Chris Packham on Bats, Bills and the Battle for Britain’s Wildlife

S7E68 We're back with a brand new series and we're starting this exciting new collection of interviews with our President, Chris Packham. We last heard from Chris five years ago back in Episode 14 but this time Steve met the Springwatch presenter at the Natural History Museum.

We discuss the new location of this year's Springwatch (and the amazing footage of the soprano pipistrelles at Haddon Hall) and what is needed to fix our National Parks.

Chris also gives the latest update on his papercuts artwork and when you can get your hands on his new brown long-eared bat design.

The catalyst for arranging this interview was the Planning & Infrastructure Bill which the government is putting through the political processes. This new legislation has the potential to be disastrous for bat conservation here in the UK and you'll hear why the nature conservation organisations need to unite right now.

As you'll hear Chris thinks we should treat our membership of wildlife organisation as an investment for our natural world. If you'd like to see your membership fees well-invested, become a member of the Bat Conservation Trust to support the amazing amount of work we undertake. Discover our work here.

Our dedicated webpages on the Planning & Infrastructure Bill are here along with our Position Statement.

🎧 New to BatChat? We release episodes every other Wednesday, so hit subscribe or follow and join us for more fascinating bat stories!

Chapters

• 0:16 Introduction to Series 7
• 1:15 New Legislation Concerns
• 2:26 Catching Up with Chris Packham
• 4:32 Reflections on the Pandemic
• 6:27 National Parks Under Scrutiny
• 9:31 Addressing National Park Issues
• 15:00 Artistic Endeavors and Nature
• 16:37 March for Nature
• 23:14 Housing Crisis Debate
• 27:22 Concerns Over Environmental Protections
• 32:23 Monitoring Bat Populations
• 34:40 Encouragement for Bat Conservationists
• 38:04 Solutions for Conservation Challenges
• 42:42 Evaluating Environmental NGOs
• 52:00 Fighting Bird Slaughter in Cyprus
• 54:34 Hope for Conservation’s Future
• 1:00:30 Future of 8 Out of 10 Bats

Transcript

Steve Roe:
[0:10] Welcome to a brand new series of the Bat Conservation Trust's award-winning podcast, BatChat. I'm your host, Steve Roe, and this is the very beginning of Series 7, which means from now until the spring of 2026, a new episode will be released every other Wednesday. For you returning listeners, welcome back. It's nice to be back, and I hope you've had a fantastic summer getting out into the night, watching and listening to the nocturnal mammals we all love and cherish. Now, for those of you who are new to the podcast or don't know who the Bat Conservation Trust are, we're one of the UK's smallest environmental non-governmental organisations. We're also the leading charity here in the United Kingdom, solely devoted to the conservation of bats and the landscapes on which they rely. We have 18 bat species here in the UK, meaning that bats make up nearly a quarter of the UK's native mammals, which is a large chunk of our mammal ecology. Now normally on BatChat we would take you out into the natural world to interview a bat conservationist undertaking their work and getting the latest news and updates taking place in the world of bats.

Steve Roe:
[1:15] This episode is a little different. Earlier this year the government announced a new bit of legislation that it was putting forward called the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and you might well have heard about that in the news and media. Now this is incredibly worrying for everyone involved in bat conservation both voluntarily and professionally, and that's because parts of the bill would mean scrapping the need for undertaking site surveys for bats and other protected species, and removing the need for any on-site mitigation or avoiding impacts for some building developments in England.

Steve Roe:
[1:46] The changes could allow developers to pay into the newly proposed nature restoration fund to break the law and avoid taking necessary steps to protect species and habitats on the sites they're working on. Now the issue with not providing any mitigation on site is that bats can't be simply moved between sites which is why we're worried. They're incredibly faithful to their roost sites which means for mitigation to work it has to be as close as possible to the original Ruche site. Ultimately, the bill could spell disaster for bats in the United Kingdom. BCT and bat groups alike have been lobbying their MPs to get appropriate amendments inserted into the bill to avoid a catastrophe for our protected species.

Steve Roe:
[2:25] Those amendments haven't been approved. We decided to catch up with our president, the author, campaigner and wildlife presenter, Chris Packham. We've had Chris on the show before in episode 14, where we asked him why he loves bats and why he became our president. This time I met Chris in the Natural History Museum just three weeks ago where we discussed what he's been up to recently and to get his views on the planning and infrastructure bill. Chris, welcome back to BatChat.

Chris Packham:
[2:52] Thank you.

Steve Roe:
[2:52] We last had you on a couple of weeks into lockdown.

Chris Packham:
[2:55] Oh my goodness, was it that long?

Steve Roe:
[2:56] It was that long ago, yeah.

Chris Packham:
[2:57] Time flies as fast as a noctule at sunset, doesn't it? It doesn't seem that long ago.

Steve Roe:
[3:04] No, it doesn't. So it's really nice to be able to do this interview face-to-face. And we've been talking about doing this interview since the news of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill came into the news. So we'll come on to that shortly. But first of all, how are you?

Chris Packham:
[3:16] Well, I'm OK. Stressed as ever seems to be too much to do one thing that's grieving me at the moment is i now spend a disproportionate amount of my time trying to stop people from doing things rather than being able to entertain any sort of creativity in a conservation sense and i think that's a handicap that's blighting us all you know we've got this remarkable toolkit of abilities to you know repair restore reintroduce reinstate all the re's um and yet we spend all of our time in retreat you know basically addressing things like the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and I've got a whole bevy of court cases at the moment which are either running or might run and they're all about you know trying to protect our rights as it were in terms of environment wildlife protests you name it I'm on it so yeah busy in that regard could do with some more support to be quite honest with you sometimes I feel it's quite a lonely course that I I chart on on that account but I don't have a choice I'm just going to get on with it I'm certainly not moaning about it you know I mean I have to say that I'm never shy of conflict and certainly when it's warranted and I think many of these cases are certainly warranted or if not all of them of course then someone's got to get up and get on with it and if that's me I'll do it.

Steve Roe:
[4:33] I mean, I don't want to take us back to the pandemic, but like you say, it's been five years. A lot has changed since then. The world has changed. But one of the things that came out of that was your book that you co-authored with Megan. And in that book, you talk about the hope that everyone will appreciate nature more. But from what I've seen, we've slipped very much back into forgetting about it all again. And it's just very frustrating from where I'm sat. How do you feel?

Chris Packham:
[4:55] Goodness. Yeah, no, I agree. I don't think it's just nature, though. I think that, you know, we're slipping back on so many accounts. Um not in terms of science not in terms of our understanding not in terms of our love and passion for this for the natural world i think that's there and if anything it continues to grow and we keep adding to our knowledge our conservation skills i mean obviously there's always a paucity of funding to trial and test the techniques that we'd like to but i we can't certainly say that we've gone backwards we're maybe not making the progress as rapidly as we would like but then And ultimately, at this point of crisis, climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, we've got the worst political situation globally that you could possibly imagine. And as a consequence of that, I think really the wind has been taken out of our sails a bit. I've already mentioned the fact that a lot of my time now is spent fighting things, you know, trying to stop them from going backwards rather than leading a charge forward towards a more sustainable, healthy and happier world. So and that's down largely to i think to politics so yeah i mean

Chris Packham:
[6:00] Lockdown was a time when we sort of had an opportunity, a tragic opportunity to sort of stop and rethink and check. And, you know, Megs and I sat on our own in the farmhouse and wrote that book. And parts of it are very definitely a call to action. You know, we're saying to people, you know, you've got to engage, you've got to educate yourselves. And then you've got to be aware of the fact that we're in the fight

Chris Packham:
[6:26] of our lives. There's no question. And it, you know, know i look at the some of the things in there the national parks and well you know i'm quite critical of the national parks in that book um in terms of delivering public goods for public money if anything they've got worse i mean we've got a legal case out at the moment um waiting for judgment about about dartmoor national park which is in in a parlor state in in many ways um so yeah it's it's it's really disappointing i still think though like we say in the book you know we will reach a tipping point you know where something i don't know it could be anything something will go wrong it might be something catastrophic or it might be something tiny which just captures you know public imagination and that's typically what we do and then when that happens we'll wake up and start fixing things i mean prevention is so much nicer than cure but we are very good at cure when we have to it's just that it's tiresome waiting for the collapse and that cure to start i mean

Steve Roe:
[7:25] Let's just touch on the national parks because the Peak District that's my national park I'm 20 minutes from it, you guys were in Springwatch this year for the first time ever you know first of all how did you find Springwatch this year in comparison to your other locations.

Chris Packham:
[7:37] It's a great it's very picturesque other people were enormously hospitable um it was a great place to be um and you know we enjoyed our time there um at no point during the recording of spring watch and i was there for three weeks that I see a single buzzard or a single kite flying over. So whilst we had dippers and we had lots of other fascinating wildlife, there were no predatory birds because outside that tiny area, which is beautifully protected and run by the National Trust, I mean, it's an amazing place and they do great work there on that part of the peaks. Outside of that, it's a raptor death zone. And so it's very much about peering over the fence into the desert, really, which is sort of tragic. But, yeah, no, we did have a great time. And as I say, everyone was fantastic. Fantastic cafe, I have to say. So vegan treats, which was visited. But, I mean, that kind of sums it up, doesn't it? You've got all these good people doing all this great stuff. And then over the fence, you've got some reprobates, you know, with an industry that's completely underpinned by criminal activity. I'm talking about driven grouse shooting. There's not a raptor in sight. It's just terrible.

Steve Roe:
[8:46] I mean, what's needed to fix our national parks, do you think?

Chris Packham:
[8:48] I think there's a misconception firstly that we need to tell the public and that is that I think many people think that national parks are you know are owned by the National Park Authority and they're not privately owned which of course the vast majority of them in terms of the land area is. So, you know, the national parks, in many instances, may want to do good things. They can't do good things, essentially, if their tenants won't do it. And I think where we've lacked, you know, impetus in the past is that, you know, if someone gets caught for illegally killing a bird in a national park, then they should have their shooting license immediately removed.

Chris Packham:
[9:27] And then that would encourage, you know, shooting tenants to come in that would behave themselves. But that hasn't happened. there hasn't been robust enforcement of of the law i think that it would it would be help a lot more if you know the national park authorities had more control over what was going on in those areas and i think that if you happen to own land that's enclosed by one of those national park boundaries you should face some stiffer mandatory requirements in terms of biodiversity access

Chris Packham:
[9:59] Providing providing facilities for for people everyone who's a mountain biker runner disabled people so on and so forth i mean the national parks were set up so that you know everyone in the uk could visit them for their mental and physical health and of course you know and to protect the wildlife that's there but i mean

Chris Packham:
[10:20] Several of our national parks are completely overgrazed they're sheep-wricked you know and and they won't address that issue and i think that when you look at the councils of the national trust those people who sit on the board you know they're largely made up of people who are you know there with vested interest and they they just want the same old bad business as usual they all ought to be kicked off of those boards and we should have independence come you know people come in scientists ecologists people from citizens assemblies people from all of the local cities that that need to use those dog walkers mountain bikers runners and canoeists not the shooting and farming fraternity that are that are continue to damage them in the way that they do so you know i've got the stick out here um you know there's no question of that and i guess i get the stick out increasingly more than the coward because i think we're running out of time and we've tried to lead people we've tried to incentivize them they haven't taken that they haven't stopped killing raptors for instance as one example and as a consequence i think we need to get the stick out um and that doesn't mean that we we shouldn't invest in in in those people that own those properties we should we should make sure that they are able to you know derive a a functional eco economic return uh for them and their families going forward um and certainly the farming fraternity deserve a lot more support than they're getting i mean the sheep farming fraternity

Chris Packham:
[11:42] I mean, the whole business is being run at a catastrophic loss. We subsidise it, money coming out of taxpayers' pockets. And at the same time, we import New Zealand lamb. I mean, for goodness sake, let's start looking after our farmers by, you know, putting them in a position where we can pay properly for their produce and they can be properly supported. But, you know, there's a lot of work to be done there and it's not going to happen in five minutes. but i but it's going to have to happen in in 10 when you know when the fecal you know fecal product really hits the fan because we're in deep trouble and

Steve Roe:
[12:16] I mean there are pockets of the p district where you do get bits so like where megan was doing the roving reporting from haddon hall which is.

Chris Packham:
[12:22] You know the that was amazing fantastic how

Steve Roe:
[12:25] Good were those bats.

Chris Packham:
[12:26] Oh i was envious i didn't get to go there she's just laying down and they were swarming above her i was very envious that was great it

Steve Roe:
[12:32] Was really because i was behind the scenes um with megan there and just making sure that the bats won't be just being disturbed with all the camera stuff and it was just so nice to be able to see how much care the spring watch team take over making sure that you get the shots whilst at the same time not causing that disturbance.

Chris Packham:
[12:46] Yeah i mean that's one of the specialities of our team i mean they are all essentially naturalist as well as you know camera sound whatever technicians you know they they love wild life as much as we do and i think that's what makes the the team so strong everyone is significantly invested in making the best possible program but never at the expense of damaging the environment or or disturbing any of the animals i mean there's any number of occasions i've got to tell you where you know someone might find something that we'd really like to feature but it's not in a place where we can put a camera because of public access or um or because the species is simply too sensitive so we we can't do it i won't give you the long list otherwise you'll be the listeners might be quite disappointed but look ultimately we love the wildlife so we're not going to ever kind of risk disturbing it to make the program. Yeah.

Steve Roe:
[13:34] Now, look, apart from this book, you've also been getting your artistic skills on and you've been doing paper cuts of various bits of wildlife, including a fantastic bat image with a sun setting and the moon rising behind a longhead. Where does the inspiration for that sort of stuff come from?

Chris Packham:
[13:49] Well, when I was a kid, it was always two things. You know, my father would take me out to the woods and to, you know, castles and military museums. And my mother would take me to art galleries. And I've always had a ferocious interest in art. I've just spent the last um the last night yesterday a few few days this week um in edinburgh going around all of the galleries there which i greatly enjoyed um and i tend to sort of go in i'm first in the line and then last out and i can i can lose myself in in art and i really like sort of figuring out and how it works and what it's saying and all that sort of stuff and i've always done my own thing um i do paper cuts because they're quick um and you know i don't have that much time really i can't certainly can't work on a you know 40 40 40 meter mural my own version of the sistine chapel or anything which would be populated by less cherubs and probably more more serotenes um but um so no it's that and i'm really interested in sort of design and i like bold and bright colors and so paper cuts work from that that point of view i'm doing a whole load more actually at the moment for a for a different project so yeah

Steve Roe:
[14:59] Is the bat one out yet when can people get their hands on.

Chris Packham:
[15:01] The bat one no the bat one's not out yet so i decided i decided because they were just i just kept making them um i would do a calendar so i'm gonna do a calendar next year and i'll do prints uh with it so i've done sort of about 15 and i'll pick 12 for the calendar and i've got two more to do i'm just about to start work on one with some swifts actually against the thunderstorm backdrop um so yeah no i mean i quite like those i can do them quite quickly and and then um yeah great

Steve Roe:
[15:30] Stuff and we have to talk about the restore nature now march which took place last year we were there bct was there uh.

Chris Packham:
[15:36] With the bat with

Steve Roe:
[15:37] The bat yeah massive increase in scale compared to year 2017 what for wildlife.

Chris Packham:
[15:41] Yeah yet

Steve Roe:
[15:42] Little to no media coverage how frustrating is that.

Chris Packham:
[15:45] Oh god i mean i don't know what to say really it was really really disappointing wasn't it was the largest you know sort of demonstration if you call it i mean it wasn't a demonstration in the sense that we were screaming and shouting and trying to stop something we were there really to celebrate our collective desire to look after you know the uk's nature and environment and there were 80,000 people by some reckoning. And the only coverage we got was, I think Adam Vaughan did a piece for the Times. No BBC, no Sky, absolutely nothing. It's so disappointing. And yet, the weekend before, Just Stop Oil had thrown some cornstarch over Stonehenge. Two or three, I can't remember, I think it was two people did that. And it got global media attention. And this really plays to the idea that, you know, I always say you've got to make trouble to make a difference.

Chris Packham:
[16:38] Sometimes sometimes you have to make trouble to make a difference but um i don't know you know there's just the way the media you know treats things and you know we we wanted a peaceful

Chris Packham:
[16:51] Democratic celebratory family friending gathering to show the government that there's an enormous collective of people that care about the environment and as you say i doubt unless they looked out the windows of westminster they would have even caught a glimpse of it it's very disappointing the other thing is that one of the reasons that i initiated the first one uh the walk for wildlife and was instrumental in initiating and running restore nature now although i had a lot of help from all the ngos and wildlife countryside link etc etc um was that um it was for me it's about unification it was about getting the hunt to sand alongside the woodland trust to sand alongside people from a hedgehog hospital um you know alongside just stop oil and extinction rebellion um both of whom were in attendance and that took some arm twisting you know because they are not widely trusted and yet we all have a commonality when it comes to you know caring about our planet and and and so the idea was to sort of get everyone together i hope that they sufficiently rubbed shoulders that some desire to work communicate and strategize strategize together would would rub off on those shoulders but i'm And I'm afraid that trying to get the ENGOs at the moment into the same room to talk about the same things with the same amount of gusto remains a fairly elusive thing, it's really disappointing.

Steve Roe:
[18:11] And you posted a video the day after that march on your social media channels. I don't know what the, I wouldn't say defeated, you didn't look defeated, but it was a look I've never seen in your face. You look really fed up. Was that because of the lack of media coverage? Was it just the fact that it'd taken so much time and effort to do it and it was over and it was sort of a relaxing moment?

Chris Packham:
[18:30] Yeah, yeah, there's always that, isn't there? The attainment of anything like that is always disappointing immediately afterwards, I think. Yeah, it was exhausting. I think corralling all of those organisations, you know, I was on the phone to CEOs and directors in the days before, you know, trying to ally their fears about this, that and the other. And you know and this i don't know there's always this sort of seems to be a a desire to find a reason to not do something rather than to grasp a reason to do it and that can be quite draining and and as i said sometimes there's only a few of us banging that drum i felt that if you want to know what i thought was really missing and it was missing because we couldn't get a collective agreement on it was a mission you know what it needed at the end of that march was for people to do anything sign a petition you know it needed to be something that was driving a change and i was very keen at the client at the time that it would be to support the climate and nature bill which was going through had been drafted submitted drafted submitted it was a tangible thing that was there obviously

Chris Packham:
[19:34] As as we saw almost in the first week of the new government they they threw that out they whipped that you know everyone and then threw it out um but we couldn't get agreement on that no one you know everyone said no no i don't want to do that we're going to do our own or it's just like it's on the table it's there a lot of people put a lot of effort into doing the hard work let's just support that collectively but i said i felt that without that direction you know where was the march going to go it kind of stopped in parliament square that afternoon and it didn't carry on and and and that's i always think that if i'm engaging people you know it's about empowering them and therefore it's about giving them somewhere to go where they can make personal or wider progress and and that wasn't there so ultimately you could challenge me and say you know what did it achieve and I'd say okay I think it achieved a lot it brought our community together people did rub shoulders we all had a great day we shared a lot of ideas we shared a lot of passion

Chris Packham:
[20:35] Which which was great we had some fantastic speakers on on on the stage who were highly motivational but ultimately did it achieve anything you know across the road in Westminster no it didn't and what's been achieved since not a lot because we've got the planning and infrastructure bill we've had none of the manifesto pledges realized stopping the badger car stopping fox hunting stopping the import fur i mean i could go on they're all on the shelf trophy hunting etc etc um you know and and at the moment our movement as powerful as it is with all those millions of members those people who vote with their wallets vote with their feet they vote as volunteers of the conservation sector without you know which we we couldn't do any of the things that we that we do really um are not prepared to sort of come together um

Chris Packham:
[21:24] You know, I mean, they fight a few battles, but they're never going to win the war. And we need to unite now. You know, this planning and infrastructure bill is one of those things. You know, this is where plant life, this is where the Dictoran Society, this is where the Mammal Society, Bat Conservation Trust, Butterfly, I mean, I could go on. This is why everyone, you know, needs to come together, because this, without ambiguity, is going to be an assault on the legislation that's in place to protect our environment.

Steve Roe:
[21:50] So let's come on to this planning and infrastructure bill then. There's obviously a number of questions we want to put to you on that first off we're getting the gist of it already but what are your views with regard to the protection of species and the construction industry.

Chris Packham:
[22:01] Well my views are irrelevant the views that are important are those of the office of environmental protection that have looked at the bill one of the government's own advisory bodies and they've looked at it and they've said that without any ambiguity this bill as it stands will undermine the the you know the environmental protections that we've got in the uk then myself ruth tingay um bob elliott uh you know from wild justice we take the bill and we give it to a bunch of environmental lawyers um who at discounted rates because they like us and they like the environment they review the bill and they come back and agree wholeheartedly with the office of environmental protection as it stands the bill will damage our capacity to protect wildlife in a multitude of ways and then the former housing secretary stands up and says the opposite in in the house of commons miss essentially misleading government we've got a legal case we're waiting to see how how far it's going to run um asking for that to be corrected i mean at least be candid about the fact that the bill is going to you know undermine those uh things and then and ultimately the

Chris Packham:
[23:11] None of us are going to disagree that there isn't a housing crisis. But from my perspective, the crisis is about affordability, not planning. There's a million houses that have already been given planning permission out there at the moment. They're just sat there not being built. And they're not being built because it's called land banking. So the developers get the land, they get the planning permission, and then they sit on it until the value of the land goes up, and therefore the value of the houses go up and they make more profit.

Chris Packham:
[23:40] I think they should be charged council tax for the house caps for the houses they haven't built yet or lose the planning permission and then we've got you know we've got millions of um of unused homes um we've got thousands of commercial properties which could be could be adjusted cpre have said that if we have to build a million homes we could build it on brownfield sites if we do build a million homes that's the whole of our carbon budget gone well it's 1.5 million homes they're talking about that's the whole of our carbon budget gone forget terminal x at heathrow forget fossil fuels forget the drilling licenses in the north sea all of our carbon budget in terms of meeting net zero will be gone up in bricks and glass and mortar the whole thing's a catastrophe you know we need afford we need the right homes built to the right spec in the right places for the right people and that's not going to be done by the big five housing developers in cahoots with this government who have got this mad idea that it's going to kickstart economic endless economic growth consumption i mean the whole thing's back to front you know and i walked through southampton the other day there were just loads of empty houses that could be with the proper investment you know and brought up to spec properly insulated and uh and uh

Chris Packham:
[25:03] But no, no, you know, it's all about profit. It's about building new things, not restoring old things. And it just doesn't just doesn't cut it. On top of all of that, we've got this attack on newts and bats. I mean, you know, what madness. How do I alienate? How do I alienate the enormous section of your voting fraternity? Pick on newts and bats, essentially wildlife. And now it's snails. And then it was spiders. Starmer picked on spiders, jumping spiders down it. Ebb's fleet um and and then last week it was uh reeve saying that she's overturned a planning decline down down to some i think she called some called it some little snail or something microscopic

Steve Roe:
[25:46] She said but they're five millimeters across i mean it's a worry that the chancellor can't see something half a centimeter in size isn't it you know.

Chris Packham:
[25:51] She doesn't understand the meaning of the word microscopic and but also the vision is microscopic as well because look you know it's it might be just a snail to her but to you and i and many other people it's an indicator of the health of that ecosystem you know and as a consequence of that it deserves as much you know protection as something bigger fluffier and cuter um and it's about looking after ecosystems we know that but look you know we're not against housing we need houses you know we young people can't afford them there are there's enormous homeless issues uh there are people i mean this It's just a catastrophe right across the board. But look, listen, I'm old enough to know why this happened. You know, when I was a kid, there were council houses that were let at affordable rents. Thatcher sold them all off. And then we didn't build any more. Kel's surprise that we've got, you know, loads of people who can't afford houses, can't afford to rent houses. But then we had this thing where, you know, buy to let. Great. Let's generate a, you know, a generation of greedy landlords. Oh, man, you couldn't make it up, honestly. It's just like a one-way ticket to housing disaster but look there are solutions we just need to implement them but we're not going to allow nature to be destroyed you know in order to achieve it and

Steve Roe:
[27:09] Like you say you've got a judicial review coming up on the 6th of.

Chris Packham:
[27:12] November yeah through our justice well that's the appeal for the review yeah so we you know the process is such that you know we that would need to be granted and

Steve Roe:
[27:21] How confident are you that that will be granted.

Chris Packham:
[27:23] Well i don't know i mean obviously at the moment you know the government are saying that the housing minister spoke under parliamentary privilege but whatever what they said was untrue and I think that you know our mission sometimes if we have a genuine legal foothold not a spurious case none of us would take a spurious case neither us because we wouldn't waste our money or the public's and nor our lawyers because they wouldn't waste their reputation if we have a good case then sometimes it's not about winning it's about raising a constant conversation about the contents of that case we build a platform to have a broader conversation about an issue so yes we might win but we don't always have to sometimes winning is in the court of public opinion which will then have an influence going forward so i think as long as we can make enough noise so that we can make it very clear that on the day that they vote on the planning and infrastructure bill that those mps will knowingly if they vote for it to pass as it stands at the moment obviously amendments are being tabled at the moment in the in the lords but as it stands at the moment it would be it would be disastrous

Steve Roe:
[28:34] Last year bct published its five-year strategy now because of the planning and infrastructure bill a lot of resources have been taken away from meeting that strategy to deal with that but the problem's been identified that uk bat populations are either in decline or they remain at threat so the 10-year theory of change is that all bat species in the uk will start to recover. Do strategies work? And what would you like to see happen over the next four years for BCT?

Chris Packham:
[29:00] I think we've got to strategise. And I think that's one of the things that's always been lacking in our portfolio. You know, we've always come up with, as I say, addressing battles, not winning the war against nature.

Chris Packham:
[29:12] And I think that's one of the reasons why cooperation is so important, because effectively, if we're not cooperating between us all, then we're not optimising our capacity you know there's overlap there's repetition um there's no synergy there um but no i think very much we need to strategize i think we need to be realistic about those strategies and set meaningful targets and then try and meet them that's the key thing i mean i think that you know the interesting thing is that when businesses set economic targets if they don't meet them they get very upset about it because it's about money you know and we need to treat wildlife like money like it really matters because money seems to really matter to lots of people you know so i think it needs to be you know we can't just sort of say as you know the biodiversity targets at the moment none of them are being met we're well behind on our 2030 you know targets none of them are going to succeed and that's because you know oh we haven't met the target oh never mind well we'll try a bit harder next year and then oh no we haven't got so much money now because we're not in europe anymore and so it's gonna be impossible to meet that target so never mind this i tell let's shift it to 2050 it's just that attitude i can't condone or or countenance really it's more important than that and that's why i think it's important and then again the people that we are up against if we have adversaries in terms of you know making our strategies realizable um they've

Chris Packham:
[30:37] Been strategizing for years i mean they know exactly what they're doing they've got great resources they've got great people in place they've got people to mislead cause mischief

Chris Packham:
[30:47] Misinform you know that's all set up and running we're never going to combat that unless we go back at them using the same technique And, you know, and it is David versus Goliath. But as I always say, you know, we've got a sling and a stone and we're smarter. So we should be, you know, really pushing back on that. But I've got to say, you know, BCT have been brilliant. I've been in communication with them over the planning and infrastructure bill. And they, along with a couple of the other smaller NGOs, were those that were immediately, you know, doing freedom of information requests, beginning to understand what the implications of this bill were. And and again you've got to ask why is a smaller charity like bct why is chris packham wild justice why are we doing all the legwork yeah well you know we've got people out there with hundreds of millions in terms of turnover a lot more staff um come on guys wake up we're all in this together you know and and a bit more support will be most welcome

Steve Roe:
[31:46] Yeah bang on we know you love science and one of the main areas of the strategy is discover so scientific evidence in place to support that so i just want to get your thoughts on the national bat monitoring program, gets us trends for 11 of the uk's breeding bat species it's a mixed picture long-term populations rather stable or increasing but the latest report that came out earlier this in fact a few days in spring watch has the worrying news that for brown long-geared bats over the last five years seems to be showing a decline in great britain and it's the same for the less horseshoe in England, a decline over the last five years. What's your thought on that?

Chris Packham:
[32:24] Well, monitoring techniques, when it comes to relatively inaccessible animals like bats, have got better. We've got our acoustic recording devices now, which are fantastic. We've got a couple in the garden. So these are little plastic boxes you put out, some batteries and a SIM card in. They record everything in the garden. You send it off to someone else. They do all the donkey work.

Chris Packham:
[32:42] They and their AI software program does all the donkey work, and it tells you what's there. So in terms of sort of, you know, upping our capacity to understand, you know, populations, distributions, declines, etc., we've really come on, actually. There's no question of that. So I would argue that this is firstly scary because the data is likely to be more precise than it was 10, 15 years ago. And when you go back to my youth, I mean, bats were just, you know, hardly monitored at all. It was individuals going out and counting them at roosts, literally on their fingers or with a clicker. You know so now we've got far more sophisticated ways of doing that but look the key thing is we know that this is coming because again thanks to sort of studies that are related to agriculture we've seen significant declines in large flying insects which form that the food of the uk bat species and not so large but flying insects so um as a consequence of that you know there might there may well be a lag but we're going to see those sorts of declines and and again the best one in the world that you know i would argue that we've probably got our finger more firmly on the pulse when it comes to more accessible species birds um certainly butterflies certainly um than we have with bats so there's still a lot of under recording going on but that doesn't mean that there's a bigger population out there well when i say under recording i mean that we're not seeing the decline where it's actually happening because we don't have the data.

Chris Packham:
[34:12] So, you know, I'm very, very worried. And, of course, bats are just, because of that, you know, the fact they're all insectivorous in the UK, they are the perfect indicator to a broader natural community health. Bats are, effectively, our canaries in the coal mine.

Steve Roe:
[34:30] Yeah, absolutely. And this year's annual report, as President, you said in your statement, it's been an annoying year.

Steve Roe:
[34:38] What message? This is quite depressing, listeners. This you know it's it's always negativity you know but it has to be because we need to get you on and and get that message out there but for all our listeners and members who are wringing their hands in despair and just want to continue to conserve bats and be able to see their populations make a recovery what message would you have for them.

Chris Packham:
[34:56] It's that don't don't think it's not down to you know i hear people and they say i'm just a drop in the ocean i can't make a difference and i go straight back to them with the thing from the cloud atlas and say yeah but what's an ocean but a multitude of jobs you know don't not turn up a march don't not sign that petition you know you've got to play a proactive role in the bigger decision making we can all put back boxes up in our gardens if we're fortunate enough to have gardens and that's great and that's empowering and it's great for us to make personal differences but if we want to see you know you know broad uh and and effective recovery then that needs to to come at a much higher level and that means that you have to exercise your voice and i think that as i always say to young people every single one of your voices is important you know if you love bats your voice is important your love is important don't undervalue that you know you have to bring that to the floor so i think it you know

Chris Packham:
[35:56] It is a time to be creatively angry. And if you are disappointed and you're frustrated and you feel that we're on the back foot, then you've got to turn that into something positive. And I learned this a long time ago as this sort of part of the punk mantra. We always used to say that anger was an energy in punk, but it was a creative energy. It got us out of our bedrooms, and we bought crappy guitars and we rented lockups and we wrote songs about girlfriends we'd never had and we and we did something you know that was what the that's the anger transformed into progress so there's nothing wrong with being angry I think it's possibly the most powerful emotion

Chris Packham:
[36:41] Learn how to use it you know what i feel very often is that when it comes to uk naturalists wildlife fans and aficionados we're great at moaning in car parks we'll stand there and say well i haven't seen us you know a natural has not won this year and all the number of dork brentons is down and i used to see loads here when i was a kid right well great we all do it but then you've going to turn that around because look let's be very clear it's not that we don't have solutions i would only feel the situation was depressing and hopeless if if there were no solutions to these things we have solutions we've got to protect the habitats that we've got we've got to rebuild those that we've destroyed we've got to certainly address you know when it comes to bats agricultural issues of widespread overuse of insecticides you know there are so many things that we that we can do mandatory back boxes in in in new those houses that we're going to be putting up the right type of back boxes that work um and checking that they've been put there while justice did another survey actually of um we were tipped off by people at sheffield university and they said to us oh you've got this idea that all of these sort of um mitigation measures that developers have been asked to put in aren't being done so we said okay we'll get some money for that and And we went out and did a survey.

Chris Packham:
[38:04] Joke you know they get these things signed off and then they don't put the wildflowers in they don't plant the native trees they don't put the bat boxes bird boxes or bee boxes it's just not there they're not they're not even keeping to that so i think again it's like it's monitoring those sorts of things and then ultimately it's it's you know we all need fuel you know because to make us do these things you know we need a fuel i mean i've got to get up in the morning and do things what what's the fuel well the fuel is our love for these creatures you know we we love bats we're fascinated by them you know they're remarkable animals you know and we love learning new things about them so communicating that love in our community and spreading it to others is equally as important because you know people are never going to do anything you know look after anything they don't care about but we do care so we've got to look after it and

Steve Roe:
[38:58] You mentioned there we've got to protect the habitats. In 2018, you contributed to the People's Manifesto for Wildlife and you said that Natural England were, and I quote, unfit for purpose. Now, Tony Juniper has since taken over as chair since you wrote that. Is Natural England still on Fit for Purpose?

Chris Packham:
[39:14] Well, they lost 170 members of staff the week before last. You know, it's not down to the staff, is it? It's down to the fact that the first thing is that if you look at Natural England's funding, it's just been cut, cut, cut, cut and cut. And when the last chair left, he stood up and bemoaned the fact that on his tenure, under his tenure, there'd been significant cuts. I mean, he should have done something about it when he was in post, not when he was just about to retire. Didn't hear anything about it then but this was mr cells you know we only hear about it after he's left look the same at the environment agency all of these you know statutory bodies it's all very well to moan about them but ultimately we you know it makes it difficult when they they haven't got the funding to pay the right people to do the right things in the right way so as much as yes we're going to be in court you know with natural england again soon on the badger cull and other issues. It doesn't mean that I don't sympathise for them and their staff, because the first thing I'd do if I was Prime Minister for a day is wage my magic wand and refund those agencies to a decent level, get decent people in there, make sure they're empowered to make a difference. And let's be clear, when I was a kid, these statutory bodies were advisory bodies,

Chris Packham:
[40:29] And they seem to have relinquished that, you know, sort of undertaking now, in the sense that they don't provide advice to government i mean you know that's not that's not good enough um and then again you know you you can look at the boards of some of these agencies and and you've got to question the people that are on them what are they doing there they're there to protect their own interest and some of their interests are nefarious they ought to be kicked off you know those boards need to be not appointed by you know by

Chris Packham:
[41:01] Politicians they need to be appointed by ecologists um so there are problems there but i do sympathize with those agencies there's no doubt lack of funding is part of it are they doing their job no i'd argue they're not doing their job partly because they don't have the resources partly because they've cowed to government and you know that's probably a long term systemic chronic problem that we've we've got to but i still meet people that work for those agencies and they're brilliant people and they get up in the morning and they try to do good and it's it must be very very hard for them they have had my sympathy and i do anything i can you know to to support them and i and i try to but if the body of a whole as a whole isn't on its toes then it's my job along with ruth and bob and mark and everyone else to make sure that they are kept on their on their toes i also find it quite frustrating that we constantly have to you know fire freedom of information requests at them because ultimately they're paid by you and i as taxpayers so that that information ought to be in the public domain and having to wait months and it's getting worse and worse in terms of getting a freedom of information request back for them is um it's becoming really difficult and that's that to me seems entirely undemocratic

Steve Roe:
[42:17] You mentioned Mark there. Mark Avery got his PhD studying bats a long time ago now.

Chris Packham:
[42:22] Yeah, he did, yeah.

Steve Roe:
[42:23] But I saw him a couple of years ago at a book signing. He said in his recent book, Reflections, that we should consider our membership of environmental NGOs by looking at which of those organisations gives conservation the biggest bang for its buck.

Steve Roe:
[42:38] Which organisations get the most out of our membership money? How does BCT stand up when you look at it that way?

Chris Packham:
[42:45] Well, I think it's up there. But for me, you know, I always like to champion those organisations which I always say are punching above their weight. BCT, Butterfly Conservation, certainly come into that category. You know, both employ great surveying. They've got fantastically committed teams of volunteers. Communication is excellent. Publications are excellent. So therefore outreach and education is really good. And then when it you know the backs against the wall as i've already mentioned bct was one of those people at the outset when this bill was first you know mooted and put on the table dug in and started issuing those freedom of information requests and making them accessible to people like my like myself so i do think there is that at the moment i i do think there's a scale issue it seems to be the middle tier those people are sufficiently well resourced to be able to do something i mean they're not as well resourced as we would like of course probably never would be um and those are the people that are really you know doing what needs to be doing what needs to be done i know recently that a coalition of uh butterfly conservation and bug life and about conservation trust uh wrote uh about the pesticide use basically um

Chris Packham:
[44:07] Well, that's really good. And I was very keen to champion and support that as many other people would. But ultimately, you know, we've got other organizations that have got millions of members and millions of pounds in turnover. Are we getting bang for our buck from them at the moment? That's the question. And I think the question that they need to address as well. I'm not saying they do bad things. Don't get me wrong. They do an enormous amount of great work, you know, in terms of acquiring and, you know, managing their reserves and creating new reserves and those sorts of things but look ultimately i've said this before it's enormously unpopular i'll say it again because someone's got to if uk nature were a footsie 100 company i would have sold my shares years ago because the state of nature report tells us that despite all of our investment in it it's it's in serious decline it's losing natural wealth and as a consequence of that the techniques that we're employing are clearly not working we've got to stop and rethink and employ different techniques And I believe that we have those, I just don't think we're rolling them out broadly enough, rapidly enough, and I don't think that we're showing our might and strength when it comes to influencing political decision making.

Steve Roe:
[45:17] So what can we do then to remind everyone that we need nature?

Chris Packham:
[45:20] Well, look, firstly, if you're a member of an NGO, say you've paid. Well, I always say I'm not actually a member. I'm a shareholder because I made a capital investment. And as a shareholder, you should turn up at the AGM and peacefully and democratically, creatively, you know, ask for change. You know, it's all very well for me to sit here and say, this is rubbish, that's rubbish. You know, that's not actually a very progressive way. You know, what we need to do is to say this isn't working, but I've got another idea. It's been used here. It's been tried and tested. Can we try that? And it's about that sort of bringing creativity to the table, but with a degree of urgency. So I think that, you know, if you are a shareholder of one of those NGOs, then you ought to be making sure that they are doing the right thing at the right time. I don't think there's anything wrong with that whatsoever. They didn't ought to be beyond criticism.

Chris Packham:
[46:16] Um equally i do think you know it's a bit trip advisor isn't it you know in the sense that they also do a lot of other brilliant things and i think we've got to remember sometimes to to say you know thanks you've done a brilliant job there and that does get overlooked and and i think a lot of staff and those ngos do brilliant work on a day-to-day basis and you know sometimes we forget to thank them i've got the stage now wherever i go to a um a place which is either dog friendly right or they've got a good range of plant-based food i make a really prominent point of saying thank you i don't leave a shop or a museum or an art gallery that's dog friendly without saying thank you very much for making this dog friendly because if it weren't for that i wouldn't have been able to visit you today because i won't leave my dogs in the car you know they're no less valuable than my children and then you know when it comes to food you know i always say to people thank you very much for the those putting those things on the menu it really makes a difference thanks so i think you know that feedback positive feedback it really needs to be uh we mustn't forget that as well i mustn't moan about everything all the time but um and as i say there's enormous number of volunteers and staff for those ngos out there that do brilliant things but collectively that they're not showing their strength

Steve Roe:
[47:26] Now, I just want to do a slight sidestep, because this is a bat podcast, so it might seem a bit weird that I'm bringing up your, a couple of weeks ago, you were out in Cyprus wearing a stab-proof vest and confronting really dangerous criminals, cashing thousands of migrating songbirds, some of which are ours, each week, illegally for a dish that's covertly sold in restaurants. Now, it's largely about the birds, but given that they're using mist nets, which are up all the time, should we worry about bats being part of that bycatch? Do you know if the wildlife gets caught as well as the birds?

Chris Packham:
[47:54] Occasionally, not so much in the mist nets, but on the limesticks, which are these sticky sticks that are put up in trees. So they're sort of about 40, 60 centimetres long, covered with effectively a sort of an organic sticky glue. Anything that touches it sticks to it. And so it's not just birds that get caught. Obviously, inverts get caught, as do snakes and lizards and occasionally bats. The bats just pitch up on the stick and then they're absolutely... And the bats never survive, of course, because you can't peel them off, their wings are too fragile. In the grand scheme of things because they use um audio lures to bring the um animals in the birds in it's mainly the birds what we found from a recent study was that if you play an audio lure of a black cat which is one of their principal target species it does actually bring other species in because other species must think oh good place for black cabs it might be all right for me as a garden warbler or less a white throat um so it does increase the catch there but as far as i'm aware the bycatch of bats is is accidental and low level as it would be with with with reptiles so they're you know unfortunately they're they're pretty good at catching the birds and

Steve Roe:
[49:03] What was the outcome of you know you visit out there with megan for however long you're out there for you know what what was the feeling you came away with.

Chris Packham:
[49:09] Well um our job was to champion the work of uh committee against bird slaughter and birdlife cypress um they're out there at the coalface of conservation as i called it every single day i mean this isn't um forgive me you know volunteering at the local nature reserve cafe you can do that and it's a great job and thanks for doing that because you you're the person that gives me my vegan hot chocolate um but you know these people are there and they're getting beaten up they're getting pepper sprayed they're getting their car tires slashed you know and they're there protecting you know uh you know trying to protect you know the 20 to 30 million songbirds that are killed in the mediterranean every year the two million that are killed on cyprus um and these are birds as you've mentioned that come from all over europe some of them in the uk we go to enormous lengths to set up these reserves feed them in our gardens etc etc etc and then they fly over the mediterranean and they're needlessly slaughtered so you know you have to respect those people's work so we go on out there to sort of you know provide them with profile we did some fundraising we managed to raise nearly 50,000 pounds for them. So that was good.

Chris Packham:
[50:15] And then we also took the police to task and we put them in a position where they had to actually do something. So they busted some of the worst criminals and they've levied the largest ever fines that have ever been levied on any of the criminals there. We engaged with some British diplomats and they were really, really helpful. Absolutely fantastic. And again, they spoke to the Cypriot police. and of course we you know have brought awareness to you know i think the last time we looked we had about 10 million hits across our social media platforms so they would have been repeats but a good number of those people certainly saying i never knew this happened and then we took journalists from uh very you know kindly came from the express steph spiro and jonathan came and and so then we got that into the readership of the express she ran two articles uh there and an online uh film So, from our point of view, we're back in business, we hadn't been out there since pre-COVID, and we brought that issue back to public awareness. And hopefully we can, last time when we were working in Cyprus and Malta, we reached out to some MSPs, I have to say we were

Chris Packham:
[51:26] Part of the eu at that point and um and we went to brussels and gave presentations and collectively with bird life malta we managed to get the law changed in malta when it came to spring shooting of turtle doves so that sort of awareness pressure being in people's faces um can lead to positive change and we will certainly be going back until we get a result and at the moment we haven't contacted any msps but it's on my list to do uh to see if we can get some traction in europe to put political pressure on the cypriot government it's

Steve Roe:
[51:59] A fantastic piece of work so well done.

Chris Packham:
[52:00] For that thank you let's

Steve Roe:
[52:02] Finish on a more positive note what hope do we still have as naturalists ecologists conservationists.

Chris Packham:
[52:07] I think we have i think we have a lot of hope because although we presided over all of these catastrophic declines and it's very sad to have witnessed that in our lifetimes we've also stood alongside scientists and conservationists who've tried and tested techniques to protect all of these animals you know we understand more about their biology their behavior physiology their ecology and we know what they need we know what they eat we know where they need to live and as a consequence of that we can restore and reinstate those habitats and you know we've got some relatively new tools at our disposal obviously rewilding has become very popular i think we've been rewilding for quite some time but large scale rewilding projects like NEP which have been so out you know fantastically outrageously successful Cairngorms Connect up in Scotland

Chris Packham:
[52:57] You know are really leading the way to show that that type of conservation can play a valuable role we've had some amazing reintroductions we've now got I've seen a white-tailed eagle from my garden amazing you know because they've been reintroduced on the Isle of Wight I've got ospreys flying around Pool Harbour. The marsh harriers have returned to breed there. You know, where we act and where we implement those skills and abilities, you know, that we have and where we can actually put our energy into making a difference, we get results so quickly. That's what's heartening and that's what gives me hope, really. You know, we can do it. We've just got to make sure that we do it more rapidly and more broadly. And that means that every single one of us needs to play a role in driving that positive change because we all care and we all love this stuff and we don't want to lose it and as a consequence we've got to stand up for it and standing up for nature is going to be at the forefront I think in the next you know two or three years as we crash into the next election which is scary already

Chris Packham:
[54:01] And having seen what's happened in the United States we need to make the right choices and Make sure that we get people in positions to reinvest in natural England, forestry enterprise, forestry England, and the Environment Agency. Empower those people to do their jobs. We instate the fact that they're advisory and government will have to listen to that advice. You know, make sure that they have the funds to employ the right people. And at the same time, we need to recognise we are shareholders of our NGOs.

Chris Packham:
[54:30] We should turn up at the AGMs and we should table motions that ask for proactive change. And and and make sure that we're shaping the direction that they move in and then lastly you know i don't think the one thing that scares me about all of this and it's how we opened is the lack of cooperation strategy in our movement you know with too much self-conservation going on it's not about us it's not about me you our egos you know it's not about back conservation trust on its own it's about all of us standing together because we love life and we love all life and

Steve Roe:
[55:05] Fantastic got some quick fire questions if that's all.

Chris Packham:
[55:08] Right quick fire go on what

Steve Roe:
[55:10] Do you do to relax.

Chris Packham:
[55:15] Um that's the most difficult question you could have possibly asked me um i go to art galleries and i and i lose myself in paintings and sculpture favorite film oh my goodness me i've got a top 10 of favorite films and they all jostle for positions so i'll give you a few of them uh blade runner the final cut um is definitely right up there um i love what's eating gilbert grape and that's one of my favorite films i love amelie as well quite like fairy tale type films there's a sort of romantic side to chris but then chris also likes sort of visual hyper violence so pacific rim would be one of my favorite films because it is visual hyper violence um and then i like sagas as well so obviously i'm massively into the dune films as as a saga yeah i'm big into sci-fi i

Steve Roe:
[56:07] Love amelie it's a great film.

Chris Packham:
[56:08] Yeah it's when do they get the photos out from underneath the photo booth oh god so good isn't it

Steve Roe:
[56:14] Uh what time do you wake up in the morning.

Chris Packham:
[56:16] I wake up when the poodles fidget so this morning it was four o'clock i'm very lucky i don't have to sleep very much i never have been a big sleeper so i can get by on about five hours if it drops beneath that after a couple of weeks i start to get a little bit needing more sleep um and in and certainly i mean i'm one of those people that finds it a lot easier to get up in the summer than the winter i mean what i'll do is i'll wake up and then i'll get my laptop and start doing emails until it gets light um which is obviously later and later as you get into the winter whereas in summer if it's like i'll get up me and the poods sit and nancy go out for our walk uh guilty pleasure guilty pleasure i don't know euro disco music could be could be that that's pretty that's pretty guilty isn't it um i like i'm plant-based but i do like what i call dirty vegan so when charlotte my partner goes back to her house i can't wait to get a burger out smother it in vegan mayonnaise make some oven chips and and eat like what i call dirty vegan great

Steve Roe:
[57:23] You're not allowed to say bct for this one favorite environmental ngo.

Chris Packham:
[57:26] Well if it's not bct i'm going to go for butterfly conservation because again like bct i think they punch above their weight and their publications are brilliant and they're surveying citizen science is really good so yeah i'm going that also would alongside them i'm gonna i'm gonna have to split it between the two is british trust for ornithology because i think for the very same reasons their citizen science is brilliant their engagement is good they're doing great things with young people publications are outstanding um yeah so bto and butterfly conservation

Steve Roe:
[58:01] Greatest achievement in conservation so far.

Chris Packham:
[58:06] Greatest achievement i used to really um i don't i haven't stopped but at that time i i remember thinking the london wetland center was transformative in the whole approach so it was a bunch of old concrete reservoirs wildlife and wetland trust got hold of it wildfire sorry and wetland trust got hold of it um they sold some of the land controversially uh for housing but they used the money they made from that to make an urban reserve which attracts enormous numbers of birds and i had my best ever bat walk there years ago right so we went we did an evening bat walk and um and we and all the kids had bat detectors and it was like you couldn't hear there were so many bats it was absolutely sensational and this was in you know and

Chris Packham:
[58:55] There were planes landing at Heathrow and and we were in the virtually the centre of London so I always thought that that was a massive achievement bringing that much wildlife and making it accessible in the city and being bold and brave enough to say we're going to do this by funding you know housing by selling part of the land I thought that was pretty cool I mean subsequent to that we've it's habitat restoration I think is is it and and it's not always about building things about letting things go we've got those projects where they've basically torn down the sea defenses and they've let the sea come in um so yeah and then there's the reintroductions which are sparkly um and we and we do love those um so i'm not really answering your question but i suppose what i like is you know mass engagement across the board where it's accessible to everyone a diverse you know you go to barnes wetland center and you've got people from all different parts of you know of the world um there and um i don't and loads of kids just it's really good it's still really good barnes wetlands center i think is just a if we had one of those in all of our major cities that would be fantastic you know

Steve Roe:
[1:00:07] And then finally, will there be another series of eight out of 10 bats?

Chris Packham:
[1:00:11] Well, we just sort of got some more technology. And so we can now broadcast live pretty much anywhere in the world. And for free sort of low tech, low budget stuff. So I think our, you know, we've just sort of grown some more wings,

Chris Packham:
[1:00:28] basically, our little team. We did that in Cyprus live and it's affordable. and so this is a way a colleague of mine Fabian Harrison has been able to segue different bits of tech together so I think that we plan to do that I'm very keen to do something similar because for me it's very much about investing in young people and that's what I've 10 Bats was all about I mean the vast majority of people who were employed and we did pay them were under 25 and it's about from my point of view providing a foundation for those young people to do what they can so ably do i'm fed up with people saying we listen to young people well that's so patronizing don't listen to them empower them to do what they do so brilliantly clear thinking clear speaking they're not risk averse they do things and they make a difference and so i'm always keen to look for opportunities to get young people onto the stage and into action chris

Steve Roe:
[1:01:23] It's been a delight speaking to you thank you very much.

Chris Packham:
[1:01:25] Thank you

Steve Roe:
[1:01:27] And once again, a huge thanks to Chris for taking time out of his busy schedule to sit down with us. If you're feeling inspired listening to Chris there, talking about making your membership fees to organisations count and becoming a conservation investor, then consider becoming a member of the Bat Conservation Trust. Your membership helps save our endangered bat species and their habitats, and it does that by supporting the huge amount of work that BCT does, including running the National Bat Helpline, the National Bat Monitoring Programme, Working in Policy and Advocacy, the Wildlife Crime Project, the Bats and Churches Partnership Project, Rethink Nature, Connecting People and Landscapes in a Changing Climate Project, Producing Industry Advice, Managing the Bat Ringing Database, the National Barberstelle and Bextines Bat Survey, and of course, supporting the UK's 86 or so bat groups, amongst many, many other pieces of work. Find out more about becoming a member by clicking the very first link in the show notes. There are also some other links in the show notes which will take you to our strategy and the latest news on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

Steve Roe:
[1:02:29] I'll be back in two weeks' time to take you to a bat nature reserve over in Wales, where we'll sit in a wildflower meadow, listening to the sounds of a river slowly flowing beneath overhanging trees and past an old watermill, which is home to one of the most important bat roosts in the Usk Valley. Thank you.

Steve Roe:
[1:03:27] On the day that Chris and I recorded that interview, sad news reached the bat world that a prominent bat worker, Jenny Harris, had passed away following a short illness. I had the pleasure of knowing Jenny for many years, as she was a member of neighbouring Leicestershire and Rutland Bat Group. She was a gentle, caring soul and was one of the group's longest-serving members, and coordinated bat care and rehabilitation for the two counties, dedicating countless hours to caring for injured bats. She also coordinated and undertook surveys for the National Bat Monitoring Programme and the Bats in Churches Partnership Project. Our thoughts are with her family and she will be greatly missed by all that knew her. This episode is dedicated to Jenny.