Campaigns and Conservationists

Podcasts with campaigners on a wide range of conservation/environmental issues. From campaigns to ban trophy hunting and clean up ghost gear to protesting about destructive developments and halting insect decline, campaigners and conservationists discuss the issues facing the world’s wildlife and offer solutions to tackle them.

Getting the most from being outside with Elaine Rainey, Project Officer Scottish Badgers (May 2020)

Welcome to a podcast made to support Wild Wellbeing Week, a project being run as part of Let’s Notice Nature, a joint initiative of Scottish Badgers and the Scottish Wildlife Trust delivered as part of the National Lottery supported ‘Earn Your Stripes’ project – a skills development programme promoting diversity and social inclusion. To bring together a wealth of tips and practical suggestions for getting the most of your time outside, Charlie Moores talked with Elaine Rainey, Project Officer for Scottish Badgers.

Forty Years of Dolphin Conservation with Dr Mike Bossley (May 2020)

Australian conservationist and scientist Dr Mike Bossley is famed for his work studying the dolphins that live in Adelaide’s Port River. He’s known many of them since they were young watching them grow up, form friendship groups and start their own families. Dedicated to helping the dolphins, Mike has tirelessly documented human impacts on their health – from pollution and boat strikes to deliberate harassment and the increasing demands of visitors for dolphin encounters. He is also fascinated by their social complexity and documented the spread of “tail walking” through the Port River Pod.

Philippa Brakes and Carl Safina discussing animal culture and their work (May 2020)

This podcast, a conversation between Charlie Moores and marine conservationists Philippa Brakes and Carl Safina, is the fourth in a short series of posts on animal culture – which is perhaps most easily thought of as “if behaviour is what animals do, then culture is how they do it”: it’s about social learning, the passing on of knowledge, and that may be as important as genetic adaptation for survival.

Animal Culture and Conservation with Philippa Brakes (April 2020)  

While researching for a series of podcasts looking at how the Covid-19 pandemic was impacting conservation Charlie Moores was put in touch with Phillipa Brakes, a research fellow at Whale and Dolphin Conservation. Philippa and Charlie had spoken before and at the time had prepped a podcast on animal sentience which they’d not been able to record. Charlie had planned to pick up on the subject again – but read a relatively short paper that Philippa had co-written on how animal culture needed to be taken into account when considering their conservation, which included striking sentences such as: “most profoundly, culture can play a causal role in establishing and maintaining distinct evolutionary trajectories”. Discuss, indeed!

Working to save Curlews with Mary Colwell (January 2020)  

In 2016 naturalist and broadcaster Mary Colwell walked 500 miles across Ireland, northern Wales, and England to raise awareness of how the once-common Common Curlew Numenius arquata was disappearing from the countryside. As she wrote at the time, ” I undertook this walk alone and unpaid. I am passionate about saving these birds.”
In the years that have followed, Mary has written a book about her travels (Curlew Moon), won the WWT Marsh Award for Wetland Conservation, launched a charity (Curlew Action), and launched a Crowdfunder to help her create a Curlew Fieldworker Toolkit which met its target just days before Charlie Moores went across to Bristol to talk with Mary for this interview. As he discovered, her passion for Curlews is burning as brightly as ever!

Natural History GCSE with Mary Colwell (January 2020)  

Many of us with an interest in the natural world have known for years that children and young people are spending less and less time outdoors. Losing their connection with nature. A recent survey suggested that many children can’t identify common garden flowers. Half couldn’t identify arguably the UK’s most distinctive bird – the Kingfisher. A fifth of young people can’t identify a badger (despite one featuring in the badge of Harry Potter’s very own Hufflepuff House).

Many of us have known for years that basic natural history knowledge is draining away, but few of us have done anything about it. But then,
few of us are Mary Colwell.
A Bristol-based naturalist and broadcaster, Mary has a remarkable can-do attitude. As she says in this interview, “If I see a problem I
want to try and solve it. I may not get it right, but I’m going to try,
and until we try we won’t know, will we…”

Eco-anxiety at work with Dr Cathleen Thomas, Suzy Hill, and Rae Stanton-Smithson (December 2019) 

‘Eco-anxiety’ is described by Psychology Today as “a fairly recent psychological disorder afflicting an increasing number of individuals who worry about the environmental crisis”. It adds that some people “are deeply affected by feelings of loss, guilt, helplessness and frustration due to their inability to feel like they are making a difference…” Sufferers say that “no matter what they do, they are convinced that it is never enough”.

My name is Charlie Moores, and as well as creating podcasts for Lush I coordinate our War on Wildlife Project, working to help tackle what we see as humanity’s war on wildlife. For part of a mental health awareness campaign at Lush I was privileged to help bring together two other Lush employees, Suzy Hill and Rae Stanton-Smithson, and the RSPB’s Dr Cathleen Thomas, who works in the RSPB’s Hen Harrier Life Project for a conversation about eco-anxiety, our own feelings of guilt, and how important it is that employers recognise the signs of eco-anxiety in their staff.

Pesticide Action Network with Nick Mole (November 2019)

Nick Mole is Policy Officer with Pesticide Action Network UK, a charity which works to promote safe and sustainable alternatives to hazardous pesticides.

In this podcast Charlie Moores and Nick talked about the rise of pesticide use, the ‘cocktail effect’, supporting farmers with information on alternatives, and the role that cheap food plays in pesticide use, but Charlie began by suggesting to Nick that the pesticide industry perhaps epitomises the War On Wildlife more clearly than almost anything else…