Latest / Saving the World From Bad Ideas / Bad Idea #52 "Attenborough’s films ignore human impacts” with Colin Butfield

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Bad Idea #52 "Attenborough’s films ignore human impacts” with Colin Butfield · Saving the World From Bad Ideas

0:00
We filmed the big krill fisheries that are down there
0:02
and one of the things we deliberately did for that and
0:05
actually throughout the whole film was only film legal
0:07
fisheries. There's lots of illegal
0:09
fisheries. But for the film, we
0:10
deliberately wanted to film those things that are allowed or
0:13
even quite often encouraged and subsidized by law.
0:16
Because in some respects that feels more outrageous than a few
0:19
bad actors doing a few bad things.
0:21
It's this is what we've chosen to do as a society or chosen to
0:24
allow. I can absolutely sympathize with
0:26
a community casting Nets, even bottom trawling though I hope we
0:29
can get get away from that. To feed their families, feed
0:31
their communities, earn a living.
0:33
That's 1,000,000 miles away from going all the way down to
0:36
Antarctica, hauling up krill for pet food and supplements.
0:40
A lot of storytelling has been about humans being inherently
0:44
bad. It's very, very kind of Garden
0:46
of Eden. I'm thinking of Avatar here and
0:47
the sort of central myth or there of this destructive,
0:51
rapacious humans coming from elsewhere and just destroying
0:54
everything, that humans are somehow unavoidably destructive
1:00
and we just have to protect nature as far as we possibly can
1:03
against any kind of human human interference or interaction.
1:06
Yeah, and, and you can see why, but I don't think humans are
1:11
inherently bad. I mean, I mean, I'm sure there
1:13
are some, but by and large, I don't think most people are.
1:16
I don't think most societies are.
1:17
I don't even think most companies are.
1:19
I think it's the way that we have defaulted in the sort of
1:24
scale of growth that we've had, the scale of growth in both the
1:26
numbers of people, but also the way we consume the lateness.
1:29
We realise the scale of the impacts on the planet and the
1:32
slowness with which we've changed our systems to adapt to
1:35
it. That is not the same thing at
1:37
all as saying humans are a precious evil destructed by our
1:42
very nature. Welcome to saving the world from
1:44
bad ideas. I'm Mark Linus and I've had a
1:46
few bad ideas in my time. I used to go out in the night
1:49
time to destroy GMO crops, and I also opposed nuclear power.
1:53
But then when I looked at the science, I found I got it wrong.
1:56
Oops. I've learned the hard way that
1:57
none of us are right all the time.
1:59
So now I'm here to challenge the assumptions that we all too
2:02
often take for granted because the future depends on us getting
2:05
it right. Hello.
2:06
My guest today is Colin Buttfield, who's Co founder and
2:10
director of Open Planet Studios. As a filmmaker, he's worked on
2:14
landmark productions, mostly involving David Attenborough,
2:17
including A Life on Our Planet and Breaking Boundaries, and
2:20
most recently he directed Ocean with David Attenborough.
2:22
Colin, welcome. Thank you, Mark.
2:24
Hi, great. Nice to be here.
2:26
Well, thanks for coming on the show.
2:28
We're supposed to have a bad idea that you're saving the
2:30
world from, and I haven't thought of one in advance, but
2:33
maybe it'll emerge along the way where you're.
2:35
Just sure some bad ideas will emerge along the way, if not
2:38
only from. Well, that you're meant to be
2:40
saving the world from rather than promoting.
2:41
Them this is true. But I suppose I have to start
2:45
because it's what most people want to know, is working with
2:48
David Attenborough. How long were you working making
2:50
films with the Great Man? So in different ways, like from
2:54
conservation work to films to book.
2:57
Most recently I think I've worked with him on and off for
2:59
about 1820 years in different, in different guises, in
3:02
different ways. And yeah, it's been obviously
3:06
one of those sort of quite weird things where as a kid, I
3:09
remember being at my parents house watching his programs and
3:11
now to have worked with him and not just worked with him, but
3:14
worked with him. But over many, many years, you
3:16
still occasionally pinch yourself, but it's he's such a
3:20
normal person to work with. I mean, normal being having a
3:22
ginormous brain and incredible communication skills, but in
3:25
every other way he's a normal person to work with.
3:27
He's very down to earth nowheres and graces.
3:30
So you can momentarily forget that you're working with
3:33
somebody that you had, you know, you'd fallen in love with their
3:35
programs and their books when you're a kid.
3:37
So it's, it's, it's obviously, it's an absolute pleasure and
3:42
privilege. Yeah, I've only met him twice in
3:44
my whole life. The first time I was as a
3:45
student journalist when I did an interview with him for the
3:48
student newspaper at Edinburgh University.
3:50
The second was a Corals meeting in London, again about 10 or 15
3:54
years ago. And as you say, he was just
3:58
normal and also incredibly nice. But when you're on on set or
4:03
laced out in the wild filming, I mean, there must be times when
4:07
you you see a different side of, so you see a different side, you
4:10
know, you get to know somebody really well, right?
4:11
I'm not suggesting that you can tell me stories about how
4:14
horrible David is, because I know he's not.
4:15
But I want to get a bit of a sense of the real, of the real
4:19
person, rather than just the sort of the TV persona.
4:22
I mean, I think the bit, you know, people say don't meet your
4:25
heroes and they'll disappoint you, he's sort of the opposite
4:28
of that in the sense that, yes, when you're out filming, I mean,
4:30
probably his most comfortable place or it certainly seems it
4:33
is with a film crew that he knows really well because I
4:37
think it's easy to forget now, but he spent his whole life
4:39
working in film crews, not really necessarily being front
4:43
of camera. He's obviously really
4:44
accomplished director, really accomplished producer, really
4:46
accomplished writer. So he knows everybody's job and
4:49
he's very, very relaxed and normal around that kind of group
4:54
of people. So you just get him being, you
4:57
know, one of the crew, 1 of it just chatting away, being
5:00
totally normal. And then of course you have the
5:02
moment when you he's going to deliver a piece to camera and
5:06
you just get that brief moment and he pauses, sort of looks up
5:09
and suddenly delivers. Absolutely world class lines,
5:13
commentary things, moments that you know are going to become
5:15
iconic and you just have that sudden flip switch of realizing
5:18
what it's like and that this person you were just normally
5:22
chatting with about normal things.
5:23
All of a sudden you're you're in the presence of greatness and
5:25
somebody that does something to to a level the rest of us
5:28
haven't come close to you before.
5:30
Yeah. And without pulling back the
5:32
curtain too far, is any of that scripted or does he come out
5:36
with these incredible lines? Obviously the voice over is
5:38
going to be scripted, but in terms of his pieces to camera
5:40
when he's in the field? Yeah, usually the partially
5:44
scripted is probably the the the.
5:46
So in other words, it's not like he doesn't know what he's going
5:48
to say. He's thought about it quite a
5:50
bit. But typically the exact words
5:52
that come out one take to the next are very different each
5:55
time. Something on the films we'll be
5:57
making. I think it's a bit different if
5:58
you wind all the way back to life on Earth or something like
6:01
that. But things are partially
6:02
scripted. So obviously David has thought
6:05
about why he's in a particular location, the main messages he
6:07
wants to get through. But usually we find that the he
6:11
changes it as he says it. So he usually wants and it
6:15
typically is one of those, one of those people that the first
6:17
take they do is really good, the second take lifts it up 30%.
6:21
He just sort of has thought about it reflected and the exact
6:26
words that come out are usually gold.
6:28
So he's not somebody that tends to require 456 different takes.
6:32
He's normally seems to be able to pace it perfectly to the
6:35
length he wants it and he knows what he's going to say, but it's
6:38
not normally word for word scripted unless unless it's
6:41
voiceover like you say. And some of the moments with
6:44
David have become television history, almost worldwide
6:48
television. I'm thinking of the moment with
6:50
the gorillas. Was that on life on Earth?
6:52
Yeah, that was life on earth. I think so.
6:54
I think so. Anyway, this is this is this is
6:56
definitely before my time. You know, obviously that I
6:59
wasn't there for the recording. And he's approaching his 100th
7:03
birthday now, right? Yeah, it's 100th birthdays in in
7:06
May, so a few weeks time. Yeah, and I'm kind of curious
7:11
about how he evolved from being, I guess a straight up television
7:15
presenter to a campaigner of sorts in that he then made
7:20
appearances at climate summits and he's campaigned for for
7:24
biodiversity and various specific wildlife courses.
7:27
And that sort of parallels a change, I think perhaps in the
7:30
media landscape of nature documentary making.
7:34
You'd I'd love to hear your your thoughts on this because the the
7:38
sort of the classic nature documentary, there was no humans
7:41
insight. There was no sign of any kind of
7:43
ecological threats or anything like that.
7:45
It was just nature, pristine and wonderful in the wild.
7:48
And then later we got more and more towards films which
7:51
actually showed how threatened many of these ecosystems are.
7:54
Tell us a bit about that kind of evolution, both in David's
7:57
presenting career and the films that you've made.
8:00
Yeah. I think in terms of the films, I
8:03
think that you just got to a point where it felt very strange
8:07
unless you were talking about really specific elements of
8:09
animal behavior. If you were talking about the
8:11
bigger sort of set pieces, looking at entire habitats, it's
8:15
really very strange not to mention humanity or talk about
8:19
the changes that are happening in them.
8:21
And obviously that sort of form has changed over the years from
8:24
being a little bit that tenders to be tagged on at the end of
8:27
programs to something that became more threaded through the
8:29
narrative. So 1 I had the pleasure of
8:32
working on was our planet worked on with Silkback films with
8:35
Netflix and WWF. And that was probably the first
8:39
one that although the majority of what was in shop was the
8:41
natural world as opposed to our part in in influencing the
8:45
natural world. Then the the narrative across
8:48
the whole series was about how much has changed, particularly
8:51
over a single human lifetime. So that was the first one that
8:55
at least I worked on that, that thread ran the whole way through
8:58
a landmark series. And then as we got further and
9:01
further into it, there's been specific films, as you, as you
9:04
referenced at the beginning that David's worked on whether it's
9:06
breaking boundaries of life on our planet Ocean more recently,
9:09
that have unquestionably placed our role as really front and
9:14
centre actually are looking at the changes we've led to within
9:17
the natural world. And I think it's sort of a
9:20
couple of reasons. I mean, one, as I said, it was
9:22
unavoidable. You can't, you can't, you just
9:23
can't ignore this. It's crazy to ignore it.
9:25
But the second is it's, I mean, you know this better than most.
9:29
It's getting, it could not be getting more urgent.
9:31
And I think we're at a point where we've underplayed the role
9:35
that storytelling can have in trying to change the direction
9:37
we're going. We're a narrative, you know,
9:39
with humans, a narrative species.
9:41
We've always under stood our world and processed our world by
9:44
story. And I think we've underserved it
9:47
to a degree as an environmental movement.
9:48
I'd count myself as a probably an environmentalist first,
9:51
storyteller second, and I think the storytelling part of it has
9:55
probably been underutilized over the last few decades.
9:57
So to see that start to come out and David has obviously been one
10:02
of one of the great voices within this, but there, but
10:04
there are others too. And I feel like we've we've had
10:07
to course correct quite a lot from merely looking at the
10:09
natural world as something we observe to something we're a
10:12
part of and indeed the primary influence upon at the moment.
10:16
Yeah. And let's talk about Ocean
10:18
specifically, because that's been a huge success, I believe.
10:22
And it's, it's also a very explicit campaigning film, isn't
10:26
it? It's not just, you know, you
10:28
know, it's not just sort of depressing, but tacked at the
10:31
end about how all of the things you've just seen are actually
10:32
being depleted or eliminated. But I, I just think it did it
10:37
brilliantly. It was woven right through the
10:39
narrative, but not in a way which was which was depressing,
10:41
but which actually felt really real.
10:44
Yeah, I mean, that was the sort of the idea right from the
10:47
beginning actually, because David was very well known for
10:49
making Blue Planet and lots of other ocean related
10:53
storytelling. So why do another one?
10:55
And the point, as you said, was to sort of span this period of
10:58
human time, so roughly 100 years, where we've gone from
11:01
knowing a bit about the ocean, but not really deeply
11:04
understanding how it works and how different habitats link
11:07
together, different ocean currents work, to their
11:09
learning. All of that, but simultaneously
11:11
disrupting many of those natural processes through the way we
11:14
treat the ocean, in particular, industrial fishing, bottom
11:17
trawling, pollution, climate change.
11:19
But actually during the period of that that's been happening
11:22
recently, we've started to see the first examples of proper
11:25
recovery in places where it's been deliberately protected.
11:28
So we sort of deliberately tried to think about what are the key
11:31
revelations we want to get across.
11:33
One of which was showing the impacts, really showing the
11:36
impacts, but the second of which was showing what proper recovery
11:40
could actually look like. And I think that hope felt
11:42
genuine to us. It felt like something we really
11:44
wanted to get across, not just leave you with a little dangling
11:48
bit of hope, but in the ocean, 10 years you can recover a lot,
11:51
and to be able to actually show that rather than just
11:53
hypothesize about it felt like an important role for the film.
11:56
Absolutely, and there was 2 sequences in particular which
12:00
really stuck in my mind and which I think had a big impact
12:02
on audiences. The first was the scenes of
12:06
bottom trawling. Just how devastating it is when
12:09
these trawlers pull almost like plows across the the sea bed.
12:14
Well, let's, let's talk about that.
12:15
I mean, where did that footage come from and what what impact
12:17
do you think it had? Well, first of all, I mean, the
12:19
thing that really surprised us with this is we assumed that
12:22
footage would be there somewhere when we started making the film.
12:24
It turns out that was woefully naive.
12:26
Now we look back at it, but at the time we were thinking about
12:29
what we needed to go and film in the world and we knew we wanted
12:32
to film something in Antarctica. So we knew we'd have to go and
12:34
film Antarctic trawlers, which we can talk about a little bit
12:38
if you like. But the bottom trawling in
12:40
particular, we assumed because it's all pervasive across the,
12:44
the shallow and increasingly the deeper oceans, we figured
12:47
somebody somewhere would have some footage of it and we would
12:50
just buy it or license it or whatever.
12:51
We never, we didn't start out with the intention of filming it
12:54
at all. And we kept looking and looking
12:56
and we asked everyone we knew in the environmental movement or
12:58
the science, maybe we're not just film makers and we could
13:01
find nothing. And a few shaky things that you
13:04
see on YouTube where somebody looks looks like somebody's
13:06
attached to GoPro to something. And it's it's fine, but it
13:09
wasn't suitable for really showing what bottom trawling
13:12
was. So we started out thinking, OK,
13:15
well, now we're going to have to figure out how to film it.
13:17
And the question, of course, was how or a, technically, how do
13:20
you film it? And B, how do you do it in a way
13:22
that feels ethical? It doesn't feel like it feels
13:25
like you're showing the truth, but you're doing it in an
13:27
ethical way. And in in the end the the thing
13:29
that really the the two challenges were slightly
13:31
different, but the ethical side of it met.
13:33
We found some scientists that were doing a long term research
13:36
project, one of which was is at the University of Plymouth.
13:39
And we worked with them on the experiments they were doing to
13:43
film real bottom trawlers, really bottom trawling, but in a
13:47
controlled way so that it was done as part of a scientific
13:50
experiment. It was going to happen anyway
13:51
and we were there to capture the footage.
13:54
And then it was then trying to come up with a technical way of
13:56
doing it, to build the sort of housing and the cameras that
13:59
could actually withstand, you know, brutality of it.
14:02
It seems. It seems embarrassing that at
14:04
one point we thought we could put a cameraman down there and
14:06
film it and that he definitely should not ever do that.
14:11
That would be too dangerous. So trying to come up with a way
14:13
of, of mounting the housing and, and doing it in a way that that
14:17
would get that kind of scale and brutality across.
14:20
So it was trying to piece those things together.
14:22
And then so ultimately we found it ourselves in partnership with
14:25
the scientists that we worked with and then deliberately gave
14:29
that footage not just to the science community, but to the
14:31
NGO world, giving it away for free so that hopefully nobody
14:34
else has to go through the same, you know, difficulty and process
14:37
we did. And the world can have the
14:39
footage to use as they wish. Well, and I think it's had a
14:43
transformative impact on on people because this fishing
14:46
effort has has been out of sight and therefore out of.
14:50
Mind. Seeing, just seeing the
14:52
devastating impact of I mean, they drag this beam across the
14:56
seabed, it destroys absolutely every living thing in order to
14:59
catch a few scallops or a few flat fish or something.
15:02
It just seems incredible that you'd, I mean, I can't think of
15:04
a lamb based analogy really. I don't know.
15:07
It's. Like somebody told me one the
15:09
other day, actually this wasn't mine, but I like it.
15:11
Which was basically like felling a forest to catch a deer, that
15:15
sort of equivalent. It would be be be all right.
15:18
It was. I mean, I, I dived in areas that
15:20
have been trolled before and I'd seen the aftermath of it, but
15:23
there's something quite different about seeing what it
15:27
looks like when it's actually happening.
15:29
And that's sort of the industrial scale brutality of
15:32
it's the the indiscriminate nature.
15:34
It's not just selectively most most of us when we pitcher
15:37
fishing, you imagine throwing in a nest or somebody casting a
15:40
lion over and you're taking a few fish out.
15:42
This completely destroys the the bottom of the ocean, disrupts
15:47
the sediment, catches anything, even many target species that
15:50
they're not even going for, which of course are often
15:53
runaways by catch. And it's the default form of
15:55
fishing in most of the world's coastal areas, right?
15:57
It's not just a occasional thing that's done in in extreme
16:01
circumstances. No, not at all.
16:03
No, it is. I mean, it is all pervasive
16:05
across most of the coastal seas around the world.
16:08
It is extremely common. It takes different forms at
16:10
different scales, whether it's dredging, which has sort of more
16:13
like mechanical teeth if you like scraping the bottom which
16:17
or beams being dragged across or beams between two boats.
16:21
But it's the same basic thing. It's trawling the bottom within
16:25
with gear to disrupt the sediments or the the, the the
16:29
the ocean floor and everything that comes up gets caught up in
16:32
a net behind it. So it's a it's a catch all term,
16:36
forgive the pun, that wasn't deliberate for a variety of
16:41
different forms of fishing, but essentially disrupting the ocean
16:43
floor to catch all sorts of different species.
16:46
Well, inspired us that we're planning to run a campaign
16:48
against bottom trawling in around the UK.
16:51
It's even allowed still in marine protected areas,
16:53
astonishingly. Can you tell us about that?
16:56
Well, I mean that that is possibly one of the most
16:58
ridiculous things. And actually I didn't know that
17:00
as AI didn't know to the extent of that before we started making
17:03
the film and before David and I started writing the book.
17:06
I knew it happened all over coastlines.
17:08
I didn't realize how many marine protected areas still allow
17:12
bottom trawling. And the reason is, I mean, it's,
17:14
it varies around the world, but some of the things are really
17:17
quite technical sort of loopholes, I suppose.
17:20
Want to a better word like a marine protected area might be
17:23
protected for the seabirds or for fish that swim a higher up
17:27
in the water column. Therefore the bottom's not
17:29
protected and in completely ignoring the fact that the food
17:32
for the sea birds or the fish that that you are trying to
17:34
protect will be damaged by disrupting the bottom.
17:37
So yeah, it has often been allowed.
17:39
In fact it still is allowed in in quite a lot of marine
17:41
protected areas. And I mean certainly one of the
17:44
things we want to get across in the film and you do in your
17:47
campaign is the absurdity of that.
17:49
If you if something is going to be a marine protected area, the
17:52
whole benefit comes from protecting here to sort of so
17:56
should be fairly intuitive, but often that's not been the case.
17:59
And we were both at a meeting last year in Switzerland with
18:02
Sylvia Earle and her position is not to eat any fish at all.
18:06
I mean, she's vegan, but certainly wouldn't eat any wild
18:08
caught fish. Has making Ocean changed your
18:11
perspective on this at all? Yeah, I mean, it's harder than
18:14
my perspective, I suppose is, is the honesty.
18:16
So I've always been, I've always been in the view I wouldn't eat
18:20
fish unless I was 100% sure it was supporting A sustainable
18:23
fishing effort. However, the more and more I
18:25
looked at this and particularly during the making of Ocean
18:29
chatting to people like Sylvia, it's rarer and rarer that you
18:33
can be confident that what's called sustainable actually is
18:36
sustainable. I mean, people's definition,
18:38
much like we just talked about with protected, the word
18:41
sustainable is used in ways that most of us probably don't
18:45
believe it actually is long term sustainability.
18:49
So yeah, it is become rarer and rarer that I would find anything
18:52
that I would think I could personally be confident with
18:55
sustainable. But I, I, I suppose that maybe
18:58
the difference I have with some people is that I do think in
19:02
theory, and I realise the theory is slightly different from
19:04
practice, but fishing communities are part of the
19:06
solution here. I don't think, I think
19:09
particularly this the communities that are forever
19:12
fished along their coastlines. I think if you're going to set
19:14
marine protected areas up in around them, those communities
19:18
need to be involved. There needs to be a way that it
19:20
benefits them. And again, particularly talking
19:22
the closer you get to communities that are living on
19:24
more subsistence fishing lifestyle.
19:26
But in general, I think that's going to help, but it's only
19:31
going to therefore work. There will need to be some fish
19:33
sold and some fish eaten because otherwise there's no livelihood
19:36
and no incentive for protecting the areas that there are.
19:39
So I suppose there's a difference between theory and
19:41
practice. In theory, I believe you can
19:44
have marine protected areas that yield a limited amount of
19:47
sustainable fishing. In practice, I often get less
19:51
and less confident by what I see is labeled as sustainable.
19:54
Right. And of course there's no
19:55
community or artisanal fishing on the high seas.
19:59
That's all done by huge industrial trawlers.
20:02
And there is of course a certification body called the
20:06
Marine Stewardship Council, which the more I've looked into
20:08
the certification of sustainability, the more.
20:11
I'm. Trying to think of the right
20:13
word actually, but the more unbelievable and unlikely it
20:17
seems they are in the process, as you probably know, of
20:21
recertifying the krill fishery in Antarctica, which is one of
20:24
the absolute high points of ocean.
20:25
Just showing how, well, unbelievably destructive that
20:30
that fishery is and also how unnecessary and the idea that it
20:33
could be certified as sustainable just beggars belief
20:35
really. Yeah, Cruel.
20:37
It's a great example and Frank B has not seen the film.
20:40
There is a sequence which huge thanks to C Shepherd for the
20:43
logistics of getting us down there and their expertise.
20:45
They kindly let us go on their boat when they went down and
20:47
filmed it. And we filmed the big krill
20:50
fisheries that are down there. And one of the things we
20:52
deliberately did for that and actually throughout the whole
20:55
film was only film legal fishery fisheries.
20:58
There's lots of illegal fishing and we can perhaps talk about
21:00
that in a moment. But for the film, we
21:02
deliberately wanted to film those things that are allowed or
21:05
even quite often foraged and subsidized by law.
21:08
Because in some respects that feels more outrageous than a few
21:11
bad actors doing a few bad things.
21:13
It's this is what we've chosen to do as a society or chosen to
21:16
allow. And that's where crawfishing, I
21:19
suppose, really bothers me, really winds me up.
21:21
It it's the, it's almost the wrong argument.
21:24
Can you catch a sustainable amount of krill?
21:26
Or not, but maybe, maybe not Who knows.
21:29
Should humanity be at the point where enormous fast trawlers?
21:33
And I urge you to watch some of the footage, either ours or see
21:36
Shepherd's footage of the scale of these hauling out the bottom
21:39
of the food chain, primarily for things like pet food and
21:42
supplements. That I could absolutely
21:45
sympathize with a community casting Nets, even bottom
21:48
trawling, though, I hope we can get away from that.
21:50
To feed their families, feed their communities, earn a living
21:53
that's a million miles away from going all the way down to
21:55
Antarctica hauling up krill for pet food and supplements.
22:00
That just seems as a humanity, a choice of our society and
22:03
humanity that is, it's the wrong question.
22:06
And when I first saw that footage on on Your fail Motion,
22:10
I was shocked into silence, which doesn't happen very often
22:14
with these scenes of the trawlers fishing for krill right
22:18
through the middle of a whale. You know, pods of whales also
22:21
also feeding. So they're directly competing
22:24
with whale whales, like humpback whales, blue whales, fin whales
22:28
for, for their food. It's like they're literally
22:30
eating their lunch. Yeah, I mean, in some respects
22:34
that's not. I mean, it is surprising when
22:35
you see it. And like you, the first time I
22:37
wasn't on that shoot, but the first time I saw the footage
22:39
come back, like you, I was stunned at the scale of it.
22:42
But of course the krill are there where where the krill are
22:46
in huge numbers, of course attracting the Wales, of course
22:48
tracks in the Penguins, of course tracks in the other
22:51
wildlife, which is why they're all in the same place.
22:53
But again, it's just especially in for anybody that really knows
22:56
about the Southern Ocean. I mean, krill are the bottom and
22:59
the key point of nearly every Antarctic food chain.
23:02
I mean, you can just about find a few exceptions, but you have
23:05
to work quite hard at it. Nearly every food chain has
23:07
krill in it. So removing them, it disrupts
23:12
all of those food chains, and it does it for such limited benefit
23:16
to humanity that it just seems a perfect example of what makes no
23:21
sense to do as a species. Totally.
23:24
Yeah, you've worked as as a board member of with well, WWF,
23:29
was it or I know you've worked with some of these conservation
23:33
NGOs. So tell me, tell me like, is
23:34
that in the old media model that would have been a conflict of
23:37
interest that you're getting involved in campaigning at the
23:39
same time as you're making nature films?
23:40
Clearly that's ridiculous. But how have you combined these
23:43
two these two different? Roles, yeah, that's I mean, I've
23:45
not found it much of a problem, but I understand why you're
23:48
asking the question. So I mean, I think the important
23:50
thing is when you're making a film, even a film like Ocean and
23:53
you said it was campaigning and I and I suppose in the sense
23:56
that there were deliberate things we wanted to change, it
23:58
was, but we really made the point of staying true to it
24:01
being a documentary. In other words, we were showing
24:04
the science of discovery. We were showing the destruction
24:08
that happens and we were documenting solutions and then
24:12
examples of things that have changed.
24:14
We tried to stay close to that being a genuine documentary, not
24:17
a that you would draw your own conclusions on that.
24:20
David obviously presented his opinions and he's the presenter
24:25
and you know, protagonists within it, so that's absolutely
24:28
fine. But separating that from
24:32
outright directs campaigning activity.
24:34
Now that said, I myself and lots of people we worked with have
24:38
used bits of that film to try to then advocate for change.
24:40
So I was at the UN Ocean Conference, I think you were
24:43
too, speaking up about the need for banning bottom trawling and
24:47
marine protected areas. And I feel completely
24:49
comfortable doing that and keeping it separate from making
24:53
the film. But in the film, I mean, one of
24:55
the things the, the challenge, I suppose as a filmmaker or a
24:58
storyteller in in any other format books, same thing is
25:01
you've got to be in, you've got to have enough entertainment and
25:04
you've got to meet the audience where they are.
25:06
And then you can do other things alongside it that are perhaps
25:09
particularly trying to achieve change.
25:11
So one of the things we often do is we the footage from these
25:14
films, we keep the rights back to open source them.
25:18
So if that to sort of explain the basis of that, it costs a
25:23
hell of a lot of money to to go and film in the Antarctic, for
25:26
example. And it's beyond most campaigning
25:29
organizations. Certainly when I worked in
25:30
conservation, there's no way you could spend donors money at that
25:34
sort of scale to go and do that often much less time and time
25:37
again. So we try and give all of that
25:39
footage away to campaigning organizations and education
25:42
bodies and teachers, school kids, anybody that wants it so
25:46
they can then use it as well. So you're doing your role as a
25:49
documentarian, but you're also enabling others to run campaigns
25:53
and run education initiatives. So try and try and marry them.
25:57
But at the same time you believe in what you believe and, and you
26:02
can't see those sort of thing, especially seeing the solutions
26:05
actually not it's more motivating than seeing the
26:07
problems in some respects and not wanting them to expedite and
26:11
grow. So wanting impact from your
26:13
films, I think is completely natural.
26:16
It's certainly the only reason I want to make them anymore.
26:19
And you set up a platform to distribute this footage, you
26:22
should probably give a shout out to it so that people who are
26:26
listening to this know where to go and find it.
26:28
Yeah, of course it's I'm very happy shamelessly plugged in
26:31
because it's a nonprofit and it's called Open planet.org.
26:34
So if you just look up Open planet.org and the idea is it
26:37
has I think over 18,000 clips already of the changing world as
26:41
it changes as the way we describe it.
26:43
So this is both lots of footage that was in in the film ocean,
26:48
but it's also footage from all over the world, a terrestrial
26:51
and, and, and a marine ecosystems, but also humanity.
26:55
It's showing some some some of the biggest impacts we're
26:58
facing, but it's also showcasing lots of solutions.
27:00
So if you need footage for any lessons or campaigns or anything
27:05
that's nonprofit, basically, please feel free, go on there,
27:08
use it, credit the people that have shot it because it's not
27:10
just us. Some of our footage on there for
27:12
sure, but there's also people all over the world that donated
27:14
theirs as well. And as you say, it's an
27:17
incredible investment both in time and resources to get this
27:21
incredibly impactful footage of whether it's krill fishing in
27:25
Antarctic or snow leopard and the Himalayas or whatever,
27:28
whatever it is. Tell us a bit about what that
27:32
process involves, how many weeks you have to spend on location to
27:35
get those precious 5 seconds of of incredible footage, and give
27:40
us a couple of examples of how that's been for you.
27:43
Yeah. So I mean, I think this is where
27:45
I think we all want to give the credit to the camera operators.
27:48
I think, you know, certainly I know David Atten would be the
27:50
first person to do that. But I think all of us that have
27:53
worked on this, if you look at ocean and particularly
27:55
underwater footage, Doug Anderson is the genius behind
27:58
that. I think, you know, those of us
28:00
that have been involved in the, in the directing or the
28:02
scripting of it, perhaps we're often the ones that get to come
28:05
and talk about it, but. So wait, so just for people who
28:08
don't know, you're not all on location all the time, clearly.
28:11
No, no, no, no. And actually, especially
28:14
underwater, you want to keep the numbers as small as possible.
28:17
If you're on a remote boat or you're borrowing berths on
28:20
somebody else's boat, you want to keep the numbers absolutely
28:22
as small as possible. So you'd usually keep it to a
28:25
producer, director and somebody doing sound and then somebody
28:28
filming. And that may be two cameras, but
28:30
quite often if it's just underwater, you may only have
28:32
one and then somebody supervising the safety of the
28:35
diving. But across this film in the, the
28:38
vast majority of the underwater shots were by an incredibly
28:41
talented cinematographer called Doug Anderson.
28:43
I urge anybody listening to this or watching this go and look up
28:46
his stuff because the guy's brilliant and you can come up
28:49
with whatever idea you want when you're, you know, your backup
28:51
base, you're scripting an idea, you're saying we should go and
28:54
film this date ball in the middle of the Azores or
28:56
whatever. But Doug's the person who in
28:58
that 3 minutes when something amazing is happening during the
29:02
midst of the three weeks when nothing happens, has to be laser
29:06
focused and get this absolutely beautiful image or this shocking
29:09
image or or whatever it is. And I think that's a skill set
29:13
that's often, it's often underestimated just how
29:16
difficult it is to both be and world class diver really
29:19
understand Marine wildlife and how it behaves and how it
29:22
behaves around you. And to be able to frame a shot
29:25
in in a way that's cinematic, that that really does justice to
29:29
the subject you're trying to do. And, you know, I think that's
29:31
one of the incredible art forms. And as director, how much time
29:35
do you have to spend in the field?
29:36
So varies with this. I mean, generally on a project
29:39
you'd probably spend, you'd probably go on all the big
29:42
shoots. With this one, it was different
29:44
because there was three of us directing it, myself, Toby Nolan
29:47
and Keith Scoli, and we did different bits of it.
29:49
Toby probably spent the what definitely spent them much more
29:54
time in the field than than Keith and I did.
29:56
I spent most of my time on the script side of it and David's
29:59
pieces to camera and filming those pieces to camera.
30:03
So we kind of split it up in different ways.
30:05
Whereas other projects we've been on, you'd only have one
30:07
director and then you'd probably spend, you'd do sort of five or
30:12
six really big shoots, each would be several weeks long and
30:16
then you'd have smaller shoots that maybe you divvy up between
30:20
different people. So is that sort of logistics?
30:22
The process of doing it is you, let's say you're making
30:25
something over a two year period, you might have multiple
30:27
shoots all happening within a sort of 10 to 12 month period.
30:32
You'd have a bit at the beginning where you're planning
30:33
and blocking everything out, and then maybe six months at the end
30:36
where you're editing, you're putting the music on, you're
30:38
doing the voice record, you're finishing everything off.
30:41
So during that intense filming period, you may well have two or
30:44
three different shoots happening simultaneously in different
30:47
parts of the world. And some of them will be, in
30:49
fact, increasingly actually, you try to get remote crews so
30:52
you're not just flying Brits around the world, which did used
30:56
to be the case. You're employing.
30:57
If you're shooting in Gujarat, you're a shoot, as we were last
31:00
week, You'd employ an Indian crew and you'd remote direct
31:02
fire WhatsApp or videos or setting style guides so that
31:07
you're getting local crews doing it who have a different forms of
31:12
access than you might do. B, aren't flying around the
31:14
world, which is obviously a helpful thing in some respects,
31:18
but C, they sometimes get different perspectives than
31:20
you'd have come at it as an outsider.
31:22
So you get to build up that global picture.
31:24
So there's no hard and fast answer to that.
31:26
How long do you spend out in the field?
31:28
And less and less, I suppose is the truth because you try to get
31:32
more and more remote crews to to do the work in the field.
31:36
That's interesting. I guess the carbon emissions are
31:38
one element, but there's also your family life.
31:41
One of your kids just interrupted us when we were
31:43
talking. So you've nearly got a young
31:45
family. And so that that must be quite a
31:48
burden actually if you're away for several weeks at a time
31:50
repeatedly during the year. Yeah.
31:52
And that's and as you say, that's one of the benefits of
31:56
using more and more remote crews.
31:57
So, yeah, for, I know for particularly cinematographers,
32:01
they can't avoid it. They have, they have to travel
32:03
and they can be away for sort of 150 to 300 days a year.
32:07
For me, it's nowhere near as bad as that.
32:09
It's, you know, a couple of weeks here and there, a couple
32:12
of weeks here and there. It's not, it's not as bad.
32:14
But if you wound it back sort of 1520 years ago or even back to
32:19
when David was first filming, he'd go for three months at a
32:21
time. And it's, it's not so much like
32:23
that anymore, partially because of the speed of travel, but a
32:26
lot because you rely on remote crews so much more, which is,
32:29
which is much better actually. Wow, I didn't even know about
32:32
this. I guess it's the sort of filming
32:34
equivalent of the zoom call really.
32:36
But how do you do? How did you do remote?
32:38
Did you have literally video what's happened?
32:40
So point the camera that way, look for this shot or so on.
32:43
And yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, it's sort of
32:46
in more stages than that. And actually this was something
32:48
that accelerated during COVID. And for us, we were working on a
32:51
series called Earth Shot, but the Earth Shot prize as ABBC and
32:55
Discovery series. And then COVID hit.
32:58
So you're suddenly like, you've got 90 different locations to
33:00
film around the world in the sort of 1516 month period and
33:05
nobody's leaving the UK. So you ended up the way we did
33:09
it was we came up with an incredibly detailed style guide.
33:12
So this is how you frame an interview.
33:14
This is how drone shots should look.
33:15
This is, you know, this is the type of kit we should use, all
33:19
of these different things. And then we spent lots and lots
33:21
of time finding the best crews in the best places that could
33:24
deliver to those standards, which has helped a lot in recent
33:27
times because cameras are much cheaper.
33:29
You can find good quality cameras everywhere now and then
33:33
over time, we use the same crews more and more in different parts
33:36
of the world and it became more and more obvious continue what
33:39
the sort of thing you're looking for.
33:40
So whereas the first time you might literally dial in at 3:00
33:44
in the morning to an interview on the other side of the world
33:46
and be sitting there pretty much as we're talking to each other,
33:49
looking, seeing what's being seen through the lens and
33:52
directing quite often. Now, if you're working with a
33:54
crew that you've used many times before in one part of the world
33:58
or another, you can short hand that conversation so much more
34:02
easily. So then they might send you
34:03
rushes each day or you might, they might sort of what's by
34:08
live WhatsApp you into what the camera display is looking at and
34:12
you can give some pointers, but it doesn't need to be anywhere
34:14
near as involved as it would have been the first time he
34:17
worked with that crew, so. What are you?
34:19
What are you shooting in Gujarat at the moment?
34:21
I'm kind of keen to know what you're currently working on.
34:23
Oh yeah. So this OK, this is, this is a
34:25
great project. So we've been looking at the
34:28
Pacific and working with number of NGOs and particularly the Aga
34:33
Khan Foundation and the work that they've sponsored on
34:35
community based mangrove restoration in this particular
34:39
case. But what we're looking at is
34:40
parallels across across the Indian Ocean, on different
34:43
communities across the Indian Ocean and how they're coping
34:46
with the impacts of climate change, the effects it's
34:49
happening having on coastal communities and the different
34:52
ways of approaching resilience, ecosystem restoration,
34:57
sustainable livelihoods, community education in those
34:59
different places. So we've just filmed in Gujarat
35:02
and then we're filming in a couple of weeks time just South
35:04
of Mombasa in Kenya and looking at some of the parallels
35:08
culturally, but also in how they're responding to changes in
35:11
climate change. And both of those are being done
35:13
with local crews. I guess that's one way into the
35:16
dilemma of how you film in nature, when nature is under so
35:19
much threat, is to look at the positive stories of ecological
35:22
restoration, rewilding, regeneration, as you say, and
35:26
show the resilience of nature and how rapidly it can rebound
35:29
when when it's when it's left alone or when it's assisted in
35:33
doing so. Is that is that something you've
35:34
found that telling positive stories is actually helpful?
35:37
Definitely. I mean, it's, it's, I think it's
35:40
not just helpful for an audience, It's helpful if you,
35:42
if you work in this space, you must, you must find it yourself.
35:45
Is that deliberately going out and looking for those solutions,
35:49
You realize there's much more of them out there than you were
35:52
previously aware. And I think, I mean, I can't
35:53
prove this, but I suspect it's due to the nature of news media
35:57
reporting is negative stories sell in a way that positive
36:01
stories don't so much. So I think it is under reported,
36:05
which from a film maker's point of view, it's actually quite a
36:08
good thing because it means you can reveal something that people
36:10
don't already know. So deliberately going out there
36:12
and finding positive stories, you you're uncovering new things
36:16
journalistically, I suppose, but also from an audience point of
36:19
view. Yeah, I think it's we did for
36:20
years, especially on climate change.
36:22
I think we've done a good job up to a point of really scaring
36:26
people and showing this is serious and real.
36:28
And that's quite true. I mean, it's probably scarier
36:31
and more advanced than I suspect most audiences even realise.
36:34
But we're probably underserved. Showing how nature can revive,
36:38
showing the benefits of that to people, showing how realistic it
36:42
is within our lifetimes, not within generations to come.
36:46
And I don't, yeah, we've probably not done a good enough
36:47
job yet doing that. So it's a, it's a, it's a joy to
36:50
be able to get the job to, to, to go film great solutions,
36:54
brilliant ideas, interesting people.
36:57
Yeah, and it's empowering and inspiring rather than just
36:59
merely depressing. And I guess the challenge for
37:03
filming in nature, filming in the Anthropocene, is that
37:06
starting point recognition that there's no such thing as
37:09
pristine nature, that the chemistry of the oceans is
37:12
different. All of the ecological pressures
37:15
of humans from in multiple different ways are reflecting on
37:19
the way that species interact and how ecosystems operate in
37:22
the real world. So that's the basic of
37:25
everything now. And so that's not how it was
37:28
presented presumably when you started out doing nature
37:31
documentaries, right? But I don't think anyone is
37:34
anyone still doing very conventional pristine nature
37:38
documentaries as that whole scene just just just over.
37:42
Yeah. I mean, I certainly I haven't
37:43
watched any in a long time. I think it's different.
37:46
I think there is an exception to that when when you're showing
37:49
unique behaviour. So as, as you know, lots of
37:53
scientists are studying lots of different species in lots of
37:55
different locations and maybe revealing something very
37:58
different about a way a species behaves or you know, something
38:01
that's fresh to science. I think there's always validity
38:03
in documenting that and showing that and you're doing it for a
38:06
different reason. I think what doesn't work for me
38:09
anymore is that here is a pristine jungle and this is a
38:13
pristine jungle and this is what it is.
38:15
Because I think, as you rightly said, there is pretty much no
38:19
such thing as a as a habitat entirely unaffected by the
38:24
Anthropocene, by the changes we've done.
38:26
What's interesting is the flip side to that is too often
38:28
probably we've we've shown just, you know, here's beautiful
38:33
nature, here's destructive humans.
38:36
And very rarely do we show those places where those things have
38:40
overlapped in a more positive way, where nature is managing to
38:44
revive or coexist or being in a different way than its original
38:47
form alongside the benefits that that's bringing to humanity.
38:50
So I think to me, that's where the interesting bit is where,
38:54
where is it that we start to sometimes get it right And we
38:57
are living alongside examples of restoration and we're seeing the
39:00
benefits of that. But nature's adapting to that in
39:04
a way that's not recreating pristine nature, but recreating
39:09
something that perhaps could still be stable into the future.
39:13
You know, I think that's really important because a lot of
39:15
storytelling has been about humans being inherently bad.
39:19
It's very, very kind of Garden of Eden.
39:21
I'm thinking of Avatar here and the sort of central metaphor
39:24
there of this destructive, rapacious humans coming from
39:27
elsewhere and just destroying everything and the, you know,
39:31
the sort of sacred indigenous Avatarians, whatever they're
39:34
called, standing up against them.
39:36
But, and, and that's actually how a lot of environmental
39:39
thinking has been, isn't it, that humans are somehow
39:42
unavoidably destructive and we just have to protect nature as
39:46
far as we possibly can against any kind of human human
39:49
interference or interaction. Yeah.
39:51
And, and you can see why, but I don't think humans are
39:55
inherently bad. I mean, I mean, I'm sure there
39:57
are some. I'm sure, I reckon we could
39:59
probably manage straight to a few examples together.
40:01
But by and large, I don't think most people are.
40:04
I don't think most societies, I don't even think most companies
40:06
are. I think it's the way that we
40:10
have defaulted in the sort of scale of growth that we've had,
40:13
the scale of growth in both numbers of people, but also the
40:15
way we consume the lateness, we realize the scale of the impacts
40:19
on the planet. And the slowness with which
40:21
we've changed our systems to adapt to it, that is not the
40:25
same thing at all as saying humans are a precious evil,
40:29
destructive by our very nature. And so what's interesting and,
40:32
you know, recently published a book with David on On the Ocean,
40:35
which was about lots of different stories from the
40:37
ocean. And deliberately, we finished
40:39
every single chapter with an example of where passionate
40:43
humans decided to do something great, to live alongside nature
40:47
in a different way, in completely different habitats,
40:49
ranging from sort of mangroves in Central America to to coral
40:54
reefs in the Pacific, to the Sussex kelp beds near my house.
40:58
And these were all examples of where people decided to do
41:01
something different. They they spotted that their
41:05
lives will be better if nature was restored and that there was
41:08
an opportunity to do it. And the result was has been
41:12
incredible. And I think that's the part of
41:15
this narrative about ourselves with we've got to lift up more
41:19
that we we can be so much better.
41:21
We can be a jet, a force for good on the planet.
41:24
We won't create pristine nature, but we could create a new stable
41:28
state. And I do believe that.
41:30
I mean, you could. I don't well quite have all the
41:32
data to back it up, but I do think we could get to a position
41:35
where we've brought a new form of stability to the planet over
41:39
the next couple of generations and it doesn't have to be
41:42
doomed. Well, and obviously this isn't a
41:44
scientific quantified evidence based statement I'm asking you
41:49
to make here, but in a qualitative sense, given the
41:52
changes you've seen over your filmmaking career, are you more
41:57
or less optimistic or pessimistic about the state of
42:01
state of nature as it were given, given the human impacts?
42:04
I'm going to slightly hedge my bets here because I'd say I'm.
42:06
So I'm definitely more worried because of the speed and the
42:10
change that I've seen. I mean, I never thought I'd say
42:12
this is partially because nobody ever believes they're going to
42:14
get older, right? The truth is I am in my 50s.
42:18
And so now, unfortunately, I can look back at places where I went
42:22
diving in my 20s or forests I went through that are no longer
42:26
there that I just diminished destroyed versions of what they
42:30
once were. So, and I think if you start to
42:32
look at that, if you start to look how close we are to
42:35
climatic tipping points, I spend a lot of time working with
42:37
Johann Rochstrom and you know, you know, I'm two credible
42:40
scientist the but when you realize how close and he helps
42:45
you understand how close you are.
42:46
Some of these, it's hard not to feel more negative than you did
42:48
at the beginning. But, and there is a definite but
42:52
to this. I've seen examples of
42:54
restoration that are so far beyond what I thought was
42:57
possible. I've seen examples of
42:58
technological scale up that I didn't think would happen as
43:02
fast as they would. So now I'm sort of torn between
43:05
the fact that I actually think it can be done.
43:08
I think we can get to a place where we restabilize the planet,
43:11
where we peak and decline emissions, hopefully avoiding
43:16
the worst impacts of it when we allow the ocean to bounce back,
43:20
etcetera, etcetera. I just don't know whether we're
43:23
going to. And so it's not quite doom and
43:26
gloom because I think the biggest thing would come from
43:29
knowing you passed the point where it was possible.
43:30
And I don't think we have. But it's hard not to look at
43:34
global politics and be worried that whether we're going to be
43:37
in a waste the decade that could allow us to do it.
43:41
Or start some dramatic new negative impact, like seabed
43:43
mining. I mean, you're quite right,
43:46
yeah. So, I mean, it could there are
43:49
things which could get dramatically worse and we've
43:51
covered bottom trolling, we've covered krill.
43:52
I mean, a world where these things go on is clearly not one
43:55
which is taking its responsibilities to to
43:58
protecting ecosystem seriously. But are there other positive
44:01
examples, a couple of positive examples you can give us that
44:04
show the hopeful side of of, of ecological restoration and
44:09
protection? Yeah, I tell you, let me give
44:11
you an example. I mean, we mentioned it in the
44:13
film, but it was the one that blew me away the most, which was
44:16
a marine reserve called Papa Hana Mawakuakea, which is off
44:20
the Hawaiian Islands. It's part of the major important
44:23
part Native Hawaiian culture. It's it's part of the origin
44:27
story actually of native, Native Hawaiians.
44:29
And it was an area that the more you read into it, the more you
44:32
realize how trashed it become. The been going from the 1850s
44:36
onwards, there being formed foreign fishing boats coming in.
44:41
Some British and Canadians had set up rabbit farms on these
44:44
islands that were wants home to the, you know, most incredible
44:48
alvestrus populations. We're great like that.
44:50
Us Brits, you know, needles had come through, killed all the
44:53
seals, turtle eggs been stolen. You know, anything you could
44:57
imagine that could be done to an island, you know, series of
45:00
islands in an incredibly biologically important and rich
45:03
part of the world have pretty much been done to it.
45:06
But then based on the designs of the Native Hawaiians that that
45:10
lived there, lived those sort of revered it, visited it, looked
45:14
after it, were custodians of it, successive US presidents.
45:17
So this is where you could put George Bush and Barack Obama in
45:20
the same sentences because they both enlarge the protection of
45:23
this area allowed it to recover. And the bounce back has been
45:27
extraordinary. This is an example of a shoot I
45:29
wasn't on. I had the pleasure of sitting
45:31
watching the footage come in. And I, I still can't believe it.
45:35
Like every time I see it, it's the footage that makes me think
45:38
we really could get somewhere here.
45:39
Because you've gone from absolute destruction to the
45:42
world's largest albatross population, huge numbers of
45:46
them. And when you see the drones
45:47
flying over and just the albatross everywhere, There's
45:50
turtles all over the place, the ocean, the waters are full of
45:53
life. Migrating tuna populations come
45:56
there in enormous numbers. And tiger sharks.
45:59
It's just nature on steroids. And all of that was done because
46:04
of people. People chose to do that.
46:07
And the bounce back was much faster than people could have
46:09
imagined. So you look at something like
46:10
that and that is on genuinely on a, I was going to say landscape
46:14
scale, see, and landscape scale is not a small thing at all.
46:19
That is an absolutely enormous protected area.
46:21
And the bounce back has been has been immense.
46:24
So I do think it can happen. I really do.
46:27
And in terms of the places you visited them while filming,
46:30
what's your favorite, let's say your favorite location of all?
46:35
And then I'm going to ask you your top three scary.
46:37
It's a bit tacky this, but like scariest, scariest experiences
46:41
you've had. Let's start off start off with
46:44
the with the favorite. Just give us a sort of a flavor
46:46
of what it what it was like in the place that you really you
46:49
really fell in love with. OK, so favorite place?
46:51
Oh God, this is going to be hard.
46:53
I'm probably going to go for the cloud forests of Costa Rica, but
46:57
in a different mood. I could have gone for the
46:59
Namibia or Svalbard. So just to completely hedge my
47:02
bets and give you 3, but which are totally different.
47:05
I think the reason I'm going for the cloud forest is because it's
47:08
something that I've read about in a book when I was a kid and I
47:11
got this had this mental image and dream of going there and it
47:15
exceeds anything that you've read about or seen until there
47:19
every single sense fires. So it's the, you know, the
47:23
sounds of the insects and the birds.
47:25
It's the dankness and the smell of the life that's there.
47:29
It's the sort of moments where you descend into the deep
47:32
valleys and the temperature changes, and then you climb back
47:35
out of it again and the sunlight penetrates and the bromeliads
47:40
and hummingbirds are up the top. And you just sort of get this
47:43
sense of nature at every single possible level.
47:46
And I don't think I'd seen life on that scale before.
47:49
And I suppose I'd always been one of these people, a bit
47:52
cliched here, that I probably got interested in nature through
47:55
mammals. You know, I wanted to see the
47:58
wildebeest migration. I wanted to see manta rays.
48:01
It was, you know, I wanted to see the bit manta rays are
48:04
mammals, the fish. But I wanted to see the big
48:06
charismatic megafauna, the cliches, right?
48:09
And the more time I've spent in nature, the more I form in love
48:12
with the smaller things, with plant life, with insects, with
48:16
birds, just and the cloud forest.
48:20
You don't see anything big apart from the trees.
48:23
You don't see any big wildlife. You just see detail on life on
48:26
every possible level. And it's it's just
48:28
extraordinary. I could have spent months
48:31
getting probably foot roll on fungus but but otherwise they
48:36
could have spent months, months in there.
48:38
I've never, I've never been to the cloud forest of Costa Rica,
48:41
but it sounds, it sounds pretty incredible.
48:43
Now it's filed by the, yes, very different Namibia again.
48:45
Was that the desert? Namibia was the desert and I
48:48
mean travelled quite a lot extensively around Namibia.
48:52
Probably the sort of the sand dunes and work were the really
48:56
haunting bits and you know, so huge on though, I mean immense,
49:00
like some of the really big ones that that, you know, the
49:03
hundreds of meters tall and, you know, walking to the top of
49:05
something like that Riot dawn is, you know, you just you do
49:10
feel, I mean, it's a cliche again, but you feel like you're
49:11
on another planet. It doesn't feel like this is
49:14
somewhere that humans can live. But then from there you can
49:16
actually look over and quite often see Oasis and little
49:19
places where because of the weather patterns, because of the
49:22
cloud, where the clouds rise and fall that you're getting
49:26
moisture settling in just large enough amounts for small amounts
49:30
of vegetation to take place. And it's that sort of life sort
49:34
of clings on it finds a way. It's, it's, there's, there's
49:39
most parts of the world have some degree of life in them.
49:41
And that's, that's, that's kind of extraordinary.
49:44
So yeah. And I want, I want a couple of
49:46
anecdotes of close shaves you've had into brushes with near a
49:50
certain death. Yeah, I mean, the actual genuine
49:53
closest brushes have always been sort of malaria parasites, road
49:58
accidents that, you know, the sort of the not exactly mundane.
50:03
Yeah, exactly. Because, I mean, I have been
50:05
charged by elephants, but and I have been sort of in difficult
50:09
situations with wildlife, but it's very rare.
50:11
You don't feel, you know, swam with tiger sharks.
50:15
I've. I don't feel threatened by
50:17
wildlife generally because I'm well advised by people that
50:20
really know that species and I'm in a position and wildlife
50:24
generally doesn't want to attack you.
50:26
Slightly disturbingly, the probably the most nerve wracking
50:29
council I've ever had have always been with people or or
50:32
some form or some form of illness.
50:36
So yeah, no, wildlife are generally generally not too bad.
50:40
How was your brush with malaria? Where was that?
50:43
Oh, that was in Zambia. Yeah.
50:45
So it was. I mean, no, I mean, you know, it
50:48
was one of those moments where you realize that you're
50:50
privileged because I got malaria in the middle of absolutely
50:53
nowhere. I got gradually sicker and
50:54
sicker, managed to grab a lift off somebody, ultimately ended
50:59
up in a hospital, got treated. You know, it was a rough period
51:04
of time, but I survived. I was fine.
51:06
Several other people that would have been in that same area
51:08
doubtless died. And people die all the time from
51:11
something that's treatable, curable, you know, preventable
51:14
to a large extent. And you realize that as a as a
51:17
European with, you know, wasn't exactly wealthy at the time, but
51:21
I had a little bit of money. You can get treated in a way
51:24
that not everybody has that privilege.
51:25
And you realize the sort of, if we're going to solve most of the
51:29
world's problems, equality is probably one of the first places
51:32
to start. So in some respects, my
51:34
reflection on that is less of is more that I probably didn't
51:38
deserve the good fortune and luck that I had.
51:40
And there's nothing particularly special that I reason why I
51:44
should have got away with it when millions die from malaria.
51:47
So more we could put effort into solving the bigger problems like
51:51
that. Well, that's something we've got
51:53
in common. I also got malaria and Zambia
51:55
once and. The thing?
51:57
Really, really start with. Me otherwise, right, Yeah,
52:01
there's a lot of malaria. But the thing that really
52:02
stopped me was this clinic where they took a blood sample and
52:06
said, well, there's not much point.
52:07
You're trying to store this blood sample for analysis
52:09
because the ants are going to eat it in the night.
52:12
That was a level of of, you know, basic health care that was
52:16
available to to local people. Of course it's fine for me.
52:18
I could, I could get the hell out, which I eventually didn't
52:20
get treated elsewhere. So it just, you know, if you
52:23
don't have any alternatives, it really, it really does bring it
52:25
home to you, like you said. Exactly.
52:27
Exactly. But but but Zambian tourist
52:30
board is a lovely place. Great people, amazing world.
52:34
Where? You should probably tell us
52:36
about Svalbard though. I mean, totally different, yes.
52:40
It's small, but I mean, this was this was genuinely one of the
52:43
just unbelievable perks of the job.
52:45
So it's during the filming of our Netflix series, Our Planet,
52:49
and I went out on a trip taking some journalists out to visit
52:53
the filming. And we went and met up with the
52:56
cinematographer, Jamie McPherson, incredible
52:58
cinematographer, who was living out on the ice in a sort of
53:01
modified vehicle tracking polar bears and filming polar bears
53:05
with the Cineflex. And so we had the, you know,
53:07
incredible ridiculous privilege of driving out on skidoos across
53:11
the skid sea ice for sort of 7-8 hours and saw polar bears did
53:15
this big loop stayed overnight and out in the middle of nowhere
53:18
in Svalbard back again over a few days.
53:21
And it was just, I mean, it's, I don't.
53:25
Have you ever been Mark? No, I've been to Alaska.
53:27
I've seen polar bears where they come and feed off the whale
53:29
carcasses that the NATO people leave, leave whale bones around,
53:32
and that's somewhere you can reliably see polar bears.
53:35
But I've never been to Svalbard. Yeah, it means that.
53:37
OK, that's pretty cool in itself.
53:39
But yeah, I mean, I love the sort of fact that you get to the
53:43
top of Norway, then get on a flight and head further north.
53:46
And you, you know, you really are going about as as sort of
53:49
far as you can find civilizations far north as you
53:52
can, as you can find towns somewhere like Longyeburn and
53:54
then getting on skidoos and, and carrying on.
53:57
It's that sort of, I mean, how long it'll be there is another
54:00
matter. But it's that sort of endless
54:01
vistas of sea ice, the remoteness of it all the, again,
54:06
utterly inhospitable to humans. Once you get far out, you know,
54:10
from the coastal areas where people have managed to, you
54:12
know, set up camps and live and things like that, you get right
54:15
out into the middle of absolutely nowhere.
54:17
And then of course, you've got these sort of weird geopolitical
54:21
remnants. So we visited a place while
54:24
we're out there, which was an old abandoned Russian coal
54:26
mining camp. And you sort of realize that
54:30
geopolitically, I mean, I guess more important than ever about
54:32
now of where that sort of fault line lies within, within the
54:37
Arctic Circle and why of course the Arctic area is in general,
54:41
not just far, but it is becoming such a top geopolitical issue at
54:45
the moment. So you've kind of got a bit of
54:46
everything. You've got utter wildness, you
54:48
know, polar bears, adventure, and you're in the middle of
54:52
probably one of the most interesting geopolitical zones
54:55
on the planet. Wow.
54:57
I can't let you go without having a bad idea though.
54:59
Otherwise my producer, my producer Rob will kill me.
55:02
So we need. Controlling is a pretty bad
55:04
idea. This is true.
55:07
This is true. I mean, we could just go with
55:08
that. I can't imagine anything bad
55:10
really than bottom trawling. I mean, we've been through the
55:13
reasons why. So yeah.
55:15
But unless there's anything sort of a general reflection, is
55:18
there something that people get wrong about the way we see the
55:21
world or nature filming or something?
55:24
Like do people think, I don't know, humans are bad was quite
55:27
was quite an extensive bad idea. Humans are bad for nature always
55:30
or something. But yeah.
55:33
That is or or or even that humans are apart from nature, a
55:37
different to nature that somehow walkins survive independently of
55:41
it. I think it's funny how we even
55:43
the language we use, and I'm sure, I'm sure I must have used
55:46
this sort of language somewhere. I try not to, but I'm sure
55:48
somewhere I would have done, which is viewing nature and
55:52
humanity, that that was somehow separate, which I think is being
55:56
proved wrong repeatedly. Have we?
55:59
Have we risen from nature or fallen from nature or something?
56:03
I can't remember what the the exact term for this was.
56:06
But there's a very different world view, isn't there, about
56:08
whether we've sort of fallen from grace, if you like, or
56:11
whether we can still, you know, we can actually help promote a,
56:15
a, a thriving planet where which actually, you know, humans have
56:19
the ability to, to see with their eyes and also to
56:23
understand to an extent with the kind of work that you've done
56:26
and people like you showing us the whole planet for the first
56:29
time. We've seen it through human eyes
56:31
and through human cameras. No species ever done that
56:33
before. And that's a pretty amazing
56:34
thing. That is a pretty amazing thing,
56:37
but you just made me think of one other bad idea.
56:39
Oh yeah, the if we if we screw it all up on Earth, we can go
56:43
and live on Mars. Not least you have to share.
56:48
Not least you have to share it with Elon Musk, which I don't
56:50
exactly. Exactly.
56:52
Yeah, that's one I keep hearing. And that sounds like a pretty
56:56
terrible idea to me. And I also don't want to let you
56:58
go without giving you a proper chance to plug the book because
57:02
it sounds like I, I don't know about the the I don't know this
57:05
specific title. I assumed it was just a spin off
57:07
from the film, but it sounds like you've actually done
57:10
something quite distinct. Oh, yeah, Thank you.
57:13
Yeah, it's called Ocean and it's Co written, myself and David
57:16
Attenborough. And yeah, it actually came out
57:18
of the fact when we were early into making the film, we just
57:21
kept finding stories and scientific research and people
57:25
that they just weren't going to make it into the film.
57:27
It didn't make sense to put those stories in the film.
57:29
They just weren't right for a movie.
57:31
But they were incredible. And we thought, could we tell a
57:34
story about all the different habitats in the ocean, but done
57:37
entirely through narrative. So you communicate the science
57:40
of what's happening in the ocean, but they're all through
57:43
an incredible exploration, an amazing species, and a community
57:46
restoration project. So, you know, the original
57:50
thought was you could pick up that book at any point, open it
57:53
up at any page and read a story and you get 1 chunk of it.
57:57
And as you put all the stories together, ultimately you end up
57:59
with a picture of the ocean. So it's it's it's, I guess it's
58:03
a companion piece of the film, but it's not the book of the
58:05
film at all. It's a completely separate piece
58:07
and. Well, I'm going to rush out and
58:09
buy and I encourage listeners and viewers to do likewise.
58:12
And will we last, last question before we go, will there ever be
58:15
another David Attenborough? No, I can give it a slightly
58:19
longer version of that, which is I think apart from his, his
58:24
skill set, which feels very unique, but maybe others can
58:27
communicate science as well as he does.
58:29
He's lived through this period of extraordinary change, both
58:32
change and broadcasting. So he was right there at the
58:35
forefront. I mean, he'll be the first to
58:36
say good fortune to be right there at the forefront of global
58:40
exploration alongside TV developing into a medium.
58:44
And then you had his natural talents on top of that, say, I
58:47
don't think you'll get another situation where you've got
58:49
somebody that's lived and seen so much of the natural world,
58:52
but also has the credibility to be able to convey it to a mass
58:55
audience. I think media has changed so
58:58
much. The world's changed so much.
59:00
Hopefully we'll get hundreds of thousands of people telling
59:02
different parts of the human story in their own way.
59:04
But I don't think we'll have just one person we look to to
59:06
say as a sort of documentary of, of truth about the natural
59:11
world. Well, he's, he's not just a
59:13
national treasure, but an international treasure.
59:15
So when you next speak to him, please pass on best wishes from
59:18
all of us, all the listeners and viewers to this podcast, because
59:21
I'm sure everyone feels the same way about about David
59:24
Attenborough. And also, I just want to say
59:26
before we, before we close, thank you so much, Colin, for
59:30
everything you've done, for all of the incredible films that
59:33
you've shared with the world and for joining us today on Serving
59:37
Them Off and Bad Ideas. My absolute pleasure Mark.
59:39
Thank you for having me on. Thanks so much for listening to
59:44
Saving the World from Bad Ideas, a Weplanet podcast.
59:48
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