Chris Packham - ‘Northern Ireland is pretty under-rated for its wildlife’

“I WAS fortunate to spend quite a lot of time in ‘the province’, as we called it then, from the 1980s onwards,” explains Chris Packham of his long history with the north’s natural environment.

“I got to know it really well and there are some amazing places for wildlife. It’s pretty underrated.”

Packham (63) will visit Belfast tomorrow for an appearance at the NI Science Festival-run Our Stories festival. The event will find him being introduced by Wild Belfast man Conor McKinney from the Belfast 2024 project, Safari in the City, before “sharing his powerful insights on the fierce battle for our planet’s future”, followed by a conversation with Fridays for Future Northern Ireland youth activist Anna Kernahan.

There are some amazing places for wildlife in Northern Ireland. It’s pretty underrated.

—  Chris Packham

“Obviously, there’s been a massive expansion in meat and dairy in the last 15 years, and the recent pollution issues in Lough Neagh,” enthuses the Southampton-born wildlife lover and environmentalist, “but that hasn’t impacted amazing places like Rathlin Island or Murlough Bay,”

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“It really is under-known for its wildlife value, unfortunately.”

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A familiar face on our TV screens thanks to his presenting role on the BBC’s long-running seasonal nature shows Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch, many of us first set eyes on Packham in the mid-1980s when he became a presenter on the children’s nature series The Really Wild Show alongside the late great Terry Nutkins.

“Terry and I had this sort of traveling road show,” explains Packham, who got a degree in Zoology prior to embarking on his television career, of what first brought him across the Irish Sea in those early days of being on the telly.

“We met a guy who ran an advertising business in Hillsborough, and we got talking about how it was a shame that, at that time, no-one really went to Northern Ireland.

“I mean, the punks used to tease The Clash for being too scared to go there. Enniskillen [the 1987 Remembrance Day bombing] had just happened and there was all sorts of violence kicking off.

“He said to us, ‘well, I’ll organise a little tour - why don’t you come over?‘” So he did, and it was amazing.

“We split it down the middle, obviously, of the [sectarian] divide. We were on both sides and it was a real eye-opener. I’d grown up watching Panorama and the BBC News, and my first thought was ‘what a warped perspective we’ve been fed in England'.

“It was very different when you came out and heard what was actually going on from the ground, as it were.

“After that, we did two series for the BBC, Nature’s Calendar and Nature’s Top 40, and we spent quite a bit of time [in the north] - at least a quarter if not a third of our time, in fact. I always really enjoyed it.

“I’ve known Dara McAnulty [award-winning Co Down-born author of Diary of a Young Naturist] for a while, and then I’ve always been friends with The Undertones, obviously, so I have quite a few connections.”

On the subject of Derry’s most famous musical exports, Packham was recently walking alongside former Undertones frontman turned clean water crusader Feargal Sharkey and 15,000 other protesters at the River Action March For Clean Water in London to illustrate public outrage over the dire state of England’s waterways.

“Water unites everyone,” enthuses Packham of the huge level of public support the clean water campaign is currently enjoying across Britain and here in the north.

“I mean, Feargal is an angler and environmentalist, and I’m a biodiversity fiend and environmentalist, but then you factor in all the swimmers, the surfers, the people that want to go yachting and all the parents that want their kids to be able to paddle.

“Everyone’s got a vested interest in clean water. We’ve got to drink it, and the farmers have got to put it on their fields. So it is one [issue] that has kind of unified the movement and therefore it’s easier to generate support.

“Unfortunately, agricultural impact hasn’t had the current public profile that sewerage has. I think we’ve got to be really clear - and Lough Neagh is a case in point - that agriculture has been a considerable contributor to [poor] water quality.”

Which brings us back to the ongoing problems with toxic algal blooms on Lough Neagh.

“Obviously, the Northern Ireland government has had its problems recently, and that has hampered things,” offers Packham, who successfully took legal action against the last Tory-led Westminster government for its ‘rollback’ on Net Zero policies, and will soon be meeting with Labour’s new Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband.

“As I say, there has been a considerable expansion in dairy and livestock [in the north] and the farming lobby has become increasingly strong.

“Lobbying, I think, is one of the great evils of our age, because even the very best politicians are clearly going to be influenced by their civil servants, who have been influenced by long-term lobbyists.

“I just honestly think that it’s the system which makes it difficult for politicians to govern effectively, and particularly when it comes to environmental issues which are not going to be solved overnight.

“The whole Lough Neagh thing is a result of years and years of poor agricultural management and lack of regulation, and obviously lack of investment, and that’s not something that anyone is going to be tasked with turning around overnight.

“But eventually it reaches a point whereby people like me and Feargal get very angry. And because we haven’t seen any opportunity to make significant progress, then people do take to the streets.

“I think the water issues been exacerbated by the fact that water companies have been withdrawing such significant dividends for their shareholders and making such grotesque profits - a bit like the oil and gas industry.

“We’ve got a cost of living crisis and an energy crisis, but they’ve been making record profits. It’s like having your nose rubbed in it. Not only are they messing things up environmentally, they’re taking us to the cleaners financially. And I think that certainly aggravates people.”

When asked about the most effective way in which those of us concerned about the escalating climate crisis can fight back, Packham suggests avoiding procreation, switching to a plant-based diet and visiting the consumer advice website MotherTree to start putting your money where your mouth is.

“Outside of not having children, the thing that will have the most significant reduction in terms of your carbon footprint will be to choose where you keep money more carefully.

“If you change your bank and your pension and your insurance to an ethical supplier that isn’t investing in fossil fuels, that is the way you can have the most impact.

“When you think about it, it doesn’t matter how much you earn - it’s about how much we all earn, and when that’s summed. If we take it out of Barclay’s, which is still significantly invested in fossil fuels, and put it into Triodos, who don’t have any money in weapons or fossil fuels or anything else nasty, then that’s a very powerful way of steering the transition away from the dependence on fossil fuels.

“Money is the thing.”

Our Stories presents Chris Packham in Conversation, November 21, Assembly Buildings, Belfast. Tickets £22 via nervecentre.org