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One Thousand Shades of Green: A year in search of Britain’s wild plants Mike Dilger
Event details
Join ecologist, writer and BBC Countryfile presenter Mike Dilger for an insightful assessment of the nation’s flora.
For most of 2020, Mike’s day job of travelling to the four corners of the British Isles all but disappeared. Having been confined to one place by the COVID-19 pandemic, and with daily dog walks his sole permitted outdoor pursuit, the simple pleasure of getting to know the flowers at his feet reignited a long-buried botanical passion.
So Mike went on a mission: to see a thousand different wild plants in one calendar year, and assess how our fascinating flora is faring in modern Britain.
From Cornwall to Kent and from Breckland to the Scottish Highlands, Mike met the resilient reserve wardens and courageous conservationists tasked with protecting some of the nation’s richest botanical sites, and experienced first-hand the many difficulties associated with saving our rarest and most charismatic plants.
Come along to hear Mike’s manifesto on how to love and conserve our green and pleasant land, and to celebrate the beauty and diversity of the nation’s plants.
Book sales
You can buy copies of many of our speakers’ books from Fox Lane Books, a local independent bookseller and Festival partner. In some cases, author signed bookplates are available too.
About the speaker
Mike Dilger is an ecologist, natural history presenter and writer. He has a life-long passion for British and tropical flora and fauna, of which he has profound experience and encyclopaedic knowledge. He has birded, botanised and entomologised in a huge range of countries, accumulating along the way an unparalleled expertise of British and South American wildlife. He also has knowledge of the nature of Vietnam, Tanzania and Arctic Canada. Mike is committed to bringing the beauty of the natural world to a broader audience with enthusiasm and insight rather than sensation or gimmicks.
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