Talks programme
After last year's fantastic success, for 2012 the talks tent will be larger than ever, giving more visitors the opportunity to hear from our range of fascinating and inspiring speakers, including BBC presenters, wildlife experts, and environmental thinkers. We will be adding details of speakers to this page in the run up to the festival, so keep checking for the latest additions.
Speakers confirmed so far:
Miles Barton: The Making of Frozen Planet
Miles Barton has worked at the BBC Natural History Unit for 25 years, making award winning films for the Wildlife on One and Natural World strands as well as Sir David Attenborough’s Life of Birds series. He was the series producer of the BAFTA award winning Life in Cold Blood series in 2008. He most recently produced two of the Frozen Planet films and is currently making Attenborough: 60 years in the Wild a three part series for transmission in the autumn.
Mike Dilger
Mike is an obsessive naturalist who has birded, botanized and entomologized his way across a huge range of countries. He has accumulated an encyclopaedic knowledge of British wildlife and a strong familiarity with the nature of Vietnam, Tanzania and Arctic Canada after spending four years as a research biologist in such places. A Life-long passion, encyclopaedic knowledge and profound experience of both British and tropical flora and fauna has helped him become a regular TV presenter on popular natural history programming and is currently the resident naturalist on BBC1’s ‘The One Show’. He is committed to bringing the beauty of the natural world to a broader audience with passion and insight, rather than sensation or gimmicks which makes him a joy to watch and his po
pularity with the general public is ever growing. Mike’s enthusiasm is infectious and he keeps his finger on the pulse of wildlife and conservation by being a member of many wildlife charities, always encouraging amateur involvement.
David Lindo: Urban Birding
Sunday 17th June, 12 noon
David Lindo is The Urban Birder, bringing a fresh, urban perspective to modern birding. Tipped as the next Bill Oddie, the younger, hipper Lindo first appeared on our screens as a contributor on Springwatch where he took viewers for a guided bird walk around his ‘garden’, Wormwood Scrubs, in west London. Since then he has appeared on numerous shows such as The Alan Titchmarsh Show, Daybreak and Countrywise for ITV1; Countryfile, Country Tracks, The One Show and Newsround for BBC1, sharing his love and knowledge of urban birds and wildlife with the nation. He was also a contributor to the BBC Four series Birds Britannia and has filmed reports internationally, including US current affairs show Sunday Morning for CBS and a wildlife show Welt der Tiere: Der Vogelmann von London for German broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk (ARD). David's first book entitled The Urban Birder was published by New Holland publishers in August 2011.
Hugh Warwick: The Beauty in the Beast
Sunday 17th June: 2.30 p.m.
Hugh Warwick is an ecologist and a writer with a peculiar passion for hedgehogs. After writing A Prickly Affair, The Charm of the Hedgehog, in which he argued that the animal was easily the most important creature on the planet, he was beset by others who claimed that their own particular species were just as significant. So began a journey around the animal obsessives of Britain which grew into his latest book, The Beauty in the Beast. The vole woman of Shropshire, the beaver man of Perthshire, the adder man of Norfolk and the otter woman of Devon are among the amazing cast of characters who set about trying to seduce Hugh away from his hedgehogs. And there is an additional challenge; at the beginning of the book Hugh found himself getting his first (and last) tattoo as part of an art project called ExtInked - but, possibly motivated by his midlife crisis - he found himself realising that this journey around the animal lovers of Britain was just a way of justifying his second (and last) tattoo. The book is a passionate but light-hearted love story about nature.
Growing Connections: How do we build a sustainable food system for Bristol's communities?
Sunday 17th June: 3:30 p.m.
Join us to debate the future of food in Bristol, see the Growing Connections page for full details
