Mary Colwell | |
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| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | University of Bristol |
| Employers |
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| Spouse | Julian Hector |
| Website | www |
Mary Colwell is an English environmentalist author and producer. She previously worked for the BBC Natural History Unit. She is founder and director of the charity Curlew Action [1] and Chair of the Curlew Recovery Partnership England, [2] a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs initiated roundtable dedicated to reversing the decline of the Eurasian Curlew.
Colwell's mother was Roman Catholic from Northern Ireland, and her father was an Anglican from Stoke-on-Trent. [3] She grew up near Stoke-on-Trent, and was raised as a Catholic. [4] She studied sciences at both the University of Manchester and the University of Bristol, graduating from Bristol in 1986.
Colwell has produced numerous documentaries, one-off features and series for BBC Radio 4 including The Natural History Programme, Shared Planet with Monty Don, [5] Natural Histories, [6] Living World [7] as well as presented programmes of her own such as The Nature of Creativity [8] on Radio 3 and A Life With…. [9] On Radio 4.
She has produced nature documentaries for Wildlife on One , Natural World , British Isles – A Natural History , Planet Earth: The Future, Bill Oddie's How to Watch Wildlife and the BBC 4 series, Walk on the Wild Side .
In 2007 she won the Garden Writers' Guild Award for best radio documentary for her series “Gardens of Faith [10] ”, five 15 minute programmes on how a world faith demonstrates its belief in their garden design.
In 2009 Colwell was awarded a Sony Radio Academy Gold Award for Best Podcast, the first award of its kind, for her production "The Budgerigar and the Prisoner", telling the story of a prisoner Les whose life was transformed by caring for a budgerigar. [11] [12] It also won a New York Radio Festival Gold medal. [13]
In 2014, Lion Husdson published Colwell’s book on the Scottish-American naturalist John Muir, called John Muir: The Scotsman Who Saved America’s Wild Places. [3] It is the only British biography of John Muir.
In 2016, Colwell undertook a 500 miles (800 km) walk from Lough Erne, near Enniskillen to Boston, Lincolnshire, to find out why the Eurasian Curlew (Numenius arquata) is declining so rapidly across Britain and Ireland. [3] [14] In 2018 Curlew Moon, [15] was published by William Collins as an account of her self-titled "Curlew Walk" and the plight of the bird. [16] [17] it made Irish Independent's best non-fiction list of 2018. [18]
In 2021 her third book Beak, Tooth and Claw [19] was also published by William Collins. Her fourth book, The Gathering Place, [20] was published by Bloomsbury in 2023 and was shortlisted on the Stanford’s best travel book of 2024. It details Colwell’s 500-mile pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago in between lockdowns in the autumn of 2020.
In October 2017 she was awarded the Dilys Breese Medal by the BTO for outstanding science communication, in 2018, the David Bellamy Award from the National Gamekeepers' Organisation [21] for her conservation work on curlews and in 2019, the WWT Marsh Award for Outstanding Contribution to Wetland Conservation. [22] In 2022 she was awarded the RSPB Medal for her outstanding contribution to conservation. [23]
In March 2021 she was appointed chair of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs initiated Curlew Recovery Partnership England, [2] a roundtable of organisations charged with restoring Curlews, their habitats and associated wildlife across England. In 2020 she set up the charity, Curlew Action [1] and established World Curlew Day. [24] She led the successful campaign to establish a GCSE in Natural History, [25] announced by the government in April 2022. [26]
Colwell is a spokesperson for environmentalism in the United Kingdom and writes articles on the subject in journals, magazines and newspapers. [27] [28] She was listed in BBC Wildlife Magazine's Top 50 Most Influential Conservationists in the UK, [4] [29] and as one of the most influential conservationists by the ENDS report in 2023. [30]
Colwell has campaigned with politician Caroline Lucas and educationist Tim Oates [31] to establish a GCSE in Natural History.
Colwell is married to BBC producer Julian Hector, and they have two sons (Hector has three daughters from a previous marriage). [3]
Colwell's faith is an important part of her life, and she describes herself as a Christian. [4] [32]
Sir David Frederick Attenborough is a British broadcaster, biologist, natural historian, and writer. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Studios Natural History Unit, the nine nature documentary series forming the Life collection, a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth.
Gerald Malcolm Durrell, was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter. He founded the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Jersey Zoo on the Channel Island of Jersey in 1959. He wrote approximately forty books, mainly about his life as an animal collector and enthusiast, the most famous being My Family and Other Animals (1956). Those memoirs of his family's years living in Greece were adapted into two television series and one television film. He was the youngest brother of novelist Lawrence Durrell.
The curlews are a group of nine species of birds in the genus Numenius, characterised by their long, slender, downcurved bills and mottled brown plumage. The English name is imitative of the Eurasian curlew's call, but may have been influenced by the Old French corliu, "messenger", from courir , "to run". It was first recorded in 1377 in Langland's Piers Plowman "Fissch to lyue in þe flode..Þe corlue by kynde of þe eyre". In Europe, "curlew" usually refers to one species, the Eurasian curlew.
The BBC Studios Natural History Unit (NHU) is a department of BBC Studios that produces television, radio and online content with a natural history or wildlife theme. It is best known for its highly regarded nature documentaries, including The Blue Planet and Planet Earth, and has a long association with David Attenborough's authored documentaries, starting with 1979's Life on Earth.
David Whyte MacdonaldCBE FRSE is a Scottish zoologist and conservationist. He is the Director of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) at the University of Oxford, which he founded in 1986. He holds a Senior Research Fellowship at Lady Margaret Hall with the Title of Distinction of Professor of Wildlife Conservation. He has been an active wildlife conservationist since graduating from Oxford.
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Christopher Gary Packham CBE is an English naturalist, nature photographer, television presenter and author, best known for his television work including the CBBC children's nature series The Really Wild Show from 1986 to 1995. He has also presented the BBC nature series Springwatch, including Autumnwatch and Winterwatch, since 2009.
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Romulus Earl Whitaker is an American-born Indian herpetologist, wildlife conservationist, and founder of the Madras Snake Park, the Andaman and Nicobar Environment Trust (ANET), and the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust. In 2008, Whitaker was selected as an associate laureate in the 2008 Rolex Awards for Enterprise for his efforts to create a network of rainforest research stations throughout India. In 2005, he was a winner of a Whitley Award for outstanding leadership in nature conservation. He used this award to found the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station in Karnataka, for the study of king cobras and their habitat.
The Indianapolis Prize is a biennial prize awarded by the Indianapolis Zoo to individuals for "extraordinary contributions to conservation efforts" affecting one or more animal species.
Conservation in the United States can be traced back to the 19th century with the formation of the first National Park. Conservation generally refers to the act of consciously and efficiently using land and/or its natural resources. This can be in the form of setting aside tracts of land for protection from hunting or urban development, or it can take the form of using less resources such as metal, water, or coal. Usually, this process of conservation occurs through or after legislation on local or national levels is passed.
Felicity Philippa, Lady Scott was a British wildlife conservationist.
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Laura Muir is a Scottish middle- and long-distance runner. She is the 2020 Tokyo Olympic silver medallist in the 1500 metres, having previously finished seventh in the event at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Muir won the bronze medal at the 2022 World Championships, and has three other top five placings in 1500 m finals at the World Athletics Championships, finishing fifth in 2015, fourth in 2017 and fifth in 2019. She is a two-time European 1500 m champion from 2018 and 2022 as well as the 2022 Commonwealth Games 1500 m champion and 800 metres bronze medallist.
Julian Hector is a British television and radio producer and executive who was Head of the BBC Natural History Unit. During his career, he has been producer of David Attenborough's Life Stories on BBC Radio 4, producer of the Tigers about the House television series, writer and producer of the Lakes and Rivers episode in the BBC’s Wild Africa series, producer of World on the Move, and instrumental in establishing the BBC's Tweet of the Day. He was described by Sir David Attenborough as ‘one of the most inventive producers in radio’ and during his award of an honorary doctorate from the University of Bristol was credited with bringing ‘live natural history programming to Radio 4’.
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