Yesterday evening I scanned my twitter feed with a smile on my face as I read through the hundreds, probably thousands of tweets in response to the final episode of the BBC’s Blue Planet 2.
It seemed that in a single evening the BBC had managed to engage more people with the myriad of issues to do with the marine environment and climate change, including the problems of plastic and coral bleaching, than blogs like mine have in years. Blue Planet and the other landmarks are a unique marketing opportunity for the plight of the natural world. David Attenborough held his audience spellbound for the hour-long programme and, keeping fingers crossed here, might have convinced at least a few to change the way they live their daily lives, especially when it comes to consumer choices. Turning our backs on single use plastics would be a huge turn up for the books.
Obviously not everybody is going to change their ways, and personally I know that I still have a long way to go in altering my behaviour, but Blue Planet 2 has at least made us all think about what we are doing to the planet. The NHU ‘bluechip’ films such as these have immense value for the conservation movement when played out like this. Last night proved this. For too long in my mind the NHU has separated conservation from its landmark programmes. They feared people would switch off. Well, they didn’t last night. The question now is how best to keep up the momentum and encourage behaviour change?
thinkingcountry.com 