Wild Voices Project

Lucy Purdy (@loosepea) is editor of Positive News (@PositiveNewsUK), a magazine that publishes ‘constructive journalism’ – good journalism about good things. She is originally from Shropshire but has lived in London for more than 10 years. Previously, she was a freelance journalist, writing about nature connection and other topics for the likes of Guardian Sustainable Business, The Simple Things magazine, Oh Comely magazine, the New Statesman and various gardening titles. She is passionate about growing food and about composting, and loves spending time in nature, running and making things.

If you visit the Positive News website you can read some of the articles, subscribe or donate.

In this conversation we cover the power of positive journalism to change people’s media diets as well as to inspire them to take action. Lucy describes the lengths she will go to in order to achieve the perfect compost mix, and we discuss the important relationship between nature and the language we use to describe it.

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.

Sean Conway (@Conway_Sean) is an endurance adventurer who, among other things, has cycled, swum and run the length of Great Britain in a triathlon of incredible feats. His books, Lands End to John O’Groats, Hell and High Water, and Running Britain, each tell the tale of these three journeys. Sean previously attempted to cycle around the world but was knocked off his bike.

I managed to record this episode in a short few days between the publication of his latest book, Running Britain, and his departure to set a new record for cycling 8000 miles across Europe. You can follow this latest adventure at www.yellowjersey.co.uk.

Sean is a truly inspirational human being who has helped me to push past some of my own self-imposed boundaries in my walking and particularly my running. As well as this, his books are infused with a genuine connection to the landscape and wildlife that make up the British countryside. He grew up in Zimbabwe where his father was a game ranger and experienced a childhood full of wildlife like rhinos. This appreciation for wilderness and wildlife has clearly stayed with him to this day, not just in his adventuring but also in his descriptions of encounters with pods of dolphins or being awoken in his tent by birdsong.

In this conversation we discuss Sean’s appreciation for Britain’s countryside and landscapes, his refined skill for growing an amazing beard, and where he finds the strength to push through the most challenging parts of his adventures. And he shares his perspective on how anyone can make their life more adventurous through day to day decisions.

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.

Shawn Heinrichs (@shawnheinrichs) is an Emmy-award winning cinematographer, photographer and underwater diver. Since transitioning out of a career in the finance industry he has become a champion for the oceans. He has been involved in notable conservation successes, not least of which the listing of manta rays as a scheduled species under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species. His images and videos have featured in news and media outlets the world over. He has gone to extreme lengths, going undercover to document the illegal trade in marine species, and you can see this in the film Racing Extinction. while also creating incredibly beautiful underwater videos of dancers interacting with species like whale sharks that have gone viral. It really is worth checking out these videos here, here and here. Shawn is also the Founder of Blue Sphere Foundation (@bluespherefdn) which is working to safeguard the planet’s oceans. You can see more of his videos on his youtube channel.

In this conversation we talk about his childhood in South Africa where he developed his passion for wildlife, that transition from finance to becoming an ocean champion, the role that diet plays in his physical and mental health, depression, his engagement with local communities, and he recounts the amazing story of an intimate encounter with a baby humpback whale.

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.

Joshua Styles is an incredible young man. Before he even graduated from university he had a job with an ecological consultancy firm. He has been taken on as a volunteer botanical recorder by several of the environmental NGOs in his local area. And he’s the founder of the North West Rare Plants Initiative (http://nwrpi.weebly.com/) which is his effort to recover and restore plants and flowers in the northwest of England. He does this primarily by identifying suitable sites and cultivating specimens at home for introduction.

But he has been growing his own plants at home since around the age of seven or eight, and he developed incredible botanical expertise as a teenager. At his university he was awarded for designing the campus’s first ever biodiversity action plan. So, our conversation covers not only his favourite plants and landscapes for finding them, but we also discuss what he thinks drives him to be such an accomplished self-starter and expert botanist. You can find out more about Joshua by following him @Joshual951.

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.

John B Weller and Cassandra Brooks are a married couple based in Boulder, Colorado.

Cassandra Brooks is an incoming Assistant Professor in Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. She’s worked in marine science and public outreach for twenty years, with the last 13 years largely centered on the remote reaches of Antarctica. She recently completed her PhD at Stanford University studying international ocean policy, with a focus on marine protection in the Antarctic. During her previous graduate work at Moss Landing Marine Labs, she studied Antarctic toothfish in the Ross Sea, a population that supports the most remote fishery on Earth. Cassandra was formally trained as a Science Communicator through the University of California Santa Cruz and has published more than 150 articles and multi-media stories about marine science and the environment. She has also worked with international non-profits to produce media promoting policy designed to protect ecologically important regions of the globe while writing policy reports to identify important areas for marine protection in the Antarctic and elsewhere. She currently contributes to National Geographic’s Ocean Views blog while working as a science advisor for international conservation organisations.

John Weller is a partner with organizations that fight for marine protections around the world. After graduating from Stanford in Economics, he achieved critical acclaim as a writer and photographer. An impassioned observer of nature, he followed a path through the Colorado desert to the waters of the Antarctic, and has been working on Ross Sea conservation as a SeaWeb Fellow since 2005. After four trips to the Ross Sea, including three months of diving under the ice as a guest of the United States Antarctic Program, Weller compiled a library of Ross Sea photographs that has been published in dozens of magazines; used by conservation organisations to publicize the Ross Sea all over the world; and showcased at the 2009, 2011, and 2013 Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings. He produced many short films, has an upcoming book, and has worked closely with scientists, policy-makers, and conservation organizations invested in the Ross Sea.

John co-founded The Last Ocean project to campaign for the protection of the Ross Sea, which Cassandra also became involved in. In our conversation they describe the incredible story of their campaigning work over many years to seek strong protection for one of the remotest and most pristine marine habitats on Earth. We cover learning to deep sea dive, why toothfish are some of the most interesting marine creatures out there, how to prepare equipment for an Antarctic trip, John’s underwater discovery about how Weddell seals stun their prey, and how you get 24 nations plus the EU (including China, Russia and the US) into a room to negotiate together. And of course we find out whether they were successful in getting global protection for this incredible place.

This is one of the longer, maybe the longest, conversation I’ve recorded so far. But it is rich in detailed descriptions of the Antarctic landscape, tips on photographing in extreme environments and analysis and background on how to run an international nature conservation campaign.

Image by John B Weller.

Tiffany Francis is an author and artist specialising in nature, wildlife and the outdoors. In a few days’ time her new and first book, Food you can Forage, is being published. In this episode you can get a sneak preview of an excerpt that Tiff reads aloud.

Last year she was the winner of an episode of Kirsty’s Handmade Christmas on Channel 4 and when she’s not out foraging for seaweed and spotting amazing birds, she’s likely to be at home in her kitchen cooking up beautiful cakes or concocting homemade alcohol.

In this conversation we talk about Tiff’s love of foraging food and why she thinks it’s something anyone can have a go at, her writing process and how she secured a book deal, and her transition in recent days to being full time freelance/self-employed. You can find out more about Tiff at tiffanyimogen.com or @tiffins11 on Twitter. She’ll soon be opening an Etsy shop too where you can buy her artwork.

This episode is a recording with my good friend Crista Valentino, Founder and Director of CoalitionWILD. In this conversation we cover learning the tactics of patience and listening, how to build a global network of peers who can support you - both for personal benefit and as an organisation aiming to create environmental change. We also talk about failures that Crista feels have helped set her up for future success and she shares an incredible story about a young man who travels on his own, from India to Spain, leaving his country for the first ever time, and is now tackling the illegal wildlife trade and inspiring other young people around the world. We discuss the right questions to ask before setting out on a new project, and why we don’t necessarily need more environmentalists or scientists in order to save the world.

CoalitionWILD is a global initiative working to connect and equip the world's young change makers to create a wilder world. Crista's professional focus is on developing ways to accelerate projects that support a better future for the planet and integrate a new generation of voices into the environmental movement.

You can find out more at www.CoalitionWILD.org or twitter.com/CoalitionWILD and you can apply to become one of CoalitionWILD’s 2018 global ambassadors by visiting CoalitionWILD.org/ambassador (the deadline is 28 February 2018). You can contact Crista at [email protected] and in Crista’s own words, there are so many ways to get involved and they never turn anyone away.

This conversation is with my good friend Carolyn Thompson. I was lucky enough to spend six of my 12 months living in the Indonesian jungle with Caz. We had many a wonderful day together searching for orangutans or following red langur monkeys for hours at a time (wading our way through the waist deep mud and finding plenty of ways to trip or slip over). In this conversation we talk about fieldwork mistakes that she has learned from, writing children’s books to inspire conservation, becoming a PhD student without being a natural scientist, and how she has crowd-funded her own PhD to the tune of over £17,000.

Carolyn is a British-Swiss primatologist who grew up in Scotland, Indonesia and Norway. She has spent the past 10 years working in the field of wild primate behaviour and implications for conservation. The majority of her research has focused on Asian primates, with the exception of lemurs in Madagascar. She is currently studying towards a doctorate degree at University College London and the Zoological Society of London, focusing on critically endangered gibbon decline.

In her spare time she is a keen author and writes children's books to support conservation efforts and raise important awareness about threatened species.

You can support Carolyn’s PhD research on the newly discovered "Skywalker" hoolock gibbon here: https://www.gofundme.com/skywalkergibbonresearch (which features amazing graphic design by http://www.davemccall.co.uk/). You can find out more about Carolyn on her website (https://www.thompsoncarolyn.com/) or on Twitter @gibbonresearch or on Instagram at gibbonresearch.

Dr Michelle LaRue is a research ecologist at the University of Minnesota. She’s a fascinating and inspiring conservationist who has developed innovative approaches, travelled the world and taken her conservation science communications to an extremely impressive level.

Michelle focuses on interdisciplinary tools, such as GIS (geographic information system) mapping and high-resolution satellite imagery, to study spatial and population dynamics of penguins, seals, cougars, and polar bears - species facing substantial conservation challenges as both the physical and social environments change across the world.

She’s also a science communicator and believes that making science accessible through approachability as a speaker is key to public engagement and science comprehension.

In this episode we cover her amazing wildlife experiences in the Antarctic and some of the lessons she has learned from mistakes or failures on fieldwork. We discuss the innovative techniques she has been using to study Weddell seals and penguin species in the Antarctic and what her research is revealing about the drivers of change we’re seeing in their populations. And she shares some of her tactics and techniques for undertaking science communications, including how to prepare for giving presentations.

You can find more about Michelle at drmichellelarue.com (spell it out), follow her on twitter.com/drmichellelarue and she also created the popular #CougarorNot hashtag which runs every Friday and I strongly recommend checking out (this is because she is also the Executive Director of the Cougar Network (www.cougarnet.org) in the US which we cover in the episode as well).

And if you’d like to help Michelle with her research then you can do so from your very own home. Visit www.tomnod.com (spell it out) to help her search satellite imagery of the Antarctic for traces of Weddell seals, and contribute to our growing understanding of where they are (and aren’t) found.

You may also want to watch Michelle’s talks at Ideacity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enFjxbqQovk&t=1s) and the Earth Optimism Summit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf5wJ2S898c).

Isla Hodgson is a zoologist working towards a PhD in conservation, studying the conflict between raptors and grouse moor management in Scotland. She is also a keen communicator, working as a freelance researcher for the BBC, and has just written her first book – Hidden Nature – which is all about British wildlife and where to find it, based on her blog www.wherethewildthingslive.co.uk. Isla is also the associate director for the UK’s youth nature network A Focus On Nature (AFON), which aims to bring together and support young people with an interest in the natural world.

In this conversation we discuss the role of bravery, particularly for women, in the conservation sector, how she has built trust with communities who often have reason to mistrust conservationists, and her process and routine for writing a book at the same time as doing a PhD.