David Bellamy on saving butterflies
The decline of butterfly numbers has become big news this summer, especially in the Dacorum area where numbers are dropping at twice the national rate. The launch of a Butterfly World, a conservation project and visitor attraction in Chiswell Green, has brought hope that we can turn it around. Abena Bailey speaks to David Bellamy about his work with the project.
British botanist, author, broadcaster and environmental campaigner David
Bellamy has been tirelessly campaigning to save the planet for more than 50 years. It's a fight he hasn't won yet, and some might say disaster is waiting in the wings – yet he says he's optimistic.
In a distinguished career, he has held positions on more than 15 environmental organisations, written nearly 50 books, and has written and presented hundreds of television programmes.
To do that, he has travelled around the world numerous times, but being a globetrotting media celebrity is not a job or career to him - the 76-year-old will tell you that he hasn't really done a day's work in his life. He is simply a man who believes in practising what he preaches.
As president of Population Concern, Mr Bellamy has helped to provide family planning to 23 different countries around the world.
He has adopted four children – Brighid is Guyanan, Eoghain is Kashmiri, Karen is Afro-Caribbean, Henrietta is English and then there's his biological son Rufus. During his broadcasting years, the whole family including his wife of 51 years, Rosemary – he dubs them his 'mini United Nations' travelled with him around the globe.
As a father he understands the concerns of those who ask him: "What sort of an environment will our children's children grow up in?'
For a man who has seen much of the destruction of the world's natural environment at first hand, he remains optimistic about the planet's future and continues to speak about the issues and teach people how to solve the problems.
Mr Bellamy grew up in the east end of London during the Second World War.
"In those days, when it was my mum's birthday I could pick a bunch of flowers for her while surrounded by butterflies and birds,"
he recalled.
"Even when Hitler's bombs knocked the buildings down, very often the wild flowers would grow up amongst the rubble the next year."
Since then much of the countryside has been cut back to make way for
housing and roads.
The wild flower meadows are not in abundance any more and, in turn, the butterfly population is at an all time low.
Butterfly World is working to bring back those common habitats that Mr Bellamy so enjoyed during his childhood.
Research by Butterfly Conservation shows that since the 1970s five species of butterflies have become extinct and in Hertfordshire numbers
are declining at twice the national rate.
This is why Mr Bellamy has become a patron of Butterfly World.
When completed in 2010, the 25million project will be the world's biggest butterfly walk-through experience with more than 10,000 tropical
butterflies housed inside a dome.
It will attract millions of visitors each year and help fund butterfly conservation in the UK.
"Butterfly World is the best news we can get," said Mr Bellamy.
"There are 15.5 million people who can travel here by train and learn that we can have our cake and eat it.
"We are losing bees across Europe and America and if we lose all the bees we would lose all the people, because bees pollinate all our crops.
"If we want the bees back we just have to plant clover, which is full of the nectar they love."
The first phase of Butterfly World is called Future Gardens, a three month sustainable garden show which aims to teach people about creating biodiversity in their own gardens.
Mr Bellamy said: "We haven't stopped the destruction of biodiversity.
"I meet people who are fed up of the things they take for granted disappearing and they often start small with a garden or a bit of land, but they start looking after it.
"I'm optimistic about the state of the environment because people are realising they can solve these problems."
This project is one of a string of green causes which can rely on his support.
The 76-year-old started campaigning 52 years ago when he realised the threat mankind posed to tropical rainforests and other precious
environments.
In his younger days he was a fearless protestor and was even jailed in 1983 for blockading the Australian Franklin River in protest against a dam project.
It could be said that he got his calling at the time of the 1967 Torrey Canyon disaster, when a supertanker carrying crude oil was wrecked off
the coast of Cornwall and caused untold environmental damage.
He was a senior lecturer in botany at Durham University at the time, drafted in as a consultant because of his expertise in marine
pollution.
It kick-started his long broadcasting career and, although he no longer appears on TV regularly, he is still an instantly-recognisable face in
conservation circles and beyond – not least because of comedian Lenny Henry's impression of his distinctive speech patterns.
He said: "I haven't sat on the picket line for 25 years. I work in other ways.
"At this moment we talk about sustainability yet we are seeing more disruption to the world's environment.
"That is why I'm supporting Butterfly World – because it's showing people if we look after the environment properly we can get all the butterflies back again."
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Friday 25 May 2012
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