden we have back on our patch that we did not have three or four years ago.
00:23:49
Speaker
The explosion of butterflies that you know I'd almost forgotten existed and ah micro moths and you know all these things that have come back because of that one single field.
Community and Biodiversity
00:23:58
Speaker
it's the the To the topic that we're talking about today,
00:24:02
Speaker
That has made everybody who lives around here's life better because you go you see that splash of color, that ah reminder of what nature can offer, even here in our dowdy, dreary old country that that actually there is plenty to treasure. And when it's allowed to flourish, it's It can be sensational, absolutely, you know, a gaudy, flamboyant explosion of color and then everything else that follows it. You know, got roe deer wandering through the middle of the field, foxes playing around the outside, badgers coming in to dig for worms and beetles and it's one field.
00:24:39
Speaker
So, yeah, I mean, i i I can, I'm in danger of becoming a little bit preachy when it comes to this topic. Not at all. i mean, it's interesting this, isn't it? You start to think, okay, well, it's the challenge here.
00:24:50
Speaker
How do we put systemic value on those wildflower meadows? you know So, and instead of you know like a farmer perhaps looking at it and seeing pound signs in terms of, okay, if I grow x amount of corn, I'm gonna get this much money.
00:25:05
Speaker
There needs to be some systemic change whereby actually, do you know what? If you keep that as a wildflower meadow, it means X because on a global scale, there is There is a fundamental cash value to preserving all these things, including the Amazon rainforest, of course.
00:25:22
Speaker
But at the moment, we're all still locked in this short-term thinking, five to 10-year plans, you know especially you know in and the Amazon rainforest and elsewhere. It's just the quick buck.
00:25:36
Speaker
Got any ideas about that, Steve? I have some, yeah, very, very strong ideas about that. So and about four or five years ago, when Michael Gove was Secretary of State for the Environment, and he brought me on to get involved with um writing up the State of Nature report and the environment bill that was to follow it.
00:25:52
Speaker
It took up a huge amount of time and effort and energy, not just for me, but for all of the other NGOs that got involved and did so much incredibly incredible work to create these reports and to create the bill that followed. And I was ah had the incredible honor of announcing this bill um to to to the media, to the public, um and being able to talk about it alongside the then Secretary of State for the Environment.
00:26:19
Speaker
and it dropped and disappeared without a trace and you know nothing has been done. A huge part of that was about exactly what you're talking about. It was about you know putting into law the need to to to maintain spaces for nature, knowing how much they can give to us the the ah stupendous um beyond beyond economic bottom line and things that they can do for people, for the environment, for the country as a whole.
00:26:52
Speaker
Gosh, it's tricky, isn't it? I mean, do you, Steve, do you have dark days? Do you have days when you think, oh God, you know, it looks bad where this is going.
00:27:04
Speaker
Yes, of course I do. Of course I do. And I think that, you know, some of the, some of the darkest days are when I start to see these things through my children's eyes. So as I've said, you know, my, my kids are already very, very connected to nature, have a ah real emotional connection to, to animals and, uh, and to wildlife.
00:27:26
Speaker
And as they are starting to pick up and understand some of the the very basic challenges that animals in our modern world face, and you just see this look of total lack of comprehension in their in their eyes.
00:27:42
Speaker
How could anyone do that to an animal? How could anyone do that to a forest? How could anyone do that to a single tree, let alone to you know a nation filled with trees?
00:27:53
Speaker
And that's when I do start to really feel despair. I think for for myself, I've been doing this for such a long time that I'm more pragmatic and I have more ways of you know looking at problems and trying to think of solutions. And and I'm quite a naturally positive person. So I i have that enthusiasm and that you know desire to go, right, well, there's a problem. Let's go out and do something about it. Let's let's find a way of solving it. But when you see it through the eyes of a six-year-old, that that's when it gets crushing.
00:28:25
Speaker
and so you think needs to happen What do you think needs to happen in the next few decades to protect and preserve nature for the next generations?
Future Prospects and Attitudes towards Nature
00:28:37
Speaker
I'm reading this morning through the ah RSPCA's ah Wilberforce report and looking at some of the that catastrophic and suggestions of what could happen.
00:28:50
Speaker
and some of the and enticing and intriguing ideas for for for the more positive potential. And I think one of the things that really piqued my interest was a suggestion that the there might be a massive positive swing in our attitudes.
00:29:08
Speaker
It's unlikely, but it might happen. And talking about things like were, for example, advances in AI to allow us to understand better the conditions that animals are are under because of us.
00:29:23
Speaker
You know, I've been studying cetacean as well and dolphin communication for about the last decade now. And we we are on the cusp of using AI to start to really understand what whales and dolphins are saying. You know, we already understand that they have their own name that they use to induce themselves when they start a conversation with another member of the same species, that they have ah that they have syntax, that they have different dialects for different and ecotypes or different tribes of the same species.
00:29:50
Speaker
We are starting to get to that place. Might it be that in 10 years' time, all of a sudden, AI starts to unlock the kind of things that that animals are thinking and saying?
00:30:03
Speaker
Might we then start to readjust our thinking? Could it be that ah on the the day that machine learning first actually interprets what a dolphin is saying, that half the human population just go, sod that, I'm going vegan? you know it There is a possibility, an outside, out there chance,
00:30:23
Speaker
that something might happen that could swing all of our perspectives on how we deal with nature. Now, as the report intimates, that is unlikely, but there are are lots of other potential tipping points that could awaken our understanding and our interest.
00:30:43
Speaker
you when it comes to things like climate change, it has been such a long slog. you know I first made my first program about climate change in the year 2000, and we were essentially saying the same things as we're saying now.
00:30:54
Speaker
Everything that all of those scientists predicted back there in the year 2000 have come true. And yet still there are millions of people in this country alone who do not even think it's a thing. Well, when does that tipping point come? Because You know, I've been to Arctic communities and I've been to, you know, low lying island republics in the Indian Ocean where climate change is the number one concern. You know, it's not something that people consider to be off there in the future. It is the thing that is the waking issue of every single person, every single politician.
00:31:28
Speaker
Our nation is going to be underwater in in my time, not just my kids' time, but in my time. So those those tipping points in perception are are really important.
00:31:40
Speaker
Do those exist for people in this country? Do they exist for for people in in in China and America and Russia? As yet, I don't know, but that could be one of the answers and one of the things i think we should keep as a possible positive in the back of our minds.
00:31:57
Speaker
think you're absolutely
Making Nature Accessible to All
00:31:58
Speaker
right. I mean, I spent time filming on the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific. and that was, I was there maybe even 10 years ago. And even 10 years ago, you know, the community anticipates big waves. They're just going to,
00:32:11
Speaker
sweep over the island, you know, and it happens regularly and a big storm comes in and they find that actually because it's such a tiny little strip, you know, well, the ocean just meets the ocean, you know, and they just meet in the middle.
00:32:22
Speaker
And this happens a lot and they're thinking, okay, we've got to move off this island in the next 10 years. What are we going to do? And it's so, so present. But then for those of us that exist in those, you know, middle zones around the planet, you know, we're actually, okay, we're not experiencing the same extreme changes yet.
00:32:42
Speaker
And you feel slightly like there's just going to be a sudden knee jerk to, oh God, we really got to turn the temperature down now. We've got to do it, you know? Do you think it's the case that people are truly cognizant about what nature really means to us?
00:33:02
Speaker
There are a lot of people who, like me,
00:33:07
Speaker
it's It's at a level where nature is as good as a religion to them. You could call them pantheists, I guess. And those people are very, very aware.
00:33:18
Speaker
And is everything them. They are, I would i would suggest a fairly small subsection of of our society.
00:33:29
Speaker
and And we need to do all we can to coax non-believers in into the fold. We need to make sure that nature is accessible and available to everyone.
00:33:42
Speaker
My good friend, Dwayne Fields, who's just been made Chief Scout, did a program for Countryfile a couple of years ago about how um people of color feel that the countryside is is not accessible or available to them.
00:33:57
Speaker
And it's... you know, his piece was was very much about is this is this a is this perception or is this a reality? And either way, we need to do something about that.
00:34:10
Speaker
you know we We need to make sure that that nature is something that appeals to and appears to be accessible to absolutely everyone, no matter where you come from, ah no matter what your background, beliefs,
00:34:21
Speaker
your beliefs It doesn't matter. We need to make nature genuinely appealing for everyone because, because frankly, we know what it can give people.
00:34:32
Speaker
So I think that that that's that's an area that I possibly can have a role to play in. You know, I'm i'm in the media. I'm in part of the media that that can speak particularly to young people and to families.
00:34:46
Speaker
And I see it as a big role to make sure that nature just comes across as being cool. There's an awful lot of nature broadcasting, which actually, frankly, is is aimed at people like me. And it it tends to be embracing your inner nerd and embracing your inner geek and, you know, treasuring that treasuring the invertebrates and the butterflies.
00:35:04
Speaker
And that's great. That's fantastic. But we also need to be available ah to to, you know, sending the messages of the wild world to everyone, no matter what their their persuasions or their what they think they're interested in.
00:35:19
Speaker
More broadly, do you think that an inaccessibility to nature is happening, happening here, happening all the countries around the world? Frankly, no, I don't. I think that and you know we have we have a very green and pleasant land.
00:35:35
Speaker
We have a nation of animal lovers. We have so many animals. reserves that are available and accessible to just about anyone. And that includes in our inner cities. You know, there are very few places around the world that have as many parks and wildlife reserves in urban areas as we do here in the UK. But people don't necessarily know about them.
00:36:00
Speaker
You know, they're quite often you might have a ah reserve just around the corner from you and have no idea it exists. So how do we solve that problem? how do we How do we do a better job of getting youngsters to embrace the nature on their own doorstep, frankly? And I think that, you know, here where I live, there are lots of forest schools. There are lots of ways that, that you know pretty much every school around here will have...
00:36:26
Speaker
an afternoon a week, a morning a week where where kids are going to be schooling in the local woods. They're going to be schooling um in the local wildflower meadows. and and And that is an amazing thing. And the the more that we can try and make that a part of the curriculum and an opportunity for everyone across the nation, the better.
00:36:45
Speaker
And then how do we do the same for for adults? How do we do the same for families? That's that's another big challenge because, you know I can absolutely guarantee that the majority people in this country do not know about their local wildlife reserve, do not know that it's open to, accessible to them just about any time.
00:37:04
Speaker
It's not that we are lacking. nature. it It is not that we're lacking wild spaces. It's kind of that a lot of people cannot or don't think they can access them.
00:37:17
Speaker
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You know, and if I look at kind of my own experience with my kid, brilliant. In reception, yes, they did forest school and I helped out. It was every Friday morning and I was there and the kids were, you know, really You just, I mean, at one with nature, getting into it. And to be fair to the school, it's only a small space that the kids have to explore, you know, but it was great, but it ended there, you know, they didn't, they don't do it kind of, you know, in the years beyond. And it's almost a reprioritization at kind of every level, you know, be it education, but then also within government.
00:37:51
Speaker
um
00:37:54
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, a lot of work to be done. Thank goodness we've got Steve. Do you what mean? Fighting the good fight. national dipstick?
00:38:05
Speaker
I'd like to just record my own pickup right now. with If you take that out, I will be so upset. That has got to stay in. Come on. you are, Steve, is you're probably our absolute best and extraordinary barometer for this. Barometer is is a better one. No, I prefer dipstick. I prefer dipstick.
00:38:28
Speaker
I'm going to change all my social media profile names right now. Steve Batchel, Global Dipstick. gives you information very quickly. Thank you. Thank you very, very much indeed. That that is high praise indeed.
00:38:43
Speaker
um Steve, it's been an absolute joy. Our global barometer.
00:38:51
Speaker
An absolute joy. Thank you so much for joining us
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:38:54
Speaker
today. are so, so welcome. Thank you very much indeed. Thanks, Steve.
00:39:00
Speaker
Huge thanks to Steve. Don't you just love him? He's a man on a mission to get everyone to care as much as he does about the natural world, which he quickly succeeds at.
00:39:11
Speaker
Spend a few minutes watching his shows and it is impossible to resist his passion and enthusiasm. The RSPCA wants to hear from you too. How does nature impact your life?
00:39:23
Speaker
What can we do to support it? And what might the natural world look like by 2050? You can tell us your thoughts by getting involved in the biggest ever conversation about animal welfare.
00:39:34
Speaker
Search Animal Futures, The Big Conversation. Thank you so much for listening to this episode and to the series. I really hope you've enjoyed listening to this series as much as I have enjoyed making it
00:39:50
Speaker
Animal Futures was hosted by Kate Quilton. With thanks to our guest today, Steve Backshaw. The series was produced by me, Mark Adams, Chris O'Brien, Emily Prudeau, and Joe Toscano.