What actions have you taken to reduce your footprint
I’ve concentrated my the majority of my wildlife filming career on UK wildlife. Whilst others have explored the globe I have always felt we need to love and appreciate what we have in front of us. How many people have jumped on a plane to go on safari to see a lion, when they have never visited Cardigan Bay to watch Bottlenose Dolphins, seen Sea Eagles in Scotland or been to their local woods to watch badgers…. By concentrating my efforts on our British landscape, I hope I’ve massively reduced the environmental impact of my career and encouraged others to look at the world directly around them with more wonder. I’ve probably missed out on EMMYS and BAFTAS that my mates have won with the big hitting Attenborough series - but I think it’s been the right thing to do.
What would you suggest others do as a result of what you’ve experienced and seen?
Appreciate all that we have in nature. If you can start to see the joy in that, you will care about it, you will understand why we all need to start living differently and make better choices about where we go, what we buy, who we support. Make choices based on the health of our planet.
What have you witnessed first hand that has inspired or motivated you the most to do something, around climate change and biodiversity loss?
I’m going to choose something positive here. It would be too easy to pick something awful. So I’d say its seeing peregrine falcons soaring above the White Cliffs Of Dover. When I was a kid they were the one bird I wanted to see, the fastest animal on the planet, capable of diving at over 200mph. But they had been persecuted and poisoned, lost from almost all of the UK by the 1970’s. Now I can go to the White Cliffs, my childhood stomping ground, and see these birds back again. They have been protected and conserved. They are proof that if we take the right actions, nature can recover, we simply have to give it the opportunity. The peregrines story is a story of hope, and we all need hope right now.
How would you describe Neem?
I’m no fashionista, but I like to look good. Neem is business that is doing something about how to achieve that sustainably. Not just giving donations or greenwashing itself. Its taken on a difficult problem and is helping solve it. So I would describe Neem as a problem solver. I doubt it will scream that at people who see me wearing it, it will look like a lovely piece of fashionable clothing. But wearing it, I will feel like I am a problem solver. And I like that.
Name some music you love
Tricky – Hell is round the corner
Fav artist
I own a gallery so this is tricky - if artist we show are reading this I’ll have to be careful….I cant just choose one of them! Erm… lets go for a classic – I’ll say Turner. He was inspired by the coast I live on, and his work is everywhere I look. He saw the beauty in the natural world and translated how it felt perfectly.