wildlife – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Exploring the Wildfilm Archive in University of Bristol Special Collections

Posted on January 28, 2020March 31, 2023 by janet.crompton

Bristol is widely seen as the ‘Hollywood’ of wildlife film-making and is famously home to the BBC’s Natural History Unit, formerly established in the city in 1957. The University of Bristol Library’s Special Collections has embarked on a 2 year project to preserve and promote the mixed-media ‘Wildfilm’ archive, supported by funding from the Wellcome Trust.

An example draft shooting script for the first episode of ‘The Living Planet’ (1984), working title ‘Planet Earth’, later re-used in the 2006 BBC series! [G. Lever]

I am the Project Archivist working to catalogue and re-package the material, making it available to search online and access in person at the Special Collections reading room. There are treatments, post-production scripts, dubbing cue sheets, filming trip planning, photographs, research and correspondence – documenting a given programme from conception to broadcast – as well as audience research reports, publicity and press packs.

A Radio Times cover from 1962 featuring Peter Scott for the ‘Look’ series [G. Lever]

A substantial part of the collection is audio-visual, including several hundred reels of 16mm film footage. Among the cans are films produced by Survival Anglia, the BBC, and renowned film-makers Niko Tinbergen (1907-1988) and Eric Ashby MBE (1918-2003). The archive also contains sound recordings, radio broadcasts and audio from talks and festivals. In Digi-Beta format there is a selection of the 150 most important wildlife films selected by BBC producer Christopher Parsons (1932-2002) and a VHS library collected by Jeffery Boswall (1931-2012), another BBC producer whose papers are also in the archive.

An example of 16mm film cans in the collection [G. Lever]

As evidence of method and technique there are two of the home-made sound-proof boxes made by Eric Ashby, enabling him to capture intimate footage of badgers and foxes in their natural state of behaviour. For further interpretation there are some unusual supplementary objects such as the penguin flipper, skulls and skin collected during filming in South America for ‘The Private Life of the Jackass Penguin’ (1973).

Eric Ashby’s home-made box for insulating sound made by camera equipment [Helen Lindsay]

A dubbing cue sheet for an episode of the BBC’s ‘The World About Us’ [G. Lever]

It’s an incredibly exciting project to be involved in. I’m working alongside Peter Bassett, a producer with the BBC Natural History Unit who has acted as guardian and advocate for the collection and is a font of knowledge on the history of wildlife film making. Nigel Bryant, Audiovisual Digitisation Officer will join the project for a year to produce lossless digital preservation copies of selected material, enhancing the accessibility of audio-visual media in the collection and protecting the longevity of these fragile, obsolete formats. We’re confident the archive offers significant research value to a variety of disciplines and interests – from the history of media and television to environmental studies, anthropology, history, philosophy and music.

Consistently these films bear witness to changes in the natural world leading us towards today’s climate crisis, educating us about the animal kingdom and the landscape we inhabit, reminding us of our responsibility to protect it.

The artist Jody’s mural of Greta Thunberg on the side of the Tobacco Factory, North Street, Bristol [G. Lever]

The climate activist Greta Thunberg recently guest edited an episode of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. During a Skype interview with Sir David Attenborough, she said:

“When I was younger, when I was maybe 9-10 years old, the thing that made me open my eyes for what was happening with the environment was films and documentaries about the natural world, and what was going on, so thank you for that, because that was what made me decide to do something about it.”

The archive has its foundations in a project led by another Bristol based organisation, Wildscreen, founded in 1982 by Christopher Parsons. Wildscreen hosts an internationally renowned biennial festival on wildlife film (the 20th anniversary festival will be held later this year, 19-23 October 2020) and supports a variety of conservation organisations. It launched ‘WildFilmHistory: 100 years of wildlife film making’ in 2008, a Heritage Lottery funded project that led to a collection of material which now forms part of the ‘Wildfilm’ archive.

Another compelling aspect of the collection is a series of oral history films made by the WildFilmHistory project, spanning all facets of film-making from producers and cameramen to composers and narrators. The interviews capture both the professional and personal alliance between subject and interviewer, enabling discussion to draw out the working relationships behind the creation of pivotal series such as the BBC’s ‘Look’ (1955-1969) and ITV’s ‘Survival’ (1961-2001).

The content of interviews ranges from anecdotal to technical, covering the logistical challenges of filming in remote places, photographic technique, reliability of equipment, battling physical elements, ingenious ways of tackling technological limitations and reflecting on moments of fortune and failure.

It is a renowned ambition of natural history film-making to capture a rare species or behaviour on camera for the first time; paperwork in the archive documents how this is attempted and achieved, and the role narrative construction may have to play in documentary film.

In a recent speech at the World Economic Forum, Sir David Attenborough said:

“When I made my first television programmes most audiences had never even seen a pangolin – indeed few pangolin had ever seen a TV camera!”

There has been an astonishing level of cultural and technological change since the programme, ‘Zoo Quest for a Dragon’ was broadcast in 1956 on the BBC – then one channel with national coverage only recently extending beyond London and Birmingham. In his published diaries for the Zoo Quest series, ‘Adventures of a Young Naturalist’, Attenborough recollects the obstacles involved in locating species unique to regions of Guyana, Indonesia and Paraguay. Through such programmes viewers gained their first glimpse of far flung parts of the world, now increasingly accessible with the growth of air travel and the tourism industry.

Improvements in technology allow viewers to observe the animal kingdom from new perspectives. The archive spans an era during which television has evolved from black and white to regular colour broadcasting in the late 1960s, and the invention of cinematic IMAX presentation to home based on-demand UHD (Ultra High Definition) 4KTV offered by streaming services today. In the same speech, Attenborough says:

“The audience for that first series, 60 years ago, was restricted to a few million viewers… My next series will go instantly to hundreds of millions of people in almost every country on Earth via Netflix”.

As well as the BBC Natural History Unit, the archive contains material for Survival Anglia, Granada, Partridge Films and the RSPB Film Unit, and international networks like the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and TVNZ.

There is a slim body of literature and theory on the history of wildlife film, but within the archive there is a unique collection of studies and published papers by academics tapping into this potential. Two excellent books are ‘Wildlife Films’ by Derek Bousé (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000) and ‘BBC Wildlife Documentaries in the Age of Attenborough’ by Jean-Baptiste Gouyon (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

Some material relating to Granada’s ‘Zoo Time’ series (1956-1968) [G. Lever]

All this material is being described in a detailed catalogue, capturing key words such as species and filming locations to ensure relevant content can be found by anyone with an interest in the archive. When complete the full catalogue will be launched on the Special Collections webpage in the summer of 2021.

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This blog was written by Georgina Lever, a project archivist from the Wildfilm Special Collections at the University of Bristol. This blog has been reposted with kind permission from the Centre for Environmental Humanities. View the original blog.

CAP should be replaced by a sustainable land-use policy

Posted on April 5, 2018April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

Wheat harvest by Jim Choate

Whatever your thoughts about Brexit, one thing most agree on is that it offers an opportunity to rethink how we in the UK look after our agricultural land. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has long been a source of resentment. It accounts for 40% of the EU budget yet has systematically failed to address, in some cases even exacerbated, the biggest concerns in European agriculture. Unlike most transnational sectoral market correction schemes, even much of the general public are aware of its shortcomings.

CAP is formed of 2 pillars. Pillar 1, which accounts for the 70% money spent, is simply a payment for land owned. The more land you own, the more money you get. This promotes large-scale mono-cropping, and acts as a rigid barrier to entry for young would-be farmers. Pillar 2 makes up the rest of CAP’s budget and consists of agri-environment schemes. Whilst well intentioned, Pillar 2 promotes an agricultural divide, where some land is responsibly stewarded while other land is intensively farmed. It is not the most efficient or effective means of improving the state of our land.

Public money for public goods

Michael Gove made a lot of enemies whilst at the Department for Education. However, since being appointed Minister for the Environment, he appears to have bucked the trend of expert-bashing. The government’s 25 Year Green Plan talks a very good talk – it’s a re-affirmation of the government’s laudable aim of leaving the environment in a better state than they found it, following on from the Lawton principles – but fails to walk the walk. There is much rhetoric, but very little explanation as to how goals will be met.

One consistent theme is that of spending public money on public goods. What this means is that tax-payers money should only be used to pay for the goods and services which are ‘consumed’ but for which there is currently not market. It is a way of addressing the tragedy of the commons argument, whereby, in pursuit of personal gain, individuals neglect that which they rely on for that gain, to the detriment of all.

Lake District by Les Haines

The Lake District as we know it has been shaped by generations of upland sheep farming. This practise offers extremely marginal returns, but many would agree there is a huge (but hard to quantify) value to the landscape of the Lake District. Public money should be spent to support such farmers.

In a post-Brexit landscape, there will be many competing demands on the public purse. The challenge, then, is to find alternative sources with which to finance the provision of these services provided by natural ecosystems.

Payments for Ecosystem Services

It is exceptionally difficult to put a value on nature. A market is needed through which farmers can ‘sell’ the services the land they own is able to provide, and beneficiaries of these services can purchase them. In many cases, one service may be provided by many land-owners, a single piece of land may provide many services, and there may be many consumers of each of these services. Clearly, this represents a complicated market structure.

But we can’t shy away from the task. The West of England Nature Partnership, as well as Green Alliance and the National Trust, have conceptualised a system through which such transactions can take place. Functioning as a sort of Green Investment Bank, an institution will package the suggested provision of a consortium of land-owners (for instance, the planting of woodland) for sale to a consortium of buyers. This might include water companies who benefit from cleaner water, Wildlife Trusts with a remit of improving the local access to nature, and developers with a requirement to offset/mitigate the impacts of their development.

In a similar light, Wessex Water have an online platform via which farmers can bid for money in return for adopting more sustainable farming practices. This system directly reduces the cost of water purification for the Water Company, acts as an incentive for good practice to the landowner, and provides landscape and wildlife benefits for the local population – a win-win-win.
Clearly its easier to pay farmers per hectare of land owner. But with the growing demands placed on our environment, and an increasing understanding of our reliance on it, such a system as described here could radically alter the terminal decline of Britain’s natural capital.

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This blog was written by Matthew Whitney who is currently studying an MSc in Environmental Policy and Management at the University of Bristol.

Matthew Whitney

Biodiversity in Bedminster

Posted on October 2, 2014April 14, 2023 by janet.crompton

Students undertaking community based learning projects are coming to the end of their dissertation process and are beginning to disseminate their results to the community. Last night student Julia Kole shared her findings with the Bedminster community. Julia discussed the benefits and limitations of wildlife corridors and stepping stones in Bedminster. Attendees asked lots of questions about the project and discussed how the local community can take forward findings from Julia’s dissertation.

Julia also conducted an interview earlier in the week with B@se radio about the project. She discusses her background growing up in Canada and her interested in the environment from a young age enjoying watching nature documentaries. This led on to studying in the US and working with children in national parks and Julia discusses the impact this had on children involved.

She explains that she picked the Environmental Policy and Management MSc due to the institution being world renowned and how she loved the city. She talks of how the course is a great mix of different subjects from climate change modelling and impact to statistical analysis as well as a mix of students from all over the world sharing their knowledge. She also shares her findings on how biodiversity in Bedminster can be improved.

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This blog is written by Hannah Tweddle, Community Based Learning Intern at the Cabot Institute.

Beyond wildlife corridors: Investigating and evaluating other urban wildlife enhancement projects

Posted on July 1, 2014April 14, 2023 by janet.crompton

Over the course of the summer, I shall be analysing various urban wildlife enhancement practices taking place in the 7 Core Cities of England. Determining if these projects have been successful overall will be based on a set list of quantitative and qualitative ecological performance indicators. To obtain qualitative data or information not readily available through public sources, I will interview personnel who have/had key roles in wildlife enhancement projects in their respective Core Cities. An additional qualitative survey will be sent out to various “green space” and nature organizations to find out what projects they have been involved in and which ones have been successful at functioning as they were intended to. The research questions I will try to answer are:

Why are wildlife corridors often the default urban wildlife enhancement policy of choice?

There hasn’t been significant data collection, experiments or academic evaluations of urban wildlife corridors to justify why they are the popular choice of urban wildlife enhancement projects. What about other methods? What is in use in the core cities? Is it working? What has been the most successful?

How can corridors and other methods of wildlife enhancement in urban areas be measured to determine overall success?

This brook flows through the Blackbrook Open Space,
an important wildlife corridor through a large
housing estate in south-east Taunton. Credit: Geograph

Background research and literature reviews will aid in designing a performance indicator model that will be used to summarise information gathered through the interviews. There will be both a quantitative and qualitative section, with indicators to be determined as my research progresses.

Ever since I can remember, I have always had a strong passion to explore and understand the natural world. Summers spent camping in the Canadian wilderness and years of Girl Guides were just some of the many activities I did growing up that helped me to appreciate, respect and responsibly interact with the environment. After my undergrad, I worked for a year in a National Park in the USA as an environmental educator and spent my days leading school groups through different ecosystems and teaching them how to be informed stewards to the natural world. When I read about this partnership topic dealing with biodiversity and urban wildlife enhancement projects for Bristol, I knew I could easily translate my interests in the conservation of wild spaces into an interest in protecting and enhancing urban green spaces.

The organisation I am working with is the Greater Bedminster Community Partnership, a group made up of local councillors, voluntary and community organisations, private businesses and public agencies within the Bristol wards of Southville and Bedminster. Their goals consist of improving and enhancing the quality of life for Bristol residents and community members in these areas. Members of this organization have been involved with local biodiversity counts and studies of local green spaces and have found that these two wards of Bristol are at the bottom in regards to wildlife biodiversity. The organization would like me to assess the impact of different wildlife enhancement practices and identify applicable practices that can be used in the BS3 area to enhance urban wildlife populations. I hope to use the results of my dissertation to present to the organization an assessment of different urban wildlife enhancement practices currently implemented in the UK and make suggestions on which practices would work best for their area.

Here are some related links for anyone interested:
The Greater Bedminster Community Partnership
The Avon Wildlife Trust
Natural Improvement Areas

Thanks for taking the time to read up on what I will be up to all summer long! If you would like to know more about my project or have any questions, comments or suggestions, please email me at: jk13039@my.bristol.ac.uk.
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This blog is written by Julia Kole, an MSc Environmental Policy and Management student at the University of Bristol. Julia is from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.

Can we share our planet with wildlife?

Posted on December 3, 2013April 19, 2023 by janet.crompton

Monty Don, Shared Planet, BBC Radio 4

Our environment provides us with amazing resources. As well as the obvious things like food, wood and water, it provides services like pollination, climate regulation and waste decomposition. However we are putting our delicate ecosystem out of balance by destroying habitats, over-exploiting animals and plants, polluting the air and rivers and causing climate change at a rate that hasn’t been seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Last week the Cabot Institute hosted a debate for BBC Radio 4’s Shared Planet programme, asking whether we can better manage resources to live within our planet’s means, or whether there are simply too many of us to co-exist with wildlife.

Fred Pearce

Fred Pearce, science and environment writer, was one of the panellists. He argued that nature is dynamic and with better management of the resources we already have, we can reduce our consumption and live within the planet’s ability to recover.

Kieran Suckling

Kieran Suckling, Executive Director of the Center for Biological Diversity in Arizona, had a more pessimistic view. He believes that the human population is going to rise to a level far greater than the planet can sustain, and if we do not control our population level we will not be able to prevent ecological destruction on a global scale.

Global Extinctions
We are losing biodiversiy at an unprecedented rate. The 2012 Living Planet Report by the WWF estimated that we lost 28% of global biodiversity between 1970 and 2008. Fred took a more holistic view, that while of course we have a huge effect on the natural environment and should try and minimise damage, nature is resilient and will fight back. Foxes invading urban environments, weeds in a garden and rainforests’ ability to regrow in 15 years show that nature isn’t as fragile as we think. Animals and plants that depend on very specific environments are likely to be more at risk than more generalist species however and Kieran argued that we have an “ethical responsibility” to keep all remaining species alive.

How can we feed everyone sustainably?

Riau deforestation for oil palm plantation
Image by Aidenvironment, 2006

Every day around 870 million people do not get enough food. How can we hope to feed a predicted 9.6 billion people by 2050 whilst growing food more sustainably? Suckling described how industrial agricultural practices are highly damaging to the environment, for example pesticides which probably have a severe impact on bees. He argued that organic farms are unlikely to provide enough food for the growing population.

Globally, 19% of forests are protected, but rising demand for fuel and agricultural land means we are losing 80,000 acres of rainforest each day and probably 50,000 species of animals and plants every year. The good news, Pearce said, is that that we already produce enough food to feed the predicted 9 billion people, although we waste enough for 3 billion. Recent reports showed that 15 million tonnes of food is thrown away in the UK each year. He argued that we should be encouraged by the notion that “we can reduce our footprint just by being more economical”. The real challenge is how to make people understand that food waste is both socially and environmentally unethical.

Education
Fred mentioned that overall women are having half the number of children that their mothers had. This is in part thanks to medical advances, meaning that most children will survive to adulthood so fewer births are needed to build a family. It is also an education success story. Both the panellists agreed that “when education and freedom levels rise, the population starts to grow more slowly”. Opportunities for women to educate themselves will be critical in changing gender stereotypes and reducing the numbers of unwanted pregnancies. This is good news for human rights as well as managing our growing population’s impact on the environment.

Economics
The environment provides $33 trillion of benefit to us every year by pollinating crops, purifying water, cycling nutrients and keeping our climate stable. It would cost an estimated $76 billion annually to protect the environment, which is only about 20% of the money spent on soft drinks each year. Fred believes that putting a true price on economic resources and the cost of carbon emissions means that simple economics could solve the problem of environmental degradation by showing businesses that conservation is the less costly option. Kieran disagreed, arguing that both environmental and social problems stem from a capitalist consumer society. As the WWF Living Planet Report stated, “in too many cases, the over-exploitation of resources and damage or destruction of ecosystems are highly profitable for a few stakeholders in the short term”. Businesses and politicians work on too short a time scale to care about the long-term effects of environmental degradation.

So are there too many people for wildlife to thrive?
The debate ventured into the ethical question of whether animals and the environment should have the same right to live as humans. Does sustainable living have to be an “us versus them” question? Fred took a humanist view, but argued that we as a species need the services that nature provides. Kieran argued that we must not simply steal the most resources we can get away with, but live sustainably with other species.

Before the debate I believed that there are too many people on the planet for wildlife to flourish and at the end I would probably say I still felt the same way, however Fred managed to instil a bigger sense of hope in me. If governments really do get their acts together and we as a global population get our wasteful consumerism under control, we can turn the tides and make this a better world for both people and the wildlife we share it with.

If you would like to listen to the Shared Planet programme, it will be aired on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 24 December 2013 at 11 am.

This blog is written by Sarah Jose, Biological Sciences, University of Bristol

You can follow Sarah on Twitter @JoseSci

Sarah Jose

Tag: wildlife