Wild Voices Project

This conversation is with Teleri Fielden (@TeleriFielden), the National Trust and Welsh Young Farmers scholar at Llyndy Isaf farm in Snowdonia. Teleri was recently featured on the BBC’s Snowdonia Shepherdess programme. She looks after a farm on the slopes of the Welsh mountains in Snowdonia. And in this conversation tells us about her experience in this landscape and how farming cattle and sheep can be beneficial for wildlife and conservation.

Teleri’s interest in farming and the outdoors comes from spending time as a child on her grandfather’s farm. She tells us how that turned into her opportunity to take on the scholarship at Llyndy for three years. She also talks about some of her encounters with wildlife in the landscape. And she tells us how skills from marketing roles have helped her in her farming career to date.

This is a very special episode of the Wild Voices Project podcast in collaboration with the Meet the Farmers podcast (http://thinkingcountry.com/meet-the-farmers-podcast) presented by Ben Eagle (@benjy_eagle).

The Wild Voices Project podcast tells the stories of people saving nature. You can find us online at www.wildvoicesproject.org and @WildVoicesProj on twitter. And you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and Stitcher.

Lizzie Daly (http://www.lizziedalywildlife.com/) is a wildlife filmmaker and presenter. You can find her on twitter @_LizzieDaly and her youtube channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC20DGpTHgqDlgctp6jDkmZg. Lizzie is a biologist and broadcaster, a wildlife filmmaker both in front of and behind the camera for BBC Earth Unplugged, CBeebies and NatGeo Kids. She’s also the founder of the “Do You Suck” plastic waste campaign in five UK cities.

I met Lizzie at BBC Countryfile Live over the summer and her passion and energy shone through during her talk on stage. I was really lucky to have the chance to speak to her earlier this year at Cardiff public library.

In this conversation we discuss how her early persistence to succeed academically translated into determination to succeed in wildlife filmmaking. We cover the role that technology has played in helping her to develop films for herself and build her career from scratch. We talk about her passion for African elephants and for British wildlife, and share our respective views on puffins and other seabirds. And Lizzie also describes how a past mistake (or what seemed like a mistake at the time during an audition) set her up for future success.

The Wild Voices Project podcast tells the stories of people saving nature. You can find us online at www.wildvoicesproject.org and @WildVoicesProj on twitter. And you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and Stitcher.

This is a conversation recorded by Kate Snowdon (https://kateonconservation.com/ and https://twitter.com/KateConsrvation ).

Tania Esteban (https://www.treproductions.co.uk/ is a bilingual wildlife filmmaker and researcher who has worked with the BBC on various films, including Big Cats, which was her first break into the BBC. She has worked as a researcher on big titles such as Wild Cities and on digital projects for Our Planet, Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II. Kate talks to Tania about this experience so far, and her own film A Lion’s Tale, which is about the Born Free Foundation, and how this ties in with wider issues of the illegal wildlife trade.

We hear Tania’s tips for making it as a wildlife filmmaker, who to find a niche in terms of style and technology – she shares her story of why she focussed on drones and their applications for both conservation research and wildlife filmmaking.

The Wild Voices Project podcast tells the stories of people saving nature. You can find us online at www.wildvoicesproject.org and @WildVoicesProj on twitter. And you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and Stitchr. We are part of WILDVoices media, a global production team bridging emerging storytellers with aspiring environmental professionals. Learn more about the global community at wild-voices.org.

We live in a era of disconnection from our direct experiences of life - from ourselves, from each other and from the natural world we're all integrally part of. Why? Because in the Western world in particular, we've chosen to 'develop our minds' so much that our habitual mode of being ("autopilot mode") is lost in the individual and collective thoughts and narratives of our conscious minds -without even being aware of it. This had led us to become significantly disconnected from our bodies and senses, from our direct experience and ultimately from nature within us and around us. We have forgotten how to pay attention and listen to nature - which we all have an innate bond with. According to Claire Thompson, author and explorer of mindfulness and nature (http://mindfulness-of-nature.com/ and https://twitter.com/NatureMindful, this disconnection is the root cause of most of the unnecessary suffering and problems which we face in the world today. Mindfulness is about becoming aware of all the different aspects of our experience of aliveness in an open, compassionate and non-judgmental way. This awareness gives us the choice as to which parts of our experience we tune into. Claire believes that a world that is more mindful of nature will be happier, more peaceful and on the road to sustainability - it's time to bring our awareness back to nature!

In this conversation, Claire covers how simple practices like finding a ‘sit spot’ can help us to develop a mindful approach to the natural world and in turn to the rest of our lives. Taking this more mindful approach to life can help us to deal with challenging situations and become more aware of our emotional reactions and where they come from. We are part of nature and nature is part of us, so Claire sees it as common sense for us to undertake mindfulness in a natural setting since it heightens our senses and perception. Practising mindfulness can also be a great way to see wildlife and to enter a state of stillness that encourages it to become more confiding and come closer.

Claire also describes how she fell in love with Central and South America, and explains how she has left her day job in order to move there this winter to lead workshops and retreats where she hopes to inspire many more to reconnect with the natural world - through mindfulness meditations, discussions, games, hikes and shared experiences of the wilderness in beautiful places. And she explains the linkages between mindful experiences of nature and our motivation to protect things that we love. In turn, she explains that mindful experiences of nature might be able to help us conserve and restore it.

The Wild Voices Project podcast tells the stories of people saving nature. You can find us online at www.wildvoicesproject.org and @WildVoicesProj on twitter. And you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and Stitchr. We are part of WILDVoices media, a global production team bridging emerging storytellers with aspiring environmental professionals. Learn more about the global community at wild-voices.org.

Diogo Veríssimo (https://www.diogoverissimo.com and @verissimodiogo) is a social scientist focussing on how marketing and insights into human behaviour can help us to tackle conservation issues, particularly human-wildlife conflict and the illegal trade in wildlife. He’s an Oxford Martin Fellow, part of the Oxford Martin programme on the illegal wildlife trade. In 2016 he was given the Young Professional Award by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Commission of Education and Communication and in 2017 he received the Early Career Conservationist Award from the Society for Conservation Biology.

In this conversation he tells us how tripping over a fossil was how he stumbled into an interest in the natural world. And he tells us how he realised that nature conservation is fundamentally dependent on human actions and interactions with the natural world. And then Diogo explains how social marketing and influencing human behaviour can help us to protect wildlife, creating incentives rather than imposing rules and regulations. This marketing can take the form of focusing on charismatic umbrella species that are particularly appealing but which are connected to others.

Diogo also tells us about the Lost and Found project he founded, about species previously thought to have gone extinct that have been rediscovered. And he also tells us about setting up ‘I Fucking Love Biodiversity’ (https://www.facebook.com/Ilovebiodiversity/ and

The Wild Voices Project podcast tells the stories of people saving nature. You can find us online at www.wildvoicesproject.org and @WildVoicesProj on twitter. And you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and Stitchr. We are part of WILDVoices media, a global production team bridging emerging storytellers with aspiring environmental professionals. Learn more about the global community at wild-voices.org.

Dr Sharon Blackie (@sharonblackie and www.sharonblackie.net) is a psychologist and mythologist and presenter of The Hedge School podcast (www.thehedgeschool.org/) on the theme of a new folk culture. She’s also an award-winning writer of several books including ‘The Enchanted Life’, ‘If Women Rose Rooted’ and ‘The Long Delirious Burning Blue’.

We talk about Sharon’s realisation that she was unhappy in a corporate role working in London that was affecting her mental wellbeing. Her mother’s move to a tiny cottage in rural Wales spurred her to uphaul her life and reconnect with nature. We explore the impacts on our natural world of the unhappiness and disconnection that so many of us, including Sharon, have felt.

The conversation also touches on how a rootedness in place, tradition, nature and the feminine can help to heal both ourselves and the natural world. In Sharon’s view, western philosophy has played a significant role in the ‘disenchantment’ with the natural world that we suffer from today.

Sharon shares the beautiful story of the mythical selkies, half-woman half-seal, that she explains can help us to understand the importance of female intuition and wisdom. And I think Sharon’s explanation of this story is emblematic of her wider ability in this episode to tell beautiful and allegorical stories and anecdotes that contain powerful lessons about our connection to the natural world.

The Wild Voices Project podcast tells the stories of people saving nature. You can find us online at www.wildvoicesproject.org and @WildVoicesProj on twitter. And you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and Stitchr. We are part of WILDVoices media, a global production team bridging emerging storytellers with aspiring environmental professionals. Learn more about the global community at wild-voices.org.

This episode is a special compilation for the best bits from the People’s Walk for Wildlife on 22 September 2018. Thank you so much to Chris Packham for organising this amazing event. In order of appearance, you’ll hear from:

Chris Packham

Kate Snowdon

Mike Dilger

Caroline Mead

Stephen Moss

Beth Aucott

Bill Oddie

Pete Cooper

Danny Heptinstall

Mike McCarthy

Kate Jennings

Guy Shrubsole and Louisa Casson

Georgia Locock

Melanie Coath

Martin Harper

Charley Miller

The Wild Voices Project podcast tells the stories of people saving nature. We are part of WILDVoices media, a global production team bridging emerging storytellers with aspiring environmental professionals. Find out more about us at wildvoicesproject.org. Learn more about the global community at wild-voices.org.

Benedict Allen (benedictallen.com) is one of the world’s foremost explorers. You can follow him on twitter @benedictallen. He’s the writer of a plethora of books, including ‘Into the Crocodile Nest: A Journey Inside New Guinea’, ‘Hunting the Gugu’, ‘Into the Abyss’, ‘Edge of Blue Heaven: A Journey Through Mongolia’, ‘The Skeleton Coast: Journey Through the Namib Desert’, ‘Mad White Giant’, and presenter of six BBC television series. He’s the only person to have crossed the full width of the Gobi desert alone except for camels. He’s well known for his technique of immersing himself with indigenous communities and avoiding taking technology with him on expedition. He has survived many near-death experiences, including sewing up his own chest-wound with his boot-mending kit after being abandoned by his guides in Sumatra.

In this episode we discuss his inspiration from his air pilot father, how he developed the mental and physical resilience to go on months-long solo expeditions in his 20s. He describes enduring brutal initiation ceremonies in Papua New Guinea with the crocodile cult, that involved being beaten every day five times a day with bamboo blades, a ceremony that no outsider had before experienced; encountering snakes in the Mongolian desert. And we talk about how exploration can help us understand the current mass extinction of wildlife we are experiencing and causing.

The Wild Voices Project podcast tells the stories of people saving nature. We are part of WILDVoices media, a global production team bridging emerging storytellers with aspiring environmental professionals. Find out more about us at wildvoicesproject.org. Learn more about the global community at wild-voices.org.

Steph West (@BatGirlSteph78) is UK Biodiversity Training Manager at the Natural History Museum. In this episode I got a fascinating behind the scenes look at the work the NHM does but that you may not have heard about: training the next generation of specialist ecologists (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/take-part/identification-trainers-for-the-future.html) and helping to conserve the world’s wildlife, as well as preserving specimens of dead animals and lost species. I also learn about Steph’s early fascination with bats. And she tells us that the skills she developed in the financial sector translate directly across to her career in conservation.

Steph also shares her view on what it’s like to work at the Museum, as well as telling us about how and where specimens are stored and some of her favourites, including the mysterious ‘spirit birds’. You can read more about Steph at this link: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/departments-and-staff/staff-directory/stephanie-west.html

The Wild Voices Project podcast tells the stories of people saving nature. We are part of WILDVoices media, a global production team bridging emerging storytellers with aspiring environmental professionals. Find out more about us at wildvoicesproject.org. Learn more about the global community at wild-voices.org.

Mercy Kariuki is Local Engagement and Empowerment Coordinator for BirdLife Africa. She tells the story of how she fell in love with the birds of her home country, Kenya and how she developed her leadership skills through setting up an environmental group at her school. Mercy also explains the community projects that she helps to coordinate in order to create habitat for bird species in a range of African countries. And she discusses why she thinks conservation needs more women leaders, and the lessons she has drawn from the women who have inspired her.

Mercy also tells us about Njabini Wool Crafters (NWC) which is a youth-led, conservation focused co-op that aims at building an economically viable organisation while at the same time driving conservation of the Kinangop Plateau Grasslands, home to the critically endangered Sharpe's Longclaw bird species. NWC provides training and skills development in the areas of wool product design, spinning and weaving to young people in the Kinangop area and works closely with farmers to enhance their income from sheep farming. You can find out more about the projects here https://www.rufford.org/projects/mercy_kariuki and here http://www.nwc.co.ke/index.php.

The Wild Voices Project podcast tells the stories of people saving nature. We are part of WILDVoices media, a global production team bridging emerging storytellers with aspiring environmental professionals. Find out more about us at wildvoicesproject.org. Learn more about the global community at wild-voices.org.