Latest episodes and posts
-
An Irish Atlantic Rainforest: Notes from a premiere I attended six months ago
I have waited a long time to write this piece. It is about Eoghan Daltun and Gary Lennon’s film titled An Irish Atlantic Rainforest. Given the film’s continued success and now that it has hit the mass media on the RTÉ Player, it strikes me that maybe the best time to write this piece was shortly after I watched it. But the second best time is now. This is not a review as there are plenty of those, but rather…
-
231: How to Think Like an Ecologist with Amy McEuen
How do you tell solid science from something dressed up to look like it? Are we living through the sixth mass extinction? And why is the climate crisis not the worst of the planetary boundaries we have crossed? My guest today is Amy McEuen, a professor of Biology at the University of Illinois Springfield, where she has taught environmental biology, ecology and conservation biology for more than twenty years. Her book, ‘How to Think Like an Ecologist: A Non-Scientist’s Guide…
-
230: Lessons from Nature with Simon Mustoe
Why do we feel so hopeless about the future of the natural world? Is nature really collapsing everywhere we look or have we simply been told a one-sided story? And what if our lack of control over ecosystems turns out to be our greatest strength? In this episode I welcome back expert ecologist and author Simon Mustoe to talk about his new book, ‘How to Survive the Next 100 Years: Lessons from Nature’. It picks up where his previous book…
-
229: Biogeotherapy with Benoit Lambert
What if the environmental movement has badly underestimated our ability to solve the climate crisis? Could renewable energy grow so fast that we are out of fossil fuels within a decade? And once emissions fall away, how do we deal with the carbon already in the atmosphere? In this episode I’m joined by Benoit Lambert, author of the book titled ‘Biogeotherapy: nature-based climate solutions, life as a geological healing force’. Benoit has a rich and varied background, from planting four…
-
228: Red Deer and Habitat Connectivity with Frank Zabel
Why are red deer populations in Germany growing in number and antler size yet sitting in deep genetic trouble? What is the difference between census population size and effective population size, and why does it matter? And how can a satirical award for the worst-built wildlife crossing draw attention to the issue of habitat fragmentation? In this episode, I sit down with Frank Zabel, a wildlife biologist, campaigner, and co-host of the award-winning JAGDcast podcast. Frank also runs the nonprofit…
-
227: Rewilding At the Edge with Peter Cairns
What has shifted in rewilding over the past five years? Why do recovery of species like lynx, beavers and wolves trigger reactions that go far beyond the animals themselves? And what is the real obstacle to bringing lynx back to Scotland, the ecology, the bureaucracy, or something much harder to name? In this episode, our returning guest is Peter Cairns, co-founder and former Executive Director of SCOTLAND: The Big Picture, board member of Trees for Life, public voice for the…
-
226: Building Community Resilience with Transition Kerry
What makes farmers reluctant to talk about climate change, even though they see its effects first-hand? Can a trip to the Arctic change how you look at a small river in Kerry? And why might ‘community first, environment second’ be the right way round? These are some of the questions we explore in the second episode of the series following the Community Climate Adaptation and Resilience Programme in Kerry. This episode is a progress check on how the programme is…
-
225: How Many Wolves Is Enough with Joachim Mergeay
How many wolves is enough? Is that even the right question to ask? And will the recent lowering of wolf protection status in the EU actually reduce the conflict between wolves and people? These are some of the questions we tackle in this episode. After the previous wolf episode generated a lot of feedback, including detailed emails from scientists, one of those scientists is our guest today. Joachim Mergeay is a senior researcher at the Research Institute for Nature and…
-
224: Conservation Labour with Anwesha Dutta and Nick Harvey Sky
Working in conservation? Take the survey➡️ CONLAB survey Who are the people doing the actual work of conservation? How many of them are there and what are their working conditions? And whose labour remains invisible in the process? These are not questions that conservation science has spent much time on. Yet without understanding the people behind the work, we lack a complete picture of how conservation functions and who it affects. Today, we take on this largely neglected subject with…
-
SCOTLAND: The Big Picture | Podcasthon 2026
What does it take to bring wild nature back to a country that has forgotten what it looks like? Can rewilding truly benefit local communities and rural economies or does it come at their expense? And is Scotland really thirty years behind the rest of Europe when it comes to restoring its landscapes? This is a Podcasthon episode and this year I’ve chosen SCOTLAND: The Big Picture as my featured charity. Founded by nature photographers and filmmakers it has grown…