‘If You Ask People to Change their Minds Quickly, they Struggle with It’: Chris Packham on the Need for Political Parties to Step Up to Save Our Planet

Probably best known for presenting shows like The Really Wild Show in the 80s and 90s and the BBC’s SpringWatch, Chris Packham has been enthusing about wildlife on our TV screens for more than 30 years.  

In recent years, however, Packham has increasingly used his high-profile platform to raise awareness of animal welfare issues, bird of prey persecution, the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.

In his latest Channel 4 documentary, Is it Time to Break the Law?,  he controversially explores the idea that mass civil disobedience could be the only way to save the planet. 

Byline Times caught up with Packham at the ‘Restore Nature Now’ rally outside the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs offices in London, where he and 40 conservation charities had gathered to challenge the Government on its poor record of protecting the environment, following the publication of a damning report which concluded that the UK is now one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth.

The presence of organisations not renowned for blocking roads – such as RSPB, The Wildlife Trust, Butterfly Conservation and the Bat Conservation Trust – is a small but significant change of direction for the UK conservation movement, which boasts a combined membership of eight million potential voters. 

“What a thing we’ve done,” Packham declared to a cheering crowd. “We’ve come together as a community at last. Something that we needed to do for some considerable period of time. For those of you who have taken this first step, let me tell you now that you are activists. You’ve been scientists, you’ve been naturalists, you’ve been entomologists, I could run through all of the ‘ists’. But now you are activists. You have taken direct action. Look! you’ve blocked a street!”.